Monthly Archives: February 2013

Forte Re-Appointed to Ohio Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

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C|M|LAW Professor David Forte was recently re-appointed to a third two-year term to he Ohio Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights.

In addition, the Ohio State Law Journal has accepted Professor Fore’s article entitled, Life, Heartbeat, Birth: A Medical Basis for Reform.  It is due out this spring.

Robertson Guest Blogs in Crain’s, Suggests Site Specific Emergency Planning for Ohio Shale Sites

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C|M|LAW Professor and Associate Dean Heidi Gorovitz Robertson appears as a Guest Blogger in this week’s Crain’s Cleveland Business.  Her post, Lessons from the Gulf: The Value of Emergency Planning suggests that emergency planning and preparedness for disaster was woefully inadequate in the Gulf of Mexico.  The shortcomings there have been well documented.  Robertson suggests that as Ohio rushes to develop its potentially lucrative shale oil and gas resources, it learn from the Gulf and make appropriate site specific plans for emergency response.

The post appears as part of Crain’s Ohio Energy Report.  See the post here:

http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20130208/BLOGS05/130209796/1241/newsletter04

Falk Cited by California Court of Appeals Regarding Rape by Fraud

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C|M|LAW Professor Patricia J. Falk’s article, Rape by Fraud and Rape by Coercion, 64 Brook.L.Rev. 39, (1998), was cited by the California Court of Appeals in  The People v. Morales.  The court is discussing whether fraudulent impersonation in the inducement of intercourse constitutes fraud in fact, and vitiates consent.

The court first references Falk’s article at page 9.  See the opinion here: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B233796.PDF

Kalir, Witmer-Rich, C|M|LAW Students File Petition for Writ of Certiorari Regarding Government Use of DNA Profile

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On January 30, 2013 a team of C|M|LAW students supervised by C|M|LAW Professors Jonathan Witmer-Rich and Doron Kalir filed a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari with the United States Supreme Court. The petition seeks review of State v. Emerson, a recent Ohio Supreme Court decision holding that no person has standing under the Fourth Amendment to challenge the government ‘s use of his or her DNA profile, provided the DNA material was obtained lawfully.  The C|M|Law team filed the petition in collaboration with Mr. Emerson’s lawyer, Brian Moriarty (C|M|Law class of 1994), who represented Mr. Emerson before the Ohio Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. While the Supreme Court accepts less than 2% of the petitions it receives, the educational experience was extremely rewarding to all involved. The students on the team were Jamie Ganner, Brendan Heil, Jackie Staple, and Sarah Kendig.

Forte Cited in Urofsky’s Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact

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 Melvin I. Urofsky, an eminent legal and constitutional historian at Virginia Commonwealth University, has just published Supreme Decisions: Great Constitutional Cases and Their Impact (Westview Press, 2012).  The first case he discusses is “The Case of the Disappointed Office-Seeker: Marbury v. Madison (1803).”
In the notes on “Further Reading” at the end of the article, Urofsky states, “Information about the plaintiff is drawn primarily from David F. Forte, ‘Marbury’s Travail: Federalist Politics and William Marbury’s Appointment as Justice of the Peace,” 45 Catholic Law Review 349 (1996).”  C|M|LAW Professor Forte is in estimable company in this endnote, as other works cited there are by William Nelson, Kent Newmyer, Charles Hobson, and Richard Ellis, all of whom have written important books on the early Supreme Court, Marshall, Jefferson, and/or Marbury.