School districts are increasingly turning to the court system to address the negative impacts they see social media has on American kids. Across the country lawsuits are being filed against big tech companies for allegedly creating a toxic environment that’s harmful to kids in the name of profit. Ryan Calo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
The only two dissenters in Quinn v. State didn’t stand a chance of persuading their centrist colleagues on the Court to invalidate the capital gains tax. After all, as University of Washington Law professor Hugh Spitzer explained 30 years ago, their arguments are bunk.
Seattle officials tell KUOW they’re considering a local tax on capital gains. This follows last month’s state Supreme Court ruling that a state tax on capital gains is constitutional. According to City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, it’s just one possibility for new sources of revenue in the coming years to fill a giant “revenue gap.” Scott Schumacher, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
"In his State of the Union Address, President Biden reminded us that Americans spend more on prescription drugs than any other major country. ... Fortunately, Washington has a nation-leading program, the Prescription Drug Assistance Foundation (PDAF), to assist individuals in obtaining prescription drugs at little or no cost," co-writes Thomas Tobin, affiliate instructor of law at the UW.
"As a 17-year-old kid, bring him to the police station and interrogate him for 14.5-14 hours," said David B. Owens, Wright's attorney. "At the end of the day, he signed a confession, we are done. And then he is criminally prosecuted and had a mandatory life sentence as a juvenile."
"The only evidence that ever existed against Mr. Wright was the statements that they said that he gave as a juvenile," said his attorney, David Owens, with The Exoneration Project. "There was no eyewitness. There is no forensic evidence. There's no bullet evidence. There's no nothing like that. It's just, 'Oh yeah, this kid after 15 hours of interrogation said this,' and that's all it was. So once we showed that the cops lacked reliability, that was part of it."
Wright was convicted on the sole basis of a confession he signed after a 14-hour interrogation during which he was abused and coerced by detectives, according to attorney David Owens.
Take a moment and think of what you feel when you hear the word "conflict." Does your heart beat a little faster? Do you get a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach? Mediators might feel this sometimes, but they can't avoid conflict because they work in it every day. They handle divorce proceedings, custody disputes, property damages, and other potentially very messy civil disputes. Christine Cimini, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Over the phone, University of Washington law professor Hugh Spitzer, who filed a brief with the Court in defense of the capital gains tax, argued that a majority of the justices would likely overturn that old 1930s precedent and uphold an income tax if the Legislature or the people (via an initiative) enacted one. "But I think the Court is reluctant to assume the role of policymaker," he said.
The Colorado River is a vital but threatened water supply — and the communities in Arizona, California, Nevada and beyond that depend on it face the prospect of having to resort to greater efforts to secure water. Monte Mills, professor of law and director of the Native American Law Center at the UW, is interviewed.
“The court could have unwound the 1933 income tax ruling, but it did not need to because Washington’s capital gains tax was carefully structured as a straightforward excise tax under Washington precedent,” said Professor Hugh Spitzer, interim associate dean for academic administration at the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ. “The court simply did not need to go so far as to annul its early income tax decisions.
The Washington State Supreme Court released its ruling Friday upholding the constitutionality of the state’s capital gains tax. The tax was expected to raise $500 million for early childhood education before opponents challenged it. The law creating the capital gains tax, SB 5096, was signed last year by Gov. Jay Inslee and went into effect in January 2022, before it was stopped by a lawsuit. The legislation created a 7% tax on the sale or exchange of capital assets above $250,000. Hugh Spitzer, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
In early December, the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ became one of a growing number of U.S. law schools that have decided to end their participation in the U.S. News and World Report rankings process. Dean Lawson is quoted.
TikTok is the fastest growing app on the planet with more than 150 million monthly users in the U.S. alone. But that popularity does not extend to Capitol Hill where its defenders are in the minority. Laura Barrón-López looks into the potential personal, political and international fallout should the government outlaw the platform. ºìÌÒÊÓƵ professor Ryan Calo is interviewed.
TikTok has never been more popular or more controversial. The short-form video platform does not just rule online culture, it shapes it. None of its rivals – not Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat – has come close to capturing its magical hold on our phones and attention spans, especially with young people. The problem? China. Ryan Calo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
The UW Tech Policy Lab was recently recognized by Bloomberg as a Top Legal Education Innovation Program in 2022 due to its unique cross-discipline approach. The award is given to pioneering schools making an impact in the legal field.
Conversation from the BLM protests in 2020 inspired Travonna Thompson-Wiley and others to form the Black Action Coalition. Group members started weekly marches. Then, when they joined daily demonstrations backed by more experienced activists like Nikkita Oliver, Thompson-Wiley heard a cacophony of outrage finally coalesce into a chorus of three demands: Free the protesters. Invest in the Black community. Defund the police. But three years since protesters hatched a bold plan to reimagine public safety, Seattle hasn’t sniffed divestment of this magnitude. Angélica Cházaro, assistant professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Jeffrey Feldman, a professor from practice at the ºìÌÒÊÓƵ, said his arrest could happen in a couple of ways.
Monte Mills, professor of law at the University of Washington and director of the UW’s Native American Law Center, co-authored an amicus brief on behalf of 37 tribal nations, the Affiliated Tribes of the Northwest, the San Luis Rey Indian Water Authority and the National Congress of American Indians.
A proposal for Philadelphia Police to use drones as a crime-fighting tool could face opposition from privacy advocates who view it as an intrusion unlikely to reduce street violence. Mary Fan, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Changing the clocks is bad for your health and bad for the economy. The U.S. and Europe are trying to stop the seasonal switches, but with little success. Steve Calandrillo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
There oughta be a law. That’s what millions of Americans may proclaim when they wake up Sunday morning, cursing the fact that Daylight Saving Time embezzled an hour of sleep. Turns out, in fact there is law. Steve Calandrillo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
New Mexico’s House of Representatives has endorsed new limitations on public access to police body-camera video when it captures images of nudity, violence, injury or death. The 46-19 vote Thursday sent the bill to the Senate for consideration. Proponents of the initiative include the New Mexico State Police and associations representing county and municipal governments, including sheriffs’ departments. Mary Fan, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Seattle may never embrace the twice-a-year clock-changing ritual of daylight saving time (DST) that state legislators voted to do away with four years ago, but we love that extra hour of evening light. Steve Calandrillo, professor of law at the UW, is quoted.
Schnapper said it was his view that the law draws a distinction when it comes to promoting content on the platforms, and that he spent "a very long hour and a quarter trying to answer that question" — a reference to the recent arguments. But he said he was not there to "retry the case."
