Arizona State Law Journal Blog

By Abigail Dood.  Tyler v. Hennepin County: Implications for State Tax Foreclosure Law Generally  On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in Tyler v. Hennepin County, holding that a provision of Minnesota law that authorized the state to retain all surplus proceeds from the sale of a property at auction for nonpayment of property taxes was an unconstitutional taking. While the exact procedures vary statutorily state by state, generally most states have laws in place that authorize the appropriate governmental unit, such as the county treasurer, to seize an individual’s property after the individual is delinquent on property taxes for a specified period of time. The property is then usually sold at a public tax auction to the highest bidder. If the property sells for an…

By William Bolger.  Setting the Stage  The Supreme Court sent shockwaves through the world of college athletics with its decision in National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston. In Alston, the Court invalidated a handful of NCAA rules that restricted athletes’ ability to receive compensation while they were competing. The case, which was decided on antitrust grounds, enabled college athletes to earn money based on their name, image, and likeness (NIL). However, the Alston decision did not universally allow athletes to be paid. The NCAA maintains a clear set of rules prohibiting “pay for play.” In other words, student athletes are not allowed to be paid for their on-field performance, but they are allowed to sign endorsement deals and receive compensation based on the value of their brand. Another key distinction…

By Abigail Kuhlman.  Art v. Artificial In August of 2022, Jason Allen nervously entered his first fine arts competition under the “Digital Arts/Digitally-Manipulated Photography” category at the Colorado State Fair. Allen’s submission, an image titled “Théâtre D’opéra Spatial” (“Space Opera Theater” in English), depicted three classical figures wearing billowing, regal dresses and standing in a futuristic, Baroque-style opera hall; the figures are faced away from the viewer, looking through a glowing, almost portal-like viewport and out onto a beautiful landscape. To Allen’s surprise and excitement, the judges were enraptured by this image and awarded it first place. But when Allen took to Twitter (now X) to share his exciting win, it wasn’t messages of congratulations that he would receive. Upon revealing he had created his award-winning piece using Midjourney, an…

By Tyler Mebane. Arizona is one of the 27 states that currently retains the death penalty as an option for criminal punishment. In January of 2023, Governor Hobbs placed a hold on executions in the state pending a review of the state’s procedures for executions. A few months later, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a warrant of execution for Aaron Guches. After Governor Hobbs declined to move forward with the execution, the sister of the man murdered by Mr. Guches sued to attempt to move the execution forward, resulting in the case Price v. Hobbs. Arizona’s Modern Death Penalty History Arizona’s recent history of pauses on executions began in 2014, when the execution of Joseph Wood by lethal injection took nearly two hours to complete. Outrage at the cruelty of this procedure, plus…

By Clare Remy. A Brutal, Unsolved Murder In February 2015, Allison Feldman was found murdered in her Scottsdale home. Despite evidence of the perpetrator’s DNA at the scene, the case remained unsolved until April 2018, when police finally announced that they had arrested Ian Mitcham. In a press conference, Scottsdale Police Assistant Chief Scott Popp revealed that Mitcham was identified through a familial DNA test—the first of its kind to be successful in Arizona. The police had already conducted several DNA tests with voluntary contributions from Feldman’s neighbors, but to no avail. They eventually turned to familial DNA testing—a technique only used in twelve other states and explicitly prohibited in the federal DNA database.The search revealed that the DNA left at the Feldman scene came from a close male relative of a convicted…

By Isabella Santos. Current Litigation on an Age-Old Law  On August 22, the Arizona Supreme Court granted petition for review of Planned Parenthood v. Mayes, reviving earlier litigation from 2022 where Mark Brnovich, Arizona’s Attorney General at the time, requested that the court reinstate a legal ban on abortion dating back to 1864. The critical issue before the Arizona Supreme Court is whether the state can prosecute all people—including licensed physicians—for performing an abortion at any time during pregnancy “except to save a mother’s life.”   History of Abortion Law in Arizona  Arizona’s territory-era statutory prohibition on abortion dates to 1864, nearly fifty years before Arizona became a state. Enshrined in the “Howell Code” in 1864 and later codified in A.R.S. §§ 13-211–213, the statute prohibits any person from providing…

By Kennedy Shulman.  Restricting Access to Gender-Affirming Care until 18 In March of 2022, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed legislation restricting access to gender-affirming health care for minors. The health care ban, SB 1138, states that “[a] physician or other health care professional may not provide gender transition procedures to any individual who is under eighteen years of age.” Simply put, the bill outlaws gender-affirming surgery until the age of adulthood.  Ducey rationalized his signoff stating, “The reason is simple, and common sense—this is a decision that will dramatically affect the rest of an individual’s life, including the ability of that individual to become a biological parent later in life.” With his signature coming on the eve of the International Transgender Day of Visibility, however, Ducey and other conservative lawmakers…

By Devon Vaughan. The Fake Elector Scheme On August 16, 2023, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes confirmed reports of an investigation that had been rumored for months: an investigation into an alleged scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. As outlined in the federal charges filed against former President Donald Trump and his allies, this multipronged scheme involved unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud as a pretense to pressure officials and lawmakers in battleground states into overriding the popular vote and approving a slate of electors contrary to state law. When this failed and President Joe Biden’s electors were certified, Republican party officials in seven states then assembled their own alternate slates of electors. Two weeks after Biden’s victory in Arizona was certified by then-Secretary of State Katie Hobbs and…

By Bailey Stoltzfus.  Arizona State and the University of Arizona Are Joining the Big 12 in 2024 In August 2023, news broke that Arizona and Arizona State had applied and been accepted to join the Big 12 athletic conference. The Wildcats and Sun Devils are currently members of the Pac-12 conference, but it had been presumed that, if the two schools decided to leave the Pac-12, they would preserve the Territorial Cup rivalry and leave together.  The move was the latest in a series of conference realignment moves that had begun in 2021 when Texas and Oklahoma announced their move from the Big 12 to the Southeastern Conference (SEC). The Arizona schools’ fellow Pac-12 members, USC and UCLA, decided to join the midwest-based Big Ten a year later, setting off…

Guest post by Professor Carl Tobias. President Joe Biden recently traveled to Arizona, Nevada, and Utah when touting his many efforts to protect the environment, curtail climate change, and preserve natural, cultural, and historical resources. For example, Biden designated one million acres near the Grand Canyon National Park as a National Monument. Deb Haaland, the initial Native American to serve in the Cabinet and the first indigenous person to be Secretary of the Interior, proclaimed that “Native American history is American history” and stated that the monument will provide tribal members a voice in managing lands on which Native Americans and their ancestors have long lived, farmed, and prayed. Another critically important effort that Biden has pledged to foster, and should continue promoting, is the nomination and confirmation of well-qualified, mainstream indigenous…