With the Supreme Court poised to address the fate of the disparate impact theory this term, a recent decision by the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia has grabbed the legal community’s attention: it struck down the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD) rule recognizing the disparate impact theory under the…

For years, the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit have dismissed state law claims by small inventors on the grounds that federal patent law preempts state laws offering patent-like protections. Recently, David Wawrzynski, a man who claims he invented the idea for Heinz’s new “Dip & Squeeze®” ketchup packet, filed state law claims against…

The Supreme Court recently revisited the scope of the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause–this time, in the land-use permitting context. In this Case Note, the author argues that the Court in Koontz v. St. Johns properly prioritized the right at issue over the means by which the government might infringe upon it and…

In this Case Note, the author examines the D.C. Circuit’s decision in United States v. Duvall, a case that illustrates the difficulty the D.C. Circuit has had in interpreting the Supreme Court’s plurality decision in Freeman v. United States. The author analyzes the Supreme Court’s method for interpreting plurality decisions, the Marks rule, and…

CLR Diversity Editor Sean Darling-Hammond analyzes the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Renee v. Duncan—the latest in a series of cases challenging Department of Education regulations that disproportionately affect low-income students by allowing teachers enrolled in alternative certification programs to engage in instruction. Darling-Hammond ultimately advocates a novel solution to allow states…

CLR member Anna K. Christensen argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama stopped short of providing juvenile offenders with complete justice. By failing to categorically ban life sentences without the possibility of parole for juvenile offenders, Christensen asserts that the Court neglected an opportunity to fashion a sentencing system that acknowledges…

Robin Kuntz, a CLR member, analyzes the implications of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Ressam, the first case in the jurisdiction involving the criminal sentencing of a terrorist under the advisory sentencing guidelines. Kuntz concludes that although the guidelines do not offer a clear standard by which a…

Third-year law student Jalem Peguero argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Blueford v. Arkansas trades constitutional protection for rigid formalism. The Blueford Court sanctioned the retrial of criminal defendants for offenses where a jury did not formally acquit the defendant; accordingly, Peguero claims, the Court prevented even clear statements by jury…

Current CLR member Ioana Tchoukleva examines the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller v. Alabama, which prohibited mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile homicide offenders under the Eighth Amendment, and discusses the implications of the Court’s holding on the future of juvenile rights. This Case Note is one of seven written…

Current CLR member Keagan D. Buchanan previews the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Maryland v. King, which will decide whether Maryland’s expansion of its DNA collection and analysis procedures to felony arrestees is constitutional. This Case Note is one of seven written by California Law Review members for CLR Circuit’s first annual Case Note Review.