Home – Juris

The Supreme Court’s Two Most Recent Abortion Decisions

January 19, 2022 Megan Gerges 0

Abortion has become one of the most contentious issues in contemporary American politics and court jurisprudence. The most well-known Supreme Court case–and the first–on the topic is Roe v. Wade (1973). The Court, in a 7-2 decision, held that a woman has a “fundamental right” to privacy under the Fourteenth Amendment, which extends to abortions. Roe also famously created the trimester framework. Under this framework, states are not allowed to ban or regulate abortions during the first trimester of a pregnancy. During the second trimester, states could regulate only to the extent that it is “reasonably” related to the protection of a woman’s health. During the last trimester, fetal viability, the fetus’s ability to survive outside of the womb, provides states a “compelling” interest to regulate or even prohibit abortions (with some exceptions for the life and health of the mother). Although Roe is the most famous abortion case, it […]

Is The French Secularist Tradition Compatible With A Globalized France?

January 11, 2022 Belen Bricchi 0

The French Republic is built according to three major values: liberté, égalité, fraternité—liberty, equality, fraternity—that inform the commitments of the state codified in the French Constitution. Among these commitments is the French secularist tradition termed laïcité. However, recent legal developments have called into question whether France’s secularist tradition remains effective in promoting liberty, equality, and fraternity in a country that has become increasingly globalized. On Aug. 24, 2021, France’s Constitutional Council passed the law “reinforcing the respect of the principles of the republic,” more popularly known as the law against separatism—referring to the rise of identity groups separate from the French state, commonly associated with “religious, territorial, or racial minorities in France.” This bill, first introduced after various Islamist-drivent attacks in October 2020, grants the state more power over independent organization, including greater fiscal and administrative control over cultural associations. It ultimately extends the state’s enforcement of its Republican values […]

In Re Pool

December 15, 2021 Nicole Masarova 0

Facts/Holding: On June 11, 2021, the North Carolina Supreme Court concluded that censure of Judge Pool was appropriate, following a recommendation by the Judicial Standards Commission. Censure is a formal statement of disapproval, with no physical or monetary consequences. It is a legal action often taken when a judge, cabinet member, or the president conducts themselves in a manner that violates the Code of Conduct they agree to when entering a position in government. In the case of In Re Pool, C. Randy Pool had presided over a North Carolina general district court as a judge for 18 years, serving as a Chief Judge from 2006 until his retirement in November 2019. In 2019, a woman attempted to extort former Judge Pool by threatening to share sexually explicit messages the two shared if the former judge refused to pay her $5,000. This launched an investigation by the Judicial Standards Commission, […]

Pre-Law Guide: An Interview with Pre-Law Advisor Patrice Barley

December 5, 2021 Dianne Kim 0

Summary: Dr. Patrice Barley is Duke University’s newest Pre-Law Advisor and Academic Dean. She graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Duke University School of Law in 2005 and practiced for 3 years before coming back to Duke to work at the Organization for Tropical Studies. She recently became Duke’s undergraduate Pre-Law advisor, and Juris sat down with her to discuss the resources and words of wisdom she wants to share with students interested in pursuing a career in law. The term “Pre-Law” at Duke can often be misleading––there are no required courses and a “Pre-Law track” is technically non-existent in an academic context. Dr. Barley said, “Pre-Law at Duke basically means you are on a path to figuring out if law school is the path for you during an undergraduate setting.” There is essentially no commitment attached to the term, unlike the Pre-Health track which requires a multitude of […]

H.R.4686: US Sanctions on Cambodian Military Officials

November 29, 2021 Jacob Margolis 0

On Sept. 28, 2021, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R.4686, The Cambodia Democracy Act of 2021. This bill requires that the president impose sanctions on Cambodian individuals who commit acts that directly undermine democracy. While the bill has yet to be passed by the Senate, the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control were able to impose the sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which gives the department the right to sanction individuals and entities accused of human rights violations which would include, as in this case, corruption. Such violations that the legislation describes are in reference to attempts at collusion by members of the Cambodian Ministry of National Defense, Chau Phirun and Tea Vinh. These military officials, who have most recently been stationed at the Chinese-Cambodian Ream Naval Base, allegedly inflated the costs for new construction on facilities at the base and then […]

