Our Online Journal features original pieces written and edited by our Online staff at Columbia. They are not representative of any views held by the Columbia Undergraduate Law Review Editorial Board.
The shocking case of Kalief Browder ushered in a sweeping effort to reform CPL §30.30. How many defendants like Kalief had spent months or even years waiting in maximum-security jails for trial only to be proven innocent? Yet, as politicians and legislators drafted bills and called for administrative overhaul, Kalief’s legacy dims while the structural, discriminatory implications of New York’s “speedy trial” statute live on.
Read MoreSince the unveiling of Touch ID, courts have been forced to consider how evidence can legally be obtained from locked smartphones without violating the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination. The increased use of biometric unlocking by technology companies such as Apple may make phones more secure than a weak passcode, but more vulnerable to searches by law enforcement.
Read MoreOn April 2nd, 2014 the Supreme Court handed down a decision that was met with a wide variety of reactions, from support to disinterest to deeply held anger – the ruling in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission. Written by Chief Justice Roberts, the decision hinges on the concept of money as speech that finds its roots in precedent reaching back more than forty years.
Read MoreWhile this process is theoretically beneficial, it is not robust enough to ensure good decision-making that balances the agency’s dual responsibilities. Regardless of what the optimal level of vulnerability disclosure is, several features of the VEP mean that the process is incapable of finding that point or reining in excessive secrecy.
Read MoreNorton v. Ute Tribe of the Uintah is a crucial case not only for tribal law enforcement, but also for tribal sovereign rights. If in tribal and federal court the Ute argue that Officer Norton’s actions and the actions of the state police force violated tribal sovereignty, it could be large step forward in terms of the rights of tribal police departments to be agents tasked with protecting tribal sovereignty.
Read MoreAs a result, although current federal regulations on data security strive to protect consumer privacy, they do not actually tackle the fundamental problem of unjustified, mass data collection itself; instead they debate the issue of nondisclosure, which companies can easily bypass without changing their harmful data collection practices. The responsibility to regulate the collection and use of personal information thus falls on individual states and various independent agencies, which, when not established under a standardized rule, form a patchwork system of incongruent laws that often overlap and contradict one another, thereby leading to a highly inefficient regulatory framework for consumer privacy protection.
Read MoreThe allocating of public funds towards an institution of a single denomination results in a complex relationship between the government and private places of worship. Yet when disaster strikes, and these places of worship save all members of the community, it is difficult to provide justification for withholding public funds.
Read MoreBecause of the ethically-charged trade off between the life-saving potential of human embryonic stem cells and the destruction of the embryo they entail, courts have had to rule on and regulate the research, funding, patenting, and the acquisition of embryonic stem cells – but in a landscape of constant technological advancements, many of the above spheres of legislation still have unanswered questions.
Read MoreOn one hand, some argue that these protests demonstrate a lack of respect for the nation; whereas the other side argues that these demonstrations are, in fact, centered around the nation’s greatest values. However, in analyzing the legal history of symbolic speech in the U.S., it is evident that Trump’s requests to fire NFL players are unlawful and not justified by past legal precedent or federal statutes.
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