Archive for category: Issue Areas

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  [Update] First Circuit Says Feds Can Pursue Capital Prosecution Over Governor’s Objection

  By Noah Kaplan, Courts, Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Issue Areas May 8, 2012 3:24 pm no comments

  United States v. Pleau raises legal questions that deserve more attention than the case is likely to receive. The case can actually be seen as being about the location of the primary police power in the American system of constitutional federalism, and it exposes the increasing strain that the modern conception of federal power is placing on the founding era experiment in dual sovereignty. Pleau should challenge progressives to think critically about the desirable scope of the federal government’s power under the Commerce Clause.

   
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  CR-CL Podcast – Episode 11 – Identity-Affirming School Speech and the Crack-Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

  Courts, Criminal Justice, Education, First Amendment, LGBTQ Rights, Podcast, Poverty and Economic Justice April 21, 2012 3:20 pm no comments

  Noah interviews Professor Ari Ezra Waldman about students’ right to speak affirmingly about sexual orientation, same-sex marriage, and gay identity in schools. Noah and Matt discuss the retroactivity of the Fair Sentencing Act, passed to address the disparity between federal sentences for crack and powder cocaine possession, how that disparity came about, and whether even the lessened disparity is justified.

   
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  CR-CL Podcast – Episode 10 – Cigarette Warning Labels, the First Amendment, and Competing Federal Budgets

  Consumers and Corporations, Courts, Labor and Employment, Podcast, Poverty and Economic Justice, Sex Equality April 17, 2012 12:44 pm no comments

  Matt follows up on a post he wrote for HarvardCRCL.org looking at the First Amendment implications of requiring cigarette companies to include new graphic warning labels on their packages. Noah and Matt discuss the competing budget plans presented by the Republican and Democratic leaders in Washington.

   
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  The Naked Truth: What Florence Means for Future Detainees

  By Alex Groden, Privacy and National Security April 9, 2012 12:58 pm 2 comments

  To be sure, being stripped naked and visually inspected by strangers is a violation of basic dignity and personal privacy, especially in the absence of any suspicion of risk. Kennedy’s “balance” of privacy and security needs sure seems like more of a complete sacrifice of one for the other.

   
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  CR-CL Podcast – Episode 9 – Jail Strip Searches, Online Privacy, and the Right to Be Forgotten

  Consumers and Corporations, Courts, Criminal Justice, Podcast, Privacy and National Security April 9, 2012 8:41 am no comments

  Noah and Matt are joined in the studio this week by HarvardCRCL.org Technology and Privacy blogger Andrew Mamo. Matt fills us in on the recent Supreme Court decision in Florence v. Board of Freeholders and the potential impact of a blanket rule allowing strip searches for jail intake even for minor offenses. Andrew discusses the recent concern over Google’s unified privacy policy, the Consumer Online Privacy Bill of Rights, and efforts in Europe to establish a right to be forgotten.

   

• Some (Polemical) Reflections on the Dartmouth Hazing Controversy

  Education, Sex Equality April 7, 2012 3:20 pm 3 comments

  Rolling Stone recently published a long story about Andrew Lohse, a Dartmouth senior who blew the whistle—assuming there was a whistle to blow—about hazing practices at his school’s social fraternities. There is nothing surprising about Lohse’s claims; social fraternities have long been known to bring out the lowest instincts in American college students.

   

• CR-CL Podcast – Episode 8 – The Individual Mandate and Juvenile Constitutional Rights

  Courts, Criminal Justice, Podcast April 2, 2012 2:44 pm 2 comments

  Noah and Matt jump on the media bandwagon and provide their take on the week’s arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, particularly the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Next, they take a look at the issues discussed in CR-CL’s latest colloquium, Roper, Graham, and J.D.B.: Re-Defining Juvenile’s Constitutional Rights.

   

• Cell Phone Tracking after U.S. v. Jones

  By Andrew Mamo, Consumers and Corporations, Criminal Justice, Privacy and National Security April 2, 2012 9:26 am 2 comments

  There is something different about privacy rights in a world where we are constantly leaking our own personal information and storing the information of others. While privacy rights are not coterminous with property rights, there remains an important connection between the two.

   

• CR-CL Presents a Colloquium: "The State of Progressive Constitutional Theory: The Paradox of Constitutional Democracy and the Project of Political Justification"

  Events March 30, 2012 12:22 pm no comments

  On Thursday, April 5, 2012, from 5-7PM in Wasserstein 1015 at Harvard Law School, CR-CL will present a colloquium, “The State of Progressive Constitutional Theory: The Paradox of Constitutional Democracy and the Project of Political Justification.” The colloquium honors the forthcoming article by Nimer Sultany exploring the perils and paradoxes inherent in the search for a progressive theory of the United States Constitution. Speakers will include Dean Martha Minow and Professors Karl Klare, Frank Michelman, and Duncan Kennedy.

   

• CR-CL Podcast – Episode 7 – Stand Your Ground and Hate Crimes Law

  Courts, Criminal Justice, Podcast March 23, 2012 8:37 am no comments

  CR-CL’s Executive Editors for Online Content Noah Kaplan and Matt Giffin discuss the two big criminal law developments in the last week. First, Matt breaks down the Florida Stand Your Ground self-defense law at the heart of the tragic case of Trayvon Martin. Next, Noah explains the history and doctrine behind hate crimes statutes, and Noah and Matt discuss the guilty verdict against Dharun Ravi for spying on his gay roommate.