A Publication of the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law
2013-14
ONULAW
The Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law
A PERSONAL APPROACH TO LEGAL EDUCATION
OUR MISSION
A PERSONAL APPROACH TO LEGAL EDUCATION
A Letter from Dean Bales I am excited to be the new ONU Law dean. We are anything but a one-size-fits-all law school. Dig a little deeper; come visit us and discover for yourself the true ONU Law difference.
I am exceptionally proud to be the 21st dean of the Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University. These are challenging times in legal education, but with new challenges come new opportunities. Negative publicity in national newspapers has made many prospective students think twice about going to law school, and as a result, the students who do come are incredibly committed. Declining law school enrollment throughout the country is forcing law schools to compete for students, and yet the schools that can deliver a different and better educational product will not just survive, but thrive. Advances in technology and learning theory require us to rethink the classroom while developing new ways of teaching students more effectively and efficiently. I came to ONU Law because I believe this law school is far better positioned than most to take advantage of these new opportunities. Just a few examples: • The consistently strong bar passage and J.D.-required placement rates indicate that ONU Law is a leader in value-added legal education. • The LL.M. and J.D./LL.M. programs in Democratic Governance and Rule of Law are the only programs of their kind in the country, and are having a worldwide impact while educating lawyers here in Ada, Ohio. • The learning environment in the law school creates a sense of community – it’s a place where everyone knows your name, with faculty and staff who care deeply about student success. • Alumni believe passionately in their school and are actively involved in mentoring students and helping them establish professional networks. • Our graduates leave with a strong work ethic and an ability to “play well with others” and work in a team environment. See for yourself in these pages of The Writ some of the exciting things happening at ONU Law. In 2013 alone, we’ve hosted scholars and practitioners from around the country for symposia on “Law and Religion in Conflict: Problems for Ethical Lawyering” and “Congress on the Red Carpet: Legislation Impacting the Entertainment and Social Media Industries.” Members of our faculty have made significant contributions to legal scholarship, both at home and abroad. And while the ONU Law community has long supported students interested in pursuing public interest careers, this year we were recognized by The National Law Journal for having the ninth highest rate for job placement in public interest and government legal jobs in the nation! If you’re on Facebook, keep up with me (and the law school) by friending me or liking the College of Law page. We have much to be proud of at ONU Law, and I am proud to be part of the ONU Law community. Sincerely,
Richard Bales Dean, College of Law
THE Writ
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FEATURING
2013 LECTURE SEASON REVIEW..............3
On Campus
40th Anniversary of Tilton Building .........8 Merit Awards for Rare Book Room .........7
In Class
• Dean’s Lecture Series: Kevin Lee • Law Federalist Society Lecture • Diversity Forum • Gordon S. Wood debate • Kormendy Lecture • Carhart Symposium • Law Review Symposium • Dean’s Lecture Series: Mark Miller • Dick Heller: Gun Control Public Interest Auction ..........................6
PLUS Program .....................................12 LLM Program.......................................14 Iceland Exchange.................................15 January Term Course ...........................16
Alumni
Lecture Series
INSIDE
FALL 2013 ISSUE
Alumni Weekend ..................................18 Job Placement .....................................20 Bar Exam ............................................22
2 OUR DEAN
New Dean, Traveler, Author
10 OUR GRADUATES Presenting the Class of 2013
21 ASK A JUDGE
23 OUR HISTORY MAKERS Woman Prosecutes Woman
28 OUR FACULTY AT WORK By: David Pimentel
Honors Banquet ...................................24
Faculty Updates ...................................26
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FRONT COVER
Professor Mike Lewis tapes an episode of the PBS show “World on Trial.” PHOTO COURTESY OF PENN STATE LAW
JOIN US
STAFF EDITORIAL COMMITTEE: Nancy Armstrong Brian Anderson David Fetrow CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Elizabeth McKinney Brian Anderson Nancy Armstrong David Pimentel
The Writ is the official publication of the Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law. The Writ is published once a year and distributed to alumni and friends of the College of Law. Letters, alumni notes, requests for reprint permission and manuscripts of articles should be sent to:
OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY PETTIT COLLEGE OF LAW 525 South Main Street Ada, OH 45810
DESIGN/LAYOUT: Studio II, West Liberty, Ohio
PHONE: 419–772–3051
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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE CHAIR: Andrea Alexander
ONU LAW
Faculty
Honors
Criminal Child Neglect and the ‘Free Range Kid’
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OUR DEAN Richard Bales: New Dean, Traveler, Author On April 5, 2013, Ohio Northern University named Richard Bales the new dean of the Pettit College of Law. Bales replaced Stephen C. Veltri, the interim dean for the 2012-13 school year. Before Veltri, David C. Crago served as the dean of the College of Law from 200111. Bales grew up in Houston, Texas, before going to college at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After college, he went to New York, where he earned his law degree from Cornell Law School in 1993. In 1998, Bales joined the faculty of Northern Kentucky University Chase College of Law, where he was the director of the Advocacy Center and the associate dean of faculty development. A seasoned traveler, Bales has been all over the world. Two recent trips were as a Fulbright Specialist in Malaysia (2010) and Indonesia (2013). In Malaysia, he taught dispute resolution to labor and employment law judges. In Indonesia, he taught students legal English and worked with faculty who wanted to publish scholarship in international journals. Bales says Southeast Asia is his favorite place to travel because he loves the people, culture, and food. When he travels, he loves to challenge the local people to present to him a food that is either too spicy or too strange for him to eat. “I win that game every time,” he says. The strangest foods he has tried are fried worms (“kind of like liver”) and durian (a Southeast Asian fruit that smells like an open-pit sewer but has the taste and consistency of a fine custard).
Writing has also taught Bales humility: “I’m constantly learning how to be a better writer. At many points in my career, I have thought that I was a good writer, and a few years later I look back and say, ‘no, I’ve gotten a whole lot better since then.’” Perhaps this humility carries over into his budding career as a dean, since Bales says he plans to “spend the first year on the job mostly listening.” He wants to take the time to meet people and understand how the law college operates. He also intends to expand the law school’s outreach to alumni and to enhance the admissions program. “The alumni have a lot of experience and contacts and a lot of pride in this school that I’d like to tap into… Our prospective students are the future of the law school. I’d like to be actively involved in the admissions process and to recruit as strong an entering class as I possibly can.” Bales has high expectations for Ohio Northern, but he also has a lot of ambition to follow up on those expectations, and the law school is excited to welcome him. •
With more than 85 works published, Bales is also an established scholar and author. Many of his articles were co-written with students. “One of the things that I’m very proud of is that I’ve gotten law students very involved in my scholarship, and I give them full credit for their contributions,” he states.
RICK VS. THE VOLCANO
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Dean Rick Bales stands on the Mombacho Volcano in Nicaragua.
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A sampling of Dean Richard Bales’ publications
As a part of the Dean’s Lecture Series, professor Kevin Lee of Campbell University visited Ohio Northern University to give a presentation on “The Citizen Lawyer in the Coming Era: How Technology is Changing the Practice of Law and What it Might Mean for the Future of the Lawyer’s Role in the American Democracy.” Lee discussed the declining job rate in the legal profession and what the transition from human to automated legal advice means for lawyers and for humanity. He cautioned the audience with a quote from the book Bramble Bush by LEE Karl Llewellyn: “A mere legal machine is a social danger. Indeed, a mere legal machine is not even a good lawyer.” In order to avoid becoming a legal machine or a “[mere] technician,” Lee said, a lawyer must remain a human being while thinking like a lawyer. Lawyers can do this by being artisans and “thus seek to bring humanity back to the law.” Lee has a strong background in religion, philosophy, and ethics. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Colgate University, his J.D. from New York Law School, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. He worked for Braun Moriya Hoashi & Kubota in Tokyo, Japan, and is a member of the North Carolina Bar Association, Society of Christian Ethics, American Catholic Philosophical Association, and American Academy of Religion.
EUGENE KONTOROVICH Feb. 21, 2013 The Ohio Northern University Law Federalist Society invited Eugene Kontorovich, of Northwestern University Law School, to speak for a special event. The title of the presentation was “Pre-Occupied: Myths about Israel and International Law.” Kontorovich has done research in constitutional law, international law, and law and economics and has authored multiple papers and articles. Currently, he is writing a KONTOROVICH
for the Recorder’s Court, and judge for the 36th District Court for the City of Detroit.
During the 2011-12 academic year, Kontorovich received a resident membership at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Bator Award. The Bator Award is presented annually by the Federalist Society to a young, leading academic figure who has demonstrated excellence in legal scholarship as well as a dedication to teaching.
DIVERSITY FORUM Feb. 27, 2013 Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law’s Black Law Students Association hosted the 14th annual Diversity Forum this year. The theme was “Back to the Future: The Past, Present and Future of Legal Practice.” The panelists discussed previously popular fields of practice as well as present and future trends in fields of practice. These panelists included Judges LOGAN Benjamin Logan, BSBA ’68, JD ’72, Hon. D. ’92, of the 61st District Court of Michigan, and Gershwin Drain, district judge for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Logan earned his B.A. in accounting and history from Ohio Northern and his J.D. from Ohio Northern Pettit College of Law in 1972. He practiced as an attorney for 16 years and was a senior partner at Logan and Beason. He has been a judge since 1989. DRAIN
Drain received his undergraduate degree from Western Michigan University, his law degree from the University of Michigan, and a Master of Judicial Studies from the University of Nevada-Reno. He was appointed to his current position by President Barack Obama in 2012. He has previously served as judge on the Wayne County Circuit Court, judge
President Daniel DiBiasio shakes hands with Gordon Wood after presenting him with an honorary degree.
GORDON S. WOOD DEBATE March 14, 2013 Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Gordon S. Wood visited Ohio Northern University in March. He debated the topic of “The Supreme Court and the Uses of History” with Ohio Northern University law professor Scott Gerber. Both Wood and Gerber presented their arguments concerning the Supreme Court looking at its history to decide current cases, and the debate concluded with a question-and-answer session. Later that night, Wood gave a talk titled “The Revolutionary Origins of the Civil War” in the Freed Center at Ohio Northern. At the lecture, President Daniel DiBiasio presented Wood with an honorary doctorate degree.
WOOD
GERBER
Wood is the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. He received his B.A. from Tufts University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University and has spent time teaching at both Harvard University and the University of Michigan. He is the author of many
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Feb. 7, 2013
book called Justice at Sea: Piracy and the Limits of International Criminal Law. He attended the University of Chicago for his undergraduate and law degrees and spent two years there as a visiting professor. He served as a clerk for Judge Richard Posner on the United States Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and taught at George Mason University Law School.
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KEVIN LEE
Lecture Series
2013 LECTURE SEASON REVIEW
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books, including The Radicalism of the American Revolution, which won the Pulitzer Prize for History and the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize in 1993. He was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama as well as the Churchill Bell by Colonial Williamsburg in 2011. Gerber has published eight books, including To Secure These Rights: The Declaration of Independence and Constitutional Interpretation, which he used to develop his argument for this debate. He received his B.A. from the College of William and Mary, and both his J.D. and Ph.D. in politics from the University of Virginia.
RICHARD HELLER March 15, 2013 Dick Heller, party to the Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), spoke at the College of Law in a special lecture about his fight against gun control. Although the real battle didn’t start until much later, Heller has opposed gun control in Washington, D.C., since he moved there in 1976. In September 1976, D.C. passed the Firearm Control Regulations Act of 1975, which restricted residents from owning firearms unless they had been registered before the law was enacted and required residents to keep lawfully owned firearms unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device even in the owner’s own home. HELLER
In the years following the enactment of the Act, D.C.’s murder rate was 10 times the national average. Heller referenced one particular example in which one of his neighbors shot a burglar in selfdefense and was sent to jail for using illegal firearms. Heller’s inability to buy a handgun for his own protection was what really motivated him to begin his 15-year-long fight against this legislation.
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The Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari limited to the question, “Whether the following provisions, D.C. Code §§ 7-2502.02(a)(4), 22–4504(a), and 7-2507.02, violate the Second Amendment rights of individuals who are not affiliated with any state-regulated militia, but who wish to keep handguns and other firearms for private use in their homes?” The Court ruled in favor of Heller, declaring the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 a violation of the Second Amendment’s right to possess and use a firearm for lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
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KORMENDY LECTURE April 8, 2013 This year’s Kormendy Lecture featured retired Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard. His presentation was titled “Brother,
Can You Spare a Dime? The Crisis in American Legal Education.” Shepard’s speech discussed the state of affairs for lawyers, focusing on the expense versus the value of education. He posed the SHEPARD question “Is law school worth it?” and answered it by stating, “The answer… is plainly, ‘yes.’” He also confided, “The only thing more expensive than going to college is not going to college.” Shepard was appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1985 and became chief justice of Indiana in 1987. Shepard was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts in 2006 to the U.S. Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Civil Rules. When he retired in 2012, he held the title of the longest-serving chief justice in Indiana history. Shepard has served as a senior judge in the Indiana Court of Appeals and as executive in residence for Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute. Currently, Shepard is the chair of the ABA Task Force on the Future of Legal Education, a director of Old National Bancorp, and a trustee emeritus of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. He graduated from Princeton University cum laude, attended Yale Law School, and received his LL.M. in the judicial process from the University of Virginia. Shepard also served as executive assistant to Mayor Russell Lloyd of Evansville and as special assistant to the under secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation. He served as chair of the ABA Appellate Judges Conference, the ABA Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, and Indiana Landmarks, as well as president of the National Conference of Chief Justices.
idealized view of one’s own system onto a demonized view of the opposite position that infuses much, not only much discussion, but much work, in this area. Eddy gave examples from cases he had either worked on or had encountered while he was in Ethiopia and Afghanistan, as well as his experience with LL.M. students in the program he teaches in Seattle. He said the biggest issue among cultures is that people make assumptions despite their “vast ignorance” and the fact that they “rarely bring historical framework to [their] vision” of other peoples. The symposium also included a series of distinguished panelists who addressed conscience, religious tradition, and requirements for the rule of the law. These panelists were as follows:
JOHN M. BREEN Professor of law at Loyola University Chicago School of Law Breen has been published in the Campbell Law Review, the Gonzaga Law Review, and the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, among others. The title of Breen’s talk was “The Strategy of Winning an Argument without BREEN Having One: the Case of Abortion.” He discussed the issues with arguments that make religious or secular claims. “If it is wrong to introduce religion into a matter of public discourse, it is equally wrong to wrongfully accuse someone of introducing, interjecting, religion when that is not, in fact, the case.” According to Breen, people base their arguments on the assumption that the implication that something is religious will completely dismiss any opposition, thus effectively ending the argument before it can begin.
CARHART SYMPOSIUM April 12, 2013 This year’s Carhart Symposium was titled “Law and Religion in Conflict: Problems for Ethical Lawyering” and featured Jon Eddy, a professor of law and director of the Asian Law Center at University of Washington’s School of Law. He also trains lawyers in Afghanistan as the program director for the U.S. Department of StateFunded Legal Education EDDY Support Program. Eddy focused on the problems with and distortions of the views outsiders have of other cultures, specifically the United States and Afghanistan and Islam. He said: It is this detachment from actual facts and the lifting up to a high level of abstraction and the opposition of an
ZACHARY CALO Associate professor of law at Valparaiso University School of Law and Michael and Dianne Swygert research fellow Calo is a member of the editorial boards of the European Journal of Law and Religion and the Journal of Christian Legal Thought and is part of the Organizing Committee of the American Association of Law Schools, Section CALO on Law and Religion. Calo presented the argument that religion and secular law would benefit society if they worked together, side-by-side. “At its finest, it invites an attentiveness to contingency and history that is blended with an openness to truth and permanence.” Bringing these two “oppositional
April 19, 2013 The 36th annual Law Review Symposium featured several panelists who addressed the topic “Congress on the Red Carpet: Legislation Impacting the Entertainment and Social Media Industries.” The speakers included:
TELEVISION: Barry Chase, principal attorney at Chase Lawyers, who has previously represented CBS, Times-Mirror Company, Capital Cities Communications, and Time Inc.
