Private Interest, Public Sphere: Eliminating the Use of Commercial Bail Bondsmen in the Criminal Justice System

The decision to grant bail is the first contact that a judge has with a defendant. If a defendant is unable to pay the set bail amount, this inability affects nearly every aspect of the defendant’s case from beginning to end. Despite attempts to ensure insolvency does not solely determine pretrial detention, the current bail system, in many cases, ensures just that. Special interest groups, specifically the bail bond industry, oppose any reform efforts that aim to decrease the use of money in the administration of bail. Defendants unable to afford a bail bondsman can spend weeks, months, and sometimes years detained while awaiting their day in court. Law and public policy compels courts to secure bail only to the extent that it will guarantee a defendant’s appearance in court. This Note argues that in order to accomplish this, two important changes must occur. First, commercial bail bonds should be eliminated in favor of a system in which cash bail is not the default method of securing pretrial release. Second, all states should establish and maintain pretrial services agencies that aid courts in making bail determinations

The Impact of EU Unfair Contract Terms Law on U.S. Business-to-Consumer Internet Merchants

This article focuses on the application of European Union unfair contract terms law to retail Internet transactions that U.S. businesses might engage in with European consumers. It compares attitudes toward consumer protection regulation in the U.S. and the EU to provide some context within which the specific provisions of unfair contract terms law can be understood. While many lawyers and legal academics in the U.S. who study the development of online markets are aware of the profound differences in U.S. and EU information privacy laws, the magnitude of the divergence in consumer electronic contracting law is not as widely recognized. The development of contract law on unfair terms in Europe over the last 25 years is an important change in EU contract law that has no direct counterpart in U.S. contract law. The application of contract law on unfair terms to online transactions is not at all surprising to lawyers in the EU, but may come as quite a surprise to U.S. businesses and the lawyers who advise them if they have mistakenly assumed that cross-border variations in consumer contract law are not great. As some have learned to their detriment, it is not sufficient for businesses to simply deploy U.S. versions of their online terms and conditions in their European operations

Death Sentence: A Compendium Against Assailment

Getting people to kill themselves is the oldest trick in the book. There ought to be a constitutional law against it. This Article proposes one.“Assailment” means asking, telling, or tempting a person under the age of eighteen to attempt or complete suicide. It also includes extorting or blackmailing a child into suicidal behavior. Such a law is necessary because of the skyrocketing rate of youth suicide. Death Sentence: A Compendium Against Assailment encourages lawmakers to enact an assailment statute. It further tells the stories of 41 completed youth suicides, 15 attempts, and 8 cases of suicidal ideation. The rigors of strict scrutiny demand such depth. See United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 725 (2012) (requiring a direct causal link between a restriction on speech and the injury to be prevented)

International Law\u27s Lessons for the Law of the Lakes

The eight Governors of the Great Lakes States signed a proposed new compact for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin on December 13, 2005, and they joined with the Premiers of Ontario and Québec in a parallel agreement on the same topic on the same day. Neither document is legally binding-the proposed new compact because it has not yet been ratified by any State nor consented to by Congress; the parallel agreement because it is not intended to be legally binding. Both documents are designed to preclude the export of water from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin apart from certain limited exceptions. The documents do little to promote rational resource management apart from limiting exports. There is debate over whether the two documents are adequate to achieve their announced goals and over whether the goals are the right ones. The lessons found in the well developed body of customary international law applicable to water resources, most recently summarized in the Berlin Rules on Water Resources, have largely been ignored. Comparison of the two documents with the Berlin Rules suggests that the documents will not provide satisfactory solutions to the challenges of managing the Great Lakes, even in the near future, given the broad ecological concerns that are not addressed in the two documents

International Law\u27s Lessons for the Law of the Lakes

The eight Governors of the Great Lakes States signed a proposed new compact for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin on December 13, 2005, and they joined with the Premiers of Ontario and Québec in a parallel agreement on the same topic on the same day. Neither document is legally binding—the proposed new compact because it has not yet been ratified by any state nor consented to by Congress; the parallel agreement because it is not intended to be legally binding. Both documents are designed to preclude the export of water from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin apart from certain limited exceptions. The documents do little to promote rational resource management or environmental protection apart from limiting exports. There is considerable debate over whether the two documents are adequate to achieve their announced goals and over whether the goals are the right ones. The lessons found in the well-developed body of customary international law applicable to water resources, most recently summarized in the Berlin Rules on Water Resources, have largely been ignored. Comparison of the two documents with the Berlin Rules suggests that the documents will not provide satisfactory solutions to the challenges of managing the Great Lakes, even in the near future, given the broad ecological concerns that are not addressed in the two documents and given the overly strict approach to exporting water from the basin

International Law\u27s Lessons for the Law of the Lakes

The eight Governors of the Great Lakes States signed a proposed new compact for the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence basin on December 13, 2005, and they joined with the Premiers of Ontario and Québec in a parallel agreement on the same topic on the same day. Neither document is legally binding—the proposed new compact because it has not yet been ratified by any state nor consented to by Congress; the parallel agreement because it is not intended to be legally binding. Both documents are designed to preclude the export of water from the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence basin apart from certain limited exceptions. The documents do little to promote rational resource management or environmental protection apart from limiting exports. There is considerable debate over whether the two documents are adequate to achieve their announced goals and over whether the goals are the right ones. The lessons found in the well-developed body of customary international law applicable to water resources, most recently summarized in the Berlin Rules on Water Resources, have largely been ignored. Comparison of the two documents with the Berlin Rules suggests that the documents will not provide satisfactory solutions to the challenges of managing the Great Lakes, even in the near future, given the broad ecological concerns that are not addressed in the two documents and given the overly strict approach to exporting water from the basin

The Fugazi Second Amendment: Bruen\u27s Text, History, and Tradition Problem and How to Fix It

This Article critiques the Supreme Court’s use of text, history, and tradition in New York Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. In doing so, not only is the Supreme Court’s approach to history-in-law in Bruen called into question, but also the Article provides the courts with an historically objective and even-keeled ‘way-ahead’ for future Second Amendment cases and controversies