NOTE: “Standing” in the Way of Equality? The Myth of Proponent Standing and the Jurisdictional Error in {{Perry v. Brown}}
By Andrew Kim | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1867 (2012) February 7, 2012 was a triumphant day for marriage equality activists. Relying upon the precedent set forth in Romer v. Evans, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invalidated a California initiative restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples in Perry v. Brown (Perry…
COMMENT: Until the Plenary Power Do Us Part: Judicial Scrutiny of the Defense of Marriage Act in Immigration After {{Flores-Villar}}
By Jessica Portmess | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1825 (2012) The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) effectively bars a U.S. citizen from sponsoring a foreign national same-sex spouse to immigrate to the United States. The plenary power doctrine—a standard of extraordinary deference to the political branches in immigration—may hinder judicial scrutiny of DOMA in…
COMMENT: A Minor Conflict: Why the Objectives of Federal Sex Trafficking Legislation Preempt the Enforcement of State Prostitution Laws Against Minors
By Susan Crile | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1783 (2012) The doctrine of federal preemption provides a framework for resolving the tension between the treatment of prostituted minors under federal sex trafficking law and criminal prostitution laws in many states. Federal preemption doctrine holds that state laws are preempted if they conflict with a…
Rule 3.8, the Jencks Act, and How the ABA Created a Conflict Between Ethics and the Law on Prosecutorial Disclosure
By Kirsten M. Schimpff | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1729 (2012) A prosecutor’s duty to disclose evidence favorable to the defense has proved to be one of the thorniest issues in criminal practice, no doubt in large part due to the complex, overlapping, and, at times, conflicting web of rules and standards governing that…
Don’t Just Do Something! E-Hearsay, the Present Sense Impression, and the Case for Caution in the Rulemaking Process
By Liesa L. Richter | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1657 (2012) This Article weighs in on the cutting-edge debate regarding the effects of electronic hearsay or “e-hearsay” on the truth-seeking function of the trial process. Professor Jeffrey Bellin recently raised an urgent call to revise the present sense impression exception to the hearsay rule…
Intent and Consent in the Tort of Battery: Confusion and Controversy
By Nancy J. Moore | 61 Am. U. L. Rev. 1585 (2012) Much of contemporary torts scholarship has been devoted to determining who should bear the costs of unintended injury, that is, whether and when defendants should be strictly liable for the harm caused by their activities, as opposed to limiting plaintiffs to recovery when…