Grounded in framing theory and the analyses of judges and commentators, this article examines issue statements in a sample of recent briefs from six states. The data cover various aspects of issue statements, including sentence structure, length, and the most common beginning words. Issue statements from recent briefs provide examples throughout the discussion. The article concludes with recommendations for framing effective issue statements.

The Court, in its race jurisprudence, has employed a narrative structure of Rhetorical Neutrality, an approach that "privileges individualism over the substantive claims of historically oppressed groups." The Louisville school case represents the Court's colorblind constitutionalism: history and context are ignored, the Fourteenth Amendment is reinterpreted so that race-conscious remedial approaches are rejected, and the present day effects of past discrimination are explained in neutral terms

The prevailing approach to First Amendment equal-access litigation, turning on the "general inclusivity" of government access, is deeply flawed. The standard has proved to be, in the end, unduly formalistic, hopelessly vague, and, perhaps most importantly, theoretically incompatible with the Supreme Court's emerging view that access is a form of government subsidy. This paper calls on the courts to abandon their reliance on inclusiveness, and, in its place, tailor the definition of "access" to include only those government acts conducted "pursuant to official duties." The resulting doctrine would be one worthy of the federal courts - durable, coherent, and duly respectful of the traditional relations between public officials and the press.

The Court, in its race jurisprudence, has employed a narrative structure of Rhetorical Neutrality, an approach that "privileges individualism over the substantive claims of historically oppressed groups." The Louisville school case represents the Court's colorblind constitutionalism: history and context are ignored, the Fourteenth Amendment is reinterpreted so that race-conscious remedial approaches are rejected, and the present day effects of past discrimination are explained in neutral terms

Any discussion of food security would, at first blush, seem to focus primarily on world hunger and other threats to the safety of the food supply, whether intentionally man-made (e.g., terrorism), inadvertently man-made (e.g., global warming), made-for-profit by industrial agriculture (referred to as "industrial food" throughout this Article), or "natural" although arguably man-abetted (such as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease). And hunger is indeed a problem and likely to be

After the Supreme Court held in 1969 that the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial applied to inmates charged with crimes in other jurisdictions, forty-eight states and the federal government quickly became signatories to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. The states' prompt response signaled the significance of the Court's decision in Smith v. Hooey. Since then, courts have narrowed the availability of the Interstate Agreement, leaving many inmates to live with the uncertainty of pendi

After the Supreme Court held in 1969 that the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial applied to inmates charged with crimes in other jurisdictions, forty-eight states and the federal government quickly became signatories to the Interstate Agreement on Detainers. The states' prompt response signaled the significance of the Court's decision in Smith v. Hooey. Since then, courts have narrowed the availability of the Interstate Agreement, leaving many inmates to live with the uncertainty of pendi

This draft paper first examines the history of hippophagy (human consumption of horse meat). It then looks at the problem of unwanted horses, the worldwide consumption of horse meat and the costs associated with a ban on horse slaughter. Next it examines recent American legislation and case law banning the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Finally it argues that a ban on horse slaughter is both a ban on "other-regarding" conduct, to use John Stuart Mill's formulation, and misguided fo

This draft paper first examines the history of hippophagy (human consumption of horse meat). It then looks at the problem of unwanted horses, the worldwide consumption of horse meat and the costs associated with a ban on horse slaughter. Next it examines recent American legislation and case law banning the slaughter of horses for human consumption. Finally it argues that a ban on horse slaughter is both a ban on other-regarding conduct, to use John Stuart Mill's formulation, and misguided for practical reasons in a world where hunger is rampant.

118 years ago Samuel Warren & Louis D. Brandeis proclaimed that technological change necessitated new protections for the right to privacy. Today, new protections for the right to privacy are called for once again because, in the American workplace, technological change continues unabated and little privacy is afforded employees from employer monitoring using the technology. Moreover, employers are disciplining and terminating employees based on information uncovered by monitoring. Recently, many employees have been terminated for off-duty blogging. Employees are often disciplined for using e-mail for personal reasons while at work. And global positioning systems ("GPS") have been relied on to discipline drivers and other employees. This is the first academic article to provide a detailed review of labor arbitration decisions governing the right to privacy from employer monitoring in over thirty years. The article uses the decisions, on employee privacy and technologies ...

