Student Note
The FHA was enacted in order to eradicate the disparities and discrimination prevalent in housing during the 1960s. Following the Civil War, the country continued to embody racist institutions in all areas of American life—including housing. As a result, the government enacted a series of Civil Rights Acts, which included the FHA, to suppress some of the racism throughout the nation. Although not perfect, the FHA has worked for decades to reduce the significant discrimination embedded in this sector of American society and to create equitable treatment for individuals.
This Note argues that when landlords have the power to evict under the lease and actual notice of harassment, they should be obligated to take action against the harassing tenant, and failure to do so should constitute a violation of the FHA.
by Mary Karapogosian
Student Note
For the first time in the history of American patent law, an artificial intelligence (AI) machine has forced the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to determine the validity of AI inventorship on a U.S. patent application. Although the Federal Circuit has consistently held that inventors must be natural persons, Dr. Stephen Thaler, the creator of DABUS, a “Creativity Machine” that has generated two inventions without the aid of a human, has set out to challenge the way the world sees inventorship and innovation today. Presented with this case of first impression, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, as well as courts and patent offices of South Africa, Australia, the United Kingdom, and Europe, have been asked to answer the question: “can an artificial intelligence machine be an ‘inventor’” under the law?
by Michelle Lavrichenko
Student Note
Introduction The following paragraphs contain descriptions of assault and sexual violence and may be triggering to those who are survivors of such violence. To avoid reading these descriptions, please skip to paragraph four of this Part, which can be found in the middle of page 104. In 2012, Ashley Diamond (Ashley), a forty-two-year-old transgender woman, was taken into custody by the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDOC). She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria at age fifteen and had been taking hormones…
by Rebecca Barrett
Student Note
Consider the following hypothetical involving two fictional pharmaceutical companies: LifeSaving Devices Inc. and FormulaOne Services, Inc. LifeSaving Devices specializes in medical devices that treat a rare spinal disorder. Physicians have been reluctant to recommend these devices due to the availability of more effective alternatives on the market. In addition, physicians have expressed concerns about the safety of these devices in treating patients. In hopes of increasing its profits, LifeSaving Devices decides to reach out directly to certain physicians and present them with a lucrative offer. The company will offer these physicians consideration, such as paid travel expenses, fees, and other items of value, under the condition that the physicians purchase and recommend the devices to their patients. Several physicians who have previously declined to recommend the devices to patients are now inclined to accept the offer. These physicians recommend the devices to their patients despite the potential risks and the physicians’ beliefs that there are safer treatment options available.
by Isaac Strauss
Article
“[T]hat little girl was me.” With five words, then-Senator Kamala Harris sent shockwaves across the stage at the first round of the 2020 Democratic Presidential Debates. Harris told the story of a five-year-old Black girl bussed into a white school in Berkeley, California. Harris put a name to the face: her own.No doubt, this was a watershed moment in America’s struggle with racism. Harris called out a fellow candidate, former Vice President Joseph Biden, for aligning with two well-known segregationists in the 1970s to oppose nationwide mandated bussing. Biden had a chance to disavow his past conduct but had not quite done so. In an instant, Harris became a formidable candidate. One year later, Biden and Harris were sworn in as President and Vice President of the United States.
by Maureen Johnson
Article
U.S. companies are increasingly drafting consumer contracts that are complex and unreadable, thus making it difficult for many Americans to comprehend terms of use that apply to goods and services. Many U.S. companies are creating terms of use that are, in effect, rights-foreclosure schemes. Many consumer agreements cap damages at a nominal amount, disclaim all warranties, limit remedies, and impose mandatory arbitration clauses and class action waivers. U.S. courts enforce these unfair mass-market contracts with few exceptions. My proposal for a New Deal for Consumer Contracts, as described in this Article, would impose a more exacting readability standard, enforcing agreements only if they were drafted at a reading level of the eighth grade or below in order to protect consumers against inadvertently agreeing to unfair standard contract terms such as unfair choice of law and forum clauses, limits on recovery, predispute arbitration, and disclaimers of all significant remedies. The New Deal for Consumer Contracts would invalidate unfair and deceptive consumer clauses—a reform that would synchronize U.S. consumer law with the mandatory consumer laws of the twenty-seven countries of the European Union.
by Michael L. Rustad
Article
This Article documents the United States’ century-long efforts to humanize our borders. In the end, law has been insufficient to tame immigration law’s enforcement. How the United States enforces borders, however, can and should be more humane. Two important principles should guide this process. First, the United States should recognize that borders’ impacts are as severe as other forms of punishment, especially when the means to enforce the immigration power have become indistinguishable from criminal enforcement. Second, human trauma should guide immigration policy toward meaningful inclusion. After significant reckoning over the travesty of shutting our borders, the United States has embraced certain experiences of trauma as grounds for welcoming immigrants or has shown mercy to permit immigrants to stay when family and communal bonds in the United States are strong. Yet, the discretionary nature of these central efforts to humanize borders has not translated to sustaining gains. Borders are still open and shut at the whims of xenophobia and nationalistic tendencies to blame the “other” during difficult socio-political and economic crises. Moreover, the lack of basic due process protections in immigration law and punitive enforcement practices functions as a significant barrier that substantially undermines the very efforts to expand immigration’s inclusion.
by Raquel E. Aldana
Article
When Congress passed the First Step Act in 2018, it extended to federal prisoners the right to file their own motions for compassionate release under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A). As COVID-19 ravaged prisons, sentencing courts received a massive influx of prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions. But because the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the relevant Application Note predated the First Step Act, and therefore made no mention of prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions, sentencing courts were unsure whether they had discretion to determine whether a prisoner presented “extraordinary and compelling circumstances” warranting compassionate release.
Every United States Court of Appeals to consider whether sentencing courts had discretion in evaluating prisoner-filed compassionate-release motions agreed they did. All but one. In United States v. Bryant, the Eleventh Circuit incorrectly interpreted the First Step Act, the Sentencing Guidelines, and the Application Note. Today, two Americas exist. Federal prisoners in forty-seven states may request compassionate release, and sentencing courts have the discretion to determine whether extraordinary and compelling circumstances warrant relief. Federal prisoners in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia may also request compassionate release, but the Bureau of Prisons, not sentencing courts, determines which reasons outside those enumerated in the Application Note are extraordinary and compelling.
This Article examines compassionate release’s history, critiques the Eleventh Circuit’s Bryant opinion, and proposes three avenues to return discretion to sentencing judges: the Sentencing Commission could amend the Application Note, Congress could legislate, and a prisoner could seek en banc review in the Eleventh Circuit challenging Bryant as wrongly decided.
by Christopher J. Merken* & Barnett J. Harris*
