To become a licensed attorney, law school graduates must pass the dreaded bar exam, a two or three-day, grueling exam that has been characterized as a brutal and hellish experience. Many attorneys describe the exam as “among the most painful experiences of their lives.” But, there is a lesser known yet equally as important hurdle that bar applicants also must overcome—the character and fitness inquiry. Applicants have the burden to show that they are morally fit to practice law. They must reveal a plethora of personal information, dating back years or even decades, depending on the age of the applicant. They must reveal arrests, convictions, speeding tickets, bankruptcies, court judgments, employment discharges, and much more. For some applicants, this may prove to be the most challenging part of the admission process.
Continue reading “The Other Bar Hurdle: An Examination of the Character and Fitness Requirement for Bar Admission”Apparent Authority: Minnesota Finally Rejects Categorical Exemption for Independent Contractors in Hospital Emergency Rooms and Signifies Potential for Nondelegable Duty Doctrine- Popovich v. Allina Health Sys., 946 N.W.2D 885 (MINN. 2020).
The gradual transformation of hospitals in the United States is a testament to the commitment to caring for patients regardless of ability to pay in unison with advancing medical technology and related costs. The modernization of hospitals into large corporations led to diminished forbearance from pursuit of legal remedies by patients injured by physician negligence. As hospitals developed, their immunity dissolved, and courts applied vicarious liability theories against hospitals for physician negligence. Beginning with respondeat superior, courts later included agency theories of agency by estoppel, apparent agency, and eventually, nondelegable duty. Minnesota courts followed this general trajectory but were slower to apply apparent authority than many other states.
Continue reading “Apparent Authority: Minnesota Finally Rejects Categorical Exemption for Independent Contractors in Hospital Emergency Rooms and Signifies Potential for Nondelegable Duty Doctrine- Popovich v. Allina Health Sys., 946 N.W.2D 885 (MINN. 2020).”Free Speech, Social Media, and Public Universities: How the First Amendment Limits University Sanctions for Online Expression and Empowers Students, Staff, and Faculty
All told, outside of a small number of narrowly defined exceptions, speech by students, staff, and faculty is protected against reprisal by public universities. In each of the examples above, the speech was at least partially—if not fully—protected by the First Amendment (although some of the speech uttered by students might not have been protected if it had been said by faculty or staff). Public universities can achieve essential societal values of equality, diversity, and inclusivity and promote civility in discourse while also respecting the dictates of the First Amendment. Universities have tremendous institutional academic freedom to set curricula, build programming, engage in out-of-class educational opportunities, and determine whom they will hire and admit. Public universities need to promote essential societal values in ways that guarantee they are not engaging in viewpoint discrimination or compelling expression of ideological beliefs, ensuring these institutions are held accountable constitutionally and do not impose punishments that fall disproportionately on groups that have been traditionally, and continue to be, marginalized.
Continue reading “Free Speech, Social Media, and Public Universities: How the First Amendment Limits University Sanctions for Online Expression and Empowers Students, Staff, and Faculty”Does Voter Fraud Pay? Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s $1 Million Voter Fraud Offer
Alt text: American flag, hands placing ballots in voting box
Michael Conklin*
Introduction
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick put out a press release stating, in relevant part, “[S]tarting today [I] will pay up to $1 million to incentivize, encourage and reward people to come forward and report voter fraud. . . . Anyone who provides information that leads to an arrest and final conviction of voter fraud will be paid a minimum of $25,000.”[1] This Article analyzes whether Patrick’s statement constitutes an offer that contractually obligates him to pay in the event that someone accepts by completing the requested action. Additionally, the potential existence of whether this statement constitutes a campaign finance violation is considered.
Continue reading “Does Voter Fraud Pay? Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s $1 Million Voter Fraud Offer”Saving the Insanity Defense: Insight into Personality Disorders and the Necessary Elements of the Test
In January 2017, Anthony Montwheeler kidnapped his second ex-wife, attacking her with a knife and fleeing with her in his car. The following police chase ended in a high-speed collision with another car, and Montwheeler was finally arrested. His ex-wife and the driver of the other vehicle were pronounced dead at the scene. However, this was not the beginning of Montwheeler’s story.
Continue reading “Saving the Insanity Defense: Insight into Personality Disorders and the Necessary Elements of the Test”The Illusion of the Public Policy Exception: Arbitration, Law Enforcement Discipline, and the Need to Reform Minnesota’s Approach to the Public Policy Exception
In November of 2012, after a car chase, Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at the suspects’ vehicle. An investigation revealed that thirteen officers fired more than 100 shots in the span of eight seconds. One officer, Michael Brelo, stood on the hood of the suspects’ vehicle and fired at least fifteen shots through the windshield at close range. Both individuals in the vehicle, Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, were killed. Russell and Williams “were both homeless with a history of mental illness and drug use,” and fled after an officer attempted to pull them over for a turn signal violation. Brelo, who allegedly fired a total of forty-nine of the shots in the incident, said that he thought he and his partner were in danger. The source of this belief, according to prosecutors, was a backfiring engine that officers mistook for gunshots. Russell and Williams were both unarmed.
