Sua Sponte

Volume 43 of Sua Sponte is comprised of four articles, described below. As with all Mitchell Hamline Law Review articles, Sua Sponte Volume 43 articles are permanently available in the Issue Archive.

The first article fits with Sua Sponte’s “Minnesota” theme by highlighting a very important figure in legal history with very local connections: Chief Justice Warren Burger grew up in St. Paul and graduated from St. Paul College of Law, one of the predecessor schools to Mitchell Hamline School of Law, in 1931. From Warren to Burger: Race Relations Inside the Court by Robert Fabrikant provides a unique and personal look at Chief Justice Burger’s contributions to racial equality in the United States by describing the United States Supreme Court as a workplace under Chief Justice Burger. The author clerked for Chief Justice Burger on the D.C. Circuit Court and then at the Supreme Court; he is currently an attorney in Washington, D.C. and a Professor in the Practice at Howard University School of Law. The Law Review thanks Mr. Fabrikant for publishing this piece with Chief Justice Burger’s alma mater!

The second article fits with Sua Sponte‘s Minnesota theme in two ways: first, parts of the article discuss Minnesota’s eminent domain laws as a contrast to Wisconsin’s, and second, the author is Corey Hoze, who will graduate from Mitchell Hamline in 2018 after attending through the Hybrid J.D. program. Mr. Hoze is Senior Vice President, Government Relations & Regulatory Affairs at Associated Banc-Corp and has extensive experience in government. Mr. Hoze’s article, Public Stand-Off: The Wisconsin State Legislature v. Milwaukee Public Schools and Takings of Public Property by Public Entities, raises the possibility of the Wisconsin legislature using eminent domain to address its impasse with the Milwaukee Public School system regarding vacant MPS buildings. The article focuses on a twist on eminent domain – when the property being taken is public, rather than private – and will be of interest to readers looking for perspectives on property law, education issues, and politics.

The third article uses the estate of Minnesotan and musical genius Prince, who died intestate in Minnesota in 2016, to illustrate the consequences of intestacy and why estate planning is important, even for those who are not famous or wealthy. The Prince Estate: How Intestacy Works, How It Could Work, and How It Fails as an Estate Plan, by Dennis M. Patrick and Beth T. Morrison, begins with an overview of intestacy, then gives examples of how intestacy laws have occasionally been updated to reflect the realities of modern families. The article then outlines the details of Prince’s family and the various claims that have been made during the court proceedings sorting out the estate; this sets up case studies exploring what would happen with the estate had circumstances been different. The authors are attorneys at DeWitt Mackall Crounse & Moore S.C. in Minneapolis.

The fourth article is by a Minnesota author – Mitchell Hamline student Matthew Porter – and examines the Minnesota Supreme Court’s 2016 decision in State v. Fawcett. Blood on Their Hands: What Minnesota Authorities Can Do with Broad Warrants for Blood Draw Testing—State v. Fawcett reviews the history of blood draws and testing in the context of Fourth Amendment search and seizure law before diving in the Fawcett decision, in which the court held that the warrant application provided probable cause to support the issuance of the search warrant and that the search warrant permitting a search of Fawcett’s blood for alcohol or controlled substances was sufficiently particular. Mr. Porter then parses out what the court got right and what it got wrong, arguing that the court’s conclusion that the warrant was not properly interpreted and was not particular enough to justify the search of Fawcett’s blood for the presence of drugs.