Volume 4, Issue 4 (Fall 2007)
TO SAVE OR NOT TO SAVE: HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN NEW JERSEY – JUSTIFICATIONS, HINDERANCES, FUTURE
Brian Uzdavinis
The concept evokes images of wealthy older women sitting well postured on horse-hair-stuffed settees in the parlor of some Victorian mansion, just one among a lengthy strip of painted ladies standing demurely along a shady, tree-lined street. A fire crackles in the background, a Victrola plays, lace lies everywhere. They discuss the horrid color their new neighbors have slapped over the Dutch Colonial just up the way, chiming, “Just wait until the mayor hears.” Outside the front door hangs a plaque asserting that so-and-so lived here during the Civil War. For some this may seem quaint, but it no longer sets the context for more modern approaches to historic preservation. View More
NOTE: FEDERAL TAX CREDIT INCENTIVES AS A METHOD OF PROMOTING BROWNFIELD REMEDIATION
Lauren Brantz
The benefits of redevelopment are innumerable—a cleaner environment, more jobs, increased tax base, more stable communities, and a deterrence of urban sprawl. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines the term “brownfields” as “ ‘abandoned, idled or underused industrial and commercial sites where expansion or redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived environmental contamination that can add cost, time or uncertainty to a redevelopment project.’” View More
Ryan Frampton
When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its Kelo v. City of New London decision in June 2005, it sparked a firestorm of controversy. The opinion was decried as the downfall of our private property scheme, with its loudest critics noting that the opinion could be read broadly enough to support an interpretation that allowed a state entity to exercise eminent domain any time it sought to improve tax revenue. Disregarding whether this is the case necessarily stands for such a broad proposition, the legislative reaction was swift and wide ranging. Within five weeks of the publication of the opinion, at least 28 states had legislation pending, frequently including proposed state constitutional amendments, to limit the impact of Kelo. Eminent domain procedures are necessarily complex, seeking to limit the harm to individual property owners while procuring increased social utility for the community. Consequently, amendments to these broad state law schemes should be carefully considered to avoid unintended consequences and insure that the protections purportedly afforded by the legislation are actually achieved. View More
WELFARE FRAUD, NECESSITY, AND MORAL JUDGEMENT
Eyal Kimel
Moral Judgment has always played a major role in judicial decision-making, especially in cases involving poverty-related offences. An analysis of recent court decisions in such cases shows the same values that informed the courts in their deliberations more than 150 years ago continue to do so today. View More
PLACE THE DEATH PENALTY ON A TRIPOD, OR MAKE IT STAND ON ITS OWN TWO FEET?
Margo A. Rocklin
This paper considers differences in evidentiary standards and constitutional limitations during the guilt, eligibility and penalty selection determinations of a capital trial. Capital trials and the subsequent sentencing hearings of guilty defendants require careful procedural safeguards to ensure that juries are able to make distinct guilt, eligibility and penalty determinations, as contemplated by the governing statutes. As a framework for evaluating these issues, this article will consider the two primary federal death penalty statutes, 21 U.S.C. § 848 and 18 U.S.C. § 3593, as well as the limited variety of capital schemes present in state death penalty statutes. View More