April 2017
MTV – 04.27.17
LATASHA HARLINS, AMERICAN GIRL
Karlin sentenced Du to five years of probation, 400 hours of community service, a small fine, and no prison time. Speaking 25 years after Harlins's death at an event held last month at the Hammer Museum, Loyola Law School professor Priscilla Ocen argued that the court proceedings were marred by the same social disdain that motivated Du's fatal act of racial profiling: "When I see that case … one of the things that strikes me is the way in which anti-black bias, anti-black-girl bias, is embedded in the jury's verdict and is embedded in the judge's decision to grant Soon Ja Du probation."
The Surly Subgroup – 04.25.17
TRUMP’S BACK-TO BASICS TAX PLAN: IT’S TREMENDOUS!
Aren’t we all wondering what President Trump’s big tax reform announcement will be tomorrow? Loyola Los Angeles Tax LLM student Anosh Ali ventured a tongue-in-cheek guess in a short memo he wrote in Katie Pratt’s Tax Policy class. We’ll see tomorrow how good a prognosticator Anosh is.
WNIJ-FM – 04.25.17
ILLINOIS DEMOCRATS GUARD DISTRICT-DRAWING PRIVILEGES
“I don’t think just setting something up and calling it a commission is the answer to all of the problems,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “Depending on how you structure it, it can help accomplish different things. Not all commissions are the same and they’re designed for different purposes.”
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance – 04.24.17
Taking the "no" side was Lauren Willis, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. Willis writes that "compared with the salesperson across the table, consumers will never be as knowledgeable about financial products and services." As a result, "making personal finance courses a college requirement sends a message that financial success is largely the result of personal decisions"; in reality, she says, "government policies have a vastly greater effect than personal financial acumen on Americans' financial health."
La Opinión – 04.23.17
CASI 19 AÑOS DESPUÉS, INMIGRANTE RECUPERA LIBERTAD POR CRIMEN QUE NO COMETIÓ (Almost 19 Years Later, Immigrant Regains Freedom for Crime He Did Not Commit)
"I was accused of a crime I did not commit, a shootout where there were no deaths or injuries. They gave me a sentence of 49 years to life.” If it were not for the Loyola Law School Project for the Innocent, he would still be in detention, Ponce, 38, tells La Opinión in a telephone interview.
KCAL-TV – 04.23.17
HOW FRENCH ELECTION MAY IMPACT U.S. (password required)
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Jessica Levinson discusses Marine Le Pen and how the French presidential election could shape U.S. politics.
Voice of San Diego – 04.21.17
SACRAMENTO REPORT: CALGANG REFORMS MOVE FORWARD, BUT THERE’S COMPETITION
Weber’s bill would give oversight control of CalGang to the state Department of Justice; Mendoza’s would create a new entity made up largely of law enforcement officials. That worries Marissa Montes, co-director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at Loyola Law School, who testified this week in support of Weber’s bill.
KPCC-FM – 04.21.17
L.A. MAYOR GARCETTI ANNOUNCES CITY BUDGET
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Jessica Levinson previews the mayor’s budget announcement.
The city could take out a loan, and we’ve done it before. We borrow in the form of floating bonds.
Reuters – 04.20.17
GROUP SUES TRUMP FOR REPEALING U.S. WILDLIFE RULE IN RARE LEGAL CHALLENGE
The CRA, drafted in 1996, has a structure and language that abide by what the U.S. Supreme Court said in the case INS v. Chadha, likely making it constitutional, said Karl Manheim, professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Times – 04.20.17
There’s illegal corruption, which is incredibly difficult to prove,” says Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor who specializes in politics and is president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission. “Then there’s personal corruption that happens every day.”
KPCC-FM – 04.19.17
LOYOLA'S PROJECT FOR THE INNOCENT SECURES THIRD RELEASE IN A MONTH
The case has many of the hallmarks of a wrongful conviction, says Paula Mitchell, legal director of Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent….Ponce had a series of bad lawyers. One was later suspended by the bar association; another took money from his parents but never filed anything in court; a third was suspended from practicing as he was trying to get more money from his parents, says Mitchell.
Los Angeles Times – 04.19.17
TONS OF $80,000 ENTRY-LEVEL CYBERSECURITY JOBS ARE SITTING EMPTY
UCLA Extension, USC, Cal State Fullerton, Cal State San Bernardino and Loyola Law School, among others, have cybersecurity programs.