DAVID PIMENTEL Visiting associate professor at Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law Pimentel headed the Rule of Law efforts in South Sudan for the United Nations Mission in Sudan and led court reform projects in Bosnia and Romania. He spent four years as the chief of court management at the United Nations’ International PIMENTEL Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Netherlands and was a 2010-11 Fulbright Scholar in Sarajevo. Pimentel’s presentation focused on how we strive to establish the rule of law in the world, and the role cultural and religious values play in this endeavor. Because often “religious values are what people hold most dear,” incentives for civil behavior may follow not so much from legal consequences as from spiritual ones. Accordingly, attempts to establish the rule of law that ignore or subvert religious authority may do more harm than good.
SPORTS: Matthew Mitten, director of the National Sports Law Institute and the LL.M. in Sports Law program for foreign lawyers at Marquette University Law School
MUSIC: Brian Mencher, a founding partner of Beame & Mencher LLP with a background in entertainment law Mencher works with copyright issues in the music industry. In his presentation, he explained MENCHER the differences among the types of music items that are copyrighted. These items include sheet music, sound recordings, digital downloads, and more. He also explained, in detail, how recording companies bypass the Controlled Composition Clause and only pay 75 percent of the royalty rate stated in the Copyright Act of 1976. An example Mencher used throughout his presentation was of Dolly Parton and Whitney Houston: Parton wrote “I Will Always Love You,” but Houston is the singer who made it famous. Since Parton wrote it, however, she gets paid a royalty fee every time someone buys or downloads Houston’s cover of this song. Mencher encouraged musicians to write their own music, so they don’t have to pay another artist every time they make a sale.
Chase focused his talk on the First Amendment and the Communications Act of 1934. He finds the First Amendment especially interesting because it specifically states “no law” can impede or infringe upon United States citizens’ right to freedom of speech, religion, and press. Most of the amendments leave some breathing room by saying something along the lines of “no unreasonable law.” The First Amendment, however, seems to be “set in stone.” This has not, Chase said, stopped Congress from trying to pass laws controlling freedom of speech, though. The Supreme Court case United States v. Stevens, 130 S.Ct. 1577 (2010) listed five exceptions to the amendment: obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, and speech integral to criminal conduct. Chase quoted Chief CHASE
Lecture Series
Quraishi-Landes was a 2009 Carnegie Scholar and 2012 Guggenheim Fellow and writes on comparative legal theory and Islamic law. Recent publications include “The Separation of Powers in the Tradition of Muslim QURAISHI-LANDES Governments,” and “What if Sharia Weren’t the Enemy: Re-Thinking International Women’s Rights Activism and Islamic Law.” She has served as a public delegate on the United States Delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (2010), the Task Force on Religion and the Making of U.S. Foreign Policy for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and as advisor to the Pew Task Force on Religion and Public Life. She is currently on the governing board of the Association of American Law Schools’ Section on Islamic Law, the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), and Muslim Advocates. She explained many misconceptions of Islamic culture and faith as well as the different schools of sharia – the moral code and religious law of Islam – within Islam during her presentation. “Islamic law is not one monolithic code; it is the goal of living by God’s way,” she said, and because scripture doesn’t regulate everything, the state is needed for the public good. She also described Islamic government as having a “separation of types of laws, not of church and state.”
LAW REVIEW SYMPOSIUM
Justice John Roberts concerning these five exceptions, “the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problems.” Chase further explained that print media is different from radio and television because the government has to regulate the number of channels and stations, and there is a limited number available, so, since they are regulated by the government, they receive less protection from the First Amendment than does print media.
Mitten began his talk with an overview of the statutes and laws surrounding sports: anti-trust law, Title IX, labor law, trademark and copyright law, the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act, SPARTA, the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, and more. He focused on the National Football League for the majority of his presentation, especially concerning the Sports Broadcasting Act. In 1961, the NFL entered a contract with CBS, giving CBS the right to broadcast all NFL games for two years. The revenue was divided equally among the clubs. Before this, clubs had sold the right to broadcast their games individually. Congress enacted the Sports Broadcasting Act in 1962 to allow football, basketball, baseball, and hockey to collectively sell their clubs’ television rights. Mitten explained how this act affected competitive balance, as well as why competitive balance is important to sports. Competitive balance is what makes sports a buyable product, and since the clubs are in different areas, they each bring in a different amount of revenue. This means that the clubs that are profit-maximizing are able to buy the best players. The smaller market clubs cannot always afford the best players, which is where the connection between competitive balance and profit maximizing comes into play: “Revenue sharing will reduce large market clubs’ demand for the best players more than small markets,” Mitten said. He ended with a comparison of football teams’ standings and market size, proving that the market size doesn’t have much of an impact on the talent of the team in either the NFL or college football. MITTEN
SOCIAL MEDIA: Pedram Tabibi, associate at Meltzer, Lippe, Goldstein, and Breitstone, LLP in New York
TABIBI
Tabibi talked about the laws and litigation that have emerged from issues surrounding social media
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ASIFA QURAISHI-LANDES Associate professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School
This symposium was established in 2007 by Dwight Carhart, JD ’47, in honor of his father, Fred L. Carhart, BS 1902, who was an attorney in Marion, Ohio, for the entirety of his legal career.
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polarities” together has the possibility of developing a “just and a well-ordered legal system,” Calo argued.
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websites and accounts in the past few years. He discussed Regulation Fair Disclosure and how that has affected posts to Twitter and Facebook by companies and employees. Tabibi also explained several lawsuits over the possession of social media accounts, including PhoneDog v. Noah Kravitz, and Eagle v. Morgan. Through these examples, Tabibi stressed the importance of having a company policy for social media websites, accounts, and posts.
FILM: Sherri Burr, Regents professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law and producer and host of ARTS TALK, a television talk show Burr gave multiple examples in her BURR presentation of joint authorship and copyright laws. She first explained the three factors that determine whether the work was co-authored or not: shared intent, whether the work was completely supervised by both authors, and whether the audience appeal can be attributed to both authors – in other words, did the audience enjoy both authors’ work? Burr discussed the film Stuart Little and the co-authors for the screenplay.
Seventeen people contributed to the work, but only two were credited. She also talked about the case Marino v. Writers Guild of America, 992 F.2d 1480 (9th Cir. 1993), in which Marino sued the WGA for a violation of fair representation. Burr’s next example was Aalmuhammed v. Lee, 202 F.3d 1227 (9th Cir. 2000): Aalmuhammed claimed joint ownership of Malcolm X with Lee. Burr described joint-authorship as being similar to a marriage, and “even more difficult to get a divorce.” She ended her presentation with an explanation of how the First Sale Doctrine affects movie production and sales overseas. Burr’s presentation was especially interesting for the law school from a technological standpoint. She was unable to attend the symposium in person because her flight was unexpectedly cancelled, so she gave her talk over Skype. This was the first time Burr had ever used Skype and the first time the law school had used the program for an event such as this. Burr was able to show her PowerPoint presentation while talking to and looking at the audience, and the law college community was able to learn from a speaker who would otherwise have been inaccessible. The symposium ended in a question-and-answer session. The audience was able to ask questions to either a specific speaker or to all of the
panelists, since many of them have experience in multiple legal fields.
MARK MILLER April 26, 2013 Dr. Mark Miller, BA ’80, was invited to speak as part of this year’s Dean’s Lecture Series. The title of his presentation was “Constitutional Interpretation and Policymaking: Courts, the Presidents, and Congress MILLER in Dialogue.” Miller is the director of the Law and Society Program as well as a professor of political science at Clark University. He earned his M.A. in political science and his Ph.D. in American politics, both from Ohio State University, and his J.D. from George Washington University College of Law. Previously, he has served as judicial fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. •
PUBLIC INTEREST AUCTION April 5, 2013 The 16th annual Public Interest Auction and Lunch was a huge success this year, and raised almost $9,000 to be awarded in scholarships to nine students who are pursuing internships in the public interest field.
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The Public Interest program started in 1994, with an idea to help students pursue their dreams of public interest work. In 1998, Ohio Northern started an annual auction to raise money for these students. Since then, the program has helped more than 80 students with scholarships by raising more than $85,000 total.
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This year, many items were raffled and auctioned off. The silent auction items included several different gift baskets, jewelry, Ohio Northern attire, a leather briefcase, an “L-2 Success Package,” gift certificates to various businesses
in Ada, a parking violation pass from Ohio Northern Security, and more. Raffle items included gift certificates to Von’s Diamonds and Jewelry, Victoria’s Secret, Reichert’s Department Store, and various restaurants; LexisNexis points; an Ohio Northern canvas bag; and a one-night stay in the Fairfield Marriott in Lima, among others. The auction was led by Mike Slaughter, JD ’99, who has been the auctioneer since his second year of law school, when the Public Interest Auction first started. More than 40 items were donated for the auction. These items included gift baskets, gift certificates, handmade jewelry, dinners hosted by professors, a wine tasting, an office chair, a diploma frame, a bowling party, a cookbook, and several hotel stays. The Student Bar Association auctioned off two
ABOVE: Mike Slaughter, JD ’99, as auctioneer; LEFT: L-3s Larry King and Tessa Scott present one of the items up for bidding.
home-cooked meals from SBA representatives. Together they raised more than $400 for the program. Other items in the auction included an autographed and framed pair of professor Louis Lobenhofer’s “Famous Trafalgar ‘Formal’ Suspenders,” interim dean Stephen Veltri’s “Legendary Class Pass” as well as his book The ABCs of the UCC, and a bowtie worn by professor David Pimentel with a framed certificate of authentication. Proceeds from the Public Interest Auction and Lunch will help many students move forward in their careers in public interest areas of law. The Public Interest Law Association is always accepting financial contributions and donations of appropriate items for auction in order to assist as many students as possible. •
On Campus
MERIT AWARDS FOR RARE BOOK ROOM
David C. Crago Rare Book and Special Collections Room Receives Recognition
In July 2013, the Rare Book Room was recognized as an Outstanding Design by American School & University magazine. Details about the room and the renovation project were featured in the 2013 Educations Interiors Showcase issue of the magazine in fall 2013, highlighting renovation projects in schools and universities across the country. The David C. Crago Rare Book and Special Collections Room houses the law library’s collection of British and American early legal
treatises, and its extensive collection of canon law and Roman law materials. The Taggart Law Library’s special collections include Icelandic legal texts relevant to the Icelandic Legal Exchange program, materials donated by Jay P. Taggart, and archival items such as law school publications. The room is available year-round to students, faculty, and visiting scholars who wish to use the items in the collection. •
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In June 2013, the Rare Book Room received two merit awards from the Illuminating Engineering Society. The room was given the Edwin F. Guth Memorial Award for Interior Lighting Design, for the innovative use of lighting that not only illuminated the room, but also complied with the best practices for preservation of rare books. The room was also given the Control Innovation Award for the creative use of dimmers and
timers to control the lighting in the room.
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In summer 2012, the Taggart Law Library renovated its rare book and special collections room, formerly a hidden and little-used space housing the library’s rare book collection. After the renovation, the room was named in honor of the law college’s outgoing dean, David C. Crago, for his long-standing support of the library and, specifically, of its rare book collection. Now the room is getting national recognition for its high-quality and innovative design.
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OUR BUILDING
The Tilton Hall of Law On Campus
By Elizabeth McKinney
2013 marks the 40th anniversary of the dedication of Ohio Northern University’s law building, which is home to the Pettit College of Law. The building was constructed in the early 1970s and later named for Earle Barton Tilton, LLB 1917, Hon. D. ’50, a graduate of the law college. It replaced the Huber Memorial building, which was built in 1924. On Oct. 6, 1973, the new $1.3 million law building was dedicated in a day-long ceremony that featured a symposium on law reform, speeches from distinguished visitors and alumni, and the conferring of honorary degrees on seven people, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, Hon. D. ’73, and four graduates of ONU’s College of Law. The new building boasted a moot courtroom, three classrooms, library space for 100,000 volumes, two seminar rooms, and office space for faculty.
DEDICATION Speaking before an audience of 750, Blackmun gave the dedication speech for the new law building, focusing on the value of the building for students. “[The money invested] does not represent or account for the elusive things that are so much more valuable: dreams, devotion, examples, ideals, scholarship, ethics,” he stated. Continuing, Blackmun told those in attendance that “bricks and mortar do not make lawyers and leaders of the legal profession . . . but they do help to provide the proper and appropriate atmosphere for the flowering of those talents that are peculiar to the legal mind.” Blackmun addressed students directly, offering 17 challenges. He presented students with tasks and concepts that he wanted them to take away from their education from Ohio Northern:
“[M]ay this law school be able continually to demonstrate to its students and to the public that it has offered and made available to the students a full education, that is, all that the school has and all that it knows or should know about law and legal ethics.” HARRY BLACKMUN, Hon. D. ’73 U.S. Supreme Court Justice
“I have tried to emphasize these points pertinent for this school, this building, and the students here: the fullness of a legal education with stress on the ethical as well as on the legal; the varied aspects of the law, with its many avenues of interest and of service; humble consciousness of status; the need to get away at times from the law; the ability to be alone; the stress upon perfection; the acceptance of criticism; the avoidance of discouragement; the importance of humor . . . ; an awareness of the times; the excitement of the law and its acceptance; an awareness of the unnecessary and self-imposed restless energy and stimulus of the day; the complexity of life; the undesirability of our limited horizons; integrity; judgment; and the law’s majesty.”
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Blackmun closed his speech by acknowledging that the “law school and this building . . . will have fulfilled their purpose” if the students could leave able to answer the question “What are you for, not what are you against?” [1 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 403 (1974)]
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The law college was named for Claude W. Pettit, Hon. D ’57, ACIT ’71, dean of the law college from 1932-55, during the ceremony. He received his B.A. from Ohio State University in 1911, his LL.B. from Case Western Reserve University in 1916, his LL.M. from George Washington University in 1932, and an honorary LL.D. from Ohio Northern in 1957. He served as a U.S. Army Captain during World War I. Pettit spent six years in private legal practice before joining the Ohio Northern faculty in 1925. When he retired, he was named dean emeritus of the College of Law. During his retirement, he taught part-time at Ohio Northern and was the Hardin County probate and juvenile judge. Pettit is credited with successfully continuing ONU’s Program of Legal Education during the difficult years of the Great Depression and World War II.
The law college was named for Claude W. Pettit, Hon. D ’57, ACIT ’71, dean of the law college from 1932-55, during the ceremony.
Hall] was modern, and the library was much improved.”