This article tells the story of Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942). After providing a survey of American agriculture and its regulation between the World Wars, this article describes the constitutional landmark that began as a controversy over Roscoe Filburn's 1941 wheat crop. Wickard v. Filburn represents a pivotal moment in the Supreme Court's effort to define Congress's power "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Greater turmoil over commerce clause jurisprudence has breathed new life into Wickard v. Filburn.

Since the 1979 Supreme Court decision in Southeastern Community College v. Davis, establishing that under the Rehabilitation Act a student must be able to carry out the essential program requirements with or without reasonable accommodation in spite of the disability. This decision established that fundamental alterations are not required, nor is the institution required to lower standards or provide unduly burdensome accommodations. After numerous judicial decisions and the 2000 Americans with

Preemption of state tort actions by federal regulatory schemes, especially products liability actions, poses recurring federalism concerns. This essay revisits the problem, with a focus on the challenging issue of identifying whether a particular case of asserted preemption should be attributable to Congress or to the agency. The issue is important because characterizing a case as one of preemption by the agency can open the door to an appropriate level of scrutiny into the decision to preempt: a mode of review akin to the hard-look review used in other areas of judicial review of agency action. In an earlier article, the author analyzed key Supreme Court cases and concluded that courts should use a totality of the circumstances approach when trying to identify the source of the intent to preempt. A totality of the circumstances approach would allow a court to take into account any relevant evidence, but especially evidence relating to whether the precise agency activity giving ...

This short bar magazine article provides tips on how to avoid errors when making analogies and distinctions in legal documents.

The extent to which foreign corporations as well as their domestic subsidiaries can discriminate against American employees on the basis of sex, age, religion, and national origin in a manner that would be acceptable under their own laws and customs but inimical to American law is currently determined by a muddled jumble of circuit court opinions interpreting a "[w]e express no view" Supreme Court footnote. As a result, American victims of sexual discrimination have much less protection under T

I use a nearly full-text version of Moore v. Regents of the University of California, as the first case in Property and find it to be a very useful tool for introducing not only a number of key property law concepts but also a number of concepts (not all of which directly relate to property) that are revisited throughout the curriculum, as well as contrasting the more dynamic body of tort law with the slow-moving world of property law. I also find it to be a more useful introduction to twenty-fi

"Property rights serve human values." State v. Shack. Every law student needs to emerge from the crucible of first-year property law with a clear understanding that when "O conveys Blackacre to A for life, remainder to B and his heirs," O has created a life estate in A and a future interest, a vested remainder, in B; or that when "O conveys Blackacre to A and his heirs, but if A ever builds a liquor store on Blackacre, then to B," O has created a fee simple subject to executory limitation and h

The genesis of this article lies in a simple realization I had one day while driving behind a work vehicle in Atlanta, Georgia. The truck in question was pulling a wood chipper, a device which takes large tree branches, runs them through rapidly turning sharpened steel blades, and chips them into pieces small enough to be used as mulch. Obviously, any worker's body part accidentally sucked into this maelstrom would undergo a similar fate. Thus, the chipper had a warning label urging caution and

The genesis of this article lies in a simple realization I had one day while driving behind a work vehicle in Atlanta, Georgia. The truck in question was pulling a wood chipper, a device which takes large tree branches, runs them through rapidly turning sharpened steel blades, and chips them into pieces small enough to be used as mulch. Obviously, any worker's body part accidentally sucked into this maelstrom would undergo a similar fate. Thus, the chipper had a warning label urging caution and

The Romer v. Evans colloquy between Justices Kennedy and Scalia over the applicability of the nineteenth century polygamy cases to the more current debate over gay rights and same-sex marriages was of more than academic interest to the estimated 25,000 to 50,000 Fundamentalist Mormon practitioners of polygamy, as well as the nearly 1,000 Christian polygamists, and Islamic and African practitioners of polygamy. The degree to which divergent religious practices will be accommodated is of increasin