C-K Faculty Blog

Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation Conference

Today and tomorrow Chicago-Kent hosts the 30th annual Section 1983 Civil Rights Litigation Conference. Professor Sheldon Nahmod, a leading expert on §1983 and author of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Litigation: The Law of Section 1983, is the program chair and will present on "The Section 1983 Claim." Read more about the event below:

Liability arising out of §1983 presents a continuing challenge for all municipal lawyers, private practitioners, and litigators who try cases in this dynamic area. Keeping up with this ever-changing environment is critical. In this two-day conference, you will learn both the fundamentals and more advanced aspects of §1983 practice and trial skills, and analyze the latest judicial decisions. Visit the program website for more information and to register online. The conference meets on Thursday, April 18, from 8:50 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. and on Friday, April 19, from 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Professor Nahmod now blogs on §1983 and constitutional law at nahmodlaw.com.

Chicago-Kent Research Paper Series No. 5.4

The Chicago-Kent Research Paper Series (RPS) is an SSRN ejournal publication, distributed monthly, that highlights new abstracts, works in progress, and published articles by Chicago-Kent faculty.

The latest edition (5.4) of the RPS was distributed on April 16. This edition includes the following articles:

- From Roach Powder to Radical Humanism: Professor Derrick Bell's 'Critical' Constitutional Pedagogy (Seattle U. L. Rev., forthcoming), by Vinay Harpalani

- Sentencing the Why of White Collar Crime (82 Fordham L. Rev., forthcoming), by Todd Haugh

- Why Broccoli? Limiting Principles and Popular Constitutionalism in the Health Care Decision (61 UCLA L. Rev., forthcoming), by Mark Rosen and Christopher Schmidt

- Beyond Notice and Choice: Privacy, Norms, and Consent (Suffolk U. J. High Tech. L., forthcoming), by Richard Warner (with Robert Sloan, UIC)

Click here to see the abstract page for the Series and to subscribe to the ejournal.

Heyman to Present Article for ACS

The Chicago Lawyer Chapter and the Chicago-Kent College of Law Student Chapter of the American Constitution Society (ACS) will hear Professor Steven Heyman present his recent article, To Drink the Cup of Fury: Funeral Picketing and the First Amendment, on Thursday, April 18. Click here for more information on the presentation, and read the article abstract below:

In Snyder v. Phelps, the Supreme Court ruled that the Westboro Baptist Church had a First Amendment right to picket the funeral of a young soldier killed in Iraq. This decision reinforces a view that has become increasingly dominant in First Amendment jurisprudence — the view that the state may not regulate public discourse to protect individuals from emotional or dignitary injury. This Article contends that this view not only sacrifices the law’s protections for individual personality but also undermines the normative foundations of public discourse itself. The Article then presents an alternative theory of the First Amendment which holds that the same values of human dignity and autonomy that support free speech also give rise to other fundamental rights. Thus, speakers should have a duty to respect the personality and rights of others. Drawing extensively on the record in Snyder as well as on other materials, the Article argues that Westboro’s funeral picketing should not receive First Amendment protection, for the picketing is intended to condemn the deceased and to inflict severe distress on the mourners in violation of their rights to privacy, dignity, emotional well-being, and religious liberty. Finally, the Article shows that although Westboro prevailed in Snyder, this may prove to be a Pyrrhic victory, for the Court also suggested that states can protect mourners through carefully drawn buffer-zone laws.

Download the article from SSRN here.

Warner to Speak at Cyber Security Conference

Professor Richard Warner will speak this week at the ForenSecure'13 Cyber Security & Forensics Conference, hosted by IIT's School of Applied Technology in Wheaton.

Professor Warner will present "Data, Privacy, Security, and the Courts: Where Are We? And, How Do We Get Out of Here?" at 8:00am on Thursday, April 18. The session abstract is below:

Security experts, privacy advocates, courts, and businesses are not seeing eye to eye.  Privacy advocates call for severe restrictions on data collection, use, and retention and urge courts to see the invasion of privacy as a compensable harm.  Courts refuse to treat the mere invasion of privacy as a compensable harm unless there is an associated “present injury” (a quantifiable actual economic loss at a minimum), have not curtailed massive data collection, and have been reluctant to hold businesses liable for data breaches. Security experts emphasize importance of analyzing massive, long-term datasets to detect the anomalies that signal unauthorized access.  Businesses increasingly rely on the analysis of massive amounts of data for business planning and marketing.  The consequence is ever-diminishing privacy. We need a better tradeoff between privacy, security, and business than we have.  I identify some roads we should not take, and suggest one that we should.

Click here for the full conference schedule and for more information on participants and sponsors.

Rosado Marzán Social Media

Connect with Professor César Rosado Marzán though his new social media channels:

Click here to explore his Professor page on Facebook.

Click here to follow him on Twitter @cfrosado.

