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Read Full Article (PDF)        Acknowledgements   Over the past year serving as Editor-in-Chief of the University of Richmond Law Review, I have read over 1,400 pages of legal scholarship. I have reviewed over 8,500 footnotes and even more sources....

In Bridgeport Music Inc. v. Dimension Films, the Sixth Circuit cracked down on digital sampling when it ruled that any use of a copyrighted sound recording amounted to copyright infringement, no matter the size of the sample taken. In 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the de minimis defense—the rule that a small amount of copying is permitted—does, in fact, apply to sound recordings. This opinion stands in direct opposition to the Bridgeport holding, thereby creating a circuit split on the issue of de minimis use of digital sampling.

The retributive legal system displays a critical gap in addressing the needs of survivors. Restorative justice methods showcasing victim-offender mediation (“VOM”) can fill that gap for a substantial number of survivors.

Born in 1933 in Richmond, Virginia, Henry Marsh was a protégé of legendary Virginia civil rights attorney Oliver Hill, who was a member of a civil rights legal team with Spotswood Robinson and
commissioned by Charles Hamilton Houston to investigate school inequalities and prepare a legal strategy for dismantling segregationist laws.

Section 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment grants Congress the authority to eliminate the “badges and incidents” of slavery. There has emerged a renewed interest in Section 2, such that the literature now abounds with proposals for eliminating contemporary badges of slavery. Section 2 has been cited as grounds for addressing hate speech, the removal of Confederate monuments, racial profiling, sexual orientation discrimination, violence against women, limitations on the right to an abortion, sexual harassment, sweatshop labor, and more.

This Article argues that not only should adjudications not receive Chevron deference, but a limited exception should also be created to the current ban on retroactive rulemaking to encourage agencies to engage in the rulemaking process to address ambiguities arising in adjudication.

Expungement—the process by which the official, public data of a criminal record is erased, sealed, or made private—remains an important tool in the battle against stigma and over-punishment after one formally leaves the criminal justice system.

In allowing schools to punish student speech that school officials reasonably believe could be substantially disruptive, Tinker founds students’ free expression rights on unstable ground.

Nonlawyer pro se litigants often struggle to adhere to the norms of the adversarial American legal system. As a result, complex legal rules present an access-to-justice barrier to unrepresented litigants unable to comply with them.