Deadlines and Dead Lives: Actualizing Equity Through Habeas Corpus
The “Great Writ,” or the writ of habeas corpus, is the only court order enshrined in the Constitution. The Latin phrase means “you have the body,” a mandate requiring authorities to bring an inmate before the courts to assess the legality of their detention following their petition for habeas corpus. Although legal scholars have traditionally framed the writ of habeas corpus as an equitable means to protect due process, interpretations of the writ have evolved, leading to increasing restrictions on its availability.
Over the last 30 years, approximately 57 people have been denied the “Great Writ” of habeas corpus in death penalty cases because their attorneys missed deadlines to file for the process. 30 of them have been executed – the most recent being Jeffrey Hutchinson in May 2025. Hutchinson was a Gulf War Veteran who urged his attorney to act swiftly and file on his behalf, yet a combination of attorney misconduct and court error resulted in his death.
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Gatekeeping the Classroom: How Tennessee’s SB 0836 Threatens Equal Education for Undocumented Students
In 2025, although the second Trump administration made it clear that immigration enforcement would undergo stricter and more expansive measures, many underestimated the extent of the changes. By the end of January, videos and photos of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents taking alleged illegal immigrants into unmarked cars made their way into thousands of communities, spreading fear. The second Trump administration's new focus on the deportations of immigrants integrated into thousands of communities within the U.S. laid the groundwork for states that agreed with the President’s policy focus to put out bills and laws that aggressively targeted illegal immigrants in their state. In New Jersey, State Representative Paul Kanitra introduced bill A5233, otherwise known as the PLYLER Act, which aims to revise public school enrollment policies by imposing a tuition on all undocumented students. This bill asserts that education is not a constitutional right and that states should have the authority to control who qualifies for taxpayer-funded schools. Bill A5233 was referred to the New Jersey State Assembly Education Committee and remains pending in the early stages of the legislative process.
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Hamilton's Prophecy Fulfilled: The Evolution & Decline of Judicial Review
Hamilton’s objections and fears about the capabilities of the judiciary were once unsubstantiated due to the Founders’ early efforts to establish judicial oversight and review. Despite these efforts, modern-day limitations of judicial rulings—exemplified by Supreme Court decisions such as Trump v. CASA Inc.—have actualized Hamilton’s ideas about the shortcomings of the judicial branch. These decisions represent the latest phase in a centuries-long evolution of decisions that have consistently weakened judicial oversight. From the establishment of judicial review to wartime expansions of executive authority and recent constraints on the courts, this development threatens the foundational system of checks and balances and poses risks to citizens.
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Withstanding Standing Scrutiny: How Climate Litigation Can Survive Juliana’s Federal Beatdown
Unlike criminal law, where the perpetrator is often easily identifiable, it is impossible to point to a single perpetrator when it comes to the climate crisis. Rising sea levels are engulfing entire islands, homes are being levelled by extreme weather, and droughts are leaving populations in famine—yet such devastation cannot be attributed to a single person, or even to a single country. Climate change is an international problem rife with geopolitical tensions. Thus, victims of climate injury seeking redress face significant obstacles in amending these claims through the American legal system, a single jurisdiction out of countless implicated regions. While it wasn’t without its victories, the Ninth Circuit’s divided 2020 ruling in Juliana v. United States reinforced stringent federal standing requirements, effectively barring climate redress cases from succeeding in federal court for the foreseeable future. However, the success of state-level cases like Held v. Montana in establishing standing suggests a path forward for climate advocates, who may find considerable success bringing cases to state courts with environmental rights enshrined in their constitutions.
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New York University’s Data Breach Exposes The SHIELD Act and FERPA’s Illusion of Protection
On the morning of Saturday, March 22nd, 2025, New York University’s (NYU) homepage was compromised. Hackers cruised through the confidential admissions data for two hours, taking control of data from over three million applicants, all available at the touch of their fingertips. Amongst this data lay test scores, financial aid records, zip codes, and academic credentials, which the hackers worked to make accessible to the public. Students received a brief letter from NYU confirming that their personal data had been exposed, offering them a one-year subscription to an identity protection service. Further restitution was minimal, the explanations were insufficient, and the opportunity for redress was entirely obsolete.
