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 Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. Yet another of Donald Trump’s vocal surrogates has dipped into the United States’ racist past to justify one of the President-elect’s prospective policy proposals— this time, a national registry of Muslim immigrants. In an interview with Megyn Kelly, Carl Higbie, president of the pro-Trump group Great America PAC, cited internment of “the Japanese” during World War II as legal “precedent” for requiring people visiting or emigrating from Muslim-majority countries to register with a database. At Kelly’s almost incredulous rebuke, Higbie quickly clarified that he was not “at all” suggesting the country reinstate internment camps, but that he would support “having people that are not protected under our Constitution have some sort of registry so we can understand — until we can identify the true threat and where it’s coming from…” [1] We should note that there are two glaring problems with Higbie’s remarks: first, as Kelly implies, it is logically spurious to defend the morality of a proposition— in this case, the Muslim registry— by analogizing it with what one supposedly regards as its morally indefensible antecedent— Japanese internment. Either Higbie mistakenly employed internment as precedent, or his adamant dissociation from it is insincere. Second and perhaps more concerning, however, is Higbie’s misstatement of history: during World War II, the United States government interned not the Japanese, but Americans of Japanese descent. Indeed, it was Fred Korematsu, a native Californian and Japanese-American, who sued the government over his displacement in the landmark case Korematsu v. United States, where the Supreme Court judged the forced internment of Japanese-Americans constitutional. [2] Intentionally or not, Higbie’s analogy conflates the Muslim immigrants he hopes to monitor with ethnically Japanese, constitutionally protected, American citizens. In this sense, the ignorance of Mr. Trump’s surrogate nourishes a cultural conception of non-white people— regardless of their citizenship status— as the fundamentally un-American “other.” Echoing the sentiment latent in his surrogate’s speech is the President-elect himself, specifically as he indiscriminately labeled Mexican-Americans rapists and murders while exploiting a judge’s Mexican heritage to invalidate his legal opinion. [3, 4] From his campaign’s inception, Mr. Trump began to facilitate further the already prominent ostracism of non-white Americans, positioning his surrogate’s casual treatment of forced internment within a much larger narrative of cultural exclusion. Thus, Trump and his followers live in a universe where a person’s legal status matters not, where people of non-white ethnic origins are perennially foreign.
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 By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up.” [1] So pledged Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on a Philadelphia radio station, largely in an effort to convince fellow Republicans to reelect incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA). It seems, however, that McCain’s promise served only to reinforce Democrats’ allegations of hyper-partisanship in the GOP, especially following Senate Republicans’ refusal to consider President Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. McCain’s office quickly argued that his remarks were grounded in Sec. Clinton’s “clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees.” [2] Liberal judicial nominees? What else would McCain expect from the nominee of the Democratic Party? The Senator’s preemptive dismissal of any “liberal judicial nominee” seems to exclude almost anyone Ms. Clinton would reasonably nominate. Furthermore, Democrats could employ McCain’s logic to justify obstructing the judicial nominees of a potential Republican president. In a political climate that essentially forces political leaders to focus on the demands of their party’s ideological base, it is easy to label a prospective judge as “too liberal” or “overly conservative.” As difficult as it is to believe in the era of Donald Trump, there will be another Republican president, perhaps immediately succeeding Hillary Clinton. If Republicans set the precedent of opposing judicial nominees on a purely ideological basis, Democrats would likely continue it, rendering the judicial confirmation process an almost completely partisan enterprise. Given the filibuster rules of the Senate, it would take a supermajority (sixty senators) to quell the resistance of a united, persistent minority.  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania American capitalists have long touted “consumer choice” as the bedrock of our economy. The belief that it is the consumer’s prerogative to purchase goods willingly from producers seems to be the central tenet underlying a “free enterprise” system. If this is the case, it would seem logical that the American legal system should function, in part, as a remedy for consumers who feel that their right to “choice” has been at all corrupted. While this ideal of legal recourse applies more generally to any situation in which a person seeks restitution for injustice, its economic manifestation seems particularly pertinent in an ever-expanding global financial system. Consider, for instance, Wells Fargo. Recently, the bank fell under regulatory scrutiny after it opened millions of bank and credit card accounts for its existing customers without their consent to meet goals from upper management. The bank then charged these customers fees associated with the fraudulent accounts, essentially forcing them to pay for financial services they never intended to purchase. [1] Pursuant to our understanding of consumer choice and its importance, it is easy to argue that Wells Fargo committed a serious injustice against its customers, violating the implicit terms of the aforementioned producer-consumer relationship. From a practical, legal standpoint, it is within the right of the wronged consumers to demand redress from the perpetrator of fraud—in this case, Wells Fargo.  