Luis v. United States: Asset Forfeiture Butts Heads with the Sixth Amendment

In recent years, the federal government has vastly increased its use of asset forfeiture, the seizure of property connected to illegal activities. As authorized under federal law, the government is also able to restrain assets prior to trial when the government belives those assets will ultimately be found to be forfeitable. This pretrial restraint potentially implicates the constitutionally guaranteed right to counsel for criminal defendants. In the upcoming Supreme Court case of Luis v. United States, the Court will address the question of whether a pretrial restraint of assets which are not traceable to any illegal activity is permissible when those assets are needed to hire defense counsel. In this Commentary, the Author argues that the right to counsel of one’s own choosing is not unlimited and that pretrial restraint is necessary to prevent criminals from profiting from their crimes

Syllabus: Conservation of Nature and Culture

This course explores the history of various efforts to conserve nature and culture. Students will learn about the history of environmental conservation, but also to think broadly about what the idea of conservation means in archaeology, historic preservation, and the arts, especially in a time of globalization and climate change. Its fundamental premise is that nature and culture are interconnected; nature cannot truly be conserved without also conserving the culture that has shaped it, and culture cannot truly be conserved without also conserving the natural world on which it rests

History & Sustainability

Americans debate whether their ever-rising consumption of natural resources and standard of living can continue indefinitely into the future. This is not a new question; since the mid-1800s, movements for the conservation of nature have challenged the primacy of unbridled development and met fierce opposition from those charging that these movements threaten the American dream of individual economic opportunity. Through exploring the history of these ideas, students will gain a better understanding of the meaning of sustainability in contemporary America, especially in response to the forces of global capitalism and the challenges of a changing climate. This course grows out of an earlier course called the Conservation of Nature and Culture. Like that course, its fundamental premise is that nature and culture are interconnected, and that movements for the sustainable use of nat