NEW BUILDING NAMED
Tilton was born in Tiltonville, Ohio, in 1899. The town was founded by his great-grandparents. Tilton received his Bachelor of Laws from Ohio Northern in 1917, a Bachelor of Commercial Science from New York University in 1924, a Doctor of Jurisprudence from De Paul University in 1927, and his honorary doctorate of law in 1950 from Ohio Northern. He was a member of the bar associations in Ohio and Illinois. The students also joined the effort to make the building “valuable,” as Blackmun commented in his speech. Before 1973, the library was on the second floor of the Huber Memorial Building. When the Tilton building was complete, students made a human chain to transfer the books from the library to trucks that carried the books to the new building. This group of volunteer students became known as the Book Brigade. When classes started in fall 1973, most of the classrooms were not ready, so students and professors continued to use the Huber building. When they did begin using the new building, students “were impressed by the beauty of the building and the spacious classrooms,” according to Dennis Donnelly, BA ’70, JD ’76. He continued, “I think the most exciting part of the new building for me was the Moot Court Room, which was very impressive and seemed huge at the time. For many students, the most exciting part was that there was a computer in the new library and it was connected to Lexis-Nexis.” Another alumnus, Marc Myers, JD ’76, said, “My memory is that [the Huber Memorial building] was old, crowded and hot. It reminded me of an old high school. [Tilton
RENOVATIONS In December 1981, the Taggart Library was expanded, with a new addition named after Eugene N. Hanson, Hon. D. ’86, a law professor from 1947 to 1984 and a law dean from 1958 to 1973. The building was renovated again in 1997 to include a new dean’s suite, a basement storage area, new faculty offices, and a student lounge. Additional renovations include the creation of the Celebrezze Archives Room, the Narol Technology Classroom, the Hanson Reading Room, the large and small Moot Court Rooms, and the Rare Books and Special Collections Room. Myers, who visited the school recently, described these renovations as “very impressive.”
On Campus
In 1976, Earle Tilton donated 1,280 acres of Red River Valley land in North Dakota to Ohio Northern. The proceeds were to be used to further legal education. This was the largest single contribution from any living individual in Ohio Northern’s history. The amount would be equivalent to more than $2,000,000 today. A naming ceremony was held on May 22, 1976, dedicating the building to Tilton.
Forty years after the dedication of the new law building, the Pettit College of Law is still dedicated to the “dreams, devotion, examples, ideals, scholarship, and ethics” that Blackmun talked about in his speech. The building more than serves its purpose by providing not only a center of learning for students, but also a home-away-from-home for many. Students and faculty alike also make long-lasting relationships with others during their time here. Over the past 40 years, this building has become a testament to the people who have passed through it. •
Faculty and honored guests proceed out of the new law building.
DURING THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW BUILDING,
• Peterson Construction Co. of Wapakoneta, Ohio,
was the general contractor for the Tilton building.
• Lake Constructing Co. of Celina,
Ohio, was the electrical company hired for the project.
• The architect was Lyman J.
Strong & Associates of Lima, Ohio.
THE BOOK BRIGADE Students from the College of Law worked together to move the contents of the library to the new facility by forming a human chain to complete the transfer.
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• Spartan Electric of Lima,
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Ohio, was the mechanical contractor.
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On Campus
OUR GRADUATES
O
2013 Commencement
hio Northern University Pettit College of Law celebrated commencement on May 19, 2013. Ninety-two students received J.D.s, 12 students received LL.M.s, and another six students earned the distinction of graduating with both a J.D. and an LL.M. Combined, this brought the class of 2013 to a total of 110 graduates.
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Daniel Jones, BA ’10, JD ’13, processes into the gym for the commencement ceremony.
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The interim dean for the 20122013 school year, Stephen Veltri, addresses the graduates and guests. President Daniel DiBiasio congratulates the 2013 graduates. Aishath Samah, LLM ’13, receives her hood.
Jacqueline Dobbert, JD ’13, performs the benediction song.
The student speaker at the ceremony was Elise N. McQuain, JD ’13, who graduated at the top of her class. Ryan M. Regel, JD ’13, gave the invocation. Hope L. Smalls, LLM ’13, JD ’13, gave the benediction. The National Anthem and Benediction were sung by Jacquelyn Dobbert, JD ’13. Steindór Dan Jensen, LLM ’13, an exchange student from Iceland, performed special music on piano.
On Campus
Ameerah McBride, JD ’13, Kayla McBride, JD ’13, and David McGoron, JD ’13, process out of the gym after commencement.
Guest speaker Rep. Thomas Reed, JD ’96, addresses the graduates.
Rep. Tom Reed, JD ’96, was the guest speaker for commencement. He is currently the House representative for the 23rd District of New York. He serves on the Human Resources, Oversight, and Select Revenue Measures subcommittees of the Committee on Ways and Means. He is the co-chair of the House Manufacturing Caucus and Congressional Natural Gas Caucus and the vice chair of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus. The interim dean of the College of Law, Stephen Veltri, placed the academic hoods on the graduates. He was assisted by professors who are members of the tenured law faculty. Ohio Northern University President Daniel DiBiasio presided over the ceremony and presented each graduate with their diploma.
Mark Davis, JD ’13, Rachel Kopec, JD ’13, and Steven Becker, JD ’13, celebrate after the commencement ceremony.
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Faculty process into the ceremony.
LEFT: Hope Smalls, JD ’13, gives the spoken benediction; BELOW: Elise McQuain, JD ’13, who graduated magna cum laude, gives the student remarks during the commencement ceremony.
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After the commencement ceremony, the law school hosted a reception for the graduates and their families. •
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In Class
OUR PROGRAMS
THE PLUS PROGRAM VISITS JUDGE REGINALD ROUTSON’S HANCOCK COUNTY COURTROOM. Back Row L-R : Roger Brown, Anthony Garcia, Marcul Joseph, Jeremy Martinez, Christopher Spielman, Peer Assistant Nathaniel Causey. Front Row L-R: Jacob Cogman, Judge Reginald Routson, Caitlin McGee, Elisa Esparza, Meilen Teklemichael, Rhonda Ekwunoh, Program Coordinator Melissa McCallop, Alexis Lesniak, and Naomi Noble
ONU Law’s PLUS Program One way Ohio Northern University’s Pettit College of Law demonstrates its commitment to diversity is with its Pre-Law Undergraduate Scholars (PLUS) program. The program was designed to help undergraduate students decide whether they want to attend law school. To do this, faculty give students a comprehensive look at the legal profession as well as the tools and skills needed to succeed both in school and as a lawyer. The three-week program is directed at freshmen and sophomores who are from groups that are underrepresented in the legal profession or face significant financial and familial obstacles in their pursuit of a career in law. It began in 2010 when the Law School Admissions Council gave the College of Law a grant. The original three-year, non-renewable grant provided $100,000 per year for the 25 seat program. The school was able to provide these students with room, board, and travel reimbursement, and a stipend so as not to cause the participants financial hardship. In 2013, the program was funded by the law college, which provided support for 12 students to participate.
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The 2013 program included students from 11 universities and eight states, including Texas, Maryland, Florida, and New York. Their undergraduate majors varied from business administration to psychology to pre-law, offering a variety of backgrounds that brought an interesting dynamic and multiple perspectives to the group.
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During the course of the program, students met law school faculty, including professors, deans, and directors, as well as current students, practicing attorneys, judges, and community leaders. Participants also gained some knowledge of and experience with the law school application process and had the opportunity to prepare for some of the challenges presented by the LSAT. One of the participants from the 2013 program was Roger Brown, a sophomore at the University of Southern California. Brown is studying
business administration and has wanted to go to law school for as long as he can remember. He heard about Ohio Northern’s PLUS program through the USC pre-law newsletter and decided to apply. In an interview, Brown said, “I really like the environment of the law school, and a lot of the professors I’ve met while I’ve been here have been very knowledgeable.” Another participant, Jeremy Martinez, said he chose Ohio Northern’s PLUS Program “because the law school is very well-respected at Ohio Northern, and I felt it would be a great opportunity for me.” Martinez is currently a junior at Ohio Northern and is studying political science, theatre, and Spanish. One of Brown’s favorite activities was the initial mixer with the students and faculty. “We got to talk to so many of the different professors . . . We got to hear about what they’ve done in the past and how they got here and what they hope to teach their students. I thought that was really interesting.” Other activities that were incorporated into the program included a moot court competition, workshops, panel discussions, receptions, banquets, and field trips to Hancock County Court, Ohio Supreme Court, and Cedar
PRE-LAW UNDERGRADUATE SCHOLARS PROGRAM
Oral Advocacy Competition runner-up Roger Brown, Dean Richard Bales, and Oral Advocacy Competition winner Jacob Cogman
The program and the professors involved not only introduce these students to the merits of an Ohio Northern legal education, but also give them the tools and skills they need to succeed as law students and the opportunity to exceed expectations as young lawyers. •
In Class
PLUS Program students enjoy an intense game of cornhole at the PLUS Program picnic.
Two students described their experiences with the PLUS Program as “life-changing and deeply affirming of their desire to go to law school while richly enhancing their capabilities to do so.”
Students Jacob Cogman, Jeremy Martinez, and Anthony Garcia behind the podium at the Ohio Statehouse Museum
In addition to these activities, students got preparation and practice for law school through the program. They took two classes while they were here: Crime and Punishment, taught by
PLUS Program addressed by ONU Law alumna Melissa Baldwin, JD ’96, during a visit to the Ohio Supreme Court in Columbus, Ohio Professor Bruce French, director of Lima Legal Clinic, answers questions about Legal Clinic Programs at ONU Law.
To contribute to the PLUS Program, please log on to onugive.com, designate Pettit College of Law, and specify PLUS Program.
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The students also participated in the Oral Advocacy Competition, which took place during the last three days of the program. This year, the students presented a copyright case about fair use concerning a photograph of President Barack Obama. There were four rounds in the competition, each of which had a different panel of judges. Some of the judges included professors Deidré Keller, Howard Fenton, and Melissa Kidder, students Sarah Shilvock and Todd Mosley, and Richard Bales, the new dean of the college. Jacob Cogman won the competition, and Brown was the runner-up.
professor Stephen Veltri, and Intellectual Property, taught by Keller. They attended sessions of legal research and LSAT preparation. Brown said, “Although they didn’t give us the 100 percent full law school treatment, it was still, from what they said, very similar to how classes actually go and how law school is conducted, so I thought that was interesting and a good experience.” Martinez thought the classes were helpful in that they “opened my eyes on how to think differently for law school and to prepare differently for every single class.”
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Point. “The trip to the Supreme Court was really cool; I liked that,” Brown says. Martinez especially enjoyed the trials they sat through at the Hancock County Court. Before the program, he said he wanted to be a public defender or a family lawyer, but after seeing what the trials are like, he wants to be a prosecutor instead.
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OUR PROGRAMS
LL.M. Program’s Continued Success
In Class
Ohio Northern University’s LL.M. program began in 2006 with a grant from the United States Department of State. When professor Howard Fenton, the director of the program, returned from spending a year leading a law reform project in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, he was asked by Dean David Crago about the possibility of starting an LL.M. program at Ohio Northern. Fenton looked into schools in the United States that offered international LL.M. programs and realized that none of them focused on training lawyers specifically from transitional countries on the tools of democratic state building. Fenton thought Northern could fill this need, and subsequent events have proven him right. The program has provided almost 80 students from 33 countries with the education they need to help develop democratic institutions and the rule of law in their home countries. To do so, students spend one year studying at the Pettit College of Law and then commit to two years of public service when they return home. Two of the students involved in the program for the 2012-13 school year were Aishath Samah, from the Maldives, and Frank Sina, from Tanzania. Sina described the program as “the best program, and… very unique. It gives not just theoretical knowledge, but also the opportunities to see [the education] in practice, and the content is empowering.” Before Samah and Sina began their two years of service back home, they both participated in a 10-week internship in Washington, D.C., with the World Bank’s Integrity Vice Presidency. There they assisted in preliminary investigations of potential abuses and corruption in World Bank-financed projects around the world. Following her internship, Samah returned to the Maldives to her position as a legal officer at the Bank of the Maldives. After her experiences at Ohio Northern, Samah is considering whether she wants to work in the government or with an international organization, so she can put the skills she developed in the LL.M. program to use. Sina returned home after the internship to continue working with the National Audit Office of Tanzania, where he is encouraging colleagues to apply to the ONU LL.M. program. Sina plans to pursue his Ph.D. while continuing his work for the Audit Office, building on the knowledge he gained through the LL.M. program. In talking about his experiences, Sina said, “I am so grateful that you great people gave me the chance to study at ONU and work at the World Bank because it totally changed me and engineered me for my best that is yet to come.” Through her experience here, Samah learned she is “flexible”: “Everything is different here, everything seems to be reversed,” she said. She thinks this adaptability will serve her well as she looks for a job, especially internationally.
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In addition to the usual LL.M. courses, both Samah and Sina took challenging
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LEFT: Professor Howard Fenton presents the Outstanding International Student Award to Aishath Samah, LLM ’13. RIGHT: Frank Sina, LLM ’13, (far right), with classmates in a meeting at the U.S. Department of State
LL.M. Students 2013-14 Back row standing left to right: Twana Smail, Waheed Siddiqi, Serge Mweze, Mahmood Nawaz, Zaker Sultani, Baleke Ndovi, and Ezmarai Osmany. Front row sitting left to right: Nabila Moradi, Camilla Gomes, Sundus Barakzai, and Victoria Todria
Not pictured are Jackie Were, Tamar Rukhadze, Istiak Ahmed and Hadeel Alhazmi.
J.D. courses. Sina was the first LL.M. student to take professor Nancy Armstrong’s Advanced Legal Research course. Samah took the Women and the Law Seminar, sharing her perspective with the American J.D. students. Ohio Northern encourages students to go above and beyond the basic requirements of the program, and the professors and other staff members are eager to help them do so. The program turns into a community for these students while they are away from home. Samah mentions one of her favorite memories being the Halloween party with fellow law students and trick-or-treating for the first time with Armstrong. Academically, the LL.M. program offers a theoretical education grounded in the substantial practical experience of the LL.M. faculty. The program exposes the participants to critical elements of law and governance, including the foundations of democratic institutions, law reform strategies and initiatives, comparative administrative and constitutional law, and the dynamics and remedies for institutional corruption. These unique courses provide the students with an education they can use to help their governments continue to evolve as democracies grounded in the rule of law. The 2013-14 school year brought another strong class of LL.M. students to Ohio Northern. This year, there are 15 students hailing from eight different countries, including four countries from which ONU has never had LL.M. students before: Bangladesh, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iraq. The LL.M. program continues building its alumni base in Georgia, Kenya, Malawi and Afghanistan, with six Afghan students attending this year through the sponsorship of the Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan. When welcoming this year’s incoming class, Fenton said, “Any doubts about whether an LL.M. program focused on democracy and the rule of law could survive have been more than answered by the size and enthusiasm of this eighth class.” The ONU LL.M. program now has graduates and students from 33 different countries around the world. It is dynamic and challenging, helping young lawyers learn a valuable skill set while bringing an international perspective to the law college and the University community. •
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2012 Icelandic Legal Exchange
EXCHANGE PROGRAM The Icelandic Legal Exchange Program with the University of Iceland was started in 1960. In 2010, a 50th anniversary celebration of this partnership was held in Reykjavik. It was attended by many former exchange students, including some from the original classes from the 1960s and 1970s.
