Notes

February 3, 2022 0

Light and Dark: Dazzled Americans Seek Illumination

(Source) The constant march of technology has often created the need for new and sometimes even strange legislation and regulations, which come after the technology has been introduced. The large, well developed regulatory system often allows for great manufacturer freedom with reasonable restraints to avoid public harm. In the case of headlights, the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard No. 108 (FMVSS 108) governs a complicated laundry list of requirements relating to lighting and illumination.  Today the current regulation for headlights dictates that headlights operate with two types of beams, high and low. While a driver could flash their beams, have them automatically cycle between on and off, along with disabling them manually, the American driver is unable to do much more than that. The current regulations governing headlights has failed to be updated despite concerted efforts by large manufacturers, with recent attempts to allow more advanced lights being stuck in limbo. In contrast, drivers in other countries including Germany, England, and Japan can enjoy massive benefits with greater illumination offered that does not impede others.  Current illumination systems rely on a ruling that is antiquated and defines beams by luminescence and discreet modes offered. Rather than wrap, avoid, or target [read more]
May 7, 2021 0

360 Music Contracts, COVID-19, and the Future of the Music Industry

(Source) Since the turn of the century, music accessibility has quickly become greater than ever before, though listening formats have changed in popularity. As cassette tape sales waned in the 1990s, CDs became the most profitable format in the US. This trend continued through the late 2000s when CD use declined. Since 1999, falling music sales have been a consistent reality, due in no small part to newfound free, albeit illicit, access to music, offered by file sharing websites like Napster and the ever-reviving, peer-to-peer torrent site The Pirate Bay which at their peaks had sixty million and fifty million users, respectively, as well as Limewire. Piracy then blunted the growth of the music industry and not until recently did the industry’s financial outlook begin to improve. In 2016, streaming revenues represented 51% of the music retail industry’s revenue, overtaking CD, vinyl, and download sales combined. Streaming subscriptions that year drove an over 11% increase in total recorded music revenue to $7.7 billion, the largest such increase since 1998, though that sum is still only half of previous industry highs in 1999. The advent of streaming and its embrace by American music consumers shows no signs of stopping, with a [read more]
October 30, 2020 0

One Person, No Vote: How Gerrymandering Will Steal Our Elections if We Don’t Stop It

(Source)   “I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and 3 Democrats… I think electing Republicans is better than electing Democrats… so I drew this map to help foster what I think is better for the country.” This is an actual, real-life statement made by Representative David Lewis, a Republican member of the North Carolina General Assembly’s redistricting committee. And it wasn’t made at a political fundraiser or at a campaign rally—it was made at an official meeting of the North Carolina state legislature, a body that purports to put the voices of its constituents above its own partisan goals. Even more alarming than the statement itself is the fact that Representative David Lewis and his colleagues were able to do exactly what he proposed, and with the blessing of the U.S. Supreme Court. You may be thinking that Lewis’s statement is disturbing but that we have more important and urgent things to worry about—after all, we are only days away from the November election, and we need to focus all of our energies on getting our friends and family to turn out to vote. If we can do that, then the [read more]
October 16, 2020 0

It’s Time to Break Up Big Tech

(Source)   Introduction Amazon obtained a place in the popular psyche that has far surpassed its principal market function as an online retailer and entertainment provider. The conventional wisdom was that Amazon operated much like the major industrial powerhouses at the turn of the last century—standard oil, railroads, and steel—and thus warranted the same basic sort of legal treatment that its ancestor monopolies received. Perhaps the laws would have to be updated somewhat, but the idea was that Amazon had justly achieved its privileged position in society through free and fair competition in the marketplace. Jeff Bezos was predestined to be next in the line of a venerable lineage of American entrepreneurs whose spiritedness and ingenuity entitled them the rarefied perches they occupy in public life. In short, Bezos’s outsized influence in society today, a consequence of his unprecedented wealth (now upwards of two hundred billion dollars), has enabled him to lobby lawmakers for exceptionally lenient policies—skirting oversight of his company’s adverse working conditions and slyly evading a number of pesky environmental issues—for a handsome return payment deposited in the coffers of both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.  From one point of view, to deny Bezos of his wealth and fame [read more]
August 7, 2020 0

Violations Without Vindication: How the Supreme Court’s Decision in Nieves v. Bartlett Permits Retaliatory Arrests and Threatens to Undermine the Fight For Racial Equality

(Source) In May 2019, the Supreme Court handed down its decisions in Nieves v. Bartlett. For the most part, the decision flew under the radar, garnering little media attention (with some exceptions). However, this seemingly innocuous Supreme Court decision now threatens to undermine what has been described as “a defining moment in the future of American politics” and a “turning point against police brutality”—the George Floyd protests. As a general matter, the Constitution prevents the government from retaliating against an individual for exercising her constitutional rights. As a recent example, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, was released from prison after a judge determined Cohen’s house arrest was revoked as punishment for writing a tell-all book about Trump. Since Cohen had a First Amendment right to write a book about Trump, the government could not retaliate against him for writing it. Likewise, a police officer violates the First Amendment when she arrests an individual because she dislikes his speech—known as a retaliatory arrest. But what does it matter if the officer violates the First Amendment when there are no consequences? One incredibly important remedy is to sue the officer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983 allows victims of [read more]
July 24, 2020 0