Los Angeles Times – 04.18.17
REAL ESTATE INVESTOR FINED $17,000 OVER EXCESS L.A. CITY COUNCIL CAMPAIGN DONATIONS
“I’m troubled by the use of LLCs as, essentially, illegal pass-throughs,” said commission President Jessica Levinson, adding that she feared donations from such entities could threaten the fairness of campaigns.
Los Angeles Daily Journal – 04.18.17
PITCHES PROCEDURES ARE TOO RESTRICTIVE TO MEET BRADY RULE
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Sean Kennedy, Kaplan & Feldman executive director of the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy, writes an op-ed on a California court battle focused on what to do with findings of misconduct in a police personnel file.
As a public defender, I witnessed firsthand the human toll Brady violations took on a client: Thomas Goldstein, a Vietnam veteran from Long Beach, was imprisoned for 24 years for a murder he didn’t commit. The federal court granted habeas relief because the police had suppressed exculpatory evidence. After his exoneration, Goldstein received an $8 million settlement, but no amount of money could heal his pain or restore the years wasted in prison, and he eventually moved out of state to escape the painful memories of egregious police misconduct and wrongful conviction. Injustices such as this will continue to occur so long as California courts continue to prioritize keeping exculpatory information in police personnel files secret above a defendant’s constitutional right to notice of exculpatory evidence and a fair trial.
Pacifica Radio – 04.18.17
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS PART 3 WITH LOYOLA IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CLINIC
Loyola Immigrant Justice Clinic Co-Director Emily Robinson ’12 provides an overview of the term sanctuary city and what it may mean for undocumented immigrants.
Pacifica Radio – 04.14.17
FTV 562 IMMIGRATION AND LABOR, 1982
For a contemporary perspective on immigration law reform, we share a recent conversation with Loyola Law School Immigrant Justice Clinic Co-director Marisa Montes, along with Alejandro Barajas, staff attorney.
TaxProf Blog – 04.14.17
APRILL: SECTION 501(C)(3) ORGANIZATIONS, SINGLE MEMBER LLCS, AND FIDUCIARY DUTIES
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Ellen Aprill’s article “Section 501(C)(3) Organizations, Single Member Limited Liability Companies, and Fiduciary Duties” is featured.
The Marshall Project – 04.13.17
PROBATION-FOR-PROFIT JUST GOT LESS PROFITABLE
On the other hand, “you don’t end the problem, you simply displace one company with another,” says Alexandra Natapoff, a law professor at Loyola Law School who has studied fees and fines in the criminal justice system. “It’s risky to count on profit reduction as a method of criminal justice reform. You don’t necessarily get better justice. What you may get are more enterprising and less risk-averse entrepreneurs.”
Politico – 04.13.17
Political analyst Jessica Levinson says that the legislative move is clearly aimed at boosting Democratic turnout, but could be interesting on the GOP side too: “I think there will be a challenger to President Trump,’’ and with California “the center of the anti-Trump movement,’’ a GOP challenger’s moves here could have a windfall in “talking points” and some momentum. But she notes, even if a GOP upstart does well in a California primary, any challenger to an incumbent president in that party would have a hard lift.
Merced Sun Star - 04.11. 17
ATWATER COUNCILWOMAN SAYS THERE’S NO CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN SEARCH FOR CITY MANAGER
Neither the connection between de Werk and Vierra nor the councilwoman’s relation to her son immediately set off any ethics alarms, according to Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School and president of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission.
KPCC-FM – 04.12.17
CALIFORNIA LAWMAKERS PROPOSE MOVING PRIMARY UP, GAINING CLOUT
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Jessica Levinson discusses a proposition to alter the date of the California primary.
Los Angeles Times – 04.12.17
VIDEO SHOWS COP PUMMELING ALLEGED JAYWALKER; CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles law professor Laurie Levenson said the videos show a man who was just tired of being hassled by the police. “It’s just sort of set up to go wrong,” she said…
Newsweek – 04.11.17
WHY IT IS SO HARD TO VOTE IF YOU’RE BLACK, POOR OR ELDERLY IN AMERICA
Critics of voter identification laws say they do little more than benefit Republican candidates. In 2016, Justin Levitt, a professor at California’s Loyola Law School, found that among the 1 billion votes cast between 2000 and 2014, there were just 31 documented and confirmed cases of voter fraud.
KNX 1070-AM – 04.10.17
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Jessica Levinson discusses quid pro quo vote swapping.
