Criminal Law, Cyberlaw / Internet, State Law

Evaluating New York’s “Revenge Porn” Law: A Missed Opportunity to Protect Sexual Privacy

March 19, 2019

Six years after lawmakers first considered the issue of nonconsensual pornography, New York has criminalized the practice. We wholeheartedly support the effort in our role as legal scholars and as advocates for the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). One of us (Franks) drafted the first model statute criminalizing “revenge porn” and worked on New York’s…

Danielle Citron and Mary Anne Franks

Why the Latest Ruling in the Sandy Hook Shooting Litigation Matters

March 18, 2019

Last week the Connecticut Supreme Court issued a decision in the ongoing litigation brought by plaintiffs representing the twenty children and six adults shot dead in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. The shooter carried a Bushmaster semiautomatic assault-style weapon. The Sandy Hook plaintiffs have been trying for years to bring claims against the Bushmaster’s manufacturer,…

Heidi Li Feldman

Federalism

Recent Case: Rosenberg Development Corp. v. Imperial Performing Arts, Inc.

March 18, 2019

Gone are the days of absolute sovereign immunity. The king can now (sometimes) do wrong. Governments today consent to liability and can have their immunity abrogated by superior powers. The Federal Tort Claims Act is an example of the former, while Title VII suits against states illustrate the latter. Because local governments are not sovereign,…

Harvard Law Review

International Law

Why Brexit Will Not Deliver the UK Regulatory Freedom

March 15, 2019

On March 29, 2019, the United Kingdom is due to exit the European Union. This process—known as “Brexit”—was meant to be a carefully engineered exercise of unraveling the nearly 50-year old economic and political partnership that the UK has with the EU. Yet the UK is moving dangerously close to a chaotic exit as Prime…

Anu Bradford

Civil Rights

Recent Case: Jones v. Carter

March 13, 2019

Prisoners lose many of their rights when they walk through the jailhouse door, but the free exercise of religion is not one of them. Correctional officers must provide certain accommodations for prisoners’ religious exercise, including offering religious diets. To accommodate such diets, the Indiana Department of Correction (DOC) has some facilities with kosher kitchens, and…

Harvard Law Review

Election and Voting Law

The Danger of the National Popular Vote Compact

March 13, 2019

This past week, Colorado joined a growing list of states that have signed on to the National Popular Vote Compact (NPVC). The NPVC is a proposed interstate compact in which the signatory states agree that they will appoint their presidential electors in accordance with the national popular vote rather than their own state electorate’s vote….

Norman R. Williams