Pre-Law Guide: An Interview with Pre-Law Advisor Patrice Barley

November 21, 2021 Dianne Kim 0

Summary: Dr. Patrice Barley is Duke University’s newest Pre-Law Advisor and Academic Dean. She graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from Duke University School of Law in 2005 and practiced for 3 years before coming back to Duke to work at the Organization for Tropical Studies. She recently became Duke’s undergraduate Pre-Law advisor, and Juris sat down with her to discuss the resources and words of wisdom she wants to share with students interested in pursuing a career in law. The term “Pre-Law” at Duke can often be misleading––there are no required courses and a “Pre-Law track” is technically non-existent in an academic context. Dr. Barley said, “Pre-Law at Duke basically means you are on a path to figuring out if law school is the path for you during an undergraduate setting.” There is essentially no commitment attached to the term, unlike the Pre-Health track which requires a multitude of […]

COP26 Recap: Renewed Urgency, But Will It Be Enough?

November 19, 2021 Erin Yu 0

The COP26 UN Climate Summit that was scheduled from Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 ran into overtime and officially ended on Nov. 13 with approximately 200 countries agreeing to an 11-page Glasgow Climate Pact that has been met with both celebration and criticism from around the world. Some of the most highly-praised commitments to come out of the summit were led by ambitious agreements on deforestation, methane, and carbon markets. More than 100 countries, notably the U.S. Brazil, China, and Russia, agreed to end deforestation by 2030. A similar commitment was made for methane emissions with more than 100 countries vowing to cut methane emissions by 30% in the next 10 years. New rules for the carbon market struck a particularly positive note for climate activists internationally. These rules aim to close loopholes in the carbon market by eliminating double counting of carbon emissions and thus keeping countries more strictly […]

The Constitutionality of Vaccine Mandates

November 17, 2021 Megan Gerges 0

It has been almost 22 months since the first U.S COVID-19 case, and the country has lost over 750,000 lives in that time span. This pandemic has not only generated massive change in how people structure their lives, but it has also raised important questions and debates about the role of government in public health and the constitutionality of certain public health measures. This past September, Joe Biden directed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a regulatory agency with the Labor Department, to require private businesses with 100 or more employees to implement either COVID-19 vaccine mandates or require weekly testing. In early November, the order was officially given. There are many angles and complexities to this policy but it raises the general constitutional question of whether the federal government has the power to implement national vaccine mandates at all. The United States has a long history of mandatory vaccines […]

Carson v. Makin

November 15, 2021 Halle Wagner 0

In a 5-4 panel on June 30, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled to reverse and remand the Montana Supreme Court’s ruling on Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. Thus, the Supreme Court concluded that tax-credit funded scholarships meant to help students attend private schools cannot exclude religious institutions from receiving funding simply because they are religious. However, next month on December 8, the Supreme Court will hear Carson v. Makin, a critical case concerning a challenge to the Maine Department of Education’s use of state tuition dollars to supplement nonsectarian schools. The justices will address the question of whether or not a state violates the constitution by operating a program providing students with money to attend private schools but inhibits them from attending schools providing religious instruction. As this question was left unresolved in Espinoza last summer, the Carson case demonstrates the potential to overturn the precedent set […]

An Epic Battle Against Apple

November 11, 2021 Isabel Rask 0

Facts of the Case Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. is a recent high-profile lawsuit involving antitrust laws in the state of California. It has the potential to pave new paths for content creation companies, such as game developers like Epic, to profit from their products without certain traditional restrictions. The story began in August 2020, when Epic Games, the owners of the extremely popular game Fortnite, created their own in-app payment system to bypass Apple’s App Store payment system. Typically, Apple takes a 30% revenue cut of any purchases made within apps, citing their role as distributors and required digital upkeep as grounds for the built-in charge. In response to Epic’s direct payment system, Fortnite was promptly removed from the App Store and Epic Games quickly filed a preliminary injunction against the tech giant. While ten counts of various kinds were levied against Apple, all but one were struck […]