Letter from the Editor-in-Chief, Vol. 7 No. 2

Dear Reader, Welcome to Volume 7, Number 2 of the Claremont Journal of Law and Public Policy! We received a record number of submissions for this edition, which includes analyses of campaign finance reform, pre-natal healthcare in prisons, insulin pricing, and much more. We also have a wide-ranging interview with Professor Ken Kersch of Boston…

OPINION: Our Constitutional Duty; The Death Penalty, Intellectual Disability, and Moore v. Texas

By Isaac Cui (PO ’20), Managing Editor The Supreme Court yesterday acted on Bobby Moore’s death penalty case and ordered that Moore cannot be executed because of his intellectual disability.[1] It was a small step on an arcane issue, one that does not fundamentally change the Court’s capital punishment jurisprudence. But it was nevertheless a…

Understanding Masterpiece Cakeshop

By Isaac Cui (PO ’20) The Supreme Court yesterday released opinions in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission,[1] a highly-anticipated case which seemed to pit the civil rights of gay people against the religious objections of others. While the holding of the case was nominally in favor of the petitioner, who sought protection for…

The Promise of Privacy Protections: Rights for Unauthorized Migrants

By Isaac Cui (PO ‘20), Senior Editor Introduction On February 10, Daniel Ramirez Medina was taken by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed in detention to await deportation proceedings. Having come to the United States at the age of seven, the 24-year-old registered under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.[1] DACA…

The Case for (and Against) Sanctuary Jurisdictions

Isaac Cui PO ‘20 Introduction On January 25, 2017, Donald Trump issued two sweeping executive orders which removed many of the previous administration’s policies regarding immigration enforcement in favor of a stringent, restrictionist approach. More specifically, one[1] punishes so-called sanctuary policies for causing “immeasurable harm to the American people and to the very fabric of…