Continue reading “The Illusion of the Public Policy Exception: Arbitration, Law Enforcement Discipline, and the Need to Reform Minnesota’s Approach to the Public Policy Exception”Inefficient Mercy: The Procedural, Constitutional, and Prudential Issues that Plague Minnesota’s Pardoning Process
The process for granting pardons in Minnesota is in dire need of reform and the Minnesota Legislature needs to make an active effort in the upcoming legislative session to solve some of these problems. Pardons and pardons extraordinary play an incredibly important role in our criminal justice system, and especially in the lives of those that are granted clemency. It is in the best interest of the State of Minnesota that this process is fair and unburdened.
Continue reading “Inefficient Mercy: The Procedural, Constitutional, and Prudential Issues that Plague Minnesota’s Pardoning Process”From Langdell to Lab: The Opportunities and Challenges of Experiential Learning in the First Semester
In 2019, the University of New Mexico School of Law (“UNM”) inaugurated Lab, a new three-credit experiential course as part of the required first-semester curriculum. The course has many goals, but its over-arching purposes are to “enhanc[e] student readiness to practice,” to “create opportunities for ‘near transfer’ of clinic lawyering skills,” and to “address student concerns that they are prepared to work in the roles of lawyers, introduce students to the challenge of lawyering, and incorporate and inculcate students in lawyer professional roles early and often.” Lab has been successful in capitalizing on the opportunities experiential learning creates for teaching and learning these things; however, it has also confronted the challenges entailed in such a course—especially the challenges of such a course in the first semester.
Continue reading “From Langdell to Lab: The Opportunities and Challenges of Experiential Learning in the First Semester”Barring Methadone Behind Bars: How Prisons Err When Denying Methadone Treatment to Inmates with Opioid Use Disorder
As the opioid epidemic continues to ravage the United States for a third decade, communities look for new solutions. For the 200,000 heroin-addicted individuals who pass through correctional facilities each year, prison may be the opportunity for change.
Incarceration pauses access to illicit drugs and presents a chance for intervention. For individuals with Opioid Use Disorder (“OUD”), the most effective treatment option involves opioid agonist medication, such as methadone or buprenorphine. Allowing inmates with OUD to receive these medications while incarcerated improves outcomes for the individual inmate and yields public health benefits by reducing costs associated with poor health, disease transmission, criminality, and recidivism. Despite these significant benefits to individuals and society, most prisons do not treat inmates’ OUD with methadone or buprenorphine.
Continue reading “Barring Methadone Behind Bars: How Prisons Err When Denying Methadone Treatment to Inmates with Opioid Use Disorder”A New Reality: Deepfake Technology and the World Around Us
You are bickering with your significant other during the height of an argument as your partner begins to hurl corrosive, malicious, and fraudulent accusations your way. You seemingly become more and more confused as your significant other asserts you have done the unthinkable: cheated. As thoughts and concerns swirl around your baffled mind, you offer yourself some comfort as you know it is not true, and hopefully a thorough explanation can clear the air. As you begin defending your chastity, your significant other pulls out their cell phone and shows you something you cannot fathom. There, right there, in physical, audio, and video form, on the six-inch screen of their phone, a video plays of you engaging in salacious acts with another person who is clearly not your significant other. The video is crisp, clear, and undoubtedly looks, acts, and talks like you. But is it me?
You then realize that the confidence you held minutes ago in your own candor is useless. Somehow, someway, there is video proof of you committing an act you are positive you did not do. Was I drugged? Did I blackout and not remember my actions? Your brain is trying to comprehend and protect itself from the trauma and deceit presented to it, but you realize that this video—this horrifying, false, and life-changing video is real, at least to the beholder. You know that the video bears a resemblance to your likeness, but you also know it is not real.
Nevertheless, the video is real, and that is all your significant other needs to know. The damage is done, and now it appears there is irrefutable proof you have committed the abominable act of adultery that you know you did not do. You begin to question your own reality and the world around you. If this false video exists but appears to be genuine in every way, what else in our world is simply a distortion of the truth? What other forms of false media dwell in the world that will swindle and deceive even the most intelligent minds?
This Article explains deepfake technology and reviews deepfakes in modern society.3 Next, this Article discusses the evidentiary implications of deepfakes and how they are analyzed and authenticated within the courtroom.4 Finally, this Article discusses potential methods of combatting deepfakes, their effect on the courtroom, and prospective avenues of redress for deepfake victims.