Professor and Associate Dean Milena Sterio presented at the Central States Law Schools’ Association Annual Meeting at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA.  Professor Sterio’s presentation was entitled “Prosecuting Juvenile Piracy Suspects: The Legal Framework.”

In her presentation, Professor Sterio explored international human rights obligations of states to treat juvenile suspects differently in the context of juvenile piracy suspects’ prosecutions.  Professor Sterio concluded that juvenile piracy suspects should not be caught and released, but that instead, prosecuting nations should ensure that they are incarcerated separately from the adult prison population, that they are prosecuted according to relevant juvenile justice standards, and that, if they are convicted, their punishment is implemented with a view toward their rehabilitation.  Professor Sterio is currently writing a book on this topic, which is under contract with Routledge and due in 2015.

Professor Heidi Gorovitz Robertson published a new blog post on Crain’s Cleveland Business’ Energy Report entitled “Community Bill of Rights attempts to use rights-based charter amendments to ban drilling” on October 10.  In this post, Professor Robertson analyzes the recent efforts by some citizens from the Village of Gates Mills  to pass a “Community Bill of Rights” which would alter the village’s charter and include an outright ban on development of hydrocarbons. The post is available here.

Professor Alan Weinstein spoke on October 9 at the National Signage Research Conference at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Weinstein was part of a panel presentation, “Reassessing the Importance of Sign Law in the Planning Law Curriculum,” with Eric Strauss, Professor of Urban & Regional Planning and Director of Graduate Programs in the School of Planning, Design and Construction at Michigan State, and Dawn Jourdan, Associate Professor and Director of the Regional & City Planning Program at the University of Oklahoma.

In their presentation, the panelists argued that there is a mismatch between the importance accorded to sign regulation in most planning law courses and the importance sign regulation has in planning practice at the local government level. Each panelist then demonstrated how each has integrated sign regulation  into the planning law course and concluded with a discussion that compared and contrasted their various approaches.

Professor Claire Robinson May has been an active participant in 25th reunion for the Cleveland Heights High School Class of 1989 (the reunion will take place on October  11-12).  As a service project, CHHS alumni, including Professor May, have put together a mini career fair for students in the district. Professor May reports that “we wanted to show how our Heights experience contributed to our paths and success.”  Professor May’s career fair web page is available here.  Another alumnus and participant in the career fair is Juvenile Court Judge Michael J. Ryan, who is also a Cleveland-Marshall Law alumnus.

A paper which Howard Katz and CM Law Professor Kevin O’Neill co-authored, “Strategies and Techniques of Law School Teaching,” has been listed among SSRN’s Top Ten downloads of all time for papers related to legal education.  The paper was just included in SSRN Top Ten Download list for “Innovation in Legal Education eJournal.”  It has been downloaded 2,155 times! This paper had also been published in book format in 2009 by Aspen. Congratulations to the authors.

Professor Dennis Keating of the Levin College of Urban Affairs and the College of Law has published a new article entitled “Urban Land Banks and the Housing Foreclosure and Abandonment Crisis” in 33 St. Louis Public Law Review 93-107 (2013).