Articles

In this Article, I consider the contemporary law reform project of a radical social movement seeking to transform the state: specifically, that of the Movement for Black Lives as articulated in its policy platform “A Vision for Black Lives: Policy Demands for Black Power, Freedom, and Justice.” The Movement for Black Lives is the leading example of a contemporary racial justice movement with an intersectional politics including feminist and anti-capitalist commitments. The visions of such radical social movements offer an alternative epistemology for understanding and addressing structural inequality. By studying not only the critiques offered by radical social movements, but also their visions for transformative change, the edges of law scholarship can be expanded, a deeper set of critiques and a longer set of histories—of colonialism and settler colonialism, the Atlantic slave trade and mass incarceration—centered, and a bolder project of transformation forwarded. These visions should push legal scholars toward a broader frame for understanding how law, the market, and the state co-produce intersectional structural inequality, and toward agendas that focus not on building the power of law and the police, but on building the power of marginalized communities and transforming the state. This shift would invigorate the social movement’s literature and bring new energy to scholarship on substantive areas of law, from criminal and immigration law to property and contract law.

To illustrate the creative potential of studying radical social movements, this Article contrasts the Vision for Black Lives with the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Ferguson and Baltimore reports. The Vision and the DOJ reports offer alternate conceptualizations of the problem of policing and the appropriate approach to law reform. Reflective of liberal law reform projects on police, the DOJ reports identify policing as a fundamental tool of law and order that serves the collective interests of society, and locate the problems of police in their failure to adhere to constitutional law. As a corrective, the DOJ reports advocate for investing more resources in police: more trainings, better supervision, community policing. In contrast, the Vision identifies policing as a historical and violent force in Black communities underpinning a system of racial capitalism and limiting the possibilities of Black life. Law is central to the shape and legitimation of this racialized violence and inequality. As such, policing as we now know it cannot be fixed. Thus, the Vision’s reimagination of policing—rooted in Black history and Black intellectual traditions—transforms mainstream approaches to reform. In forwarding a decarceral agenda rooted in an abolitionist imagination, the Vision demands shrinking the large footprint of policing, surveillance, and incarceration and shifting resources into housing, health care, jobs, and schools. The Vision focuses on building power in Black communities and transforming the relationship between state, market, and society. In so doing, the movement offers transformative, affirmative visions for change designed to address the structures of inequality—something legal scholarship has lacked for far too long.

President Trump’s repeated and unsparing criticisms of the federal judiciary provide an opportunity to examine how public critique of the U.S. Supreme Court affects Americans’ willingness to support the institution. We report the results of an experiment embedded in a nationally-representative survey of Americans that varied in both the source (President Trump or distinguished law professors) and content (legal or political) of the criticism aimed at the Court. Our results—perhaps surprising to many—demonstrate that the greatest decline in support for the Court came among those respondents who learned of criticism by law professors that the Court’s decisions are politicized. The results have important implications for our understanding of the Court’s legitimacy under President Trump.

Can national judiciaries play a role in resisting democratic backsliding? This essay explores the role of courts in the context of democratic erosion by examining case studies from South Africa and Colombia that showcase positive models of judicial intervention. Such positive results are not pervasive—Hungary’s and Poland’s experiences, for example, cut in the other direction. But by examining the institutional and political conditions under which national judiciaries have impeded, if not prevented, backsliding, it is possible to gain some insight into how courts can play a role in supporting democratic practice.

SYMPOSIUM INTRODUCTION

In recent years, aggregate litigation has moved in the direction of multidistrict litigation followed by mass settlement without certification of a class action—a form sometimes referred to as the “quasi-class action.” Driven by increased restrictions on class certification, particularly in mass tort cases, the rise of the quasi-class action has been controversial. In particular, critics object that it overempowers lawyers and devalues the consent of individual claimants in the name of achieving “closure” in litigation. This Article presents two claims.

First, the debate about the proper scope and form of aggregate litigation too frequently relies on the class action as the touchstone for legitimacy. References to the class action, however, are more often misleading than helpful. The basic assumptions behind the class action are different in degree and in kind from the reality of the quasi-class action. Overreliance on the class action as the conceptual framework for aggregation carries the significant risk of unintentionally shackling courts in their attempts to coordinate litigation. The very reason the quasi-class action emerged—the ossification of the class action model of litigation—suggests that courts and commentators should look for another reference model when assessing what is proper or improper in quasi-class actions.

Second, bankruptcy serves as a better model for judging when to use, and how to order, nonclass aggregation of mass tort litigation. The entirety of bankruptcy practice need not be imported to realize that bankruptcy may provide a useful lens for viewing aggregation more generally. That lens helps to clarify some of the most troubling concerns about the quasi-class action, such as the proper role of lawyers and the place of claimant consent. Bankruptcy serves as a superior reference model because it starts with an assumption that collective resolution is necessary but tem- pers the collective with individual and subgroup consent and with institutional structures to counterbalance the risk of excessive empowerment of lawyers or particular claimants.

The ethics laws traditionally have afforded criminal defense attorneys greater latitude than other lawyers in their use of aggressive strategies on behalf of their clients. Federal judges nonetheless attempt to regulate zealous, or what is perceived as overzealous, advocacy by criminal defense lawyers. They do so by using the “acceptance of responsibility” provision of the United States Sentencing Guidelines to impose harsher sentences on criminal defendants whose attorneys engage in aggressive forms of representation, such as making factually or legally dubious arguments, seeking tactical delays, or misleading the court. Judges justify these higher sentences by equating a zealous defense with remorselessness. This interpretation of the sentencing laws chills zealous advocacy in a fashion that has escaped review by most courts and scholars. This Article explores this method of regulation and its troublesome implications for criminal defendants and the attorneys who represent them.

Prominent commentators recently have proposed that the government allocate significant portions of the radio spectrum for use as a wireless commons. The problem for commons proposals is that truly open access leads to interference, which renders a commons unattractive. Those advocating a commons assert, however, that a network comprising devices that operate at low power and repeat each other’s messages can eliminate the interference problem. They contend that this possibility renders a spectrum commons more efficient than privately owned spectrum, and in fact that private owners would not create these “abundant networks” in the first place. In this Article, Professor Benjamin argues that these assertions are not well founded, and that efficiency considerations favor private ownership of spectrum.

Those advocating a commons do not propose a network in which anyone can transmit as she pleases. The abundant networks they envision involve significant control over the devices that will be allowed to transmit. On the question whether private entities will create these abundant networks, commons advocates emphasize the transaction costs of aggregating spectrum, but those costs can be avoided via allotment of spectrum in large swaths. The comparative question of the efficiency of private versus public control, meanwhile, entails an evaluation of the implications of the profit motive (enhanced ability and desire to devise the best networks, but also the desire to attain monopoly power) versus properties of government action (the avoidance of private monopoly, but also a cumbersome process that can be subject to rent-seeking). Professor Benjamin contends that, on balance, these considerations favor private control. An additional factor makes the decision clearer: Abundant networks might not develop as planned, and so the flexibility entailed by private ownership-as well as the shifting of the risk of failure from taxpayers to shareholders-makes private ownership the better option.

The unattractiveness of a commons for abundant networks casts serious doubt on the desirability of spectrum commons more generally. If private ownership is a more efficient means of creating abundant networks, then the same is almost certainly true for networks that run the risk of interference. Most uses of spectrum are subject to interference, so the failure of the commons advocates’ arguments undermines the appeal of a commons for most potential uses of spectrum.