The transition from Iceland to Ada was easy for Jensen, since Ada would be considered a large town where he comes from: “Nothing is very big in Iceland,” he says with a laugh. The biggest adjustment was having classes with students from all over the world – but this change created even more opportunities for growth. “This has been an experience that would not have been possible for me in any other way. That is what I will take away from here, as the thing I am most thankful for: I have made fantastic friends from all these interesting places.” Jensen advises the incoming LL.M. students to make use of this program for more than just the education. He recommends that all students enjoy the community as well. “Although it may seem kind of hidden, this place actually offers a lot of opportunities to have a great time, to live life.” While spending time with the students may seem the likely choice for fun experiences, the professors can make time in Ada enjoyable as well. Jensen says he is most grateful to professor Howard Fenton—the director of the LL.M. program and coordinator of the academic exchange program—for getting him the opportunity to play the piano at The Inn at Ohio Northern University’s “Fireside Fridays.” Fenton overheard Jensen playing piano in The Inn one day and contacted The Inn’s management, who agreed to let Jensen perform several times throughout the year. In addition to his very popular performances in The Inn, Jensen made sure to attend many events in Ada, including the Harvest and Herb Festival and the Punkin’ Chunkin’ contest. “It
Steindór Dan Jensen
Halldor Thorsteinsson and Dennis Paul, JD '75, at the Icelandic Exchange program Meet and Greet held on October 22, 2012
was very cool to see how everybody participated in it… and the pumpkin thing, that was the most unique thing: seeing a pumpkin fly hundreds of feet into the air in a field.” He also traveled often and was able to go to Chicago and Niagara Falls, among other places. “Ada is close to so many great cities, and this really added a great deal of fantastic-ness to this experience for me.” Although Jensen fit into the community with ease, the quality of his educational experience was also very positive. Through his studies within the program, he realized there is much to learn about government and law, especially about foreign aid assistance, legal and constitutional reforms, and developing democracies. The education he received here will serve him well at home, especially the improvements he has made in understanding and speaking English. “[The program] has improved my English skills significantly, which is very valuable in Iceland,” he says. Speaking, listening to, and reading English for a year should help open up even more opportunities for him now that he has returned to Iceland after graduation. Jensen plans to finish the last semester of his Icelandic law degree and then begin searching for a job. The College of Law was thrilled with Jensen’s success and thought that he added quite a bit of “fantastic-ness” to the program himself. Fenton acknowledged Jensen was able to provide a European-Icelandic legal perspective that his classmates did not have. He actively contributed to discussions in his classes and added to the education his classmates received. “Steindór made the most out of the social and cultural aspects of the program, but he was also a real value in the classroom,” Fenton shares. Hopefully, Jensen’s story will encourage other students from Iceland to consider the LL.M. program and the formal academic exchange program. •
For more information on either program, please visit www.law.onu.edu.
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Students from the University of Iceland can also come for a formal academic exchange program with the option to stay for one or two semesters. One student, Andri Gudlaugsson, enrolled for the fall semester, while another, Steindór Dan Jensen, chose to attend for the full year. After he was accepted, he asked to join the law school’s LL.M. program and earn a degree while he was here.
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Every year, students from the University of Iceland travel to Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law as part of the Icelandic Legal Exchange Program. The students are hosted in Ada by ONU Law students, who then travel to Iceland later in the year to return the visit. This cultural exchange has been in place for the past 50 years and has built lasting ties between Ada and Iceland. When the 2012 Icelandic Exchange Program students arrived last fall, the College of Law hosted a Meet and Greet to welcome the students to the law school community. Dennis Paul, JD ’75, participated in the exchange and came to meet Halldor Thorsteinsson, the son of friend and former exchange student Lara Juliusdottir, who participated in the program while Paul was in law school.
In Class
By Elizabeth McKinney
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In Class
OUR PROGRAMS
Students Get Unique Opportunities The January term was first implemented in the 2010-11 school year. During these three weeks, students take one course. It is required for L-1 students and students in the LL.M. program but optional for L-2 and L-3 students, who have a chance to explore an area of interest that supplements their regular semester studies. Examples of past January term courses include professor Kevin Hill’s course on Forensic Evidence, Personal Financial Literacy with professor John Martin, and professor Dave Raack’s Climate Change, Science, and Law.
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In 2013, one January term course offered students the opportunity for international travel. Professor Mike Lewis began teaching a portion of his Law of War seminar for the January term two years ago. He has been teaching the seminar for seven years, and during the semester, students work in a small-group class setting, reading and discussing different aspects of and problems with the laws of armed conflict. Five students from this year’s course were able to attend a conference with professor Lewis in the Netherlands.
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Morgan Neuhoff, an L-3, said, "My best decision in law school thus far was definitely taking the Law of War seminar during January term. The course began in Ada, where we spent several days learning the background and history of the law of war. We then were able to go to Charlottesville, Va., and attend classes at the Army JAG school with Army JAG reservists who were also learning the laws of war. After two days at the JAG school, a few of our class members as well as Professor Lewis flew to the Netherlands for a conference… It was truly an amazing experience!" One of the unique features of the January course is the students’ ability to travel for off-campus education. Every year, they go to Charlottesville, Va.,
to the school for Army Judge Advocates, where Army lawyers are trained. New officers in the Judge Advocate General Corps take courses in government contract and fiscal law, military criminal law, and international and operational law, as well as more general topics like legal assistance, claims, and administrative law. They also receive computer training,
“Those of us who traveled to The Hague for the conference on the legal boundaries of warfare experienced international academic debate on the current and future landscape of the legal use of drones in military conflict and how terrorism impacts the way international conflicts are fought.”
THE JANUARY TERM
ASHLEY MCKENNA, JD ’13
Lewis spent seven and a half years in the U.S. Navy before he attended law school. He was in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and was featured in a NOVA documentary about Topgun and aircraft carriers. Lewis earned his B.A. from John Hopkins University and his J.D. from Harvard Law School, from which he graduated cum laude. He has written on various aspects of the law of war, especially concerning the conflict between the
The conference attended in 2013 by Lewis and students, hosted by the International Center for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, was titled “The Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism.” The panels and sessions that made up the conference discussed temporal and geographical limitations of armed conflicts, the legality of the use of drones, and a law enforcement approach to countering terrorism. Ashley McKenna, JD ’13, said, “Those of us who traveled to The Hague for the conference on the legal boundaries of warfare experienced international academic debate on the current and future landscape of the legal use of drones in military conflict and how terrorism impacts the way international conflicts are fought.”
The benefits of the January term are numerous. “Students get a unique experience from studying just one subject in more detail,” Lewis stated. McKenna described the course as “the most memorable and enlightening experience of [her] law school education.” Participants have the opportunity to see the practical applications of some of the topics they cover in their fall and spring semester courses, getting the kinds of hands-on experiences that can make a significant difference in their futures as legal practitioners. •
In Class
RIGHT: Professor Mike Lewis and students at the Asser Institute
Professor Mike Lewis stands in front of a statue of William of Orange in The Hague.
A panel at the conference “The Boundaries of the Battlefield: A Critical Look at the Legal Paradigms and Rules in Countering Terrorism”
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Students sit in on two days of these classes and go through operational law training with the Army lawyers. The ability to see and hear about real experiences from real people is a unique opportunity for students. “I’m not aware of any other law course in the country that offers that,” Lewis said. Another student in the course, L-3 Kayla Kieszek, said, “The classes and conversations I had with the JAGC officers were eye-opening not only in a legal aspect but also as a possible career path.”
United States and al Qaeda. Recently, he has been interested in drones and the laws surrounding them, specifically where they can and should be used, and will appear in an upcoming episode of the PBS show “World on Trial” addressing the issue, as pictured on the front cover of this publication.
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practical exercises in trial advocacy, and attorney-client issues.
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OUR ALUMNI
Alumni
The West Conference Room, U.S. Supreme Court
ONU Goes to Washington By Nancy Armstrong
The Ohio Northern University Law Alumni weekend was held in Washington, D.C., from Friday, June 14, through Monday, June 17, 2013. All law alumni and friends of the law college were invited to participate in these events and receptions, which were held in conjunction with the ONU Law Alumni Association Board meeting and United States Supreme Court Admission Ceremony. The Hyatt on Capitol Hill hotel was the venue for many of the weekend’s special events. On Friday, the law college held an opening reception at the hotel. Many alumni, board members, faculty and administration, and current students attended. The law alumni board met on Saturday, and on Sunday a banquet dinner was held at the Hyatt. The 27 ONU alumni being admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court were recognized at this dinner. University Provost David C. Crago spoke on behalf of the University, and the law college’s new dean, Rick Bales, was introduced. Many family and friends of the alumni inductees attended this event. On Monday, June 17, the alumni group gathered at the U.S. Supreme Court. This was an especially exciting time to be at the Supreme Court because five new opinions were being released that morning, including a high-profile case
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Supreme Court inductees on the Capitol steps
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Dean Rick Bales and professor Stephen Veltri, interim dean for 2012-13
from Arizona regarding voter registration issues. Before the Court’s session that morning, the ONU group gathered in the beautiful wood-paneled West Conference Room for coffee and pastries. Each inductee was granted by the Court one CAREY guest to be present in the courtroom with them. These designated guests lined up first and were escorted to the courtroom. The inductees lined up next, and a court official then escorted them to the courtroom. Brig. Gen. David P. Carey (Ret.), JD ’77, Hon. D. ’08, served as the movant who presented the ONU Law alumni to the Supreme Court. All nine current Supreme Court Justices were present for the induction ceremony, and special guest retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was present in the courtroom as well. Afterwards, the inductees and visitors came together again for a reception in the West Conference Room. Many members of the group also participated in a guided tour of the courtroom, and the inductees and their families posed for
ALUMNI FATHER AND SON George Glen, JD ’74, and Patrick Glen, JD ’05
Director of Alumni and Career Services Cheryl Kitchen chats with professor Allison Mittendorf before the ceremony.
Professor Allison Mittendorf and family
RIGHT: John Cotner, JD ’70, Judge Benjamin Logan, BSBA ’68, JD ’72, Hon. D. ’92, and Harry Faulkner, JD ’66
The College of Law wishes to congratulate all of the new inductees and acknowledge the excellent planning and support provided by the Office of Law Alumni in organizing this event. The director, Cheryl Kitchen, and her assistant, Lena Smith, were instrumental in making this alumni weekend and admission ceremony a memorable event for all involved. Rachel Kasper, JD ’10, Chad Vondenhuevel, Rachel Frey, and many other staff at the law college assisted in hosting the events in D.C. •
ONU Alumni Weekend Inductees Before the Supreme Court • William S. Alge, Jr., BA ’68, JD ’73 • Scott Lee Basinger, JD ’00 • Carl P. Beard, Jr., JD ’80 • Lawrence Francis Boord, BA ’71, JD ’75 • James Howard Davis, JD ’79 • Walter George Dusky, JD ’06 • Richard Thomas Ernsberger, JD ’07 • Harry Nixon Faulkner, JD ’66 • William L. Geary, JD ’78 • John H. Genovese, JD ’79 • Michael E. Gilb, JD ’85 • George S. Glen, JD ’74 • Stephen Paul Hanchuruck, JD ’82 • Christopher Jerome Hanson, JD ’01 • Michael R. Hirman, JD ’00 • Mary Eileen Holm, JD ’77 • Robert Bruce Laybourne, JD ’73 • Allison Ann-Marie Mittendorf, Instructor of Legal Research and Writing • Brian J. Moore, JD ’96 • Kaitlyn Florence Richards, JD ’97 • Thomas Franklin Tootle, JD ’73 • James Parker Trulock, JD ’07 • Bernard Michael Tully, JD ’79 • Ryan Earl Warren, JD ’97 • Susan A. Wetzel, JD ’97 • Jeffrey Gerard Williams, JD ’82 • Rick Wood, JD ’83
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photos outside on the steps of the Supreme Court building. Some members of the group also enjoyed a visit to the Supreme Court Historical Society gift shop before leaving. It was very interesting to see the clerks in the gift shop and other court employees reading the slip opinions of the new cases announced that morning!
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Inductees wait in line before being called to the courtroom.
Alumni
Kaitlyn Richards, JD '97, and Brian Moore, JD '96
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OUR EXPECTATIONS
Alumni
ONU Excels in Government and Public Interest Job Placement According to a report in The National Law Journal, ONU’s Pettit College of Law ranked ninth in the nation for placement in government and public interest jobs among the class of 2012. The National Law Journal used employment data from all 202 law schools approved by the American Bar Association. Government jobs include positions like prosecutors or attorneys in government agencies, and public interest jobs are positions such as public defenders or nonprofit attorneys. ONU placed 22.9 percent of its class of 2012 in jobs in these categories, the highest percentage in the state of Ohio and ninth in the nation. This recognition is consistent with Ohio Northern’s long-standing dedication to clinical programs and externship placements in government and public interest positions, as many of our graduates can attest. Jeff Snell, JD ’07, is a member of the ONU Law Alumni Association Board and a trial attorney at the Office of the United States Trustee in Chicago. The United States Trustee Program is a component of the Department of Justice responsible for overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases. Snell credits his internship experience at ONU’s Bankruptcy Trustee Clinic and the mentorship of professor Bruce French with his successful career path. He points out that his journey from law school to a clerkship in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to his current position was a direct result of the hands-on education he received at ONU as well as the student-faculty interaction that is among the hallmarks of Ohio Northern.
SNELL
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French confirms this: “I have had a number of exceptional interns in the Bankruptcy Trustee Clinic. Jeff Snell stands out as the best.” He describes one of his most memorable cases as one in which Snell drafted the complaint and the pair “ran with those cases to the cert. denied stage at the U.S. Supreme Court.” On his role in Snell’s education and career trajectory, French says, “I was honored to be one of his mentors and able to recommend his appointment as a judicial law clerk to a bankruptcy judge in Michigan. Thereafter, I encouraged his appointment by the United States Trustee in Chicago. He has always done an exceptional job… He represents one of the many superior ONU Law products.”
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“From admission to graduation to employment, I never doubted my decision to attend ONU Law. The program offers not only a challenging curriculum that is taught by a well-qualified faculty, but also a community of persons who truly want to see the students succeed in law school and ultimately the practice of law. Without a doubt, the legal education and support I received at ONU gave me the knowledge and confidence necessary to transition from the classroom to the courtroom.” MATT OYSTER JD ’10
At the state government level, one need look no further than Columbus for examples, among them Anna Marin Russell, JD ’10. Discussing her experience at ONU, Russell says that law school instilled in her “the true value of collaboration, hard work, and perseverance.” She mentions Director of Academic Support and associate professor Nancy Sabol as a mentor in life as well as law, saying, “She provided me with the basic tools – not only how to strategically achieve my desired results in the classroom but also how to practically deal with the stress while maintaining a healthy work/life balance. I’ll forever be grateful to her for that.” Russell began her career in the private sector and later transitioned to her current position as financial and tax investigation counsel at the Ohio Casino Control RUSSELL Commission. ONU’s strong alumni network led her to her job: “I reached out to my fellow ONU Law graduates in the Ohio area when I was looking for a job… the ONU alumni network is an untapped and integral resource for law graduates looking for career opportunities or just to expand their professional network.”
primary practice areas of charitable law, liquor, and gaming. During his time at ONU, he laid the groundwork for his experience as a practitioner both inside and outside the classroom: “At ONU Law, the experienced and motivated faculty challenges the students to think critically about and analyze complex issues. This is accomplished through various exercises – e.g., Socratic Method, writing assignments, judicial externships, clinics (criminal, civil, and transactional), law review, and moot court – all of which are designed to train students to think and analyze like lawyers.” Oyster himself participated in both Law Review and Moot Court, and says that those programs were partly responsible for easing and guiding his transition from student to attorney.
