In the article A Modest Proposal: The Federal Government Should Use Firing Squads to Execute Federal Death Row Inmates, Stephanie Moran argues that firing squads are the only execution method that meets the requirements of the Eighth Amendment. In order to make her case, Moran unjustifiably overstates the negative aspects of lethal injection while understating the negative aspects of firing squads. The entire piece is predicated upon assumptions that are not only unsupported by the evidence but often directly refuted by the evidence. This essay critically analyzes Moran’s claims regarding the alleged advantages of the firing squad over lethal injection. Topics covered include the alleged burning sensation from lethal injection, length of lethal injection pain, constitutionality of administering an intravenous injection (IV), inmate preferences in method of execution, constitutionality of firing squads, overlooked firing squad safety measures, and deceptive botch rate statistics. Additionally, potential motivations for why one would want to promote the firing squad over lethal injection are examined.
Christian theologians have analyzed the productive and destructive qualities of institutions, sometimes attributing to them human virtues and vices. In City of God, Saint Augustine describes a utopian vision of human community within a Christian context as an alternative to the flawed “City of Man.” Contemporary theologians and sociologists have described collective structures of human behavior in institutions as having a kind of “spirit” analogous to the individual human “spirit.” Institutions are then assumed to take on an existence separate from the individuals within them, and in fact, the “spirit” of an institution influences the behavior of individuals. In The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution, Adolf A. Berle Jr. considers the tradition of religious utopianism and whether corporate capitalism has a spiritual character that impacts communities and individuals for good or ill and whether this might have implications for corporate managers. This Article provides a contemporary theoretical framework for Berle’s insight as a basis for considering its legal and ethical implications for corporate governance. It attempts to unpack contemporary understandings of spirit in order to provide a helpful working definition. It also considers the origins and essential traits of the modern business corporation in the United States, and discusses the question posed by Berle—whether corporations can or ought to have a sort of moral orientation. The Article ponders potential policy shifts that might tilt the orientation of the “spirit of the corporation” toward the common good and considers the limits of legal reform and the role of individuals and subgroups in changing corporate paradigms.
INTRODUCTION This Article offers a tour of a small portion of the literature that I have found particularly helpful in thinking about the importance of trust in society, about the hollowing-out of trust in our core social institutions since the Financial Crisis, and about what this means for business. Our survival as a species has hinged on an ability to cooperate with trusted others. Our thriving as a species has come as a consequence of our ability to collaborate with strangers, at scale, as a presumed behavioral norm. This is a recent phenomenon, made possible by the creation of a purpose-built institutional “trust infrastructure.” Without that to bind us, the very basis of shared peace and prosperity is lost. The collapse of trust in our core social institutions is therefore, in my view, the single greatest challenge of our day. With some focus on the banking sector, I will argue that a failure of risk governance lies behind this collapse in trust, and I will offer some suggestions as to how we might do better. While by design a philosophical inquiry and exploration, this Article has a practical goal: to challenge
In determining the enforceability of online contracts, namely those formed from the use of smartphone applications, courts typically look to whether the contract terms were reasonably conspicuous or communicated to the consumer. With the rise of “browse-wrap” contracts, where terms are not directly communicated to the consumer or where the consumer is not required to click the equivalent of an “I agree” button clearly manifesting assent to the terms, courts have inconsistently applied the reasonable communicativeness standard to the detriment of consumers and application developers alike. This Comment will explore the development of browse-wrap contracting jurisprudence and the need to embrace the Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp. and GDPR requirements that all contracts entered into online are only enforceable once the consumer clearly and unambiguously manifests assent to the contract’s terms.
President Trump has been accused of using @realDonaldTrump to troll his critics. While the President’s tweets are often attributed to his personal views, they raise important Constitutional questions. This article posits that @realDonaldTrump tweets are government speech and, where they troll government critics, they violate the Free Speech Clause. I begin the article with an exploration of President Trump’s use of @realDonaldTrump from his time as a private citizen to President. The article then chronicles the development of the government speech doctrine and the Supreme Court’s factors that differentiate private speech from government speech. I argue that, based on the factors in Walker v. Tex. Div., Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc., @realDonaldTrump is government speech. After concluding the President’s tweets are government speech, the article moves to a less developed issue in the Court’s jurisprudence— whether the Constitution places limits on what the government may say. The Court has determined that the First Amendment has no bearing on the government’s freedom to choose what views it propounds. Still the Court has intimated that other Constitutional principles may act to restrain the government’s speech. I suggest that although the First Amendment does not prohibit the government from choosing among a variety of viewpoints, it restrains the government’s speech in other ways. I argue that, because the government may not interfere with an individual’s freedom of speech, the government violates its critics’ Free Speech Clause rights when it trolls them in an effort to dissuade them from speaking.
