Believe All Women or Support Joe Biden?

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell Law professor Sherry F. Colb comments on recent sexual assault allegations against presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Colb argues that if the only choices for President are Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the sexual assault allegation against the latter will take second fiddle to the need to defeat the former and defends this perspective as not manifesting hypocrisy or indifference to sexual assault or other intimate violence.

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Bazemore v. Best Buy

Docket: 18-2196

Opinion Date: April 21, 2020

Judge: Quattlebaum

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her employer, Best Buy, claiming that she was harassed because of her race and gender and subjected to a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Plaintiff's complaint stemmed from an incident where a coworker made a racist and sexually charged joke to a small group of coworkers that included plaintiff. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's motion to dismiss and held that, in the case of allegedly harassing comments by a co-worker, an employee must allege plausible facts that the employer knew, or should have known, about the harassment and failed to take action reasonably calculated to stop it. Because plaintiff failed to do this, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. In this case, the coworker's conduct was not imputable to Best Buy where Best Buy took steps that were not only reasonably calculated to end such behavior, but that it did in fact end it.

United States v. Nance

Docket: 18-4585

Opinion Date: April 21, 2020

Judge: Pamela Harris

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed defendant's above-Guidelines sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to two federal drug- and firearm-related offenses. The court held that defendant's sentence was not procedurally unreasonable where the district court took into account defendant's extensive criminal history; his pattern of reoffending upon release; his disciplinary infractions in custody and inability to comply with the terms of his release; and the fact that the offenses of conviction occurred over the course of days, in which he was arrested once, released, and then arrested again just days later. The court also held that defendant's sentence was substantively reasonable where the district court conducted a thorough, individualized assessment of defendant and his offense conduct in light of the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors, and did not abuse its discretion in formulating the sentence.