Dozens have sued the New England Compounding Center linked to the deadly fungal meningitis outbreak. Meningitis victims consider suing pharmacy over tainted shots. Professor Richard Freer says the compounder may not have many assets, so patients may consider other defendants.
As a part of the series, "Why Not," Tell Me More is looking at policies that were once untouchable but now may be on the table. Today, NPR Correspondent Tamara Keith and Emory Law Professor Dorothy Brown dig into the pros-and-cons of raising taxes on capital gains and dividends.
The Governor¿s Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform is recommending Georgia establish a two tiered system for felonies committed by juveniles younger than 17. Kirsten Widner with the Barton Child Law and Policy Center at Emory University says the new system would lock up violent offenders, and send non-violent offenders to community treatment.
A special state council today will recommend repairs for a juvenile justice system that spends $91,000 a year for each bed in its state detention centers. Council members point to the enormous expense of incarcerating young offenders in a state ¿youth development campus,¿ or YDC, while producing poor results, as evidence that the system isn¿t working.
The racial wealth gap has hit an all-time high while Barack Obama has been president. The median net worth of white households is now 20 times that of black households. Why? I can highlight one area where blacks may be inadvertently contributing to the racial wealth gap: When most black people buy homes, we hurt ourselves economically.
Tight budgets make it hard to attract and train employees qualified to deal with young offenders who often have violent tendencies. The budget did rise to just over $300 million for the 2013 fiscal year, but that's stretched thin covering a staff of more than 4,000 employees statewide, a network of short- and longer-term juvenile detention centers, as well as community-based programs and supervision for low-risk offenders.
Crippled by student debt, Lori Kitchen quit her government job just months after graduating from American University in 2007, figuring she would lose her security clearance once she fell behind on her loan payments. Ms. Kitchen eventually found relief where no on told her to look: bankruptcy court.
We are not tipping from war to peace, if peace is understood as the absence of warfare. Instead, we are sharpening the weapon. This enables warfare to be more precise, more targeted, more secret, more isolated from public awareness and accountability. In this way tipping the war on terror may not bring about an ending, but instead facilitate an ongoing war.
In any conflict, all parties ¿ states, rebel groups and terrorist organizations ¿ must protect civilians from the ravages of war and take steps to minimize harm to civilians. For each party, these obligations take two primary forms: protecting civilians in the areas where it is attacking, and protecting its own civilians from the consequences of attacks by the enemy party.
U.S. Supreme Court justices meet Friday to decide if they will hear any of several cases involving the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which bans federal recognition of same-sex marriages. Michael Perry, an Emory University Woodruff Professor of law, explains what the court's action on this federal law could mean for Georgia.
Five Emory University law students have achieved something most lawyers never do: They persuaded the U.S. Supreme Court to take a case. Emory Law students (from left) Rachel Erdman, Scott Forbes, Michael Wiseman, Ed Philpot and Louis Laverone worked on the successful certiorari petition for an Alabama man.
Emory Law professor Mary Dudziak launches the new Project on War and Security in Law, Culture and Society this fall at Emory University School of Law.
Emory Law's Center for the Study of Law and Religion will address "When Law and Religion Meet" in a lecture series.