ASULJADMIN

By Victoria Romine. What is Genetic Genealogy? Ever since the 2018 capture of Joseph DeAngelo, California’s infamous Golden State Killer, genetic genealogy has been used to solve hundreds of unsolved crimes. Law enforcement uses genetic genealogy by submitting DNA from an unsolved crime to a consumer DNA database, such as GEDMatch or Ancestry DNA, to search for a familial match. Once a match is produced, law enforcement can use it to develop family trees of the matching sample, with the ultimate goal of identifying the perpetrator of the unsolved crime. However, despite the benefits of solving cold cases, critics have contended that genetic privacy should be given more protection under the law. Unlike DNA testing in law enforcement databases, like the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), which is limited to…

By Emiley Pagrabs. In Reynolds v. Sims (1964), the Supreme Court stated: “The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strikes at the heart of representative government.” However, this right historically has not applied equally to all Americans. After years of failed attempts to curb minority disenfranchisement, the Voting Rights Act (the “VRA”) entered into law on August 6, 1965. An innovative solution to historic discrepancies, the VRA curbed racial voter discrimination in two main ways. Through Section Five, Congress created a preclearance regime, which required states under the “coverage formula” to submit any changes in voting procedure to the federal government for approval before enactment.  Through Section Two, which largely mirrored the…

By John Oliver. Background Kobe Bryant’s death not only shocked the sports world but also the nation. Kobe was a professional basketball player who entered the National Basketball Association (“NBA”) straight out of high school in 1996. Kobe enjoyed enormous success throughout his twenty-year career, all with the Los Angeles Lakers. Kobe dedicated his life to his craft and the sport of basketball, his commitment to the game and desire to be the greatest led him to proclaim himself as, “The Black Mamba.” Kobe won five NBA championships and was named to eighteen NBA All-Star teams, twelve All-Defensive teams, and the NBA’s Most Valuable Player in 2008. Moreover, Kobe scored an astounding eighty-one points in a single game in 2006, the second most ever scored in a game; he was…

By Samantha Orwoll. Fast Fashion Industry Fast fashion brands, such as Forever 21, ZARA, and ASOS, create a nearly constant stream of clothes. The brands promise the latest trends at affordable prices. Rather than create seasonal collections, they produce new offerings weekly and have thousands of styles available for purchase online or in stores at any given time. As a result, the retailers boast billions of dollars in sales. Infringement But the path to financial success has not been without lawsuits. Perhaps designing so many clothes means that eventually a style will look like something that has already been created or, as suggested by plaintiffs in infringement cases, the companies cut costs by intentionally copying other designers. Two of the fast fashion giants, Forever 21 and Fashion Nova, have been…

By Alanna Ostby. Background On October 16, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Mathena v. Malvo—a case rising out of a string of sniper-style shootings in 2002 that killed twelve individuals and injured six others in the D.C. metropolitan area. One of the culprits, John Allen Muhammed—forty-two years old at the time of the shootings—received the death penalty and was executed in 2009. His seventeen-year-old accomplice, Lee Malvo, received a sentence of life without parole (LWOP) at the discretion of judges in Virginia and Maryland. But Malvo’s sentence stood on shaky ground when the Supreme Court initiated juvenile sentencing reform in the 2000s. Beginning with Roper v. Simmons in 2005, the Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile offenders. Then, its 2010 decision in Graham v. Florida prohibited…

By Allie Karpurk. What is the Equal Rights Amendment? On January 27, 2020, Virginia became the thirty-eighth state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA” or “Amendment”). The ERA was written by the National Women’s Party in 1923 following the Party’s successful fight for women’s right to vote, ratified in the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1972, Congress passed the ERA, which reads in its entirety: SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. SECTION 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification. For the ERA to become a part of…

By Austin Moylan.With the January 2020 release of the film Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson is becoming a household name. But as the general public becomes acquainted with his impressive resume for perhaps the first time, those in the criminal defense community have their eyes set on the Supreme Court, awaiting its decision in Mathena v. Malvo, a case that will clarify the scope of the Court’s holding in Miller v. Alabama, a landmark 2012 decision fought for by Stevenson himself. In the early 2000s, Stevenson was one of many individuals in the legal community fighting against certain juvenile sentencing practices. Specifically, there existed opposition to both the death penalty and to life sentences for juveniles, whose “diminished culpability and heightened capacity for change” made those types of sentences seem unjustly…

By Sara Kizer. Ten states received approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to impose Medicaid work requirements on beneficiaries to incentivize work and community engagement among non-disabled, non-elderly adult Medicaid beneficiaries. Through these requirements, states established minimum hours of working or volunteering that eligible beneficiaries must complete to maintain Medicaid coverage. CMS argues that this requirement will help these low-income beneficiaries rise out of poverty. However, opponents point out that Medicaid demonstrations must fulfill the purpose of the Medicaid program, which is to provide healthcare coverage. For example, more than 18,000 people in Arkansas lost Medicaid coverage before a federal judge halted the program, reasoning that government officials did not adequately consider the potential to cause beneficiaries to lose coverage. Nonetheless, Arizona’s Medicaid agency, Arizona Health…

By Nathan Lilly. Background Monique Lozoya was sitting in the middle seat on the second-to-last row of a Delta Airlines flight traveling from Minneapolis to Los Angeles when she felt the passenger behind her kicking her seat. She tried ignoring it, as many of us would do, but when the culprit got up to use the bathroom, she decided that she would confront him. When he returned to his seat, sparks flew. The passenger said Lozoya got aggressive and smacked him in the face, but Lozoya claimed that when she asked him to stop kicking her seat, the passenger got in her face, and she responded instinctively by shoving his face away. Either way, the passenger decided to press charges after his nose started bleeding. When the plane landed at…

By Yinan Guo.Maybe you have noticed that, for the past month or so, companies have been sending out emails regarding their updated privacy policy. Chances are you ignored them without taking a look, like every time before when you checked the “I agree” box. What’s interesting is that this wave of updates is a response to a California statute—the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)—which took effect on January 1, 2020. Although this is a state statute, it is already having a nationwide impact, and has the potential to shape the future of data privacy laws in the United States. I Don’t Live in California, Why Am I Receiving These Emails? A business with a presence in California is required to comply with the CCPA if it has an annual gross…