In the 1970’s, the United States was revolutionized by second-wave feminism as conversations about sex and contraception reached the forefront of the political stage. Roe v. Wade (410 US 113-178, Supreme Court of the United States) reshaped how the Constitution protects privacy and autonomy, while also taking a stance on the cultural war between "pro-choice" and "pro-life" advocates. Since 1973, the conservative movement has launched a coordinated campaign to create pro-life policies at the state and federal levels. Since Roe was decided, access to reproductive care has faced continuous attacks, with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center (No. 19-1392, 597 U.S Supreme Court (2022)) representing a definitive tipping point in the ongoing battle for reproductive rights. The Dobbs decision now leaves millions of Americans in limbo as state legislatures are left to battle what abortion will look like in their state. Driven by political objectives, the Supreme Court employed an originalist interpretation to advance a specific and narrow understanding of the Constitution, ultimately subjectively overturning precedent. This analysis aims not only to offer an exact critique of the logic weaponized by the court and the hypocrisy wielded by the conservative judges on the court, but also to situate this case in the national and historical context. The fight to overturn Roe was a coordinated effort and was by no means accidental or coincidental. Evaluating this critique without acknowledging the context is naïve because to do so is to miss half of the picture. Understanding why this case was brought to the Supreme Court when it was is just as important as the content of the decision.

This project focuses on the effects of partisanship and electoral contestation on the likelihood of state legislators to adopt an independent ethics commission. Existing literature suggests that ethics reform is a function of public perception and the need to assuage public outrage in the face of scandal. Additionally, many legislators view ethics laws as suggestions of their own ineptitude and thus resist reform. However, this existing view fails to consider the unique nature of the enabling legislation of ethics commissions and often conflates external, public drivers of reform with internal drivers personal to the individual legislators. Using logistic regression and time series analysis, this project finds that increased durations of single-party control in state legislatures decreases the chances of that legislature having an independent commission, suggesting that legislators use the partisan ethics committees as political weapons when they are in power. When the dominant party does not face the risk of becoming the minority, there is little in place to motivate ethics reform, thus the lack of commissions. This research identifies the need to develop more focused measures of inter-legislator partisanship and suggests that the effects of different types of ethics laws, specifically those pertaining to ethics commissions, should more often be studied in isolation, rather than as one single category.

In this project I created a series of infographics as comprehensive resources for students to reference as educational guides. As a business law student I have been able to accumulate knowledge through all of my law courses to better understand our society and its laws, albeit this knowledge is not yet complete. Other students are not always given this same opportunity to understand their rights and the laws that govern them and have clearly indicated to me through my survey that they would feel better prepared to become young adults in society if they were given additional resources. Therefore, my thesis consists of research based on the results of my survey regarding the areas of law that students indicated interest in along with a series of seven infographics with easy to understand information about the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, women’s rights, arbitration, legal offenses and consequences, Arizona State University’s legal and emergency resources, and the main constitutional amendments students should be aware of. Students should understand the laws they must abide by as members of society as well as the constitutional rights they are guaranteed if they are expected to fully obey and use both as incoming adults of the United States of America.

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying and defining voter education and participation as necessary contributors to civic engagement. It provides a socio-legal framework for evaluating four phenomena that have shifted in their impact on politics over the past 20 years: the roles of money and media in politics, as well as disenfranchisement by gerrymandering and by felon voting restrictions. It demonstrates how each has a new and worsening impact on voter education and/or participation, thus threatening the continued existence of modern American democracy.

This project offers an argument that isolates several major forces that it contends pose a critical threat to the endurance of modern American democracy. It evaluates modern and classic political philosophy to identify the prerequisites for a stable democracy, identifying and defining voter education and participation as necessary contributors to civic engagement. It provides a socio-legal framework for evaluating four phenomena that have shifted in their impact on politics over the past 20 years: the roles of money and media in politics, as well as disenfranchisement by gerrymandering and by felon voting restrictions. It demonstrates how each has a new and worsening impact on voter education and/or participation, thus threatening the continued existence of modern American democracy.

The era of mass data collection is upon us and only recently have people begun to consider the value of their data. All of our clicks and likes have helped big tech companies build predictive models to tailor their product to the buying patterns of the consumer. Big data collection has its advantages in increasing profitability and efficiency, but many are concerned about the lack of transparency in these technologies (Dwyer). The dependency on algorithms to make and influence decisions has become a growing concern in law enforcement. The use of this technology is commonly referred to as data-driven decision making, which is also known as predictive policing. These technologies are thought to reduce the biases held in traditional policing by creating statistically sound evidence-based models. Although, many lawsuits have highlighted the fact that predictive technologies do more to reflect historical bias rather than to eradicate it. The clandestine measures behind the algorithms may be in conflict with the due process clause and the penumbra of privacy rights enumerated in the First, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments. <br/> Predictive policing technology has come under fire for over policing historically black and latinx neighborhoods. GIS (Geographical Information Systems) is supposed to help officers identify where crime will likely happen over the next twelve hours. However, the LAPD’s own internal audit of their program concluded that the technology did not help officers solve crimes or reduce crime rate any better than traditional patrol methods (Puente). Similarly, other types of tools used to calculate recidivism risk for bond sentencing are disproportionately biased to calculate black people as having a higher risk to reoffend (Angwin). Lawsuits from civil liberties groups have been filed against the police departments that utilized these technologies. This paper will examine the constitutional pitfalls of predictive technology and propose ways that the system could work to ameliorate its practices.

This paper conducts an exploration of the election policy reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic within the United States. While living through and voting during the real-time events which took place during the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020, it soon became evident that there was not enough experience from earlier election emergencies to properly ensure against voter disenfranchisement. Given the scope of the global pandemic and the speed with which policymakers had to act, there was very little time to properly prepare. There was also great contention regarding the legitimacy of election methods proposed to alleviate in-person election concerns, such as mail-in voting. The political battle between those who believed COVID-19 to be a grave concern against those who did not consider COVID-19 to be a legitimate threat towards their livelihoods also affected policymaking decisions. Policymakers were forced into a corner, as they experienced criticism for not enough government action, as well as disapproval on the actual regulation that came to pass. This paper therefore aims to understand what factors led to the decisions which shaped the election policy which occurred as a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic during the election year of 2020. This analysis is conducted by considering the following: prior election emergency policy; the development of reactive election policy in March, proactive policy established for the August and November elections; and a review of voter disenfranchisement which occurred due to COVID-19.

The United States Supreme Court decided Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020, requiring all states to convict criminal defendants by a unanimous jury. However, this case only applied to petitioners on direct, and not collateral, appeal. In this thesis, I argue that the Ramos precedent should apply to people on collateral appeal as well, exploring the implications of such a decision and the criteria that should be used to make the decision in the case before the court, Edwards v. Vannoy (2021). Ultimately, I find that because the criteria currently used to determine retroactivity of new criminal precedents does not provide a clear answer to the question posed in Edwards, the Court should give more weight to the defendant's freedoms pursuant to the presumption of innocence while considering the potential for any disastrous outcomes.