And the alumnus who helped connect Russell to her current position? Matt Oyster, BA ’07, JD ’10. Oyster, who works with Russell as deputy general counsel at the Ohio Casino Control Commission, began his career by joining the Ohio Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general with the
The close-knit community of students, faculty and staff, and alumni at the Pettit College of Law was critical in Oyster’s success. “The Office of Law Career Services works tirelessly
Reflecting on the role ONU Law played in preparing her for her career, Swiger says, “The education I received at Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law not only prepared me for the legal work force, but the personal relationships I built with the faculty and staff provided me with guidance and support as I made decisions about my career. My passion has always been in college athletics, and I wanted to find a position that would combine this love and my legal education. I spoke with multiple professors and administrators who knew me well and gave me candid advice and encouragement to make my degree work for me and not to be afraid to step outside of the box.” Like Russell and Oyster, she cites Sabol as one of the biggest influences on her career: “[Sabol] epitomizes the promise ONU makes to its law students, that the professors at this school don’t begin and end their duties inside a classroom. They are there to help you succeed in the world.” With many alumni as judges, an excellent clinical program offering hands-on experience, and the familiar exhortation in the Moot Court Room to “Know Thyself, Control Thyself, Give Thyself,” the Pettit College of Law positions its graduates to thrive in government and public interest positions. The success of the graduates profiled above is just a sampling of the many ways that members of the ONU Law community have been a credit to their alma mater in government and public interest jobs. •
Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law counts among its many prestigious alumni a large number of judges. In order to give a glimpse into the life of a judge, several of these alumni answered questions about being a judge as well as about their experiences at Ohio Northern.
WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY FROM YOUR TIME AS A LAW STUDENT AT ONU?
BENJAMIN LOGAN II, BSBA ’68, JD ’72, HON. D. ’92 61st Judicial District Court Grand Rapids, Mich.
Dean Hansen supporting a recruiting trip to HBCU schools to recruit minority students to ONU law school. Went to Shaw and North Carolina Central and were successful in recruiting a student from North Carolina Central. The trip was a collaboration with ONU Student Bar Association. –Judge Logan
GREGORY FROST, JD ’74, HON. D. ’12
Alumni
My favorite memory isn’t really a memory, but the camaraderie with my fellow classmates that has lasted and grown over the last 11 years. –Judge Leatherman
U.S. District Court Columbus, Ohio
The classmates with whom I carpooled from Lima: Marie Von der Embse, JD ’83, and Rickard Workman, JD ’83. We had many interesting discussions about the law and about life driving to and from Ada. We remain close friends to this day. –Judge Reed The time I spent with other students at the Northern Freeze (a local deli) getting to know them and talking about cases, classes, professors, and our future. –Judge Frost Sitting in the lounge or library with my classmates, studying and laughing. I think there was often more cutting up than studying going on in the library… and Professors Hill and Veltri contributed to the distraction, by always being available for commentary. –Judge Burke
JEFFREY REED, JD ’83 Common Pleas Court Lima, Ohio
WHAT IS THE STRANGEST THING SOMEONE HAS WORN IN YOUR COURTROOM? Occasionally, we do have defendants who have a different sense of style and humor, who may appear wearing clothing with questionable wording or artwork. The easiest remedy is to simply ask them to turn the shirt inside out or put an additional shirt on over top, and, luckily, so far, no one has denied that request. –Judge Leatherman
STEPHANIE BURKE, BA ’91, JD ’94 Jefferson District Court Louisville, Ky.
• A T-shirt with “Hang ‘em High” written on it. –Judge Logan • A T-shirt that said “If you don’t like my attitude, dial 1-800-eat-sh*t.” –Judge Burke • Pajama pants and pink fuzzy bunny slippers. –Judge Reed • A T-shirt, worn by the defendant, that read “Shoot them all and let God sort them out.” –Judge Frost
JILL T. LEATHERMAN, JD ’02 Van Wert Municipal Court Van Wert, Ohio
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Ohio Northern alumni have also successfully found work in a variety of nonprofits. Stephanie Swiger, JD ’11, is an assistant director of enforcement investigations and processing at the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Swiger’s first job after the bar exam was at the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, serving as a law clerk in the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation in Columbus. From there, she went on to work at Wilmer, Cutler, SWIGER Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP, where she had the opportunity to work on international corporate litigation for the firm in Switzerland for six months. In her current position, she is an independent fact finder, investigating allegations of NCAA rules violations, analyzing the information gathered and presenting the NCAA enforcement staff’s position to the Committee on Infractions, which is composed of high-level athletic administrators, members of the public (usually attorneys), conference administrators, and faculty athletics representatives.
Ask a Judge
QUESTION & ANSWER
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to help students connect with alumni and attain employment, both during law school and after graduation. Undoubtedly, I would not have been able to connect with the numerous ONU Law alumni practicing in Columbus or obtain my first full-time position as a practicing attorney without their efforts and support,” Oyster says. Among the faculty, Oyster names Sabol as having had the most significant impact on his legal studies and career. “Her constant motivation and support helps students accomplish more than they thought possible when they arrived on campus as L-1s. For me, Professor Sabol instilled the confidence that I needed to succeed in law school, on the Ohio bar exam, and in the practice of law. And since graduation, she has continued to help and influence me as a mentor and close confidant.” He notes, though, that “all faculty members helped and influenced me during my time at ONU Law.”
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OUR STUDENTS
Bar Exam Course Improves Scores In October 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court announced the results of the July 2013 bar examination. Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law attained a 90 percent overall passage rate, the second-highest of all Ohio law schools. The state-wide average was 82.4 percent. Ohio had 1,255 total applicants, and 1,034 passed the exam.
RECENT BAR EXAM RESULTS Alumni
LAW SCHOOL
FIRST-TIME PASSAGE RATE
OVERALL PASSAGE RATE
July 2013
Feb. 2013
July 2013
Feb. 2013
Ohio Northern University
90%
100%
90%
82%
University of Cincinnati
89%
100%
88%
78%
Case Western Reserve University 86%
93%
83%
75%
University of Akron
85%
91%
83%
85%
Cleveland State University
93%
84%
88%
63%
Ohio State University
95%
82%
93%
73%
Ohio Statewide Average
87%
80%
82.4%
67%
University of Toledo
87%
76%
78%
64%
Capital University
87%
76%
82%
59%
University of Dayton
81%
56%
74%
61%
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In 2001, ONU became one of the first law schools in the country to have a director of academic support focused on helping students prepare for the bar exam. Since that time, ONU’s bar passage rates have been strong.
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The foundation of the bar preparation program is a course students take during their last semester of law school. Nancy Sabol, who started the program and continues as the director of academic support, teaches the course in three different sections throughout the school year. According to Sabol, “the course has multiple purposes: to familiarize students with the bar exam, provide them with effective ways to study for the bar exam, and most importantly, to help them refine their issue identification, analytical, and writing skills in the context of three subjects: Evidence, Contracts, and Torts.” Sabol continues to work with the students during the summer while they are studying for the bar exam. Sabol said, “Everyone at ONU, from the administration to the faculty and the staff, is committed to making sure that our students are well prepared for the bar exam. We’ve created a rigorous bar preparation program for our students that gives them practical knowledge and experience with bar exam-style testing – but the emotional support we provide and the confidence we instill in our graduates is just as important when they face the bar exam.” She believes providing emotional support is so
"At ONU Law, bar preparation isn't just a few months after graduation; it is built into the curriculum throughout law school. Our faculty is focused on preparing each student to pass the bar and practice law at the finest level." NANCY SABOL Director of Academic Support
important, in fact, that she gives her students her cellphone number at the end of the course and encourages them to call her if they need anything throughout the summer. Theresa Sherman, JD ’13, said, “Professor Sabol was truly an exceptional resource, wonderful teacher, and dear friend during this stressful time.” Her availability has proved “invaluable” to her students, Raymond Srp, JD ’13, stated. Srp said that Sabol gives her students confidence, teaches them how to properly answer essays, and tells them what to expect in regard to the technical aspects of the exam. “Because I spent so much time working with Professor Sabol over the summer, I knew exactly what to expect on test day.” Srp felt this placed him “at a distinct advantage over bar takers from other schools.” The continued success of ONU students on the bar exam is just another example of the personal approach to legal education that is a hallmark of the ONU Law difference. •
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OUR HISTORY MAKERS
“Miss Antin, although only 22, is one of the most brilliant women lawyers in the country, and one of the first of her sex to act as prosecuting attorney.” Women Lawyers’ Journal
Alumni
(Volume 6, April 7, 1917)
Left: Esther Antin, LLB ’15, as a young woman; Right: Antin later in life
Woman Prosecutes Woman ONU Alumna Made History in Toledo By Elizabeth McKinney
er,
on U
Marleau was on trial for shooting Alvin Czelusta with a shotgun. According to the Women Lawyers’ Journal, Marleau shot the man because he insulted her. The Mansfield News describes the scene further, quoting Marleau, “Czelusta . . . called me a vile name. I raised the gun and, as he lunged at me, I pulled the trigger.” According to the same article, Antin charged the defendant with second-degree murder and called for Marleau’s sentence to be the electric chair. The jury convicted Marleau of manslaughter.
The book A History of Northwest Ohio, Volume 2, by Nevin O. Winter, includes a short biography of Antin. The author described Antin as having been born to be a lawyer, saying, “It is perhaps appropriate to say that she did not choose the law, but the law chose her.”
The case was mentioned in many news publications across the country, including The Day Book, which was a Chicago newspaper, the Mansfield News, and the Fort Wayne News. After the trial, Antin received a great deal of attention from men, because of her fast rise to fame and her work in the legal field. An article in the
Antin attended Toledo University for one year before transferring to Ohio Northern, where she obtained her law degree in two years instead of three. She passed the bar exam in December 1915, just after she turned 21. She worked for Southard, Southard & Rowe in Toledo for several years and, in 1925, was elected to serve as a municipal court judge in Toledo, the first woman elected to that post. Antin was a member of the Women Lawyers’ Association, the Philalethean Literary Society of
Toledo, and the Toledo Business Women’s Club, as well as an assistant scout master of the Girl Scouts of America. While at Ohio Northern, she was a member of the Franklin Literary Society and organized a suffrage association. She was also a member of the debate team in high school, taught Sunday school, and spent three evenings a week doing social work. She cofounded the American League for Free Palestine and served as treasurer of the organization in the 1940s. In 1933, she married Louis Untermeyer, a poet, and then left the bench. After her marriage, she spent time working as a freelance editor for several New York publishing companies. She died in 1983 at age 88 from congestive heart failure and was buried in Israel. •
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Evening Independent, out of Massilon, Ohio, titled “Want Ohio Woman Attorney as Bride” claimed: “A Canadian attorney, a Texas rancher, a New York optometrist, an Omaha hotel man, an Alaskan steamship agent, and a Chicago grain dealer are among Miss Antin’s long-distance suitors.”
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es
In 1917, Esther Antin, LLB ’15, served as prosecuting attorney against Evelyn Marleau, who was charged with first-degree murder. Antin was one of the first female prosecuting attorneys in the country and was the first woman to prosecute another woman.
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OUR ACHIEVERS
The Pettit College of Law is proud of all of its students and uses the Honors Banquet to recognize the students who excel throughout the academic year.
Honors Banquet On April 26, 2013, law students and faculty from the Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law gathered together to celebrate their academic successes. Stephen C. Veltri, the interim dean of the College of Law, opened the ceremony. The invocation was given by Kelli Pollock, an L-3 and the president of the Christian Legal Society. Rachel Kasper, JD ’10, director of student and financial services, introduced the student organizations by highlighting some notable events and achievements of the school’s organizations. Specifically recognized were the Federalist Society for its sponsored event of Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Gordon S. Wood and his presentation on “The Supreme Court and the Uses of History,” the Icelandic Legal Exchange Program for sending four students to Iceland in March over spring break and hosting seven Icelandic students in Ada in October, and the Black Law Students Association for attending the National BLSA Conference in Atlanta, Ga., for the first time and holding their annual Diversity Forum in February. Kasper then turned the program over to the Student Bar Association (SBA) for its presentation.
Honors
SBA AWARDS The SBA awards were presented by Hope Smalls, JD ’13, the president of the group. Other officers included Steve Sneed, JD ’13, vice president; Rachel Bentley, JD ’13, secretary; and Joshua Brown, JD ’13, treasurer. Tani Eyer, L3, was the sergeant at arms, Brandyn Butler, JD ’13, was the ABA representative, and the alumni representative for the 2012-13 school year was Marc Tawfik, L-3. Jane Williamson, JD ’13, was the parliamentarian, and Katherine Bercik, JD ’13, and Ameerah McBride, JD ’13, were senators. The Liberty Bell Award was given to Harry Roberts, the law school’s technology support technician, in recognition of his outstanding law community service at the College of Law. Kasper noted that, “Harry is such a valuable part of the law school community, and students acknowledging the role he plays here is reflective of the supportive and tight-knit ONU Law community.” Hilary Kao, assistant professor of
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Hannah Armentrout, L-3, 2013-14 Law Review Managing Editor, left, and Drew Pugsley, L-3, 2013-14 Law Review Editor-in-chief, present outgoing Editorin-chief Erin Dwyer, JD ’13, with a plaque and flowers.
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SBA members Steve Sneed, JD ’13, and Hope Smalls, JD ’13, present the Liberty Bell Award to Harry Roberts, the law school’s technology support technician, center.
Law Review editors, left to right: Justin Traino, JD ’13; Jessica Bilius, JD ’13; Elise McQuain, JD ’13; Jessica Marco, JD ’13; Erin Dwyer, JD ’13; Dan Falvo, JD ’13; Steve Keslar, JD ’13; and James Walker, JD ’13
law, received the Most Effective Teacher Award. Smalls also presented the Faculty Appreciation Award to adjunct professor Darrel Davison. A final, unscheduled award – the President’s Award – was presented to Kasper in recognition of all her hard work to facilitate the Student Bar Association’s endeavors during the year. “I was so surprised and really touched. It’s been a pleasure working with this year’s SBA, and it was wonderful to know that they felt the same way.”
LAW REVIEW ACCOLADES Erin Dwyer, JD ’13, editor-in-chief of the Law Review, presented awards next. The first award she presented was the Phoenix Award for Outstanding Staff Editor, which was given to Sarah Shilvock, L-3. The Phoenix Award for Outstanding Associate Editor was given to Mary Oliver, JD ’13, and the Phoenix Award for Outstanding Editorial Board Member was given to Jessica Marco, JD ’13. The 2012-13 Daniel S. Guy Award for Excellence in Legal Journalism was awarded to professor Scott D. Gerber. The Law Review’s managing editor was Daniel Falvo, JD ’13, and Marco was the articles research editor. Other editors included Elise McQuain, JD ’13, articles editor; Justin Traino, JD ’13, symposium editor; Steven Keslar, JD ’13, manuscript editor; Jessica Bilius, JD ’13, student articles editor; Shawn Caruso, JD ’13, Ohio review editor; and James Walker, JD ’13, lead articles editor.
MOOT COURT The Moot Court awards presentation was led by Jacqueline Dobbert, JD ’13, the chief justice for Moot Court. Dobbert began by recognizing Joshua Horowitz, JD ’13, and Steven Keslar, JD ’13, who won the Burke E. Smith Mock Trial Competition, and Robert Kidd and Lara Wood, both L-3s, who took second place. This is an intra-school competition named in honor of the late Burke E. Smith, LLB ’54, and the College of Law is ever grateful that the Smith family continues to support this intra-school competition. Scott E. Smith, JD ’82, son of Burke E. Smith, continues to “carry the torch” by judging the final round annually as his father did for many years.
RECOGNITION Devon Casti, JD ’13, and Jacqueline Dobbert, JD ’13, present professor Toni Clarke with the award for Outstanding Team Advisor of the Year. Moot Court Executive Board members, left to right: Megan Tyler, JD ’13; Rachel Kopec, JD ’13; Lauren Zdunek, JD ’13; Devon Casti, JD ’13; Jacqueline Dobbert, JD ’13; and Jason Carter, JD ’13
other faculty in honor of his or her contribution to legal scholarship. The Teaching Excellence Award is also a $1,000 award and was presented to professor Melissa Kidder, BFA ’05, JD ’08.
