The Roundtable
Welcome to the Roundtable, a forum for incisive commentary and analysis
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
on cases and developments in law and the legal system.
 By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying English. As if newspapers didn’t have a variety of other issues to worry about, the 2016 presidential election has brought the scourge of litigation threats, courtesy of Republican nominee Donald Trump. Before entering the political arena, Trump had repeatedly sued journalists (and threatened many more with lawsuits) over representations he deemed unfair. [1] While the fall of Gawker Media may suggest otherwise, two recent newspaper scoops about Trump have reiterated the limits of litigation against media organizations and the steep threshold for holding reporters accountable in court. The first is The New York Times’ uncovering of pages from Trump’s 1995 tax returns and the second is the Washington Post’s publication of a 2005 video of Trump describing women in ugly, lewd terms. First, let’s address the elephant in the room: Gawker’s collapse came about due to litigation, but its cardinal sin, according to the Florida state court, was “invasion of privacy,” for the posting of a sex tape wrestler Hulk Hogan had hoped to keep far away from the public eye. [2] Donald Trump’s mere involvement in the issue would already make the standard of publication much more lenient, as private information pertaining to him is undoubtedly much more concerning to the public than anything involving a professional wrestler. The circumstances surrounding both cases, while widely challenged by Trump as unethical, would leave virtually no room open for litigation on Trump’s part.
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 By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a junior at the University of Pennsylvania studying English. It seems surprising that Democratic Governor Tom Wolf and the Republican-heavy Pennsylvania state legislature could ever land on the same side of an issue involving education funding, but a recent lawsuit has done just that. In mid-September, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania heard oral arguments in the case of William Penn School District v. Pennsylvania Department of Education, a reprise of sorts of a similar case dismissed by a Pennsylvania appellate court in April of 2015. [1] Over a year ago, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania dismissed the case, which accused the state’s education funding system — determined in amounts voted on and allotted by state legislators — in a move Wolf and his opponents supported. While the Democratic governor and his Republican legislature went 267 days without a budget, the longest time the state has ever gone without one, both sides were unwilling to cede ground for political debate to the high court. [2]  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English. The Philadelphia School District is an unwieldy beast. Shaped by the city’s changing demographics and plagued by everlasting issues of debt, student violence, and crumbling infrastructure, it’s long been a body that requires active oversight. That job, the purview of the five-member School Reform Commission (SRC), just got significantly more complex. In a landmark ruling on Feb. 18, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the SRC cannot suspend portions of the state school code and charter law, as it had been doing since its formation in 2001. The result raises a couple quick questions for the interested observer:  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. It’s strange, undemocratic, and every four years, it’s first. Why, many casual political observers ask, has the Iowa caucus become a staple of the American presidential election cycle? With all respect to Iowans, what makes their state special enough to merit nonstop national media attention, county-by-county visits by the candidates, and an undeniable ability to boost candidates to unlikely success, from Jimmy Carter in 1976 to Barack Obama thirty-two-years later? At least the Electoral College, the other antiquated American voting institution, is rooted in the Constitution. Where did the Iowa caucus system come from? To answer that question we must look back to the 1968 Democratic National Convention, when the presidential nomination system became radically democratized. Since the emergence of the two modern major political parties in the mid-19th century, party bosses generally commandeered the primary process to select their preferred nominee. Pressure during the Progressive Era encouraged some parties to open up their delegate selection to voters through state primaries, but even this process failed to stop Democrat Adlai Stevenson from earning his party’s nomination in 1952 despite not participating in a single primary. At the contentious 1968 convention, the Party selected Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who was in support of continuing the Vietnam War, as the nominee despite nearly two-thirds of party members voicing support for antiwar candidates Sen. Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated a month before the convention. Regulations adopted after the convention resulted in the nationalization of state primaries to select delegates to the convention. A process once decided by party bigwigs at closed-door meetings now incorporated the party membership at large, but the rules still had problems. States were permitted to craft their own nomination procedures and most states, like New Hampshire, just reinstituted their primaries and enfranchised normal party members. Iowa opted for something different.  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. Months before the much-anticipated July 2015 release of Go Set a Watchman, the misbegotten early draft of Harper Lee’s classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, publisher HarperCollins released a statement from the author, which stated, “I’m alive and kicking and happy as hell with the reactions to ‘Watchman.’” [1] Lee’s well-known repudiation of the possibility of publishing any follow-up novels to To Kill a Mockingbird makes her words, if not completely surprising, seem a bit forced. Go Set a Watchman would, as the New York Times wrote after the book’s publication, make “an abrupt turnaround for an author who had said she did not intend to publish another work and then, late in life, agreed to venture out with a book that had initially been dismissed as an ambitious but disjointed first draft.” [2] Could it be that her lawyer duped the literary stalwart in her old age? Lee had originally written Watchman, which features beloved characters like Scout and Atticus Finch and is set decades after the storyline of Mockingbird, as an early draft of Mockingbird in 1957. The original manuscript caught the eye of Therese von Hohoff Torrey, an agent at the now-defunct publishing company, J.B. Lippincott. [3] Torrey urged Lee to revise the novel, ultimately giving rise to the seminal 1960 tale of racism in a small Southern town. Nothing in the years since Mockingbird’s runaway success suggested that Lee wanted to revisit the book’s earlier iteration. It doesn’t take more than a shade of skepticism to wonder… why publish Watchman now, when, according to her sister, Lee “can’t see and can’t hear and will sign anything put before her by anyone in whom she has confidence,”? [4]  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. Christianity