“It’s very rare that you see vote buying that is so egregious that it would show a violation of the statute. Instead, what we have is an area where ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back.’ That in and of itself is not illegal.”
HBO – 04.09.17
Professor Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver discussing gerrymandering.
Dropping a bunch of squares seems fair. It seems like if you could just draw a grid, like Tron, that you could put people into districts and there wouldn’t be any sort of manipulation in the process. But Americans don’t live, with the exception of Montana and a few other square places, in squares. Our communities are irregular and random.
Cosumnes Connection - 04.09.17
NIANTIC SAYS COOPERATIVE EXPERIENCES ARE COMING TO POKÉMON GO
On top of that, the Pokémon GO creator also said that the company "doesn't control millions of players' real-world movements", an argument that can be contested considering that typical license agreements may not suffice when there is knowledge on the part of the developer that their game may cause people to break the law, Loyola Law School Professor John Nockleby explained.
KCAL-TV – 04.08.17
Professor Jessica Levinson of Loyola Law School weighs in on potential restructuring at the white house.
It might not be that bad [for the Trump administration] depending on how this shakes up. I think there are a lot of people looking at cratering poll numbers for President Trump and saying “we do need a shake up.”
Hanford Sentinel – 04.07.17
THE BANK REMOVED MONEY WITHOUT NOTIFYING ME
“Thus was badly handled by Bank of America. This couple were victimized by their own bank,” Brandon Hernandez, a 13-year veteran business banker with Mission Bank of Bakersfield stated. Loyola Law School Professor Bryan Hull, agrees, commenting: “It was completely wrong for the payor bank to reverse the charges and equally inappropriate for your readers’ bank to charge back the account. Correct procedure is to ask the people who receive it to pay them back, not use the banking system to accomplish that.”
Fresno Bee – 04.07.17
‘BUYING’ THE VOTES FOR A GAS-TAX HIKE: IS IT ILLEGAL OR JUST GOOD POLITICS?
Jessica Levinson, a Loyola Law School professor and president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, said “vote-trading never happens, but vote-trading always happens.” “Politicians have to be able to compromise and to come to consensus. And I’m certain that part of that is, `You help me and I’ll help you,’ ” she said. “But you’ll rarely have that e-mail where someone says ‘I’ll vote for this if you vote for that.’
Los Angeles Daily Journal – 04.07.17
GORSUCH SHOULD LOOK FORWARD, NOT BEHIND
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Professor Allan Ides writes an op-ed on Gorsuch’s originalism and the Supreme Court.
Virtually all judges are originalists when it comes to an unambiguous constitutional text. No sensible judge would struggle with the meaning of Article II’s requirement that limits the presidential office to a person who has “attained to the age of 35 years.” But most of the contested provisions of the Constitution are stated in open-textured, sweeping terms. Some obvious examples include “the free exercise” of religion, “the freedom of speech, or of the press,” and the guarantees of “due process.” Those phrases may sound relatively definite, but they aren’t.
Angelus – 04.06.17
LATEST EXONERATION BY PROJECT FOR THE INNOCENT
But judge still asks Loyola lawyers and Robert Grace from DA’s Conviction Review Unit if they have “no qualms” about releasing Contreras. They don’t. (Grace is, in fact, a Loyola alum himself, class of ’87.) Judge Ryan asks, “Is there’s anything Mr. Contreras would like to say?” He says, “I want to say thanks to you, very much,” in a quiet voice that can barely be heard.
Fashion Maniac – 04.06.17
FRI, 4/7: LOYOLA FASHION LAW PROJECT’S ‘CREATIVE RESPONSE TO POLITICAL DISRUPTION’
The Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Fashion Law Project and the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review will host “The Creative Response to Political Disruption” to focus on fashion and pop culture in a time of political uncertainty on Friday, April 7, 2017 on Loyola’s downtown L.A. campus. Livestream viewing is available on request.
Breitbart – 04.06.17
POKÉMON GO CREATOR NIANTIC SUED FOR ‘VIRTUAL TRESPASSING’
Finally, “Niantic does not control millions of players’ real-world movements,” they assert. The game requires that players agree not to trespass in order to play. This last point may be a little more contentious, according to Loyola Law School Professor John Nockleby. He isn’t sure that typical license agreements apply if Niantic knows that people will be tempted to trespass because of their game.