STUDENTS
Next, Ward presented certificates, plaques, and book awards, recognition of the highest scoring student for each course since spring 2012. After this, the members of both the Dean’s List and the Willis Society were recognized. The Willis Society is the highest academic honor organization at the College of Law. It was named after Frank B. Willis, who received his undergraduate degree in 1893 from Ohio Northern University, and who became a distinguished statesman and lawyer. Membership is restricted to the top 10 percent of the third-year class. This year’s members were Bilius, Zachary Brumfield, JD ’13, Marc Davis, JD ’13, Dwyer, Keslar, Marco, David McGoron, JD ’13, McQuain, Amanda Reese, JD ’13 and Walker. The Summer Scholar Award, given to an outstanding L-1 or L-2, was awarded to Shilvock in the form of a stipend for her to spend the summer working on a research project with a faculty member. Finally, the Outstanding Scholastic Achievement Award was presented to the student with the highest grade point average in each year. McQuain, Andrew Drilling, L-3, and Christopher Katherman, L-2, received this award. •
Honors
Dobbert then took a moment to recognize the travelling teams. She began by highlighting the success of Andrew Pugsley and Jason Ramsey, both L3s, who competed in the ABA National Appellate Advocacy Competition. Ramsey was named the Best Oralist, and Ramsey and Pugsley received the Third Best Brief award and were finalists at the ABA Boston Regional Competition. Nick Fiorilli, JD ’13, and Lily Shun, L-3, participated in the Florida Bar Association National Tax Competition, where they advanced to the semi-final round. L-3s Holly Urbanick and Michael Walton were partners for the John J. Gibbons Criminal Procedure Team, for which they received the Best Brief Award and advanced to the semi-final round. The Jerome Prince Memorial Evidence Team was made up of Justine Anderson, L-3, and Robert Jordan Richardson, L-3. Isabel Machie, LLM ’13, JD ’13, Kelly Perri, LLM ’13, JD ’13, Kris Snow, LLM ’13, JD ’13, and Richard Manilla, L3, all participated in the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, where Machie was named Outstanding Advocate. Travis Faber, Kidd, Tanya Schmid, all L-3s, and Williamson competed in the American Association for Justice Student Trial Advocacy Competition. The team for the Giles Sutherland Rich Memorial Moot Court Competition, which addresses problems in intellectual property law, was comprised of Justin MacCanon and Tessa Scott, both L-3s. Finally, the Alternate/Skill Building team included L-3s Zach Davis-Ferrall, Courtney Kinter, and Jason Ray. The Moot Court Awards were given to the Outstanding Team Advisor of the Year, the Outstanding Board of Advocates Member, and the Outstanding Moot Court Executive Board Member. The recipients of the first two awards were, in order, professor Toni Clarke and Snow. Devon Casti, JD ’13, and Rachel Kopec, JD ’13, both received the Outstanding Moot Court Executive Board Member Award.
SPECIAL RECOGNITION
Faculty Awards were also presented by Ward. The Fowler V. Harper Faculty Scholarship Award was presented to professor John H. Martin. This award of $1,000 is given to a faculty member who is chosen by
The Class of 2013 pledged $4,500 to the College of Law as its class gift.
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FACULTY
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The next presentation, by Bryan H. Ward, BA ’83, the associate dean of the College of Law, was the Special Awards. The National Association of Women Lawyers Outstanding Graduate Award was given to Smalls. The Public Interest/Pro Bono Award was given to Oliver and Paul Abrahamsen, JD ’83, for their volunteer work in public interest or pro bono services.
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Faculty
OUR FACULTY
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• RICHARD BALES, dean of the College of Law, will be part of a panel at the AALS Annual Meeting in January 2014 discussing student and student-faculty scholarship. He will also have numerous articles that have been or will be published in 2013-2014: When a U.S. Domestic Court Can Enjoin a Foreign Court Proceeding, 22 Cardozo J. Int’l & Comparative L. ___ (forthcoming 2014) (co-authored with Samantha Koeninger); Oddball Arbitration, __ Hofstra Lab. & Employ. L.J. ___ (forthcoming 2013) (co-authored with Mark B. Gerano); Staying District Court Proceedings Pending FAA § 16(a) Appeals, __ Cardozo J. Conflict Resol. ___ (forthcoming fall 2013) (co-authored with Michael Tudor); The Impact of ATT Mobility v. Concepción on Title VII Pattern-or-Practice Claims, 42 Capital L. Rev. ___(forthcoming spring 2014) (co-authored with Matthew Miller-Novak); The Damage is Done: Ordering a New Trial Based Solely on Damages, 40 Pepperdine L. Rev. 625 (2013) (co-authored with Katherine Kubale); Using Final-Offer Arbitration to Resolve Public Sector Impasses in Times of Concession Bargaining, 28 Ohio St. J. Disp. Resol. 1 (2013) (co-authored with Michael Carrell); and A Minor Problem with Arbitration: A Proposal for Arbitration Agreements Contained in Employment Contracts of Minors, 44 McGeorge L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming 2013) (co-authored with Matthew Miller-Novak). • BRYAN WARD, BA ’83, associate dean and professor of law, was recently appointed to the Ohio Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism. Over the summer, he appeared three separate times on the Lima news station WLIO to discuss the Maryland v. King Supreme Court case (133 S. Ct. 1(2012)), recommendations from the Joint
Task Force to review the administration of Ohio’s death penalty, and the Fort Hood shooting. • NANCY ARMSTRONG, director of the law library and professor of law, was a member of an American Bar Association law school site inspection team in February. These teams are responsible for visiting law schools during the re-accreditation process and writing reports documenting the visit. This was her fifth time serving on an ABA site inspection team. • JOANNE BRANT, professor of law, spent the month of June teaching U.S. and international law students at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. She spent July and August teaching law at the University of Alabama School of Law. • HOWARD FENTON, professor of law and director of the LLM program, spent a week in July in Pristina, Kosovo, training lawyers from the Office of the President, the Kosovo Judicial Council, and the Kosovo Prosecutors Council on drafting administrative regulations. He drafted a proposal to create a Center for Democratic Governance and Rule of Law to bid on and participate in USAID projects. • BRUCE FRENCH, professor of law and director of clinical programs, completed in
August his visits with all of the ONU external judicial and clinical placement sites, including one each in Michigan, New York, and Virginia. He published an op-ed piece on the loss of Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination during the summer in The Toledo Blade. He continues to serve as the administrator of the William Howard Taft American Inn of Court. • BRUCE FROHNEN, professor of law, delivered two papers at the American Political Science Association National Meeting in Chicago, Aug. 30-31, one on Alexis de Tocqueville’s view of the American Constitution, the other on the theory of “constitutional morality” put forward by George W. Carey. In September, he participated in a debate with professor David Strauss of the University of Chicago Law School on “Constitutional Interpretation: Originalism or the Living Constitution?” at Colgate University. In October, he participated in a Liberty Fund colloquium on the thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel. He will serve as Charles Evans Hughes professor of jurisprudence at Colgate University for spring semester 2014. • SCOTT GERBER, professor of law, named one of the top law professors in Ohio by StateStats.org, received the 2013 Daniel S. Guy Award for excellence in legal journalism and was re-appointed to a third twoyear term on the Ohio Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Gerber’s new book project is about the animating principles of early American law, and he will be discussing it this fall at the University of Virginia School of Law, Loyola University Chicago School of Law, and the capstone conference in
Newport, R.I., commemorating the 350th anniversary of Rhode Island’s charter. Gerber will have five new publications appear in print this fall on a variety of subjects: (1) “Political Theory and Judicial Activism,” Green Bag; (2) “Teaching the Legal History You Write About,” American Journal of Legal History; (3) “Law and the Lively Experiment in Colonial Rhode Island,” British Journal of American Legal Studies; (4) “The Supreme Court and the Uses of History,” Ohio Northern University Law Review (transcript of a debate with Pulitzer-Prize winner Gordon S. Wood); and (5) “The Fact of Legal Fiction,” The Bencher. • MIKE LEWIS, professor of law, taped an episode of the PBS series “World on Trial” in June on the legality of the use of drones in Yemen under international law. He was also invited by The Atlantic magazine to provide online commentary on the cover story of its September issue which focuses on drones. That commentary can be found at www.theatlantic.com/international/ar chive/2013/08/drones-actually-themost-humane-form-of-warfareever/278746/ • ANDREA ALEXANDER, reference librarian and assistant professor, presented in Chicago this June at the CALI Conference for Law School Computing with a fellow law librarian from Boston University, advocating for legal research instruction to include social media investigation due to its increasingly frequent use in litigation and negotiation. In July, she presented at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in Seattle, discussing a similar topic and moderating a panel of experts, includ-
ONU LAW FACULTY UPDATES
• ELENA HELMER, assistant professor of law and assistant director of the Democratic Governance and Rule of Law LLM program, has been appointed for the second term as cochair of the ABA Section of International Law International Anticorruption Committee. In addition to directly participating in making policy decisions, programs review, and development activities of the committee, Helmer is in charge of all the committee publications, the website, social media sites, and the law school/young lawyers outreach. The article that Helmer co-authored and edited, “2012 Year in Review: Anti-Corruption,” was published in the special issue of The International Lawyer, 47 Int’l Law. 367-386 (2013). She also participated in the 29th Economics Institute for Law Professors, a two-week, by-invitation-
Keller presented “Why Intellectual Property Needs Property: In Defense of the Qualified Right to Exclude and Other Long-Standing Property Principles” at the IP Scholars Roundtable, April 2013; “‘What He Said...’: The Transformative Potential of the Use of Copyrighted Content in Political Campaigns,” to the faculty of the University of Kentucky College of Law, March 2013; and “Campaigning Under the Weight of Copyright: What Mitt Romney Can Teach Us About the First Amendment,” at the Regional Faculty Workshop hosted by Valparaiso University School of Law, February 2013. • An article by LAUREN NEWELL, assistant professor of law, titled “Mickey Goes to France: A Case Study of the Euro Disneyland Negotiations” has been accepted for publication by the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution. In June, she presented a work-inprogress, “Negotiating Hungry: An Empirical Study of the Effect of Hunger on Negotiation,” at the Ohio Legal Scholarship Workshop, hosted by the University of Dayton. In
• An article by DAVID PIMENTEL, visiting associate professor of law, titled “Forfeitures Revisited: Bringing Principle to Practice in Federal Court,” 13 Nev. L.J. 1 (2012) was cited by the 7th Circuit in June in the opinion in United States v. $196,969.00 United States Currency (June 11, 2013). At the Law and Society Annual Meeting in Boston, Pimentel chaired a panel on “Promoting the Rule of Law in Precarious Places: Noble Pursuit or Fool’s Errand?” and presented on a separate panel, “The Syrian Civil War: Prospects for Intervention, Justice and Post-Conflict Rebuilding.” In June, he presented a paper at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, to the International Academy for the Study of the Jurisprudence of the Family. His topic was “State Intervention in Parental Discretion: Enforcing Overprotective Norms.” In May, Pimentel traveled to Istanbul to present a paper co-authored with Brian Anderson, reference librarian and assistant professor, at the “International Symposium on Human Rights and the Islamic World: The Case of Iraq.” The title of his presentation was “Judicial Independence and the Role of Shari’a in a Modern Constitutional Democracy.” Also in May, Pimentel participated with the Rule of Law Cooperative of the University of South Carolina, conducting interagency training of U.S. personnel (Military, State Dept., USAID, DOJ, and Commerce Dept.) who were being sent to locations in the world with rule of law problems. His topic was “Interagency Rule of Law Planning – the Case of South Sudan.”
• LAURA DELLANTONIO, JD ’12, assistant director of academic support and instructor, joined the College of Law in August 2013. She provides assistance with essay writing, study strategies, and examination preparation to all students. In addition to academic support, she also teaches Business Organizations and Legal Analysis. Prior to joining the faculty, DellAntonio served as the law clerk for the Hon. Fredric J. Ammerman and the Hon. Paul E. Cherry of the Clearfield County Court of Common Pleas in Clearfield, Pa. During her time as clerk, she wrote opinions, orders, and memorandums in criminal, civil, family, and juvenile law related matters. She also mediated pro-se child custody cases and administered arraignment court for the county. She earned her JD, magna cum laude, from Ohio Northern University and a B.A., cum laude, from the honors program of Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa.
Faculty
• DEIDRÉ KELLER, associate professor of law, has had an article accepted for publication in Vanderbilt’s Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law: “‘What He Said...’: Considering the Transformative Potential of the Use of Copyrighted Content in Political Campaigns or, How a Win for Mitt Romney Might Have Been a Victory for Free Speech,” 16 Vand. J. Ent. & Tech. L. ___ (forthcoming 2014). She also published “The Supreme Court’s Decision in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: A copy made abroad may be “lawfully made under” the Copyright Act,” Ohio State Bar Assn. Intellectual Property Law Section Newsl. (Spring 2013).
November, she will present an updated version of that work in New York at the AALS Section on Dispute Resolution Works-in-Progress Conference, hosted by Cardozo Law School. In February, she will present her article “Redefining Attention (and Revamping the Legal Profession?) for the Digital Generation” at the Psychology and Lawyering: Coalescing the Field conference in Las Vegas.
• KATHERINE MARSHALL, acquisitions librarian and instructor, presented a hands-on session devoted to exploring notetaking and archiving software Evernote for Professional Organization at a conference hosted by the University of Michigan School of Information. She presented an introductory session on Evernote at the annual conference for the Ohio Regional Association of Law Libraries in October. Her article “Embracing Facilitation,” on facilitation techniques in the workplace, appeared in the September/October issue of the AALL Spectrum.
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• BRIAN ANDERSON, reference librarian and assistant professor, was the recipient of a research grant from the American Association of Law Libraries for his research project, “Determining the Role of Law Libraries in the Republic of Rwanda: A Survey of Users, Uses, and Overall Legal Society.” In July, he spent two weeks in Rwanda touring law libraries and interviewing library administrators and users of legal information to understand the role of legal information in both legal and civil society. The case study will be used for research related to the use of law libraries to support democracy in developing states, and a publication of the study will be forthcoming.
only program of George Mason University’s Law and Economics Center held in Avon, Colo.
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ing ONU alumna Erin Downing, JD ’07. Alexander’s article “Be Our Guest: What Reference Librarians Can Learn from the Hospitality Industry” is forthcoming in the December 2013 issue of AALL Spectrum, the magazine of the American Association of Law Libraries.
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OUR FACULTY AT WORK
Faculty Feature
Professor David Pimentel presenting on the topic at Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, in New York in June 2013.
Criminal Child Neglect and the ‘Free Range Kid’
1
Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care? 2
By: David Pimentel
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Parenting in American society is a far more demanding enterprise than it once was, and the changes over a single generation are startling. Intensive Parenting is becoming the norm in the dominant American subcultures, which are embracing safety-conscious parenting approaches that might once have been viewed disapprovingly as “overprotective” parenting.3 Much of the change is motivated by a well-intentioned desire to insulate children from risks of physical harm and victimization. De facto legal standards appear to be evolving right along with these attitudes about proper parenting,4 with individual parental choices increasingly second-guessed by a society now willing to pass judgment on them.5
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On the one hand, this is healthy, as child abuse has decreased along with virtually every other threat to children’s health and safety. Indeed, children have never been safer than they are now.6 On the other hand, part of the focus on child protection is based on unfounded fears and hysteria, fed by distorted and sensationalized media reports of risks faced by children in
today’s world. The result has been a disturbing shift in favor of “overparenting,” which, despite the best of intentions, may be harming America’s children in unanticipated ways.7 This potential for harm is behind a growing movement toward “Free Range” parenting, rooted in the philosophy that children can and should be given greater responsibility and autonomy at young ages and that the perceived risks that prompt overprotective parenting are overblown.8 Despite the sensibilities of Free Range parents, the trend toward overprotective parenting – defined as those aspects of over-parenting that address issues of safety – may be reinforced and exacerbated by the fear of criminal liability. If criminal child neglect standards are sufficiently vague, and are applied in the discretion of prosecutors and in the judgment of juries steeped in the media’s fear-mongering, parents will have little choice but to stifle their children’s independence and initiative and buy into the Intensive Parenting culture.9
PHOTO COURTESY OF ITSHAK COHEN
"If criminal child neglect standards are sufficiently vague, and are applied [by people] steeped in the media’s fear-mongering, parents will have little choice but to stifle their children’s independence ... and buy into the overprotective parenting culture."
