Student Prize Papershttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/492024-03-28T19:21:51Z2024-03-28T19:21:51ZMormon PropertyFollett, Andrew P.http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/183762024-01-04T04:46:28Z2023-05-01T00:00:00ZMormon Property
Follett, Andrew P.
For most of the latter half of the nineteenth century, the American government fought desperately to rein in the Mormons in Utah. Narratives about this conflict generally treat it as one centered on polygamy or tensions between religion and the state. This paper, however, considers the central role of competing visions of property and property law in the Mormon-American conflict.
It explores how the Mormon property system was not only a driver of the conflict but also one of the Mormons’ most important tools in attempting to subvert and overcome the American legal system. In particular, it outlines how the Mormons treated group identity and community standing as a property asset in order to govern through ecclesiastical structures independent of state authority. This historical context offers three advantages.
(I) First, a framing centered on competing visions of property law sheds new light on the historical causes and drivers of the Mormon-American conflict and the drastic legal actions of the federal government, including those of the Supreme Court in several prominent decisions.
(II) Second, this novel historical framing provides a new throughline for understanding the evolution of the Mormon property system and underscores an overlooked irony in the development of Mormon history: in attempting to subvert “sole and despotic” Anglo-American property norms, the Mormons ultimately succumbed to the American property logic under increasingly elaborate property arrangements.
(II) Third, exploring the Mormon property system as one of law rather than merely religion inspires new appreciation for the role of non-state institutions in private ordering and enforcing property systems. At this level, this paper attempts to flesh out the story of the administration of property in Territorial Utah, under the law of consecration, as a case study in law without violence.
Quintin Johnstone Prize in Real Property Law.
Established by the CATIC Foundation.
T. Zhang, C. Priest
To the student in his second or third year at the Law
School who has demonstrated excellence in the area of
real property law.
2023-05-01T00:00:00ZThe NBA’s “One-and-Done” Rule: Procompetitive Justifications and Anticompetitive EffectsRuderman, Rachelhttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/183752023-12-10T03:35:25Z2023-05-01T00:00:00ZThe NBA’s “One-and-Done” Rule: Procompetitive Justifications and Anticompetitive Effects
Ruderman, Rachel
In 2005, the National Basketball Association (NBA) implemented a rule prohibiting players from entering the League directly after high school. To be
eligible to join the NBA, players need to meet two conditions: (1) at least one
year must have elapsed since they graduated high school, and (2) they must be
19 years old or must turn 19 the year they enter.1 This rule,2 often termed the
“One-and-Done” Rule, was first enacted in advance of the 2006 NBA draft. The
most talented high school athletes tend to compete in National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball until they are eligible to play
professionally, although a few alternative options do exist. To fully understand
the anticompetitive and procompetitive effects of the One-and-Done Rule, this
Article will examine the justifications and consequences of the rule under a fullrule-
of-reason approach that courts may take if the legality of the rule were to be
litigated.3 The following analysis demonstrates that, on balance, the rule has
salient anticompetitive effects on the market for talented young basketball
players, and may violate antitrust laws.
Judge Ralph K. Winter, Jr. Prize for Law and
Economics
A. Klevorick, J. Macey, N. Sarin
Awarded annually to the best student paper written in law and economics.
2023-05-01T00:00:00ZThe Second Amendment on Board: Public and Private Historical Traditions of Firearm RegulationHochman, Joshuahttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/183742023-12-10T03:35:18Z2023-11-01T00:00:00ZThe Second Amendment on Board: Public and Private Historical Traditions of Firearm Regulation
Hochman, Joshua
In New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, the Supreme
Court reaffirmed that laws prohibiting the carrying of firearms in sensitive
places were presumptively constitutional. Since Bruen, several states and the
District of Columbia have defended their sensitive-place laws by analogizing
to historical statutes regulating firearms in other places, like schools and
government buildings. Many judges, scholars, and litigants appear to have
assumed that only statutes can count as evidence of the nation’s historical
tradition of firearm regulation.
This Note is the first expansive account since Bruen to challenge this
assumption. It argues that courts should consider sources of analogical
precedent outside of formal lawmaking when applying the Court’s Second
Amendment jurisprudence. Taking public transportation as a case study, the
Note surveys rules and regulations promulgated by railroad corporations in
the nineteenth century and argues that these sources reveal an historical
tradition of regulating firearm carriage on public transportation.
Bruen expressly permits courts to engage in more nuanced analogical
reasoning when dealing with unprecedented concerns or dramatic changes.
One such change is the shift in state capacity that has placed sites that were
previously privately or quasi-publicly operated before the twentieth century
under public control in the twenty-first century. As in the case of schools,
which the Court has already deemed sensitive, a substantial portion of the
nation’s transportation infrastructure in the nineteenth century was not
entirely publicly owned and operated. This case study instructs that courts
and litigants can best honor Bruen’s history-based test by considering all of
the nation’s history of firearm regulation.
Judge William E. Miller Prize
R. Siegel, J. Balkin, G. Torres
For the best paper concerning the Bill of Rights
2023-11-01T00:00:00ZStatutory StructureBogue, Russellhttp://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13051/183732023-12-10T03:35:05Z2023-01-01T00:00:00ZStatutory Structure
Bogue, Russell
One of the least controversial tools of statutory interpretation the Supreme Court
employs is also one of its least examined: the use of a statute’s “structure.” For decades—but particularly
under Chief Justice Roberts—the Court has determined the meaning of ambiguous statutory
provisions through reference to the “structure,” “scheme,” or “plan” of a statute. Despite its
ubiquity in the Court’s opinions, however, structural argument in statutory interpretation has
gone largely unexamined by scholars. This Note attempts to fill that gap.
Through an analysis of recent case law, this Note categorizes the types of structural argument
employed by the Court in its statutory-interpretation cases and the various assumptions needed
to motivate such arguments. This fine-grained mapping permits a closer normative evaluation of
structural argument and, in particular, of its compatibility with different methodologies of statutory
interpretation. All dominant methods for reading statutes have good reason—on their own
terms—to employ some types of structural argument, which demonstrates its cross-methodological
appeal. But purposive reasoning best embodies the assumptions of coherence and rational design
that undergird structuralism. The sway of this type of argument over a hypertextualist Supreme
Court thus suggests the enduring need for purposive reasoning, particularly as the
traditional tools of purposivism—such as legislative history—have been largely abandoned.
Thomas I. Emerson Prize
W. Eskridge, C. Jolls, J. Mashaw
Distinguished paper or project on a subject related to legislation.
2023-01-01T00:00:00Z