The Natural Right for Adjudicating Current Litigation When the Creation of an Allergy Related Agency Rule is Simultaneously Underway

Where can you find granola bars, salad dressing, dry pasta, peanut butter, breakfast cereal, almond milk, and ice cream? Besides the grocery store, or possibly your kitchen, all of these food products can be found on court dockets. This is because they have all been the subjects of class action lawsuits challenging their manufacturers’ use of the “natural” label. If you have been in a supermarket recently, chances are you have encountered a variety of these “natural” products. Indeed, you might have specifically looked for and purchased certain food products simply because they were labeled “natural,” as fifty-nine percent of consumers reportedly do. Perhaps you were even willing to pay a higher price for these “natural” products, in comparison to the lower price of their non-“natural”-labeled equivalents, because you believed “natural” was indicative of healthfulness. If so, you were not alone: studies have shown that eighty percent of Americans are willing to pay price premiums for “natural” food products in their pursuit of a healthier lifestyle.

The Right to Appointed Counsel: The Case for Unaccompanied Immigrant Children

C.J.L.G. (C.J.) was thirteen years old when he escaped from Honduras, a country known for having one of the highest homicide rates in the world. He fled with his mother, Maria, after the Mara Salvatrucha gang, more commonly known as MS-13, made repeated death threats to him and his family, demanding that C.J. join the gang. Had he stayed, C.J. would have been forced to face death or join a gang that heavily recruited children to engage in drug trafficking and murder. He would likely have met the same fate as many others, like a fifteen-year-old boy who was gunned down on his way to buy cell phone minutes. Instead, C.J. and his mother decided to make the journey to the United States, hoping for freedom.

A Judge’s Attempt at Sentencing Consistency After Booker: Judge Jack B. Weinstein’s Guidelines for Sentencing

All judges are concerned about fairness and consistency in sentencing. After United States v. Booker[1] rendered the Federal Sentencing Guidelines advisory, I began publishing statements of reasons for each sentence I imposed—to ensure transparency and consistency in my own sentencing. I have reviewed the Article written by my former Law Clerks, Carolin Guentert (2016 to 2017) and Ryan Gerber (2017 to 2018). It is, in general, an accurate portrayal of my sentencing practices, as revealed by the public record, not… Read More

Second Looks and Second Chances

In early January of 2019, the improbable case of Matthew Charles ended with an NBC Nightly News team recording his release from federal custody, after Matthew had served two stints in federal prison totaling more than twenty-one years.[1] Matthew was in prison because, at the age of thirty, he was sentenced to thirty-five years in federal court for distributing 216 grams of crack cocaine and illegally possessing a firearm.[2] Matthew’s sentence resulted, not from the quantity of crack cocaine he… Read More

Federal Criminal Risk Assessment

Risk assessments are a common feature of federal decisionmaking across a wide variety of areas of regulation. Perhaps the most widely used definition describes risk assessment as “the process of using risk factors to estimate the likelihood (i.e., probability) of an outcome occurring in a population.”[1] Measures for such outcomes are common throughout federal administrative law, particularly where regulations have impacts on large populations. For example, the federal Regulatory Improvement Act specified the use of risk assessment for any “major… Read More

A Second Step Act for the States (and Counties, and Cities)

On December 21, 2018, President Donald J. Trump signed the First Step Act (FSA),[1] one of the few significant pieces of legislation passed during his administration, and perhaps the only one with broad bipartisan support. Among other things, the FSA reduced some mandatory minimums for federal drug offenses, gave federal judges more options to avoid mandatory minimums altogether in certain drug cases, retroactively expanded the “good time” credits people in federal prison can earn, provided more incentives to people in… Read More

The First Step is Actually the Next Step After Fifteen Years of Sucessful Reforms to the Federal Criminal Justice System

After many months of negotiations between a Republican-controlled U.S. Congress and the Trump Administration, on December 21, 2018, the First Step Act of 2018 (FSA) was signed into law by President Trump.[1] While this legislation was named the “First Step Act” to signal that it was the first attempt at incremental change to the federal criminal justice system, that name is actually a misnomer and ignores several successful reforms that preceded the legislation’s passage.[2] The FSA was actually the next… Read More

When Deprivation of Access to Literacy Infringes on Indigent Parents’ Right to Direct the Education of Their Children

Education quality is a major issue in America, with many children unable to gain access to literacy in state public school systems.[1] Unfortunately, there are public school districts in America where learning to read is not guaranteed and, in fact, not probable.[2] Children attend public schools where teachers do not show up for class or are unqualified, textbooks are either non-existent or outdated, roofs leak, and there are rodent and insect infestations.[3] The quality of the school is so inadequate… Read More