Category: Print

By Sean Krieg.   On April 1, 2021, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals told taxpayers to “shoulder[] the burden” of New York City’s climate mitigation expenses without any help from major fossil-fuel producers, marketers, or distributors. The court made this…

By Steven Ferrey. The much-lauded advantage of the U.S. federalist legal system of separation of legal powers among separate levels of federal, state, and local government is credited with seeding innovation, experimentation, and diversity as a positive variable in the resilient…

By John C. Dernbach and Scott E. Schang. In his enormously influential writings on the public trust doctrine, Professor Joe Sax argued that its core idea could, and should, be expanded beyond the natural resources to which it had been historically…

By Keith H. Hirokawa, Cinnamon P. Carlarne, Karrigan S. Börk, & Sonya Ziaja. Although the needs of the public health, safety, and welfare vary across time and space, human survival requires functioning natural systems. It is no exaggeration to say that,…

Gregory C. Sisk & Michael Heise In our ongoing empirical examination of religious liberty decisions in the federal courts, extended now into a third decade, we find the persistence of ideological influence in Establishment Clause decisions for the period of 2006–2015.…

Matthew A. Seligman Reforming the Supreme Court is at the center of the political and legal landscape for the first time in generations. The growing gap between the ideological composition of the Court, the democratic will of the electorate, and perceived…

Jason P. Nance & Michael Heise Recent data indicate that a majority of schools now have regular contact with law enforcement officers, transforming the educational experience for hundreds of thousands of students nationwide. The proper role of police officers in schools,…

Benjamin J. McMichael & W. Kip Viscusi  Punitive damages remain unique in the American legal system. Awarded in the civil context with none of the protections offered in criminal law, courts levy punitive damages to punish and deter. The Supreme…

Danika Marzillier From white sandy beaches and jagged, snow-capped mountains, national monuments and even some parks in urban neighborhoods, America’s federally managed public lands cover over a quarter of the country. From citizens looking to increase their daily step goals to all-out…

Elissa Philip Gentry The inherent mismatch between the questions law asks and the answers statistics provides has led courts to create arbitrary rules for statistical evidence. Adherence to these rules undermines deterrence goals and runs the risk of depriving recovery for…