KNX 1070-AM – 04.05.17
Professor Jessica Levinson of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles discusses the on-the-ground impact of new immigration policies.
“What the public is learning and will continue to learn is that we have decreased expectations privacy at the border.”
Wall Street Journal – 04.04.17
POKÉMON GO’ SUIT MAKES CASE FOR VIRTUAL TRESPASSING
That argument may not hold up in court, said John Nockleby, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. The company can’t hide behind a boilerplate user agreement, he said, if they know a million users will be tempted to trespass if they place a virtual Pokémon on private property.
Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette – 04.05.17
So what's wrong with that, right? Here's one suggestion: Even if a photo ID requirement was 100 percent successful in weeding out fraudulent voters, it's impact will be infinitesimally small. In 2014, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles investigated the more than 1 billion votes cast in general, primary, municipal and special elections between 2000 and 2014. Credible claims of in-person fraud, the kind voter identification bills are supposed to impact, amounted to 31 incidents.
Variety – 04.04.17
VARIETY’S 2017 LEGAL IMPACT REPORT
Loyola Law School, Los Angeles Adjunct Professor Barbara Rubin ’78 is listed in Variety’s 2017 Legal Impact Report.
Broadcast TV station groups use individual outlets as proving grounds for original programs, and then with success expand a program to all the group’s stations and possibly national syndication. Rubin says the challenge is to “craft deal memos that are consistent with the economics of the three phases of success.”
U.S. News & World Report - 04.03.17
LEARN HOW TO NAVIGATE LEARNING DISABILITIES IN LAW SCHOOL
In contrast, a Committee on Disability Accommodations manages individual accommodation requests at Loyola Marymount University's Loyola Law School Los Angeles.
MarketWatch – 04.03.17
SHOULD COLLEGES REQUIRE A FINANCIAL LITERACY CLASS?
Lauren E. Willis, professor of law and Rains senior research fellow at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, looks at reasons why such courses shouldn’t be required, topped by what she says is a lack of evidence that they are effective...Making personal-finance courses a college requirement sends a message that financial success is largely the result of personal decisions. But government policies affecting employment, health care and benefits have a vastly greater effect than personal financial acumen on Americans’ financial health. The main causes of bankruptcy are medical expenses, pay cuts, job loss and divorce, not profligate spending. Credit cards, payday loans and overdrafts are used as band-aids in emergencies, and spiraling fees can widen the gash, but financial wounds are usually inflicted by hardship and fraud—not poor money management.
The 1A/WAMU-FM - 04.03.17
GERRYMANDERING: AMERICA’S MOST DANGEROUS MAPS?
Professor Justin Levitt of Loyola Law School, Los Angeles joins 1A to discuss why congressional districts are shaped so oddly, drawing districts in part to sway election outcomes and who gerrymandering benefits.
The people who draw the lines are the ones who stand to benefit from them. That is incumbent legislators in most places are the ones in charge of drawing district lines. And this unsurprisingly, prompts complaints.
Crave – 04.03.17
LOVE IS THE MESSAGE, THE MESSAGE IS DEATH
The fury that erupted after Rodney King’s assailants were acquitted has its roots in the Harlins case. UCLA historian Brenda Stevenson, Loyola Law School Associate Professor Priscilla Ocen, and UCLA legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (whose scholarship is the basis for the now much misused, misunderstood critical framework of intersectionality, a term she coined) discussed how the Harlins case illuminates the vulnerability of black girls and how communities can serve and protect them.
Times Standard – 04.03.17
YOU AND THE LAW: THE BANK TOOK MONEY FROM MY ACCOUNT?
Loyola Law School Professor Bryan Hull, agrees, commenting: “It was completely wrong for the payor bank to reverse the charges and equally inappropriate for your readers’ bank to charge back the account. Correct procedure is to ask the people who receive it to pay them back, not use the banking system to accomplish that.”
UCLA – 04.03.17
PROFESSOR’S BOOK CITES EXAMPLES OF INJUSTICE IN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
“The New Criminal Justice Thinking” (New York University Press, 2017), which Dolovich edited with professor Alexandra Natapoff of Loyola Law School, includes 14 essays by scholars, sociologists and criminologists who train their eyes on the system’s hidden corners.
Sky News – 04.01.17
ARE 88,000 INMATES IN U.S. JAILS INNOCENT?
He and Mr Contreras are free because of the efforts of law students and lawyers from the Project for the Innocent at Loyola Law School.