Disaster Relief to States and Cities Is Both Right and Good: Part 2 of 2

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

In this second of a two-part series of columns, UF Levin College of Law professor Neil H. Buchanan explains why Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is incorrect in claiming that the reason Democratic-led states are in trouble is that they are providing excessively generous pensions to retirees who worked for state and local governments. Buchanan then examines a workaround, first described by Professor Darien Shanske of the University of California at Davis, that would allow the Federal Reserve to give assistance to states and cities without interference from Republicans in the Senate or the White House.

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court Dresses Up Culture War in Jurisprudential Garb

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat— Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—comments on the decision by the conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court halting the state’s stay at home order. Sarat points out that the opinion recapitulates, without acknowledgment, debates in analytic jurisprudence about the distinction between orders and rules, and he argues that while the decision may be good for the Trump campaign, it puts at risk the lives and well-being of Wisconsin’s citizens.

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State v. Gallagher

Docket: SCWC-14-0001300

Opinion Date: May 15, 2020

Judge: Richard W. Pollack

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Supreme Court vacated Defendant's conviction and sentence for criminal property damage in the second degree, holding that the risk of unfair prejudice posed by the introduction of four prior incidents of aggressive and erratic behavior by Defendant directed at the complaining witnesses and their home substantially outweighed their limited probative value. Defendant was charged with criminal property damage in the second degree for damaging the complainants' vehicle. During trial, the trial court allowed, over Defendant's objections, the State to introduce evidence of the four prior incidents. The court further permitted the State to adduce evidence of the fear the complaining witnesses experienced experienced as a result of the prior incidents and the countermeasures they undertook in response to the incidents. Defendant was convicted. The intermediate court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated the lower courts' judgments, holding (1) the circuit court abused its discretion in its application of Haw. R. Evid. 403; and (2) the court's error was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Lana'ians for Sensible Growth v. Land Use Commission

Docket: SCOT-17-0000526

Opinion Date: May 15, 2020

Judge: Richard W. Pollack

Areas of Law: Environmental Law, Government & Administrative Law, Real Estate & Property Law

The Supreme Court held that the Land Use Commission of the State of Hawai'i erred in a 2017 by interpreting a condition of an administrative order issued almost thirty years earlier prohibiting a resort (Resort) from irrigating its golf course with "potable" water to mean that brackish water is per se "non-potable" but that the Commission did not err in determining that the Resort did not violate the condition under its plain meaning. In 1991, the Commission issued an order approving the Resort's petition seeking to effect district reclassification of a large tract of rural and agricultural land sort that the Resort could build an eighteen-hole golf course. The Commission approved the Resort's petition subject to the condition stating that the Resort was not allowed to use potable water to irrigate the golf course. In 2017, the Commission determined that the Resort's use of brackish water from two wells for golf course irrigation was allowable under the condition. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the Commission erred in interpreting the condition to mean that brackish water is per se non-potable; but (2) the Commission did not clearly err in concluding that the water from the two wells was non-potable under county water quality standards.