“Solving the problem of homelessness is difficult and expensive,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But putting people in jail for sleeping in public does absolutely nothing to solve homelessness or help people in need.”
Much of the Biden administration’s executive order may remain unaffected, said Kenneth Bamberger, a UC Berkeley Law professor who has focused on AI regulatory issues. That’s because most of the order’s actions consist of non-binding efforts, like directing federal agencies to draft reports or establish guidelines that wouldn’t have fallen under Chevron.
According to Supervising Attorney in the Environmental Law Clinic at Berkeley Law Steve Castleman, the 2021 retesting found “significant” amounts of contamination that exceeded the cleanup goal of Strontium-90, a radioactive isotope, which he alleges the Navy has since tried to invalidate.
At times, some have referred to the Supreme Court as “nine scorpions in a bottle,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. That metaphor seems especially appropriate this year, though I would describe them as “nine angry scorpions in a bottle.”
The notion of America recruiting foreigners into its military under false promises isn’t new, said Rose Carmen Goldberg, Director of the Veterans Law Practicum at UC Berkeley School of Law. “This problem is so big that the federal government itself doesn’t even know the scope of the problem,” she explained.
“It’s a court driven by conservative ideology and politics, not precedent or constitutional doctrine,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the UC Berkeley law school dean.
San Francisco-based Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice and the UC Berkeley Law Clinic filed the lawsuit Friday, calling for, among other demands, 100% of the land to be retested for radioactive contaminants. They claim the Navy was obligated to do so, but never did.
“I didn’t expect such a broad definition of absolute immunity for a president for criminal acts,” said Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s preeminent constitutional scholars. “While the court leaves many issues unresolved, it is a dramatic and stunning affirmation of broad, absolute immunity for a president.”
Berkeley Law’s Environmental Law Clinic. representing a local environmental justice group, filed a lawsuit against the EPA and the Navy over the troubled cleanup of radiological and other contamination at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.
Tweet by Professor Orin Kerr quoted in Vanity Fair: “I don’t know if Trump is going to be reelected in 2024. But I know that, if he is, he’s going to preface every blatantly illegal thing he does by saying, ‘Official act, this is an official act.’”
“One of the many policies in California that would be ripe for a legal challenge, without the Chevron doctrine in play, is the state’s zero-emission vehicle and tailpipe standards,” said Ted Lamm, associate director at UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment.
“The Supreme Court just ripped away the biggest incentive that cities had to build more shelters and supportive housing for the homeless,” write Berkeley Law Professor Jeffrey Selbin and Jamie Suki Chang, associate professor of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley.
“Two Supreme Court rulings on Friday that dramatically change the law are profound reminders that presidential elections matter enormously for all of us,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
“My hope is that the Supreme Court won’t overrule Stone v. Graham and that it will instead apply it to declare the Louisiana law unconstitutional,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
Steve Castleman, a supervising attorney in the Environmental Law Clinic at UC Berkeley Law, which is representing Greenaction, said the Navy and EPA have a legal responsibility to retest the entire site because they found contamination in three parcels.
“The Supreme Court’s decision will have an immediate and devastating effect on those who would have benefited from the $6 billion fund,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It would have provided compensation to over 100,000 victims of the opioid crisis, and the plan also would have provided significant funding for thousands of state and local governments to prevent and treat opioid addiction.”
“What’s so crazy is when we teach election law, a case like this would never come up because we almost never litigate claims over whether or not to have an election,” said Emily Rong Zhang, an assistant professor at Berkeley Law, explaining election disputes are usually over more specific legal debates.
“So far, the term has been less ideologically defined than the last two,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley Law School. “But I really think it is (this) week’s decisions that will determine how we think of the term.”
Generative AI companies have plausible fair use defenses for using works as training data, said Pamela Samuelson, a digital copyright expert and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. But she said courts might look at music differently than they would other works such as computer code, text or images.
“The Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday finally brought common sense to analyzing gun rights under the 2nd Amendment,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “It will save lives.”
Joshua Spivak, a senior research fellow at the California Constitution Center at Berkeley Law who closely tracks recalls nationwide, comments on the recall of a Southern California school board president.
Professor Colleen Chien talks to NPR about Maryland’s mass marijuana pardons, drawing attention to not just the proclamation, but the implementation of relief.
“There is a very ongoing, current debate raging among the justices about how to interpret the Constitution across a range of cases and whether they need to adopt the same approach in all cases,” said University of California Berkeley law professor Amanda Tyler.
“Whatever you might think of the outcomes of any particular case, the role of the jury in assigning blame or protecting the innocent is fundamental to the American understanding of justice,” write Berkeley Law professor Andrea Roth and Rutgers University professor of law J.D. King.
“Donald Trump will decry the verdict as being nothing but a political vendetta,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But nothing he says can erase the fact that a jury heard all the evidence and found him guilty on all counts.”
“Of course, the law of the First Amendment must be the starting point and must be adhered to, for public universities and for private schools that choose to follow it,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “But we also must realize that it is often just the starting point and do a better job of thinking through how to apply it and what to do in these enormously difficult circumstances.”
“AB 886 would create an arbitration process with newsrooms to establish a fee that the companies would pay to carry news articles,” writes Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. “The experience of other countries shows that this type of legislation works.”
“Displaying those particular flags creates the appearance at least that the justice is signifying agreement with those viewpoints at a time when there are cases before the court where those viewpoints are relevant,” said Jeremy Fogel, executive director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute at the University of California, Berkeley Law School.
“We are talking about incarcerating people and taking away the most fundamental of liberties—one’s freedom, one’s liberty in the truest, purest sense,” said Professor Amanda Tyler. “At its core, habeas reflects the idea … that we want to get it right.”
“You always want to be proactive about the appearance of impartiality,” Jeremy Fogel, a former federal judge and the director of the Berkeley Judicial Institute, said in an interview. “The best practice would be to make sure that nothing like that is in front of your house.”
Ethan Elkind, director of the Climate Program at the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, UC Berkeley School of Law joins a discussion about the future of Amtrak in California.
Pocket-lint speaks with Tejas N. Narechania, Berkeley Law professor, faculty director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, and former Special Counsel to the FCC to get a refresher on net neutrality, learn what the FCC’s decision means, and what could happen next.
