Arizona State Law Journal Blog

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…

By Marissa Gibbens.In its 2020 cycle, the Supreme Court will review the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V. The Court will decide whether the addition of the term “.com” can turn a generic term (such as the term, “booking”) into a protectable trademark. The company Booking.com B.V. runs online hotel reservation services which most people recognize as “Booking.com.” In 2012, Booking.com B.V. went to the United States Patent and Trademark Office intending to register “Booking.com” as a U.S. trademark. The company had just registered “Booking.com” as an international trademark in 2011. USPTO, reasoning that the term “Booking.com” was too generic, did not grant the registration, however. Generic terms cannot be registered as trademarks under the Lanham Act, also known as…

By George Gould. Background The Arizona Supreme Court has recently decided another case—Trisha A. v. Department of Child Safety—on a controversial law in Arizona juvenile courts. In juvenile court, there exists a mechanism for accelerating severance procedures. When accelerated, a termination hearing is transmuted, by the rules, into a severance hearing. Unfortunately, the language explaining the “good cause” standard appeared to vary across the rules. Arizona Supreme Court Decision The Arizona Supreme Court took this case to decide whether or not there was a conflict in the rules. The Court found that the “good cause” standard is different under different rules “because the rules act in different contexts.” A meritorious defense requirement is not required under Rules 64(C), 65(C), and 66(D)(2) because these rules center on the justification for the…

By Avery Topel. In the summer of 2019, an animal advocacy group conducted an undercover investigation of Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana. Secretly recorded video revealed employees beating calves with metal rebar, abusing cattle with hot branding irons, and denying cows veterinary care. After the video went public, the employees were fired and charged with animal cruelty. But in some states, it could be the advocates that filmed who face criminal charges.  Referred to as ag-gag laws, eleven states have passed laws that criminalize undercover investigations of agriculture operations. Some of these laws flatly prohibit filming agriculture operations without permission, while others criminalize lying to get inside. Most investigations by animal welfare groups are employment based, meaning advocates deceptively obtain jobs with the intent to film once inside. Thus, when…

By Daniel Restrepo. As positive attitudes toward breastfeeding have increased in the last decade, so too have the number of breastfeeding discrimination lawsuits. However, there is uncertainty as to what rights mothers have to pumping in the workplace. Courts are split as to the scope of breastfeeding protections in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”) and Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), and the Ninth Circuit has yet to weigh in on the matter. In Arizona, two cases have taken on this issue: Behan v. Lolo’s Incorporated (D. Ariz. 2019) and Clark v. City of Tucson (D. Ariz. 2018). Given the City of Tucson has filed an appeal challenging Ms. Clark’s four-million-dollar verdict received on April 12, 2019, the states of the Ninth Circuit may soon have an answer regarding a nursing…

By Lauren Malm. The Establishment Clause and the Lemon Test The First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Commonly known as the “Establishment Clause,” this clause prohibits government promotion or entanglement with religion and religious organizations. While government can provide religious organizations with general public benefits like fire or police protection, the question becomes: at what point does government action move from general benefits to an unconstitutional establishment of religion? The Supreme Court attempted to distill all Establishment Clause jurisprudence into a single, three-pronged test in Lemon v. Kurtzman. To pass the Lemon test, a statute must have a “secular legislative purpose,” the primary effect must not “advance[] or inhibit[] religion,” and the statute must not foster an “excessive government entanglement with religion.”…