Professor Fred Vars is quoted extensively in The Roanoke Times about his proposal for a do-not-sell list for firearms. A proposed bill would allow Virginia residents to voluntarily suspend their ability to purchase a gun.
For more, read “Bill Advances to Create a ‘Do Not Sell’ list to Prevent Gun Suicides.”
Professor Joyce White Vance weighs in on the sentencing request for Roger Stone in an op-ed for Time magazine.
For more, read “If Trump Is Allowed to Turn the Justice Department Into a Political Weapon, No One Is Safe.”
Professor Deepa Das Acevedo appeared as a guest on Professor Liz Tippett’s Youtube channel, “Oregon Law Lab.” She discussed her work on invisible bosses in the gig economy.
Alex Bruening, 3L, Clayton Carter, 3L, Chris Leah, 3L, and Hugh Warren, 3L, competed in the Southern Regional of the Saul Lefkowitz Trademark Law Moot Court Competition. In spite of a first-round marred by some off-topic questions, the team hung in there and took third place in a field of 14 teams, including Emory, University of North Carolina, and William & Mary.
Lindsey Barber, 3L, Cory Church, 3L, and Anne Miles Golson, 3L, turned in an outstanding performance at the Hunton Andrews Kurth Moot Court National Championship in Houston, Texas. The team advanced to the quarterfinals, only to be narrowly eliminated by the defending champions from the University of Georgia. While arguing two complicated issues of Supremacy Clause Immunity, the team received high praise from their judges and fellow competitors.
This invitation-only tournament matches teams from elite moot court programs across the country. Alabama Law earned its invitation based on the overall performance of all of our external-competition teams in the Moot Court Program during the previous academic year, which garnered two national championships, impressive victories at regional competitions, and multiple best brief and best speaker awards. Based on the collective success of these teams, the Alabama Law Moot Court Program ranked fourth in the nation for 2018-19. The team is grateful to Professor Kimberly Boone, Director of Legal Writing Program and Professor of Legal Writing, for her leadership of the Moot Court program.
The team also wishes to thank everyone who helped them prepare, especially student coach and manager, Josh Kravec, 3L.
Karmen Gaines, 3L, and Stephanie Avant, 3L, recently competed at BLSA’s Southern Regional Thurgood Marshall Moot Court Competition. Gaines and Avant wrote and won an award for the Best Petitioner Brief, and they advanced to the knockout rounds of the competition, ultimately coming in Second Place and advancing to the National Competition rounds.
Anil Mujumdar, Visiting Lecturer in Law, and Anita Kay Head, Associate Professor of Legal Writing, coached the team. The team is grateful to Professors Boone, Fair, Ksobiech, Ray, and Rosen, along with Tempe Smith (’10) and Devan Byrd (’17), for judging practice rounds. The team also thanks Cameron Tipton, 3L, who assisted with scheduling rounds and compiling the bench brief.
Gaines and Avant will compete in the national rounds in Cincinnati in March.
Maya Hoyt, 3L, Alex Williams, 3L, Chenelle Jones, 2L, and Gavin Baum-Blake, 2L, recently competed against eight other teams from across the southern region in the Constance Baker Motley Mock Trial Southern Regional Competition during the Southern Regional Black Law Students’ Association’s Convention held in Charleston, South Carolina. The students finished 2nd in the region after a hard-fought championship round. The team defeated the top-ranked team in a decisive victory. Veteran team members, Maya Hoyt and Alex Williams performed as co-captains on this year’s team, and thanks to their dedication and hard work, they will be taking a second consecutive trip to the national competition. Chenelle Jones and Gavin Baum-Blake prepared tirelessly and were major contributors to the team’s success.
The team now will compete in the National Tournament from March 3 – March 8 in Cincinnati, Ohio. All four advocates showed tremendous skill at the tournament and will begin preparing to compete upon the release of the amended problem.
Professor Deepa Das Acevedo published an op-ed for the Hindustan Times about the 70th Anniversary of India’s constitution.
For more read, “Republic at 70: The Unique Goals and Challenges of Indian Secularism.”
Yusef Salaam, a member of the Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five, discussed his legal case on Monday with Judge John H. England, Jr. (’74) in the Bedsole Moot Court Room.
On April 19, 1989, a young woman was raped and left for dead in New York City’s Central Park. Five boys — four black and one Latino — were tried and convicted of the crime. They became known collectively as the Central Park Five.
Looking back on the case, Salaam said the evidence didn’t point to five boys. He and others didn’t have a drop of blood on them. There was no skin under the woman’s fingernails that linked them to the crime. A photo that was introduced into evidence showed “a single dragline.” If several people had been dragging the woman, other parts of the scene would have been disturbed, he said.
“I think — and I truly think — they knew that they had the wrong people. And I don’t think it mattered,” he said. Prosecutors and others were trying to quickly ensure the public that the city was safe and protecting their careers, he said.
Yusef Salaam
The convictions of the men were vacated in 2002 after another man who was in prison for similar crimes confessed to the attack. That man’s DNA matched evidence from the crime scene. The exonerated men served between seven and 13 years for crimes they did not commit. In 2003, they sued the city for their wrongful convictions. In 2014, the city settled the case and agreed to pay them a total of $41 million.
Since his release, Salaam has been committed to advocating and educating people on the issues of false confessions, police brutality and misconduct, press ethics and bias, race and law, and the disparities in America’s criminal justice system. In 2013, documentarians Ken and Sarah Burns released the documentary “The Central Park Five,” which told the event from the perspective of Salaam and his cohorts.
Salaam was awarded an honorary doctorate that same year and received the President’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 from then-President Barack Obama. He was appointed to the board of the Innocence Project in 2018. He released a Netflix feature limited series called “When They See Us” based on the true story of the Central Park Five with Ava DuVernay, Oprah Winfrey and Robert De Niro in May 2019.
In addition to his talk at the Law School, Salaam is scheduled to deliver the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lecture at 7:30 p.m. Monday, January 27 in the Ferguson Center Ballroom. The event is free and open to the public.
Professor Courtney Cross is quoted by Al.com about the effects of gender discrepancy when arguing for justifiable homicide in Alabama.
For more, read “Alabama Woman Says She Killed Her Rapist in Self-Defense. She Could Spend Life in Prison.“