“Nothing About Us, Without Us” Means Police Reform, Too

(Source)   Being Black and disabled is not a crime. We need to stop treating it like one. Thanks to Evita Nwosu-Sylvester for sources and further reading, and to Amanda Cirillo for review.  Disability remains the “missing word in media coverage of police violence.” Far from anecdotal episodes, the connection between disability and policing harm is undeniable.  More than one half of Black Americans with disabilities will be arrested by the time they reach their late twenties. According to a 2016 report by the Ruderman Family Foundation, up to half of all people killed by police have a disability. If you have an undiagnosed mental illness, you are 16 times more likely to be killed in a police encounter. If you are a juvenile or young adult with a disability, you are 13% more likely to be arrested than those without. Other data indicate that approximately a quarter of those killed by police are in a mental health crisis or were known by police to have a mental illness, in spite of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requiring reasonable modifications to policing where a disability is recognized. This is not just tragic; it is systemic. As reforms addressing police [read more]
July 17, 2020 0

The Machinery of Death: The Federal Death Penalty’s Reinstatement is Arbitrary, Capricious, Illegal, and Cruel

(Source)   Introduction In the early hours of July 14th, 2020, while most people were asleep or just starting their days, the Federal Government executed Daniel Lee Lewis, jumpstarting the return of federal executions. The federal government executed Mr. Lee despite myriad procedural and legal deficiencies. Mr. Lee was executed without a new warrant allowing the execution to occur on July 14th. His warrant listed July 13, 2020 as the execution date. Mr. Lee was strapped to the gurney for over four hours as last-minute legal issues were resolved but was pronounced dead less than an hour after his final legal issue was resolved. The loved ones of the victims publicly opposed his execution and were disregarded in their efforts to witness the execution without compromising their health in the midst of a global pandemic.  In many regards, Mr. Lee was a typical capital defendant. Prior to his conviction, his life was riddled with trauma, mental illness, and interactions with the juvenile detention centers. There was widespread consensus that his co-defendant was more culpable and Mr. Lee maintained his innocence in the murders through his last words. His trial had sentencing problems and concerns about ineffective assistance of counsel. When [read more]
July 10, 2020 0

How Reparations Could Have Ebbed The Disproportionate COVID-19 Deaths of Black People in Detroit

(Source)   Reparations are a form of compensatory justice that governments have instituted when aiming to make amends for prior wrongs. Historically, in order for a group to receive reparations from the government, an affected party must show harm, must prove that the government is the cause of that harm, and must show that the recipient is a direct victim or one’s descendent. Reparations can be symbolic in nature, representing the depths of regret that the nation has for its role in the institutionalized oppression of a people. Paying reparations for historical wrongs is not a novel concept. The United States granted reparations in 1988 for the harm inflicted on Japanese Americans from wrongful internment during World War II and to former owners of enslaved persons after emancipation. Additionally, West Germany paid reparations in 1952 to make amends for the Holocaust. Interestingly, these reparations were not paid with widespread public support—most Germans did not believe that the nation owed Jewish people any redress. In the United States, the most abhorrent act the nation inflicted on its people was the institution of slavery. Subsequent to this historical atrocity, the government continued to discriminate against Black people. For instance, immediately after those [read more]
July 6, 2020 0

Policing Property

  (Source) I. Property and Criminality In the first week after Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, the New York City Police Department arrested more than two thousand protesters in New York City. At least a quarter of those arrested were charged with burglary. Mayor Bill de Blasio distinguished between protesters and perceived opportunists, “doing things like looting for pure financial gain, pure criminal gain, nothing to do with protests whatsoever.”  The specter of the looter—lying in wait for the opportunity to take advantage of social upheaval—is connected to ideas about the latent criminality of unpropertied people. It has been used to justify the extensive surveillance of nonwhite communities, and protest movements calling account to injustice. “Law and order” has roots in the protection of property and in white supremacy. The conflation of Blackness and criminality is inextricably tied to the relationship between property and policing, distinguishing criminals from non-criminals. Racial categories emerge from the governance of property relative to those who have historically had none, who we therefore imagine “harbor criminal disregard for the propertied order.” Whiteness is a property, valuable insofar as categorically excluding Black people maintains it.  Maintaining property interests has always been central to the modern [read more]
June 22, 2020 0

Diagnostic Methods as a Category of Patent-Ineligible Subject Matter

(Source) The authority to grant to patents arises from Article Eight of the United States Constitution. Specifically, Clause Eight grants Congress the power to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Through this clause, Congress is empowered by the Constitution to grant copyrights and patents. Under this authority, Congress has enacted and promulgated various statutes in furtherance of promoting the progress of science and the useful arts. One such statute is 35 U.S.C. § 101, whose interpretation has been embroiled in controversy over the past decade. The statute delineates the types of subject matter that are patentable. Section 101 renders patentable “any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof.” Laws of nature and natural phenomena are prima facie unpatentable. Additionally, a mathematical formula is unpatentable because it “is merely a statement of a law of nature.” Similarly, medical diagnostic processes should be deemed as a category of patent-ineligible subject matter for numerous reasons. First, courts have repeatedly struck down patent claims to medical diagnostic processes unless they include a step of [read more]

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