The assumption behind this modern trend toward overprotective parenting is one that discounts children’s ability to care for themselves, exercise judgment, or bear responsibility.10 History demonstrates, however, that young children are capable of much more than is expected of them today.11 The agrarian economy that prevailed in the United States 150 years ago typically involved putting the youngest members of the family to work.12 It was widely accepted at that time that children, even very young children, were capable of caring not only for themselves, but also for cows, sheep, chickens, and even younger siblings. Even one generation ago, the norms were different for determining the age at which a child no longer needed a babysitter.13 The expected minimum age for babysitters has gone up as well, although in the few states that have legislated specific ages the thresholds vary widely.14 In Illinois, it is illegal to leave a child under 14 unsupervised for an “unreasonable period of time”;15 in Maryland, in contrast, a 13 year-old is considered old enough not only to care for himself, but also to babysit infants.16 The days when 11 and 12 year-old neighborhood kids were considered competent babysitters appear to be long gone. “This development is all the more marked considering
The academic community has weighed in as well. There is a growing body of research to support the concerns of Free Range parents, documenting the harmful impact of overprotective parenting.21 Close control of children’s environments and the insistence on constant supervision have been shown to impair the child’s ability to develop independence, responsibility, and self-reliance.22 Unwillingness to allow children to engage in vigorous physical play out of doors – such as riding bikes, climbing trees, and playing ball in the neighborhood – has resulted in children spending most of their time in sedentary activity, exacerbating the public health problem of child obesity.23 Keeping children in sanitized environments has been tied to a startling spike in child allergies and has impaired the children’s ability to develop natural immunities.24 Unwillingness to let children walk to school or even ride their bikes in response to a virtually nonexistent risk of stranger abduction has not only deprived children of the benefits of physical exercise, but has exposed them to the far greater risks of injury in automobile accidents.25 Indeed, the American Academy of Pediatrics has published statistics suggesting that “being driven to school in a passenger vehicle is by far the most dangerous way to get there.”26 Whatever disrepute overprotective parenting once suffered, the pendulum has swung, and many parents are afraid to allow their children
The truth is, almost every choice, including parenting choices, involves a balancing of risks.34 Risks can be avoided only at certain cost, including new risks generated by the act of minimizing the initial risk.35 Safety and security expert Bruce Schneier explains it this way: There is no single correct level of security; how much security you have depends on what you’re willing to give up in order to get it. This trade-off is, by its very nature, subjective – security decisions are based on personal judgments. Different people have different senses of what constitutes a threat, or what level of risk is acceptable.36
Faculty Feature
OVERPROTECTIVE PARENTING AS THE NEW NORM
A growing parental movement is resisting the societal pressure to engage in overprotective parenting. These parents happily embrace the risks of a child falling from a tree, for example, and even breaking a bone in the process, in the belief that the freedom, creativity, physical exercise, and sense of empowerment that a child gets from learning to climb trees far outweighs the attendant risk of injury. Even more important is the idea of giving children autonomy, allowing them to play outdoors unsupervised, to walk or ride a bicycle to school or a friend’s house. These parents believe that this autonomy is important in helping children develop a sense of responsibility and self-sufficiency.19 The movement has been dubbed the “Free Range Kids” movement – a term coined by writer and columnist Lenore Skenazy, whose manifesto on the subject has attracted considerable attention.20
Protecting a child from the risks associated with playing on climbing equipment (from which they could fall) exposes them to the risks associated with a lack of physical exercise.37 Protecting them from the risks associated with playing freely in the neighborhood by ensuring that they are continually under adult supervision exposes them to the risk of growing up with a sense of dependency and helplessness.38 Even vaccines, which are designed to protect children from serious disease, carry a measurable risk of harm.39
MEDIA DISTORTIONS The modern media has gone a long way toward inflaming fears of dubious, or at least marginal risks.40 Some of the reporting is truthful but misleading; other reports are simply false. For example, between 1996 and 1999, there were
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Today, such situations are far more likely to result in a call to Child Protective Services, with subsequent legal intervention.
In previous generations, parents who “let their kids run wild” were viewed with some disdain by neighbors, perhaps, but subjected to no greater sanction than head wagging and disapproving gossip in the community. Today, such situations are far more likely to result in a call to Child Protective Services, with subsequent legal intervention.18
the kind of independence they enjoyed as a child.27 Many of these parental fears can be shown to be unfounded, however.28 For example, the general fear of adulterated Halloween treats has prompted strict vigilance and caution on the part of parents across America. But while most can cite a rumor they may have heard about this, research has failed to document even a single incident when a child was harmed by nefarious tampering with Halloween treats.29 While child abductions by strangers have been documented, they are so exceedingly rare that the statistical probability of their happening to any particular child is, for all practical purposes, zero.30 People are struck by lightning more than three times as often as children are abducted by strangers.31 According to the statistics cited by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, only about one in 1.5 million children will be abducted and killed this year.32 In an effort to put these odds in perspective, one commentator has observed that, statistically, someone who wanted a child to be abducted would have to leave the child outside, unattended, for 500,000 years before he could expect it to happen.33 Nonetheless, many parents obsess about this risk, and go to great lengths – even exposing their children to other, far more credible and probable risks – in a misguided effort to protect their children from “stranger danger.”
ONU LAW
In previous generations, parents who "let their kids run wild" were viewed with some disdain by neighbors, perhaps, but subjected to no greater sanction than head wagging and disapproving gossip in the community.
that mobile phones have created a virtually instant line of communication between the sitter and the parents, something unheard of in earlier eras when younger sitters were considered acceptable.”17
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Faculty Feature
16 reported deaths of children under 5 drowning in toilets, averaging four per year.41 The “CBS Early Show,” however, hosted a professional baby-proofer, James Hirtenstein, who claimed, perhaps self-servingly, that there are two such drownings a week.42 The venerable National Public Radio recently ran a story on safety in packing children’s lunches for school, observing that 97 percent of the 235 lunches studied were kept at a temperature dangerous for the growing of bacteria.43 The inflammatory statistic was tempered somewhat by an acknowledgment, later in the story, that because it takes a long time for the bacteria to grow, none of the 235 children who ate those lunches actually got sick.44
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The media has learned quickly that stories about harm to children captivate audiences. The perfect teaser for a news story is “could your child be next?” Such a come-on virtually guarantees that the parent will watch. The story will be compelling only if the risk to children in general, and the risk to the viewer’s own children, appears to be immediate and serious.45 The result is that public opinion on these topics is being shaped by profoundly misleading media reports, consistently calculated to overstate risks to children. Even legislation is no longer prompted by the prevalence of a problem in society, but instead by the hysteria created by news coverage of a single tragedy. Legislation is even named for the single victim whose tragedy prompted the legislation. “Megan’s Law” was prompted by a horrific sex crime against a girl bearing that name.46 The recent media circus surrounding the trial of Casey Anthony has prompted the Oregon legislature to pass new legislation called “Caylee’s Law,” after the victim of the crime Casey Anthony was charged with (and acquitted of).47 Of greater concern than legislative overreaction to inflammatory media reports is the problem of parental overreaction.48 After all, it is parents who are daily, even hourly, making judgment calls in managing the risks to which their children will be exposed. Unjustified parental fears may be responsible, therefore, for the disappearance of children’s ability to play. Media distortions cloud the judgment of parents attempting to do the right thing, to trust their instincts, and to do reasonable risk management for their children’s safety. The inflamed fears of child abduction will prompt parents to weigh that risk far too heavily, and accordingly expose their children to other, far more genuine risks. It will also cause them to unfairly judge the parenting of others, as they overvalue certain risks and undervalue others.
TROUBLESOME LEGAL STANDARDS Of particular concern is how the trend toward overprotective parenting is reinforced by legal standards. Professors Bernstein and Triger caution that standards applied in divorce and
child custody proceedings provide strong incentives in a wide range of civil contexts, incentives that backfire by reinforcing harmful over-parenting norms.49 What have not been discussed, until now, are the implications of criminal law in this area, particularly with respect to the enforcement of criminal child neglect and endangerment statutes. Historically, parents have had little reason to consider the threat of criminal prosecution when deciding how to parent their children; presumably, the prevailing concern behind parenting choices has been what is best for the child and for the family. But the ability of a parent to trust her own instincts and values in raising her children may be at risk.50 Vague statutes do not provide sufficient guidance to parents to know what matters remain within their discretion, nor do they provide sufficient guidance to prosecutors and jurors to know when a parental lapse rises to the level of criminal conduct.51 For parents, the vagueness problem may prompt paranoia. For the legal system, the vagueness problem results in overreliance on the discretion of the prosecutor, on the judge’s attempt to give meaning to the statute via jury instructions, and on the judgment of a jury venire already tainted by media hysteria over child protection. The legal standards that once gave great deference to parental discretion are in flux. The doctrine of parental immunity in tort has eroded in most states and disappeared completely in several,52 reflecting “changes in the social legitimacy of parental autonomy and state intervention within the family.”53 At the same time, legislation has emerged not only restricting parents’ discretion in methods of child discipline, but also criminalizing some time-honored approaches that many parents still swear by.54 There is no question that child abuse is a serious problem calling for serious solutions, but once parental authority and wisdom are cast in doubt, the slope gets slippery. The concern here is that parents who resist the trend toward overprotective parenting, including Free Range parents who consciously choose to give their children a long leash, may expose themselves to criminal liability.55 There are several examples already from Ohio, in which courts of appeals have overturned childendangerment convictions, suggesting that finders of fact in today’s society may be too
The media has learned quickly that stories about harm to children captivate audiences. The perfect teaser for a news story is "could your child be next?" Such a come-on virtually guarantees that the parent will watch. quick to find a parent criminally liable.56 The statutory definition of child neglect for purposes of criminal prosecution is, in many states, startlingly vague.57 The child neglect and endangerment statutes in the various states demonstrate a remarkable range of standards, many of which have been upheld and applied despite their vagueness.58 While state proceedings terminating parental rights are not, as a rule, decided by juries, the same problems with the vagueness of statutes plague the courts in criminal child neglect and endangerment cases. Criminal liability and the termination of parental rights are both nightmare scenarios for any loving and law-abiding parent. Leaving such determinations to the discretion of strangers without clear statutory guidance is problematic. A particular problem arises where statutes define criminal child neglect or child endangerment in terms of putting a child “at risk.”59 The Michigan statute, for example, criminalizes “[p]lacing a child at an unreasonable risk . . . by failure . . . to intervene to eliminate that risk when that person is able to do so and has, or should have, knowledge of the risk.”60 Because everything a parent does exposes a child to some risks, the entire question in Michigan comes down to which of those risks are “reasonable.”61 But who can be trusted to
In performing this difficult risk management exercise – with nothing less than the welfare of their children at stake – parents need freedom and deference to make reasonable judgments for their children, according to their own parenting instincts and cultural values.
Given the vagueness of child neglect statutes, prosecutors wield significant power in deciding which cases to prosecute. The criminal justice system places reliance on the jury of one’s peers as a check on the overzealous prosecutor.68 Grand juries are there to check the prosecutors even at the charging stage.69 Petit juries are there to ensure that citizens are
THE PROBLEM WITH ENTRUSTING THESE ISSUES TO JURIES By relying on juries to apply legal standards, the legal system has historically trusted the defendant’s neighbors and fellow-citizens far more than the state to determine what is reasonable behavior. But if the public is misinformed about the risks children face in the world and is driven by irrational fears inflamed by sensationalistic media reports, the jury may be in a poor position to judge the actions of a parent who, based on personal convictions as to the best interest of his child, defies the overprotective parenting norm.71 As already noted, child neglect statutes are vague, and because everything a parent does exposes the child to some risk, the only thing that stands between parents and jail is the prosecutor’s determination in the charging phase or the jury’s determination in the guilt phase that the parents’ actions or risks were “reasonable.”72 If jurors overestimate the risks to children, they are likely to find parental conduct that fails to take precautions against these exaggerated risks to be unreasonable. Additionally, the statutes permit a parent to be criminally prosecuted for what may have been a lapse in judgment, but which should not rise to the level of criminal conduct.73 The statutes do not, as a rule, give good guidance regarding where to draw the line between criminal conduct and merely poor parenting. Rather, the statutes in many states turn on the reasonableness of the parent’s actions or the reasonableness of the risk to which the parent’s behavior subjected the child.74 These reasonableness standards shift the determination of what is legal conduct from the legislature to the finder of fact, typically the jury.75 The jury then writes on a virtually clean slate, based on the jury members’ own visceral sense of what is good parenting or what risks are unreasonable, often without any evidence of what constitutes a statistically-significant probability of feared or anticipated harm. As already demonstrated, however, juries are ill-
THE UNCERTAIN FUTURE Absent legal enforcement of overprotective parenting, the marketplace of ideas may ultimately vindicate advocates of Free Range parenting and like-minded parents who are eager to foster their children’s sense of adventure, selfdirection, and independence. But overprotection appears to be the norm today; parents who dare “trust” their kids with this type of independence face serious criminal liability for child neglect if something goes wrong, and possibly even if nothing does.78 Fear of prosecution may well reinforce the overprotective parenting norms, coercing parents to conform their parenting to the overprotective parenting that has, for a variety of
Historically, parents have had little reason to consider the threat of criminal prosecution when deciding how to parent their children; presumably, the prevailing concern behind parenting choices has been what is best for the child and for the family.
Faculty Feature
The fact that child neglect standards are necessarily culture specific should raise two concerns.62 The first is that members of ethnic and socio-economic minorities in the United States are likely to come out losers in child neglect proceedings, as they may be parenting according to a different set of cultural values.63 The second concern is that culture is a moving target because culture shifts with time, and a system that enforces cultural expectations with criminal sanctions must be cautious about fairness and justice to those either ahead of or behind the curve of recent cultural shifts.64 Forty years ago, the typical American parent may have allowed a child to climb trees, ride her bike in the neighborhood, stay home alone for an hour or two, and walk herself to school.65 The Free Range Kids movement hopes giving kids this much freedom will become the norm again.66 But for now, many if not most parents in America’s dominant white, middle-class culture consider these activities unreasonably risky for the youngest of schoolchildren.67
treated fairly and reasonably.70 And who better to judge what is reasonable than a body of one’s peers, ordinary citizens in the same community?
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make the determination of what is reasonable? If society does not trust parents to make such determinations anymore, it must necessarily entrust that judgment call to prosecutors, in their charging decisions, and to juries, in their determinations of guilt in child neglect and endangerment cases. That problem is exacerbated by vagueness in the statutes and cultural biases about what constitutes appropriate parenting. In the absence of clearer statutory directives, the interpretation and enforcement of vague standards will almost inevitably be driven by culture-specific norms of parenting. One example is the issue of teaching a child to work. Some cultures, including 19th century American agrarian society, would insist that a child’s development requires that the child learn to discipline herself to work hard, including, perhaps, to share in the responsibility for supporting the family. Other cultures would condemn those very same conditions as child labor, a violation of the fundamental rights of the child.
