The Private is Public: The Relevance of Private Actors in Defining the Fourth Amendment

Because the Fourth Amendment regulates only governmental conduct, the behavior of private actors is almost wholly absent from academic Fourth Amendment literature. This Article argues that this exclusive focus on official conduct is myopic. Because the U.S. Supreme Court often looks to the conduct of private actors to determine the scope of permissible government conduct, a Fourth Amendment approach that ignores the invasions engaged in by these private actors is likely to concede questions regarding important civil liberties before the government even acts. This Article traces the development of Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, explaining the origins of the Court\u27s current focus on private conduct. It then describes the current state of private intrusions upon privacy, arguing that emerging technologies have facilitated an exponential growth in the capacity of private actors to obtain and process private information. This expansion in private searching will likely lead courts to uphold similar invasions of privacy when government agents engage in the same kind of conduct. Finally, this Article proposes legal, legislative, and practical solutions to the current privacy crisis, and reluctantly concludes that only individual, practical steps are likely to produce effective privacy expansions in the near term

Marijuana Legalization in Colorado: Lessons for Colombia

In 2012 Colorado became the first jurisdiction anywhere in the world to legalize marijuana possession and use for all adults. The regulated and taxed marijuana industry that arose in Colorado following legalization was also the first of its kind and stands a model for other states considering marijuana law reform. In this brief article I discuss the results of the Colorado experiment; I demonstrate that while Colorado’s regulatory model was largely successful, it also demonstrates the limits of generating revenue through taxing and regulating marijuana. I then discuss the implications of this conclusion for post-conflict Colombia, drawing a comparison to the situation California confronts as it considers legalizing marijuana for adult use

Changing the Role of Appellate Judges in Capital Cases

Symposium: Toward A Model Death Penalty Code: The Massachusetts Governor\u27s Council Report

The Battle of the Bulge: The Surprising Last Stand Against State Marijuana Legalization

Although marijuana possession remains a federal crime, twenty-three states now allow use of marijuana for medical purposes and four states have adopted tax-and-regulate policies permitting use and possession by those twenty-one and over. In this article, I examine recent developments regarding marijuana regulation. I show that the Obama administration, after initially sending mixed signals, has taken several steps indicating an increasingly accepting position toward marijuana law reform in states; however the current situation regarding the dual legal status of marijuana is at best an unstable equilibrium. I also focus on what might be deemed the last stand of marijuana-legalization opponents, in the form of lawsuits filed by several states, sheriffs, and private plaintiffs challenging marijuana reform in Colorado (and by extension elsewhere). This analysis offers insights for federalism scholars regarding the speed with which marijuana law reform has occurred, the positions taken by various state and federal actors, and possible collaborative federalism solutions to the current state-federal standoff

Marijuana Law Reform in 2020 and Beyond: Where We Are and Where We’re Going

With another presidential election now looming on the horizon, both political parties and both sides of the marijuana law reform debate are once again preparing for the possibility of a seismic change in how marijuana is regulated in the United States. In this Article, I lay out the state of marijuana law and policy in the United States today with an eye toward that uncertain future. I describe the differential treatment of marijuana under state and federal law and the tensions this causes for those seeking to take advantage of marijuana law reform in the states. I analyze recent changes to marijuana federalism and then look to the future, discussing what changes we may expect in the way marijuana is regulated under both state and federal law in the years to come. I show that as marijuana law continues to evolve in the states, the conversation at the federal level will have to move beyond calls for legalization and toward the difficult work of creating a sensible regulatory regime to replace fifty years of prohibition