Vol. 18.1 – The Economic Justice Issue

Quote

Explore the digital version of  Volume 18.1, the Economic Justice Issue.

Introduction

Introduction – To Economic Justice Themed Issue.

 Public Interest Practitioners Section (PIPS)

MFY Legal Services, Inc.’s Medical  Legal Partnership with Bellevue Hospital Center: Providing Legal Care to Children with Psychiatric Disabilities, by Aleah Gathings, Staff Attorney at MFY Legal Services, Inc. and on-site attorney at Bellevue Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Clinic

 Articles

Elevating Substance over Procedure: The Retroactivity of Miller v. Alabama under Teague v. Lane, by Brandon Buskey, Staff attorney, American Civil Liberties Union, Criminal Law Reform Project & Daniel Korobkin, Deputy Legal Director, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

A Founding Failure of Enforcement:  Freedmen, Day Laborers, and the Perils of an Ineffectual State, by Raja Raghunath, Assistant Professor, University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Notes

One Condo, One Vote: The New York BID Act as a Threat to Equal Protection and Democratic Control, by Brett Dolin, J.D. Candidate ’15, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.

No Access, No Choice: Foster Care Youth, Abortion, and State Removal of Children, by Kara Sheli Wallis, J.D. Candidate ‘15, City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law.

Event

The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City, A Conversation between Fahd Ahmed, Inequality in New York City Tom Angotti, Jennifer Jones Austin, Shawn Blumberg, & Robin Steinberg, Moderated by Professor Stephen Loffredo.

Equity & Efficiency: The Role and Practice of Diversity in Legal Scholarship

Quote

Four CUNY Law Editors (Violeta Arciniega, Digital Articles Editor; Elizabeth Koo, Editor-in-Chief; Julie Pennington, Managing Articles Editor; and Nabila Taj, Managing Editor) cowrote a blog post for Ms. JD about their experiences trying to expand diversity on law reviews:

Law journals are thought centers of innovative arguments for social change. They are platforms to challenge norms and disseminate bold concepts into the marketplace of ideas to influence courts, inform legislators, and shape public opinion.

This means that diversity initiatives are crucial to the legal profession and to the culture of law school, and law journals specifically, because they work to correct the persistent underrepresentation of the people fighting prejudice and poverty, dealing with the consequences of racially-biased laws, and surviving in a society unwilling to accommodate their needs.

The rest of “Equity & Efficiency: The Role and Practice of Diversity in Legal Scholarship” is available on the Ms. JD Blog.

THE SEWARD PARK URBAN RENEWAL AREA, FORTY-FIVE YEARS LATER: AFFORDABLE TO WHOM?

Quote

Eugene Chen

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Introduction

From the 1950s through the 1960s, two thousand families with low incomes were displaced from their homes when the City of New York embarked on an urban renewal plan targeting the area east along Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, otherwise known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).[1] Forty-five years later, the “Seward Park Slum Clearance Project” left 165 million square feet of parking lot space, devoid of any signs of human occupation aside from the coming and going of vehicles. After a contentious community debate, the City Council passed a resolution (the “Resolution”) on October 11, 2012, for a mixed-use plan to develop SPURA.[2] Proposals were due to the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on May 6, 2013, and on September 18, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg announced that Delancey Street Associates LLC, a joint venture composed of L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners, had been selected to develop the site.[3] The plan calls for 60/40 residential and commercial development, with 500 units of permanently affordable housing, out of the 1000 units of housing being built.[4] In all likelihood, the developer chosen to develop SPURA will apply for the 421-a tax exemption, an incentive intended to encourage the construction of market-rate and affordable housing in New York City (the “City”).

 

Continue reading

WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? SERIOUSLY, LET ME SEE YOUR GPS.