is a religion of radical forgiveness. Beginning with Jesus’s prescient statement to the flock of people rushing to stone an adulteress: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” Christian tradition encouraged forgiveness. [1] Modern examples often run counter to our natural instinct for revenge and anger. This past June, in Charleston, South Carolina, Dylann Storm Roof killed nine people at a Bible study in the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. [2] At Roof’s arraignment hearing, survivors and their families shocked the nation with their gentle words of forgiveness. [3] “You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people. But God forgives you and I forgive you,” said Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, a tragic victim of the shooting. [4] Forgiveness is not only an incredibly powerful and beautiful Christian tradition, but also allows those affected by atrocities to begin to move on from their horrifying experiences. However, what happens when forgiveness preempts legal punishment or even helps a perpetrator evade punishment? What if a magistrate decided that Roof was sincerely remorseful of his actions and let him off without punishment? Despite the victims’ friends and family members’ willingness to forgive him, they would nevertheless demand justice for the immoral decision. But, to extend this metaphor, what if Roof was really, really sorry and even ritualized his remorse?  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. Just weeks before his historic visit to the United States, Pope Francis declared that, beginning in December 2015, the “sin of abortion” could now be forgiven through the sacrament of confession during the Church’s Holy Year of Mercy. [1] Putting aside differences in opinion regarding both whether a priest—as an earthly representative of Jesus Christ—can wipe the human soul clean of sins sincerely confessed and the controversial nature of abortion, forgiveness extended to all is a comforting thought. Thus, following this line of logic, shouldn’t it be good news that abortion can now be forgiven? Wait a second — was it not forgivable in the past? Did women who previously chose the path of abortion and asked for Catholic absolution, just…not receive it? So begins a deep dive into an obscure section of Catholic canon law: the forgiveness of “reserved sins.” The Church determined in 1179 that certain sins are simply too devastating in effect or import to be forgiven by a regular priest in Confession. Instead, they required the decision of a tribunal — the Apostolic Penitentiary — and usually the consultation of the pope himself before granting absolution. [2] These crimes are generally specific in nature, and lean toward religious crimes rather than worldly ones. Crimes ranging from attempting to assassinate the pope to defiling the Eucharist, the bread and wine that Catholics believe turns into Jesus’ body and blood during Mass, will all earn reviews by the tribunal. Similarly, abortion, of which many conservative Catholics have long disapproved, is another sin often determined to be too grave for regular absolution. These crimes earn the individual a latae sententiae penalty, which automatically excommunicates her from the Church, unless a bishop or the Apostolic Penitentiary absolves the sin. [3] The determination of which sins merit latae sententiae reveals a troubling moral dichotomy in which cold-blooded murder can be uniformly absolved by an everyday priest, but abortion, whose relationship with murder remains highly controversial, cannot. The distinction almost defies common sense.  Warning: This blog post discusses sexual violence.
By Dan Spinelli Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying English and Political Science. For such a wildly popular TV show, Game of Thrones sure inspires a lackluster worldview. Tim Surette of TV.com may have put it best when summing up the show’s Season 5 finale as “Life sucks, and then you die.” Yes, life sucks for most people in this faux-medieval world, soon to experience winter and the typical round of ice zombies that accompany it. But for whom does life suck the most? The Season 5 finale, which featured a major female character enduring an eight-minute nude walk of shame, answered the question more poignantly than even the show’s questionable portrayals of sexual violence ever could: women — because of their femininity and in a direct attempt to deny them agency — endure the most uniquely awful punishment.[1] The brutal misogyny underlying medieval punishment is of little surprise to anyone, and hardly worthy of even argument. But the way fantasy series like Game of Thrones use the Middle Ages (plus or minus a couple dragons) as their setting reveal the contradictions — and unbridled, unrelenting misogyny — fueling medieval punishment of women.  Warning: This post discusses epithets that may be offensive or disturbing to some readers.
By Dan Spinelli Dan Spinelli is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). On June 23, 2007, longtime television anchor Tom Burlington walked into an editorial meeting along with eight other personnel. Burlington, a weekend anchor and reporter at Fox 29 — the Philadelphia affiliate of Fox News — joined his colleagues in a discussion of a segment regarding the “symbolic burial” of the n-word by the Philadelphia Council of the NAACP.[1] While discussing the story, Burlington — a white male — asked, “Does this mean we can finally say the word n-----?” Nearly eight years after the meeting, Burlington, 53, argued in a federal racial discrimination suit that his use of that racial epithet cost him his job and his reputation. He sought damages from the station for firing him on July 12 of that year, weeks after the editorial meeting. Earlier this month, Burlington testified in federal district court in Philadelphia that he has been unable to acquire another job in broadcast journalism after being fired from Fox 29. “The hardest part is my children,” he said in court. “They’ll believe I’m a racist.”[2]  By Dan Spinelli
Dan Spinelli is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania studying Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). Libel, the publication of false statements defamatory to one’s character, is one of the most inscrutable areas of constitutional law. Laws surrounding libel and slander, the spoken form of libel, often provoke some of the judicial system’s most eccentric cases. This article will trace the developments in libel law over the past half-century by focusing on the landmark 1987 Supreme Court case of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell, and discuss a more recent controversy involving comedienne Sarah Silverman and rapper Eminem. Hustler Magazine opened up the floodgates for defamation of public figures through a quite humorous case. After discovering his scandalous portrayal in the magazine, Reverend Jerry Falwell sued Hustler. [1] Falwell was a figurehead of the “moral majority” movement of the 1980’s that aligned the Republican Party with the Christian right. His notoriety made him an easy target for controversial publications like Hustler. In one issue, Hustler ran a parody feature discussing the “first times” of different celebrities, and depicted Falwell’s first time as a “drunken incestuous rendezvous with his mother in an outhouse.” [2] This evidently outrageous piece enraged Falwell, who sued Hustler for defamation of character. |
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