Professor Brian Ray, with co-author Professor Jane Bambauer (University of Arizona), have published “Covid-19 Apps are Terrible — They Didn’t Have to Be,” on the prominent Lawfare blog. The paper was also featured in a companion Lawfare Podcast, in which Professor Alan Rozenshtein (University of Minnessota) discussed the topic with Professor Ray and Professor Bambauer.

In the paper, Professors Ray and Bambauer explain how state and federal governments, as well as private companies, “prioritiz[e]d a fetishized notion of individual privacy over collective public health,” resulting in a series of decisions that made digital contact tracing extremely ineffective in the United States. They observe, “[t]he reluctance to leverage communications technologies to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus was so strong and so pervasive that the COVID-19 apps in operation today are underpowered and undersubscribed by design.” They conclude with lessons to improve preparedness for a future public health crisis.

Professor Ray is the Leon M. and Gloria Plevin Professor of Law and director of the Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection

Professor Jonathan Witmer-Rich has published an op-ed on Cleveland.com titled “All coercive state interrogations, including of juveniles, have constitutional due-process protections.” The op-ed criticizes a recent Ohio Supreme Court case, In re M.H., in which the Court held that the confession of a juvenile to a child protective services officer was voluntary. According to the Court’s plurality opinion, a confession can be rendered involuntary only when a police officer conducts the interrogation. Thus no matter what the child protective services investigator does during an interrogation, a resulting confession is always voluntary simply because the interrogator is not a police officer. Professor Witmer-Rich criticized this rule as inconsistent with fundamental principles of liberty and due process.

Professor Witmer-Rich is the Joseph C. Hotetler–Baker Hostetler Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Academic Enrichment.

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, spoke with a variety of media in recent weeks over the several antitrust lawsuits filed in rapid succession against Google and Facebook, including Bloomberg news and the websites Protocol and Global Competition Review. 

Sagers also spoke with Global Competition Review about an unusual concurring statement by Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a matter in which the Supreme Court rejected review. 

Chris Sagers, the James A. Thomas Professor of Law, appeared in various media recently on a variety of pending antitrust issues.

Sagers wrote his own piece in Slate on the Federal Trade Commission’s historic lawsuit against Facebook, and also spoke about the case with Agence-France Presse.

He spoke with both Publishers Weekly and Bloomberg about the pending acquisition of book publisher Simon & Schuster, by Penguin Random House or the News Corp subsidiary HarperCollins. The deal would leave only four major publishers of English-language trade books in the entire world, each of which would be a unit of the handful of multinational conglomerates that largely control mass media. 

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson worked with Andrew Thomas, Director of CSU’s Center for Energy Policy and Law and C|M|LAW Adjunct Professor to plan and present a conference on Oil and Gas Unitization Policy and Law.  The program, held via Zoom on December 14, 2020, was co-sponsored by C|M|LAW, the Levin College, and the Ohio Oil and Gas Commission. 

In addition to Professor Robertson, speakers included the Director of the Oil and Gas Commission, an Assistant Ohio Attorney General, practitioners, and oil and gas professors from Louisiana. 

Robertson presented on a panel on Ohio Unitization law; she discussed unitization and mandatory pooling issues in Ohio from the landowner perspective.  In particular, Robertson discussed landowner rights under unitization agreements, current practices on risk-penalty/interest for statutorily unitized landowners, and takings and other defenses.

Robertson is the Steven W. Percy Distinguished Professor of Law at C|M|LAW and Professor of Environmental Studies at the Levin College of Urban Affairs.

Professor Christa Laser’s article, Certiorari in Patent Cases, is in the SSRN top ten list of the most downloaded recent papers in Intellectual Property Empirical Studies.   A link to the draft paper is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3728706

Professor Christa Laser submitted comments in response to Senator Josh Hawley’s request for views on potential reform of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In her comments, Professor Laser advocated an optional alternative dispute resolution forum for DMCA disputes. She also suggested that DMCA mechanisms could be used to target deepfakes, impersonation, and revenge pornography on the internet by expanding DMCA provisions to certain right of publicity and right of privacy violations.

Professor Christa Laser’s forthcoming article, Certiorari in Patent Cases, was highlighted this week in the leading patent law blog, PatentlyO.com. 

A link to Professor Laser’s article is here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3728706

Professor Milena Sterio participated as an expert and consultant in a two-day training program, on December 8-9, on Human Rights Documentation practices.  The training was organized by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, and its participants included NGOs and civil society organizations from Africa, Asia and South America.  Professor Sterio’s presentations focused on the mechanics of human rights documentation practices, as well as on the connection between human right documentation, transitional justice and accountability.  

Professor Mark Sundahl recently published a letter in the journal Science, discussing NASA’s Artemis Accords, which are the bilateral agreements that NASA is using to partner with other space agencies in its return to the Moon. Professor Sundahl’s letter defends the Artemis Accords from criticisms by other commentators.

Science is one of the world’s leading academic journals. Professor Sundahl’s letter appears in Volume 370, Issue 6520, at page 1045.

Professor Sundahl is the director of Cleveland-Marshall’s Global Space Law Center.