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What Happens in the Lawsuit Stays in the Lawsuit: How the Trump V. CASA Inc. Ruling on Universal Injunctions Upsets the Balance of Powers
A law for all and a ruling for a few, the loss of universal injunctions after Trump V. CASA Inc. earlier this summer signals the arrival of a new era in utilizing universal remedies for unlawful government actions. Trump V. CASA Inc. (2025) is part of a series of lawsuits against President Donald Trump in response to Executive Order 14160 (Protecting the Meaning and Value of American Citizenship). Issued on January 20, the executive order aims to reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment and eliminate birthright citizenship for those born to parents that are not citizens or permanent lawful residents of the United States. Individuals, states, and immigrant rights organizations such as CASA sued President Trump alleging the unconstitutionality of the order. As the order was to be implemented on February 19, 2025, various plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary universal injunction—an order that both applies to all people, notwithstanding their classification as a non-party, and that halts enforcement of the executive order, which is likely to cause harm, while it is under judicial review.
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No One is Above the Law, Except Prosecutors
Philosopher and early romanticist Edmund Burke famously warned, “The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” Nowhere is this assertion more evident than within the American justice system, where ironically, sometimes the people trusted to uphold justice become the ones who betray it first. This phenomenon has become rampant throughout the United States as the justice system continues to protect the perpetrators of injustice over and over again. The case of Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington presents a prime example. In 1983, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington were convicted of murder. 25 years later, their convictions were overturned after an investigation revealed that the prosecutors suppressed evidence during trial. Despite the gravity of the misconduct, when it was time to hold the prosecutors accountable, the Supreme Court ruled that the case was not valid to bring to trial. This is just one instance of many; these incidents are a direct result of prosecutors in the United States being protected through absolute immunity from civil suits for actions that were carried out during official duties, even if these actions violate certain constitutional rights. While absolute prosecutorial immunity was originally established to preserve the independence of prosecutors, the reality of its implementation is drastically different. In reality, it acts as a safeguard for constitutional violations, threatening the integrity of the judicial system, and should be altered to ensure civil accountability during times of misconduct.
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Finality Over Fairness: The Constitutional Costs of Demanding “Actual Innocence”
In January 2025, Alvin Jardine — a Hawai‘i man wrongfully convicted in a 1990 sexual assault case — was finally able to prove his innocence in court. Despite the overturning of his conviction, however, Jardine remains uncompensated for the nearly 20 years he spent incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. Hawai‘i law mandates that compensatory relief requires proof of “actual innocence,” and so far, no exoneree has met this standard under HRS § 661B. Jardine, like others, continues to await compensation.
Requiring actual innocence in post-conviction compensation contexts flips the presumption of innocence upside down: exonerees who have shown reasonable doubt in their convictions and thereby demonstrated their non-guilt now have the burden of affirmatively proving that they did not commit the crime. This article argues such a requirement is legally onerous, ethically suspect, and practically unattainable — especially for individuals who have already endured wrongful imprisonment.
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Diplomacy Without D.C.: The Legal Case for State-Level Climate Diplomacy
U.S. constitutional doctrine has created ambiguity surrounding the nation’s capacity to implement climate action domestically. The legal instability caused by the executive branch’s ability to join or withdraw from international agreements unilaterally undermines long-term climate accountability in the court of international opinion. Specifically, the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement under President Trump, followed by reentry under President Biden, and a subsequent withdrawal from the current administration, proves the volatility of the U.S.’s approach to entering the commitment. Despite federal ambivalence, multiple states have pursued campaigns to champion Paris commitments from the ground up. These pursuits are by no means exempt from scrutiny. In response to a U.S.-filed lawsuit in 2020 over California’s cap-and-trade carbon reduction plan, Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark released the following: "The state of California has veered outside of its proper constitutional lane to enter into an international emissions agreement…The power to enter into such agreements is reserved to the federal government, which must be able to speak with one voice in the area of U.S. foreign policy.” [4] Despite federal actors under the Trump administration vehemently countering efforts by states to develop cross-border climate policies, this comment will argue that non-federal actors in the United States possess the legal autonomy to engage in the Paris Climate Agreement through subnational diplomacy, presenting a viable and often preferable alternative to federal action.
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