Quote

CASE COMMENT: UNITED STATES V. ALVAREZ (2014)

Rajendra Persaud[1]

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Technological advances continue to confound already dense fourth amendment jurisprudence. As modern devices become more powerful, the information stored and accessed within raises new issues that did not exist only a few decades ago. As such, new technological devices have the potential to create cases of first impression upon the courts. Recently, in U.S. v. Alvarez, Judge McAvoy ruled warrantless searches of cell phones unconstitutional in the absence of exigent circumstances or a need to protect officer safety.[2] The opinion compared cell phones to modern computers[3] that house a wealth of private information within[4] (akin to personal residences[5]). Thus, the smart phones were granted protection similar to computer hard drives[6] and all information obtained from the seized phones was suppressed.[7]

The court declined to extend this reasoning to the seized GPS device, instead comparing it to a paper map[8] despite the latter’s primitive nature. The court distinguished the GPS device by reasoning that the device’s function was designed to guide a person on a trip, the information contained was easily available to the public, and the seizure was connected to the officer’s reasonable suspicion about the defendants’ presence in the area.[9] This comment addresses the oversight regarding the technological capability of the GPS device and considers implications in light of future litigation.

Continue reading

IMPROVING LAW SCHOOL FOR TRANS* AND GENDER NONCONFORMING STUDENTS: SUGGESTIONS FOR FACULTY

Gabriel Arkles*

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Introduction

In a way, creating accessible, nondiscriminatory, and effective law school experiences for trans* and gender nonconforming[1] students is easy. All of our skills as educators apply; we can simply extend our existing strategies and best practices. Like all students, trans* and gender nonconforming students benefit from professors who care about their learning and expect the best from them, create respectful classroom dialogue on difficult issues, provide meaningful feedback, and so on.

In another way, creating accessible, nondiscriminatory, and effective law school experiences for trans* and gender nonconforming students is fantastically difficult. Simply acknowledging trans* existence and accepting gender nonconforming people on their own terms requires an overthrow of a deeply entrenched view of gender in our society: that gender is a binary, fixed, universal, apparent, and apolitical truth. Many everyday classroom practices and longstanding university policies created with the best of intentions can harm trans* and gender nonconforming students because they are based on assumptions about gender that just don’t hold up. Partly because of these policies and practices, relatively few openly trans* and gender nonconforming people hold positions—especially the most powerful and prestigious positions—as faculty, staff, or students in law schools. Fortunately, more and more trans* and gender nonconforming people are entering law schools and many cisgender[2] people want to learn how to work with them respectfully and effectively.

Continue reading

INACCESSIBLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT: A BARRIER TO ROUTINE MEDICAL CARE FOR PERSONS WITH MOBILITY IMPAIRMENTS AND A CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE

Thomas J. Keary*

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

More than twenty years after the passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and forty years after the passage of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), a recent study of physicians’ offices in five major metropolitan areas reveals that patients with mobility impairment are being turned away in disturbingly high numbers. This trend is due to physical barriers to routine medical care posed by inaccessible medical and diagnostic equipment, such as examining tables, rather than by building accessibility. The results indicate that there is a continuing need for education of health care providers and patients, as well as enforcement of these laws by the government and by consumers of health care.

Researchers at the Center for Quality of Care Research at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts, telephoned 256 specialty medical and surgical practices seeking an appointment for a fictional, obese wheelchair user, who could not self-transfer to an examining table.[1] Of this number, 22% reported that the patient could not be seen because, in most instances, they were unable to transfer the patient from a wheelchair to the examination table (18%) and to a lesser extent because the building where the practice was located was inaccessible for people in wheelchairs (4%).[2] Practices in eight medical subspecialties, such as endocrinology, gynecology and orthopedic surgery, were tested. Of these subspecialties, gynecologists had the highest rate of inaccessible practices, with 44% of the gynecological offices called informing the tester that she needed to go elsewhere, usually because the provider lacked a table that could be raised and lowered, or a lift to transfer the patient out of a wheelchair.[3]

Continue reading

JUSTICE SCALIA’S PETARD AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Ruthann Robson[1]

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Justice Antonin Scalia is well known not only for his conservative views, but also his literary language. So perhaps he might appreciate how the Shakespearean phrase, “hoist with his own petard,”[2] could describe how his dissents are being used to support the very outcome he derided: the constitutional recognition of same-sex marriage.

In United States v. Windsor decided in June 2013, the Court, by a bare majority, declared unconstitutional section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) which prohibited federal recognition of same-sex marriages even if the marriages were recognized by state law.[3] As in two other important cases involving lesbian and gay rights, Romer v. Evans (1996)[4] and Lawrence v. Texas (2003),[5] Justice Kennedy wrote an opinion for the majority longer on rhetoric than on analysis and Justice Scalia wrote a dissent guaranteed to be called “scathing.” In these dissents, Justice Scalia not only criticized the majority opinion’s lack of rigor and exercise of judicial supremacy, but he warned of the consequences of the Court’s decision.

