Neuroimages and, more generally, neuroscience evidence are increasingly used in the courtroom in hope of mitigating punishment in criminal cases. Many legal commentators express concern because they fear that the prejudicial effect of such evidence significantly outweighs its probative value. In light of earlier empirical studies, this concern is predominantly directed toward the visual impact of...
Under the (Territorial) Sea: Reforming U.S. Mining Law for Earth’s Final Frontier
As mineral prices continue to rise and high-quality terrestrial supplies dwindle, hardrock mining will soon spread to the one place on this planet it currently does not occur: underwater. The United States has regulations permitting the issuance of offshore mineral leases, but these regulations rest on questionable authority from 1953 and are already obsolete even though they have never been used...
Cracking the Cable Conundrum: Government Regulation of A La Carte Models in the Cable Industry
This Article examines the practice of cable bundling, a term describing how cable providers offer channels in "packages" of channels rather than allowing consumers to buy channels individually. These cable bundles have been criticized by politicians, academics, and the public alike, many of whom believe cable bundling simultaneously increases the price of cable and forces consumers to pay for...
Expressive Enforcement
Laws send messages, some of which may be heard at the moment of enactment. But much of a law’s expressive impact is bound up in its enforcement. Although scholars have extensively debated the wisdom of expressive legislation, their discussions in the context of domestic criminal law have focused largely on enactment-related messaging, rather than on expressive enforcement. This Article uses hate...
Insider Trading as Private Corruption
Deep confusion reigns over federal insider trading law, even over the essential elements of an insider trading violation. On the one hand, this uncertainty seems to have encouraged the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and some lower courts to push the boundaries well beyond the limits previously established by the U.S. Supreme Court. On the other hand, influential academics continue to...
Marriage Equality and Postracialism
When California’s Proposition 8 (Prop. 8) eliminated the right to marry a person of the same sex, it aggravated a fissure between the black community and the gay community. Though Prop. 8 had nothing to do with race on the surface, the controversy that followed its passage was charged with racial blame. This Article uses the Prop. 8 controversy, including the ensuing Perry litigation challenging...
Fast and Furious, or Slow and Steady? The Flow of Guns From the United States to Mexico
This empirical legal study examines Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) trace data from crime guns seized in Mexico and traced back to their states of origin in the United States. It uses Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression to analyze the relationship between U.S. states’ crime gun export rates to Mexico and state gun control laws. The presence of four state gun control...
Parole Denial Habeas Corpus Petitions: Why the California Supreme Court Needs to Provide More Clarity on the Scope of Judicial Review
The California Penal Code makes clear that parole is supposed to be the norm, not the exception, for inmates sentenced to life in prison. But these inmates, convicted for murder, rape, and kidnapping and commonly known as lifers, never had greater than a 7 percent estimated likelihood of release from 1991 to 2010. California is unique in that if the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) approves parole...