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. If you ask an ordinary American, he/she might tell you that slavery is illegal in the United States-- and has been for quite a while. But the reality is that’s not entirely true. Interestingly enough, the Thirteenth Amendment, historically recognized as the formal end to slavery, actually permits involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. It states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” [1] The qualifier to the slavery ban is thus the ultimate legal authorization of forced, unpaid prison labor. Furthermore, courts have ruled that national labor standards, most significantly the Fair Labor Standards Act, do not protect prison inmates because they do not constitute “employees” as the legislation defines them. [2] Unsurprisingly, the unprotected labor of prison workers is rewarded with wages far below $7.25 per hour, which is the current national minimum wage. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, federal prisoners who work-- by mandate-- for UNICOR, a government-owned corporation that sells goods made by prisoners, make from $0.23 to $1.15 per hour of labor. [3] UNICOR doesn’t seem to dispute the low wages it pays prisoners;in a FAQ concerning the corporation’s alleged unfair market advantage, the website casually admits that its workers “are paid considerably less than minimum wage.” [4]  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a rising sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania. The fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution is undoubtedly a critical safeguard of personal liberty against governmental overreach. It states that citizens have rights to be “secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Together with the Fifth and Sixth amendments, it plays a crucial role in establishing the exclusionary rule, which bars unconstitutionally obtained evidence from being introduced in court. [1] Recently, however, the Supreme Court dealt a consequential blow to both the Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule in Utah v. Schrieff. In 2006, Salt Lake City police arrested Edward Strieff for possession of methamphetamine and paraphernalia. What distinguishes Mr. Strieff’s arrest is that the police officer who searched him for the drugs did not have probable cause to conduct the search. Rather, the officer observed Strieff leave a house where an anonymous tip reported drug activity. When Strieff identified himself for the police, they found an outstanding warrant for a traffic violation, performed a search and found the drugs. [2] Strieff sued, alleging that the officer violated his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures”; thus, the evidence produced from the search would be inadmissible. [3]  President Obama’s recent visit to Cuba marks a significant turning point in the U.S.-Cuban relationship and, more importantly, the beginning of the end to one of the few remaining relics of the Cold War. Abolishing the trade embargo, which President Obama says the U.S. intends to do, would be the ultimate sign of normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States. [1] Yet, aside from the embargo, there remains a crucial piece of Cuba legislation on the books: the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA).
The CAA, signed into law in 1966 by President Lyndon Johnson, allows for the U.S Attorney General to “grant permanent residence to Cuban natives or citizens applying for a green card” who meet the conditions of having lived in the United States for at least one year, having been “admitted or paroled” and are “admissible as immigrants.” [2] The law’s initial purpose was to provide a haven for Cuba’s political refugees, escaping from the Communist regime of Fidel, and now Raul, Castro. Nevertheless, as the amount of political refugees coming from Cuba has dwindled and an increasing number of Cubans come to the U.S. for economic reasons, the law’s future is a matter of contentious debate. [3] Many Cuban-Americans, including Congressman Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) have called on Congress and the President to reform the Act, citing its frequent abuse by Cubans looking to take advantage of American welfare benefits. [4] Interestingly, the most passionate advocates for reforming the CAA are strongly opposed to normalizing relations between Cuba and the United States and believe Castro’s government to be politically repressive. For them, reforming the Act means making it possible only for victims of political persecution to take advantage of its protections.  