"Sifuna Okwethu" Screening, April 19

Chicago-Kent's Institute for Law and the Humanities and Documentaries to Inspire Social Change (DISC) will present a screening of Sifuna Okwethu (We Want What's Ours) on Friday, April 19. Sifuna Okwethu is an evocative 18-minute documentary film depicting one South African family’s struggle to regain their family land stolen during apartheid. The film’s director, Professor Bernadette Atuahene, will be joined by other panelists for a post-screening conversation about land dispossession in South Africa and the intractable legacy of apartheid. A reception will follow the film screening and discussion. The event is free and open to the public.

In addition to the film, Professor Atuahene is working on a forthcoming book titled We Want What’s Ours: Land Restitution in South Africa.

Andrews on Human Gene Patenting

Professor Lori Andrews was interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio today about human gene patents and Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., an upcoming Supreme Court case that challenges the patentability of two genes related to breast cancer. Professor Andrews filed an amicus brief for the case, which is scheduled for argument next week before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Listen to the interview here.

PatCon 3: The Annual Patent Conference -- April 12-13

Don't miss PatCon 3, the annual Patent Conference which takes place this Friday and Saturday (April 12-13) at Chicago-Kent. See conference details below and at the conference website.

About the Conference

The Patent Conference is a cooperative effort among the University of Kansas School of Law, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, University of San Diego School of Law, and Boston College Law School to hold an annual conference where patent scholars in law, economics, management science, and other disciplines can share their research.

In 2010, the founders of PatCon—law professors David Olson, David Schwartz, Ted Sichelman and Andrew Torrance—realized that the growth and importance of research in the area of patents required an exclusive forum that would enable participants to share their research with other experts and explore links across the legal and business side of patents.

PatCon 2, hosted by Boston College Law School in May 2012, had more than 40 participants from across the country.

Distinguished panelists and speakers include:

A Debate About the Patent System
The Honorable Judge Richard Posner (7th Circuit);
Professor Richard Epstein (the Hoover Institution & New York University School of Law)

Conference Address
The Honorable Judge Richard Linn (Federal Circuit)

Plenary Session Presentation
Professor Mark Lemley (Stanford Law School);
Alan Marco (Chief Economist, USPTO);
Professor David Abrams (University of Pennsylvania Law School)

In-House Panel
Jim Trussell (Associate General Counsel & Chief IP Counsel, BP America);
Greg Steele (Division Counsel, Pharmaceutical Due Diligence, AbbVie);
Jon Wood (Chief IP Counsel, Bridgestone Americas);
Paul Rodriguez (VP and Chief IP Counsel, RR Donnelley)

PatCon 3 Sponsors:

• IIT Chicago-Kent's Center for Empirical Studies of Intellectual Property
• Cozen O'Connor
• Niro, Haller & Niro Ltd.
  

Haugh -- 'Sentencing the Why of White Collar Crime'

Visiting Assistant Professor Todd Haugh has posted a new article to SSRN titled Sentencing the Why of White Collar Crime (82 Fordham L. Rev., forthcoming).

Professor Haugh will present the article twice this month: once at The John Marshall Law School's Chicago Junior Faculty Workshop on April 5 and again at the University of St. Thomas School of Law's Spring Colloquium Series on April 11. Here is the abstract:

“So why did Mr. Gupta do it?” That question was at the heart of Judge Jed Rakoff’s recent sentencing of Rajat Gupta, a former Wall Street titan and the most high-profile insider trading defendant of the past 30 years. The answer, which the court actively sought by inquiring into Gupta’s psychological motivations, resulted in a two-year sentence, eight years less than the government requested. What was it that Judge Rakoff found in Gupta that warranted such a modest sentence? While it was ultimately unclear to the court exactly what motivated Gupta to commit such a “terrible breach of trust,” it is exceedingly clear that Judge Rakoff’s search for those motivations impacted the sentence imposed.

This search by judges sentencing white collar defendants — the search to understand the “why” motivating defendants’ actions — is what this article explores. When judges inquire into defendants’ motivations, they necessarily delve into the psychological justifications defendants employ to free themselves from the social norms they previously followed, thereby allowing themselves to engage in criminality. These “techniques of neutralization” are precursors to white collar crime, and they impact courts’ sentencing decisions. Yet the role of neutralizations in sentencing has been largely unexamined. This article rectifies that absence by drawing on established criminological theory and applying it to three recent high-profile white collar cases. Ultimately, this article concludes that judges’ search for the “why” of white collar crime, which occurs primarily through the exploration of offender neutralizations, is legally and normatively justified. While there are potential drawbacks to judges conducting these inquiries, they are outweighed by the benefits of increased individualized sentencing and opportunities to disrupt the mechanisms that make white collar crime possible.

Download the article from SSRN here.

New Posts by Felice Batlan

Felice Batlan has published two new blog posts on her new site, Thoughts on Women, Media, and the Law.

"Goodbye to All That: The Real Housewives" is a two-part critique of Bravo's "Real Housewives" television series. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.

Subscribe to Professor Batlan's blog for regular posts on topics ranging from pop culture to law.