ACSBlog

*This piece originally appeared on JOTWELL.

by SpearIt, Associate Professor of Law, Thurgood Marshall School of Law

Devon W. Carbado, From Stopping Black People to Killing Black People: The Fourth Amendment Pathways to Police Violence, 105 Cal. L. Rev. 125 (2017), available at SSRN.

Why is it so easy for police to kill Black people?

The answer to this question is urgent in light of ongoing police violence across the country. Virulent videos of Blacks subjected to police aggression have spread nationwide by phones, computers, TVs and tablets. These troubling, yet spectacular visuals, have pulled the covers back to allow mainstream America to see the dark and ruthless nature of law enforcement. Unarmed Blacks have senselessly died by strangling, tasing, and shooting in the back at the hands of police. Recently reported was an unarmed man shot despite his being on the ground with hands raised in surrender. Another was reportedly killed despite lawfully carrying a firearm. The ample proof of police wrongdoing raises alarming flags about the status quo, where police killing of Blacks is prevalent and successful prosecution of police is not.

In this article, Devon Carbado offers a compelling answer. He asserts that Fourth Amendment doctrine paves a path for police to engage civilians, especially Blacks, in ways that escalate into violence and death. Police officers are embodied with various levels of discretion in their enforcement efforts, and can be motivated by social motives, including cultural biases. Carbado shows, with meticulous detail, how Fourth Amendment doctrine leaves racism virtually unchecked in policing practices. Rulings by the Supreme Court on search and seizure make it clear that where police have a pretext to stop a person on the street or in a vehicle, the seizure is lawful so long as the officer has a requisite level of suspicion to make the stop. That there is little constitutionally to curb the police’s use of discretionary power when choosing one person over another puts a sarcastic twist on the meaning of “con” law.

*This piece originally appeared on the EPI blog.

by Celine McNicholas, Labor Counsel, Economic Policy Institute

Today, the Acting Solicitor General switched the government’s position in National Labor Relations Board v. Murphy Oil USA, Inc, from arguing in favor of working people to arguing in favor of big business. The move is deeply disappointing, and represents a stark departure from standard practice. It is the clearest indication yet of where the Trump administration stands: with corporate interests and against working people.

The Murphy Oil case is significant for workers. It will determine whether mandatory arbitration agreements with individual workers that prevent them from pursuing work-related claims collectively are prohibited by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). These agreements have become increasingly common.

The NLRA guarantees workers the right to join together to improve their terms and conditions of employment and prohibits employers from interfering with or restraining the exercise of these rights. In Murphy Oil, the National Labor Relations Board is arguing that agreements that force workers to waive their right to pursue work-related claims on a class or collective basis interfere with workers’ rights under the NLRA and are prohibited. The Solicitor General argued this position just last October, and there has been no change in the law since then. As a matter of fact, just last month the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that these mandatory arbitration agreements and class action waivers are prohibited by the NLRA. The only thing that has changed is the administration.