Print Archive
The Supreme Court ushered in a dramatic shift in Second Amendment jurisprudence in District of Columbia v Heller, holding that the Second Amendment protects the right to bear arms for “the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” This decision made clear that possession of a firearm need not be tethered to service in a militia. But the Court left open significant questions regarding what exactly that newly defined right entails.
In early 2017, a newly inaugurated President Donald J. Trump tried to force policy change through a flurry of written orders. While some opponents took to the streets to protest, others identified a different forum for resistance: the federal courts. Lawyers, mobilizing at a breakneck pace, sued the President in name to enjoin the implementation of several of his signature orders, including his first travel ban and an executive order involving sanctuary cities.
In search of an accessible epithet, newspapers across the country have christened debt that is barred by the statute of limitations “zombie debt.” This “funny term” for time-barred debt reflects its tendency to come back to life and attack when, like the first victims in a horror movie, consumers “seal their [ ] fate” by their own heedless approaches to debt collectors.
Internet giants like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon have attracted controversy for their growing influence on our social, political, and commercial activities. Some commentators worry that these companies’ ability to gather data and control who accesses it threatens the competitive health of the digital economy. This trend could harm consumers by stifling innovation in online products and by producing a digital economy with fewer choices and fewer competitors determined to win consumers’ business.
In 2016, Mississippi passed the Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act, a law exempting Mississippians with “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions” that marriage should be restricted to heterosexual couples from the state’s antidiscrimination laws.
A police officer suspects someone of being an undocumented immigrant and detains them. Later, that individual sues the local police department in federal court for establishing a policy of hardline immigration enforcement that violated their Fourth Amendment rights.
Legal practice is riddled with claims about when the law is or isn’t “clear.” If a statute is unclear or ambiguous, a court might defer to an agency, side in favor of lenity, or avoid interpretations that would render the statute unconstitutional.
From 2000 to 2017, more than three hundred thousand people died of overdoses involving opioids in the United States.