Federal District Court Research Articles

Will the Agency Stand Behind Me? Prosecutorial Guidance and Shifts in Organizational Sentencing in Federal Courts

Prosecutors play a large role in determining sentences and may alter their decision-making based on changes in Department of Justice (DOJ) priorities. Consequently, I use the inhabited institutions perspective to investigate whether and how a series of DOJ memos (Holder memo, Thompson memo, McNulty memo) affected sentencing severity for organizational defendants in federal courts. My analyses consist of multi-level regressions of total fine, probation length, and corporate compliance program orders using the 1992–2013 “Organizations Convicted in Federal District Courts” dataset collected by the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC). The results suggest assistant U.S attorneys adjust their approach based on departmental guidance, with punitiveness being linked towards perceived support from the main office for this behavior.

Settlement as Construct: Defining and Counting Party Resolution in Federal District Court

Settlement as Construct: Defining and Counting Party Resolution in Federal District Court

Spreading Netflix Culture Stirs a Furore

The availability of a large number of smartphones, widespread internet access and the penetration of high bandwidth, coupled with competitively priced data plans, spurred tremendous growth in the Indian media and entertainment industry, particularly in the realm of over-the-top (OTT) platforms. The demand for OTT services surged even further during the lockdown period brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The focal point of this case lies in the entry and expansion of the multinational corporation ‘Netflix’ within India. The case delves into the company’s employment of the marketing mix to address the escalating demand for the novel OTT service in India amid intensifying competition and emerging challenges. In its eagerness to produce original content, Netflix appeared to have inadvertently offended and disregarded the sentiments, religious emotions and beliefs of its audience, resulting in consumer protests. This, in turn, led to the formulation of various regulations governing the content presented on OTT platforms. Owing to its controversial and insensitive content, Netflix faced backlash in India and globally, leading to legal battles in several countries. A recent instance occurred on September 18, 2021, where Nona Gaprindashvili, a Georgian chess prodigy who made history as the world’s first female grandmaster, took legal action against Netflix for defamation and invasion of privacy. This lawsuit was filed in a federal district court in California in response to their show titled ‘Queen’s Gambit’. The core of the lawsuit revolves around a scene in the final episode of the show, wherein a radio commentator suggests that Gaprindashvili was not regarded as a significant contender by her male counterparts. The lawsuit accuses Netflix of belittling Gaprindashvili’s achievements to craft a more sensational narrative and dismissing her previous defamation claim without issuing a public apology or retraction ( https://www.npr.org/2021/09/18/1038442947/nona-gaprindashvili-netflix-lawsuit-chess-queens-gambit ).

More Recommendations for Improving Court Mediation, With a Focus on Best Practices for Preparation

Last month, author John Lande offered three steps that could help improve the court mediation experience. See “Getting Ready for Mediation Sessions: Recommendations for Federal District Court Websites and Local Rules,” 41 Alternatives 119 (September 2023) (available at https://bit.ly/3Z5wtYP). He suggested that courts use dispute system design processes to maintain their ADR policies; offer clear, easily accessible information about mediation (and provided three sample court informational forms), and require attorneys to consult with their clients and counterparts about use of mediation. Here are five more.

Students reach landmark settlement with Yale University on MH policies

Following a lawsuit filed last year by Yale University students alleging that the university has discriminated against students with mental health disabilities and, specifically, violated the Americans with Disability Act and the Affordable Care Act, a settlement agreement, filed Aug. 25, has been reached in federal district court that will also make significant revisions to undergraduate polices.

Getting Parties Ready for Mediation: Recommendations for Federal District Court Local Rules and Websites

Courts have strong interests in promoting parties' careful preparation before mediation sessions. In general, if parties are well prepared, the process is likely to achieve the goals of all the stakeholders including parties, attorneys, mediators, and the courts. Parties would be knowledgeable, confident, and assertive so that they can make decisions as well as possible. This generally would increase the likelihood that they will settle their cases and reduce the amount of time that courts spend managing and trying cases.

"Forwards, Not Backwards": How the U.S. Supreme Court May Save the Plight of Individuals with Mental Disabilities.

When federal district court Judge Carlton Reeves penned his opinion in U.S. v. Mississippi,1 the case that seemed poised to overhaul Mississippi's suffering mental health system, he began with the story of Ms. Melanie Worsham, a mental health patient, also a certified peer support specialist. Ms. Worsham works to help those like herself who suffer with lifelong serious mental illness (SMI) to "overcome the obstacles that might be getting in their way of living the life they want to live." She also assists those with SMI by aiding in "navigating the system, to find resources, and then just being moral support."2.