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. With the 2016 Presidential primary contests well under way, anything with the name “Trump” emblazoned on it is likely to elicit ire in both liberals and conservatives. The now defunct Trump Entrepreneur Initiative, formerly known as Trump University, is no exception. Recently, a court allowed a $40 million suit filed against the “university” by the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to proceed, suggesting that the real estate mogul’s legal woes are far from over. [1] But what exactly is Mr. Trump being accused of? Let us examine the case against him and his defense. Schneiderman first claims that Trump was never allowed to label his initiative a “university” as he lacked approval from the New York State Department of Education, but did so regardless. While Trump later removed the word from the title of his educational exploit, the initiative still functioned illegally in the years prior to the name-change. Furthermore, Schneiderman contends, Trump encouraged his customers to sign up for expensive seminars with “hand-picked” experts in real estate, to “be taught Donald Trump’s very own real estate strategies and techniques.” [2] Yet, according to the Attorney General, Trump neither selected nor verified the instructors, many of whom had no experience in real estate whatsoever. [3] The Attorney General’s office called Trump’s purported deceit a “bait-and-switch” scam, whereby, according to Vox’s Libby Nelson, “people are told that the real benefits they want are only available if they keep paying, essentially urging them to throw good money after bad.” [4] [5] The Trump University students signed up for free initial seminars, but were told that in order to acquire the real-estate techniques, they would need to sign up for a $1,495 three-day seminar.  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. If there was one emotion that Adam McKay’s film The Big Short was designed to evoke in its viewers, it was anger. What could be more detestable than a gang of greedy bankers tricking Mom and Pop into taking out a faulty mortgage and subsequently profiting on their default? The viewer further ponders how our government could watch such avarice bring down the entire U.S. economy and pursue so little punishment and such meager reform. Despite the indignation we feel as consumers touched by the crisis, it remains our responsibility to consider it carefully, unbeholden to the collective allure of Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt. So before we run to pillage the nearest bank, let’s examine the central question the film attempts to answer: how did the Great Recession come to be?  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. On September 25th, 2013, Laporshia Massey, a student at West Philadelphia’s Bryant Elementary School, alerted school officials that she was having trouble breathing. The school called her father to inform him that his daughter was feeling sick but could remain in school. When he picked her up after school that day, he immediately rushed her to the hospital but it was too late: Laporshia died, and not from any obscure, incurable malady, but from an asthma attack. Her life could have been saved, but no one at the school was trained to recognize her symptoms and know the proper medical response. Why? The School District of Philadelphia couldn’t afford a full-time nurse. [1] In Philadelphia public schools, shortages in critical school personnel are commonplace: few schools can afford guidance counselors, social workers, arts programs, or even paper. Earlier this year, Emma Brown of The Washington Post compared the resources of two high schools in the Philadelphia area: one, a school in the sprawling suburb of Lower Merion, which could afford to provide students with personal computers and fund comprehensive arts education; the other, a West Philadelphia high school, which could not even afford to provide the students with paper (unless the teachers bought it with money from their own pockets), let alone a social worker, and provided the students with almost no artistic instruction. [2] The educational disparity in Pennsylvania is irrefutable, as recent data show that “school districts with the highest poverty rates here receive one-third fewer state and local tax dollars, per pupil, than the most affluent districts.” [3] The reason behind this failure is rather simple: school funding is largely based on the amount of property tax collected in each school district. For districts with higher property values, and ipso facto high-income households, the property tax revenue is greater, and thus yields more school funding. Therefore, students in low-income districts are significantly disadvantaged in terms of their education. [4]  By Derek Willie
Derek Willie is a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania. When something threatens the safety of Americans, the government always responds quickly, sometimes even wantonly, to the threat. The most prominent twenty-first century example of this is undoubtedly the USA PATRIOT Act, passed just two months after the attacks of September 11, 2001. [1] More than eighty percent of the House of Representatives endorsed the measure despite widespread reservations about the law’s constitutionality. [2] It seems reasonable then to assume that the federal government would pursue some sort of action to curb gun violence, which killed ten times more people in 2001 than 9/11 and other attacks branded as terrorism. In fact, more Americans were slaughtered by Adam Lanza at Newtown in 2012 than by all of the terrorist acts of 2013 combined. [3] Nevertheless, Congress has done nothing to prevent gun violence, even in the wake of so many mass shootings. Some lawmakers, whom many consider beholden to the National Rifle Association (NRA), balk at any attempt to institute more gun safety laws, claiming that the Second Amendment forbids further gun regulation. Yet how can the same lawmakers who supported a partly unconstitutional law as an effort to keep Americans safe oppose gun laws serving the same purpose, whose constitutionality still remains disputed? It thus becomes our objective to discern whether these constitutional objections are valid or whether they are merely talking points of an uncompromising gun lobby. |
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