Continue reading

SPACE LAW AND THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC INTEREST

Mclee Kerolle*

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Introduction

On April 10, 2013, the Obama Administration released its proposed budget for 2014 with initial reviews showing that there would be a $200 million cut for NASA’s planetary exploration program.[1] Critics against the cut, such as Planetary Society CEO Bill Nye, have spoken out about the crippling effect the cuts will have on future missions and the cuts potential to reverse a decade’s worth of investment building the world’s premier exploration program.[2] On the other hand, proponents of the budget have praised it for its approval of $105 million for a mission to capture an asteroid so that it can be explored by 2015, as well as its funding for ongoing human spaceflight and support for private space taxis that could launch astronauts to and from the International Space Station.[3] Irrespective of the divisions the budget proposal has caused among those in the space industry, one thing is for certain: the space industry is going through a resurgence. Not since the Space Race has there been more of a reason for people to be excited about what lies ahead. Rightfully so, considering that despite budget cuts and perceived setbacks from the public (such as the retirement of NASA’s space shuttle program in 2011) the space industry is now a $250 billion per year global market.[4]

Continue reading

DACA AND NY BAR ELIGIBILITY

Our latest Footnote Forum installation comes from Professors Janet M. Calvo, Shirley Lung, and Alizabeth Newman.*

Janet M. Calvo, Shirley Lung, Alizabeth Newman

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Non-citizens who are afforded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) qualify for New York State bar membership. Over four hundred thousand young people in the United States have been approved for DACA, a program for non-citizens who came to the United States as children.[1] Approximately one percent of DACA-eligible non-citizens have pursued graduate education,[2] including law school. The admission of those approved for DACA to the bar is supported by New York statutes and the constitutional jurisprudence of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the New York Court of Appeals. The New York Judiciary Law explicitly precludes alienage as a basis for denial of bar admission. New York has a history of routinely admitting non-citizens to the bar; there is no categorical exclusion from bar admission of any particular category of law graduates based on immigration status. An individual’s immigration category does not determine whether he or she possesses the skills, competence, and moral character to serve as an advocate in the courts of New York and to ethically represent the best interests of clients.

Continue reading

HOLLINGSWORTH V. PERRY STANDING OVER CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

Caitlin E. Borgmann[1]

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Introduction

One might expect that a Supreme Court decision addressing the constitutionality of a citizen initiative that bars marriage between same-sex couples would yield a predictable political division among both the Justices and Court commentators. Liberal Justices and commentators, one might conjecture, would want the Court to recognize a fundamental constitutional right to marriage equality, while conservative Justices and commentators would prefer the issue be left to the political process. The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry reflected no such tidy outcome, however. The majority opinion addressing California’s Proposition 8 (“Prop 8”), which amended the state’s constitution to exclude same-sex couples from legally recognized marriage, sidestepped the substantive issue through a procedural maneuver. Rather than reach the merits, the Court held that the official proponents of Prop 8, who had defended its constitutionality both in the district court and on appeal, lacked standing to appeal the district court’s opinion invalidating the initiative. The Court’s decision left marriage equality as the rule in California (although not elsewhere). Liberal Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, and Kagan joined Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion, as did Justice Scalia, while conservative Justices Thomas and Alito, and liberal Justice Sotomayor, joined Justice Kennedy’s vigorous dissent. Some liberal commentators who favor marriage equality applauded the Court’s decision.[2]

It is of course not possible to know exactly what motivated each of the Justices in Hollingsworth. But standing is a doctrine that the Court has notoriously manipulated to reach desired results on the merits.[3] Commentators have widely speculated that the liberal Justices who sided with the majority preferred not to reach the merits either because they believed there were insufficient votes to find Prop 8 unconstitutional,[4] or because they believed such a decision might be politically premature and therefore counterproductive, as it might prompt a backlash.[5] Some proponents of marriage equality were quietly relieved by the Court’s refusal to address the merits, since it allowed the district court’s invalidation of Prop 8 to stand without risking an adverse Supreme Court decision that would be binding on all states.[6]

Continue reading