Hands across the Water: How the 57-Year Dispute over the Edwards Aquifer Began, Persisted, and Was Resolved

The Edwards Aquifer is the primary source of water for a region in South-Central Texas that includes San Antonio and irrigated agriculture to the west. The aquifer also contributes to surface water flow in the Guadalupe River through Comal and San Marcos Springs, which are home to endangered aquatic species. In 1956, during the multiyear Texas drought of record, Comal Springs ceased to flow initiating a multi-decadal transboundary water dispute over the aquifer. This dispute pitted urban, agricultural, and environmental interests and surface water right holders against one another. In 1993, a federal district court ruled that the Endangered Species Act required that adequate flows from the springs be ensured for the endangered species. The Texas Legislature responded to the court by establishing the Edwards Aquifer Authority to regulate groundwater withdrawals. In 2007, with a key deadline looming to create a species protection plan, the Texas Legislature intervened again and mandated that the rival regional water interests engage in a stakeholder process to develop the plan. That process, which was called the Edwards Aquifer Recovery Implementation Program, resulted in a diverse group of parties with opposing interests collaborating to develop, approve, fund, and implement the landmark Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, which is in its 10th year of implementation.

When Advocates Become Adjudicators: Tracing the Effects of Prosecutorial and Public Defense Experience on Judicial Decision Making

We assess the influence professional background – specifically, having been a prosecutor or a public defender – exerts on decision making by federal district court judges. Focusing on search and seizure cases, we analyze nearly 1500 motions to suppress evidence from 2000 to 2022. In addition to controlling for judicial ideology and a judge’s prior experience as a prosecutor or public defender, we utilize matching to address endogeneity concerns related to one’s ability to self-select into one of these positions—which may itself be influenced by that individual’s ideological predispositions. We find that having been a former prosecutor, as well as the length of time that service spans, makes a judge significantly more likely to rule against a motion to suppress. Former public defenders are significantly more likely to grant that suppression motion, though their propensity to do so is not affected by the length of time served in that capacity.

Cost-Free Preventive Care Under the ACA Faces Legal Challenge

This Viewpoint examines the recent decision by a federal district court that undercuts the Affordable Care Act’s mandate for cost-free coverage of preventive services, including contraception, some vaccinations, many screenings, and preexposure prophylaxis for HIV, among others.

Racial bias as a multi‐stage, multi‐actor problem: An analysis of pretrial detention

AbstractAfter arrest, criminal defendants are often detained before trial to mitigate potential risks to public safety. There is widespread concern, however, that detention decisions are biased against racial minorities. When assessing potential racial discrimination in pretrial detention, past studies have typically worked to quantify the extent to which the ultimate judicial decision is conditioned on the defendant's race. Although often useful, this approach suffers from three important limitations. First, it ignores the multi‐stage nature of the pretrial process, in which decisions and recommendations are made over multiple court appearances that influence the final judgment. Second, it does not consider the multiple actors involved, including prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges, each of whom have different responsibilities and incentives. Finally, a narrow focus on disparate treatment fails to consider potential disparate impact arising from facially neutral policies and practices. Addressing these limitations, here we present a framework for quantifying disparate impact in multi‐stage, multi‐actor settings, illustrating our approach using 10 years of data on pretrial decisions from a federal district court. We find that Hispanic defendants are released at lower rates than white defendants of similar safety and nonappearance risk. We trace these disparities to decisions of assistant US attorneys at the initial hearings, decisions driven in part by a statutory mandate that lowers the procedural bar for moving for detention of defendants in certain types of cases. We also find that the Pretrial Services Agency recommends detention of Black defendants at higher rates than white defendants of similar risk, though we do not find evidence that these recommendations translate to disparities in actual release rates. Finally, we find that traditional disparate treatment analyses yield more modest evidence of discrimination in pretrial detention outcomes, highlighting the value of our more expansive analysis for identifying, and ultimately remediating, unjust disparities in the pretrial process. We conclude with a discussion of how risk‐based threshold release policies could help to mitigate observed disparities, and the estimated impact of various policies on violation rates in the partner jurisdiction.

The Drone Star State: How a Challenge to Texas Drone Law Became the Latest Battleground Between the First Amendment and the Right to Privacy

Texas is unconstitutionally infringing upon the First Amendment in the form of its overly restrictive drone regulations. While the state originally set out to create a robust privacy law providing maximum protection to its citizens, its overbroad statute instead produced the latest constitutional conflict between two of our nation’s oldest and most sacred rights. For almost a decade, Texas drone law stood unchallenged, garnering the state a reputation as arguably the least friendly jurisdiction for drone journalism. These regulations, however, have never been more vulnerable. There is a constitutional challenge unfolding in federal district court that, if successful, will redefine the scope of freedom of the press in Texas. While the state’s goal of safeguarding Texans’ privacy is admirable, there are better ways to accomplish that goal than what is currently employed. The First Amendment protects perhaps the most inalienable right of American citizens. If that is to remain the case, Texas drone law must be changed.

Picketing Against Porn in Mesquite: Community Values vs. "Satan's Library"

Abstract: In the spring of 1993 the opening of Pure Pleasure Book Store in Mesquite, Nevada, met with protests from many of the citizens of Virgin Valley in southeast Nevada. The conservative and church-going community rallied around members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) who objected to what they saw as an affront to the moral standards of the community and the dangers that pornography presented to children and families. The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce formed an organization with the acronym HOME, Help Our Moral Environment, to fight for the closure of the bookstore. HOME attracted support from the citizens of the valley and neighboring communities in Utah who volunteered to serve on picket lines near the store with signs denouncing pornography. Store owners asserted their right to free speech and kept the doors open while challenging a zoning ordinance in the courts that was passed by the City of Mesquite which prohibited such businesses. As the courts deliberated, picketing continued for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for two and a half years. On March 27, 1996, in Las Vegas Federal District Court, Judge Phillip Pro ruled in favor of the City of Mesquite to close the offending business under the authority of its zoning ordinance.

