Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, Pa., 141 S. Ct. 1868 (2021). I. Introduction In Fulton, both the district court and court of appeals held in favor of the defendants, citing Employment Division v. Smith as controlling precedent regarding “neutral laws of general applicability.” Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, 320 F. Supp. 3d 661, 704 (E.D.…
Year: 2022
Is Using Preferred Gender Pronouns Important in the Courtroom?
In relation to the Farmer v. Brennan, a case discussed in this blog, it is important to note that triggering language is used in the opinion, as the incorrect pronouns are used to refer to the petitioner throughout. The use of proper gender pronouns is important to nearly every person in the world. In all…
Farmers Versus the State: The Tenacious Fight for India’s Democracy
Abstract During the height of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi enacted three agricultural reform laws that adversely impacted the livelihood of Indian farmers. The three laws weakened restrictions that have protected Indian farmers from the free market for decades and consequently left them vulnerable to big corporations that would…
Wrongfully Charged
The Unreasonable Search and Seizure On January 10, 2020, a San Francisco Superior Court judge, at the request of a San Francisco Police officer, issued an arrest warrant in connection with a residential burglary. Mot. Suppress Evid. Off’d Against Def. Prelim. Hr’g, 6:1-2. The warrant listed suspects to be arrested and described a residence in…
Mandatory Minimums Require a Much-Needed Facelift
A PEAK INTO A BROKEN SYSTEM Hamedah Hassan was an overall upstanding member of our society until she became a victim of her extenuating circumstances. When Hamedah was 21 years old, she made a brave choice to flee from an extremely abusive relationship with her two children. At the time, Hamedah’s only option was to…
Communitas (IM)perfecta: How the Internal Organization of the Catholic Church Heightens Obstacles to Remedies for Clerical Sexual Assault Survivors and Recommendations to Remove These Obstacles
The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.Nelson Mandela Abstract Although the Catholic Church has been referred to as a “communitas perfecta” (the perfect community), more than 30,000 incidents of child clerical sexual abuse have been reported by survivors in the United States. The rampant sexual abuse of minors…