Katie Corwin

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic played a crucial role in establishing the use of telehealth in all aspects of health care with one huge exception: abortion. Conservative politicians often do not categorize abortion as health care, leading to a stark contrast in the treatment of reproductive health care, particularly in terms of telehealth availability. This Comment examines state laws relating to telehealth abortion, how lawmakers restrict access to abortion by attacking telehealth abortion, and the resulting legal uncertainty for patients and practitioners. The central argument of this Comment is that legally protecting and expanding telehealth is imperative for increasing access to reproductive health care and abortion as well as improving public health.

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Bina Ahmad

Volume 27.2 (download PDF)

Abstract

The U.S. legal system is a colonizer’s system constructed to uphold power and protect the powerful. For radical lawyers, it is the language of power we need to speak and understand to protect ourselves and our communities from this violence. As law enforcement actors, prosecutors are arguably the most powerful actors in our criminal legal system, able to ruin people’s lives at will and with absolute immunity to protect them from any accountability for any misconduct. Even with professional attorney ethics rules and state bar grievance committees tasked with holding attorneys to these ethics rules, prosecutors are still rarely disciplined. This note argues that in addition to small-scale abolitionist reforms such as abolishing absolute immunity, we must go beyond this and shrink prosecutorial power, and make not only prosecutorial misconduct but the entire legal system accessible, transparent and open to the public.

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Dalton Primeaux

Volume 27.1 (download PDF)

Abstract

Many public safety advocates have called for the use of police body cameras to document the interactions between officers and the public. In light of the documented incidents of police violence and misconduct, some advocates and policy experts have urged law enforcement to use body cameras to discourage future wrongdoing and create a record of when such incidents do happen. In some states, body camera footage is considered public record and can be obtained upon request. Most policies concerning requests for the release of body camera footage require the chief of police to grant permission for sharing the video with parties outside of the police department, but there is little guidance regarding if and when distribution should be allowed. As a result, victims are at risk of complete exposure during incredibly vulnerable moments in their lives. Protecting the privacy of victims and others captured in footage is one concern undergirding resistance to expanding such programs.

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Sayid R. Bnefsi

Volume 27.1 (download PDF)

Abstract

The access to justice movement broadly concerns people’s ability to resolve legally actionable problems. To the extent that individuals seek resolution through civil litigation, they can be disadvantaged by their unmet need for legal services, particularly in high-stakes cases and complicated areas of law. In part, this is because legal services and litigation are cost-prohibitive, especially for indigent plaintiffs. As a result, these individuals are priced out of litigation and, by extension, unable to use law to seek justice.

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Roni Amit

Volume 27.1 (download PDF)

Abstract

Marginalized individuals are largely excluded from making rights claims in the courts because their stories of rights violations fall outside of prescribed legal categories. Framing this exclusion as a lack of knowledge and access, proponents of the access to justice movement have sought to improve outcomes for unrepresented and marginalized litigants through measures that help them understand and navigate the system. The access to justice movement seeks to make the justice system more accessible to these litigants by focusing on procedural fairness. This Article draws on empirical data and observations from Tulsa’s eviction court to consider the limits of access to justice measures focused on process, including representation. It calls for an expanded understanding of access to justice that incorporates the rights claims of marginalized individuals. Asking how lawyers representing marginalized clients can best advocate for their clients’ rights and achieve social change, it draws on the law and social change literature around legal mobilization.

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