Ruminations on the Global Reach of the Tahoe Crayfish

Abstract: In the spring of 1993 the opening of Pure Pleasure Book Store in Mesquite, Nevada, met with protests from many of the citizens of Virgin Valley in southeast Nevada. The conservative and church-going community rallied around members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) who objected to what they saw as an affront to the moral standards of the community and the dangers that pornography presented to children and families. The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce formed an organization with the acronym HOME, Help Our Moral Environment, to fight for the closure of the bookstore. HOME attracted support from the citizens of the valley and neighboring communities in Utah who volunteered to serve on picket lines near the store with signs denouncing pornography. Store owners asserted their right to free speech and kept the doors open while challenging a zoning ordinance in the courts that was passed by the City of Mesquite which prohibited such businesses. As the courts deliberated, picketing continued for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for two and a half years. On March 27, 1996, in Las Vegas Federal District Court, Judge Phillip Pro ruled in favor of the City of Mesquite to close the offending business under the authority of its zoning ordinance.

Picketing Against Porn in Mesquite: Community Values vs. “Satan’s Library”

Abstract: In the spring of 1993 the opening of Pure Pleasure Book Store in Mesquite, Nevada, met with protests from many of the citizens of Virgin Valley in southeast Nevada. The conservative and church-going community rallied around members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons) who objected to what they saw as an affront to the moral standards of the community and the dangers that pornography presented to children and families. The Mesquite Chamber of Commerce formed an organization with the acronym HOME, Help Our Moral Environment, to fight for the closure of the bookstore. HOME attracted support from the citizens of the valley and neighboring communities in Utah who volunteered to serve on picket lines near the store with signs denouncing pornography. Store owners asserted their right to free speech and kept the doors open while challenging a zoning ordinance in the courts that was passed by the City of Mesquite which prohibited such businesses. As the courts deliberated, picketing continued for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for two and a half years. On March 27, 1996, in Las Vegas Federal District Court, Judge Phillip Pro ruled in favor of the City of Mesquite to close the offending business under the authority of its zoning ordinance.

Examining the Sentencing of American Indian Women in U.S. Federal District Courts

Prior sentencing research has examined the treatment of White, Black, and Hispanic defendants; however, little attention has been paid towards other racial/ethnic groups, like American Indian defendants. Moreover, a majority of sentencing research has focused men’s outcomes, disregarding the treatment and outcomes of women. Therefore, this paper examines the outcomes of American Indian women in federal district courts using United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) data from FY2015 to FY2019. We situate our research within an intersectional framework and use the chivalry, evil women, and focal concerns perspectives to understand the sentencing outcomes of American Indian women. Our results indicate that American Indian women are similarly disadvantaged at the incarceration, and sentence length decisions as other racial/ethnic groups.

Anti-discrimination jurisprudence: US v. Carrillo-Lopez

In August 2021, a U.S. Federal District Court ruled that §1326 of the Immigration Naturalization Act (INA) which criminalizes illegal reentry violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fifth Amendment because it has disparate impact upon and discriminatory intent against Mexican and Latinx individuals. While §1326 has been unsuccessfully challenged in numerous other federal courts, US v. Carrillo-Lopez stands out in its originality of interpretation regarding the discriminatory intent of a federal statute. In this case commentary, the reasoning of the case will be explicated, followed by an analysis of the unique statutory interpretation applied within the context of discriminatory intent doctrine.

HOW THE SUPREME COURT DISTORTED TEXT, IGNORED HISTORY, AND GASLIGHTED THE BOLD PROMISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1866 A Comcast Case Study

HOW THE SUPREME COURT DISTORTED TEXT, IGNORED HISTORY, AND GASLIGHTED THE BOLD PROMISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1866 A <i>Comcast</i> Case Study

Supreme Court’s Splitting of the ‘Jurisdictional Atom’ Threatens to Blow up the Federal Arbitration Act

A recent US Supreme Court decision sharply narrows the jurisdiction of federal district courts to administer arbitration matters under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). When a federal district determines whether it has subject-matter jurisdiction to compel arbitration, it may take into consideration both the petition to compel arbitration and the underlying dispute. This is known as the ‘look through approach’ because the court can look beyond the pending motion to the underlying case. Recently, the US Supreme Court ruled that the look through approach cannot be used when the federal court is asked to confirm or vacate an arbitral award. This can produce the incongruous result that a federal district court could have the authority to compel an arbitration but not to confirm the resulting award. The US Supreme Court left for future determination the question of whether the look through approach can be used for other judicial functions under the FAA such as appointment of the arbitrator.

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States

“If That Be Treason, Let Them Make the Most of It!”: Olin Downes, the Spanish Civil War, and Civil Liberties in the United States