Jurors may also be motivated to be particularly harsh with parents whose children have come to harm.76 Most people like to think that these tragedies should not happen at all, and that when they do, someone must be blamed for it and held accountable. But this is not just retribution; it is driven by a deep human need for reassurance that such tragedies are preventable, and more specifically, that they will not happen to one’s own children.77 If a child drowns at a local beach while the parent dozes on the sand, it is natural to insist that the parent should have been with the child the whole time. By assuring ourselves that we would never have made that mistake and by condemning the parent for his neglect, we reassure ourselves that it couldn’t happen to us. Essentially, the juror is likely to apply the “I would never do that” standard in these situations, effectively criminalizing any parenting choice that the juror wouldn’t make him- or herself.
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The concern here is that parents who resist the trend toward overprotective parenting, including Free Range parents who consciously choose to give their children a long leash, may expose themselves to criminal liability.
equipped to assess risk, much less to determine when a parent’s poor judgment is sufficiently bad to warrant criminal punishment.
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dubious reasons, emerged as the new minimum standard of care in mainstream American culture. The result is not merely a loss of parental and family autonomy, but even more serious risks and harm for the children themselves. The recent trend toward Intensive Parenting raises serious concerns surrounding the welfare of children, including the concerns about child safety. But there is growing evidence that Intensive Parenting may be not only unwarranted, but also actually harmful to children in their development. Parents cannot insulate their children from every risk, and any attempt to insulate them from one risk is likely to expose them to another. In performing this difficult risk management exercise – with nothing less important than the welfare of their children at stake – parents need freedom and deference to make reasonable judgments for their children, according to their own parenting instincts and cultural values.
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Faculty Feature
Overprotective parenting has… emerged as the new minimum standard of care in mainstream American culture. The result is not merely a loss of parental and family autonomy, but even more serious risks and harm for the children themselves.
32
Free Range parenting advocates are bringing some balance and useful perspective to the debate over what constitutes good parenting. But the media find strong incentives to inflame parental fears, seriously impairing the ability of parents and others (including prosecutors and jurors) to make accurate and reasonable assessments of risks to children’s safety. That, coupled with the typical vagueness of child neglect and endangerment statutes, places Free Range parents at risk of criminal prosecution. To address these problems, child neglect and endangerment statutes should be re-examined, and jury instructions should be expanded, to give stronger guidance to prosecutors and jurors regarding which parenting choices should remain within the sound discretion of parents, and which are sufficiently egregious to warrant criminal sanctions. Free Range parenting advocates bring compelling arguments to the ongoing discussion of what constitutes effective parenting, but these ideas can be meaningfully considered only if the criminal justice system respects parents’ efforts to act in the best interests of children. Absent that respect, the threat of child neglect prosecutions will work to reinforce overprotective parenting norms throughout American society, forcing them on already frightened and overwhelmed parents. The losers will be parents, families, and most of all, the children themselves. •
For the complete published article with full footnote citations, see David Pimentel, Criminal Child Neglect and the “Free Range Kid”: Is Overprotective Parenting the New Standard of Care?, 2012 Utah L. Rev. 947 (2012). 2 David Pimentel is a Visiting Associate Professor of Law at Ohio Northern University. 3 See Gaia Bernstein & Zvi Triger, Over-Parenting, 44 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1221, 1265, 1268, 1270–71 (2011). 4 Id. at 1244–48. 5 See, e.g. LENORE SKENAZY, FREE-RANGE KIDS: GIVING OUR CHILDREN THE FREEDOM WE HAD WITHOUT GOING NUTS WITH WORRY 50–57 (2009). 6 BRYAN CAPLAN, SELFISH REASONS TO HAVE MORE KIDS: WHY BEING A GREAT PARENT IS LESS WORK AND MORE FUN THAN YOU THINK 102 (2011). 7 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1274–78; Hara Estroff Marano, A Nation of Wimps, 37 PSYCHOL. TODAY, Nov. 1, 2004, at 64–68; CARL HONORÉ, UNDER PRESSURE: RESCUING OUR CHILDREN FROM THE CULTURE OF HYPER-PARENTING 247 (2009) (quoting MICHAEL UNGAR, TOO SAFE FOR THEIR OWN GOOD: HOW RISK AND RESPONSIBILITY HELP TEENS THRIVE (2009)). 8 See generally SKENAZY, supra note 5. 9 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1248. 10 SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 68–76. “Stay-at-home moms used to just tell their kids to go outside and play. Now mom and dads tag along with their kids as supervisors, or servants.” CAPLAN, supra note 5, at 11. 11 See generally Marano, supra note 7. 12 See Jennifer Senior, All Work and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting, N.Y. Mag. (July 4, 2010). 13 See Legal Age Restrictions for Latchkey Kids, LATCHKEY KIDS.COM, http://www.latchkeykids.com/latchkey-kids-age-limits.htm (last visited June 13, 2012). 14 See id. 15 705 ILL. COMP. STAT. 405/2-3(1)(d) (2011 & Supp. 2012). 16 MD. CODE ANN., FAM. LAW § 5-801(a) (LexisNexis 2011). 17 Notable and Quotable, WALL ST. J. (Mar. 15, 2012, 7:16 PM), http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702 304692804577281842896031250.html. 18 See MARGARET K. NELSON, PARENTING OUT OF CONTROL: ANXIOUS PARENTS IN UNCERTAIN TIMES 68 (2010). An example of legal intervention is Gross v. State, 817 N.E.2d 306 (Ind. Ct. App. 2004), where two parents were convicted in Indiana for felony neglect of a dependent because they loosely taped their children’s wrists and ankles in a “hostage” game. Id. at 307. 19 Cf. Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1275. 20 See L.J. Jackson, Smothering Mothering: ‘Helicopter Parents’ Are Landing Big in Child Care Cases, 96 A.B.A. J. Nov. 2010, at 18, 19. 21 “Some psychologists say such parenting has crossed the line from involved to overzealous, often leaving the child without an independent outlet.” Jackson, supra note 20, at 18. 22 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1275. 23 See CYNTHIA OGDEN & MARGARET CARROLL, DIV. OF HEALTH & NUTRITION EXAMINATION SURVEYS, PREVALENCE OF OBESITY AMONG CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS: UNITED STATES, TRENDS 1963–1965 THROUGH 2007–2008 (2010); Julie Steenhuysen, Why are U.S. Kids Obese? Just Look Around Them, Reuters (Sep. 25, 2007). 24 See HONORÉ, supra note 7, at 252; Juliana Keeping, University of Michigan Research: Too Much Sanitizing Might Make Allergies More Likely for Kids, ANN ARBOR.COM (Nov. 29, 2010). 25 CHRISTIE BARNES, THE PARANOID PARENTS GUIDE: WORRY LESS, PARENT BETTER, AND RAISE A RESILIENT CHILD 3839 (2010). 26 Jane E. Brody, Turning the Ride to School into a Walk, N.Y. TIMES Sep. 11, 2007, at F7. “Driving your third-grader to the store is vastly more dangerous than leaving him at home without a bodyguard.” CAPLAN, supra note 5, at 37. 27 See generally SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 135–41. 28 See DANIEL GARDNER, THE SCIENCE OF FEAR: WHY WE FEAR THE THINGS WE SHOULDN’T—AND PUT OURSELVES IN GREATER DANGER 290-304 (2008). 29 CAPLAN, supra note 6, at 212 n.103 (citing JOEL BEST, THREATENED CHILDREN: RHETORIC AND CONCERN ABOUT CHILD-VICTIMS 132-38 (1993)); SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 59–67. 30 See GARDNER, supra note 28, at 187 (2008). 1
Based on reported cases from 2001 to 2010, the National Weather Service estimates that four hundred people will be killed or injured in lightning strikes in a given year. Lightning Safety, NAT’L WEATHER SERV., http://www.weather.gov/om/lightning/medical.htm (last visited June 12, 2012). In contrast, a particularly thorough study by the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that 115 children were victims of stereotypical kidnappings in 1999. DAVID FINKELHOR ET AL., U.S. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, NONFAMILY ABDUCTED CHILDREN: NATIONAL ESTIMATES AND CHARACTERISTICS, NATIONAL INCIDENCES STUDIES OF MISSING, ABDUCTED, RUNAWAY AND THROWN-AWAY CHILDREN 1, available at http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/documents/nismart2_nonfamily.pdf. 32 SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 16. 33 WARWICK CAIRNS, HOW TO LIVE DANGEROUSLY: THE HAZARDS OF HELMETS, THE BENEFITS OF BACTERIA, AND THE RISKS OF LIVING TOO SAFE 45 (2008); see also CAPLAN, supra note 5, at 96. 34 See, e.g., CAIRNS, supra note 33, at 60–61. 35 Id. at 101 (stating that when people seek to manage risks outside their control by implementing official precautions and procedures, these often have the deleterious effect of taking the power and responsibility away from individual people to deal with the dangers that face them). 36 BRUCE SCHNEIER, BEYOND FEAR: THINKING SENSIBLY ABOUT SECURITY IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD 17 (2003). 37 SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 44; see Marano, supra note 6. 38 See Marano, supra note 7 (describing the problem of dependency). 39 See Possible Side-effects from Vaccines, CTRS. FOR DISEASE CONTROL & PREVENTION (Feb. 27, 2012), http://cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm (acknowledging that all vaccines carry risks, including an “extremely small” risk of serious injury or death for the overwhelming majority of them). 40 See Rachel Lyon, Media, Race, Crime, and Punishment: Re-Framing Stereotypes in Crime and Human Rights Issues, 58 DEPAUL L. REV. 741, 744 (2009). 41 Press Release, U.S. Consumer Prod. Safety Comm’n, CPSC Warns: Pools Are Not the Only Drowning Danger at Home for Kids, (May 23, 2002), available at http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml02/0 2169.html. 42 SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 31–32; HARA ESTROFF MARANO, A NATION OF WIMPS: THE HIGH COST OF INVASIVE PARENTING 77 (2008). 43 Morning Edition: Simple Things to Do to Lessen Back-to-School Stomach Bugs (NPR radio broadcast Aug. 29, 2011), available at http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/08/29/13 9943466/simple-things-to-do-to-lessen-back-toschool-stomach-bugs. 44 Id. 45 See GARDNER, supra note 28, at 158–59. 46 Office of Att’y Gen., California Megan’s Law, CAL. DEP’T OF JUSTICE, http://www.meganslaw.ca.gov/homepage.aspx?lan g=ENGLISH (last visited June 11, 2012). 47 Donal Lynch, Caylee Trial Leaves Shocked and Angry Nation in Search of Answers, SUNDAY INDEP., July 31, 2011, available at 2011 WLNR 15087749. 48 See CAPLAN, supra note 6, at 13–14; SKENAZY, supra note 5, at 50–57. 49 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1245. 50 Elaine M. Chiu, The Culture Differential in Parental Autonomy, 41 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1773, 1784-86 (2008). 51 See United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 286 (2008). 52 See Carla Maria Marcolin, Rousey v. Rousey: The District of Columbia Joins the National Trend Towards Abolition of Parental Immunity, 37 CATH. U. L. REV. 767, 767 (1988); Edward Sylvester, Note, Chenault v. Huie: Denying the Existence of a Legal Duty Between a Mother and Her Unborn Child, 33 AKRON L. REV. 107, 114 n.37 (1999). 53 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1250 n.123. 54 See generally Jason M. Fuller, The Science and Statistics Behind Spanking Suggest That Laws Allowing Corporal Punishment Are in the Best Interests of the Child, 42 AKRON L. REV. 243, 245–49 (2009). 55 See Paul W. Schmidt, Dangerous Children and the Regulated Family: The Shifting Focus on Parental Responsibility Laws, 73 N.Y.U. L. REV. 667, 676–77 (1998). 31
See, e.g., State v. Hughes, No. 17-09-02, 2009 WL 2488102 (Ohio Ct. App. 17, 2009); State v. Perrine, No. 2001CA00338, 2002 WL 1289866 (Ohio Ct. App. June 10, 2002); Village of Utica v. Billlman, No. 01 CA 24, 2001 WL 1032975 (Ohio Ct. App. Sept. 7, 2001). 57 See, e.g., Kenneth D. Dwyer, Indiana’s Neglect of a Dependent Statute: Uses and Abuses, 28 IND. L. REV. 447, 449–50 (1995). 58 Milton Roberts, Annotation, Validity and Construction of Penal Statute Prohibiting Child Abuse, 1 A.L.R. 4th 38 (1980). 59 Some courts have recognized the almost unlimited conduct that vague child neglect or endangerment statutes can encompass. See, e.g. State v. Chavez, 211 P.3d 891, 896 (N.M. 2009) (citations omitted). 60 MICH. COMP. LAWS SERV. § 722.622 (LexisNexis 2005). 61 Broadwell v. Holmes, 871 S.W.2d 471 (Tenn. 1994); Irene Hansen Saba, Parental Immunity from Liability in Tort: Evolution of a Doctrine in Tennessee, 36 U. MEM. L. REV. 829, 830, 868 (2006). 62 See Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3, at 1266. 63 See, e.g. Barbara Ann Atwood, Tribal Jurisprudence and Cultural Meanings of the Family, 79 NEB. L. REV. 577, 609–10 (2000); Chiu, supra note 50, at 1773. 64 Bernstein & Triger, supra note 3 at 1263–64. 65 Id. at 1225. 66 See generally SKENAZY, supra note 5 (describing the goals of the Free Range Kids movement). 67 See id. 68 See Juan Casteñeda, The Jury’s Dilemma: Playing God in the Search for Justice, 72 DEF. COUNS. J. 387, 396–97 (2005). 69 See United States v. Cotton, 535 U.S. 625, 634 (2002). 70 Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 156 (1968). 71 See THOMAS A. MAUET, TRIALS: STRATEGY, SKILLS, AND THE NEW POWERS OF PERSUASION 2 (6th ed. 2009). 72 See, e.g., MICH. COMP. LAWS § 722.622(j)(ii) (2005) (“Placing a child at an unreasonable risk to the child’s health or welfare by failure of the parent.”) (emphasis added); FLA. STAT. § 827.03(3)(a)(2) (2006) (“failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child”) (emphasis added); W. VA. CODE § 618D-1(6) (2005) (“‘Neglect’ means the unreasonable failure by a parent . . . to exercise a minimum degree of care to assure said minor child’s physical safety or health.”) (emphasis added). 73 See Emily Friedman, When Moms Are Pushed Too Far, ABC NEWS (Apr. 24, 2009), http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=7414322 &page=1. 74 See, e.g., COLO. REV. STAT. § 18-6-401(1)(a) (2011) (“A person commits child abuse if such person . . . permits a child to be unreasonably placed in a situation that poses a threat of injury . . . .”); FLA. STAT. § 827.03(a)(2) (2011) (“A caregiver’s failure to make a reasonable effort to protect a child . . . .”); KAN. STAT. ANN § 21-3608(a) (West 2008) (“Endangering a child is . . . unreasonably causing or permitting a child . . . to be placed in a situation in which the child’s life, body or health may be injured or endangered.”); MICH. COMP. LAWS § 750.136b(5)(b) (2011) (“The person . . . commits an act that under the circumstances poses an unreasonable risk of harm or injury to a child.”); MO. REV. STAT. § 560.050 (2000) (“Being a parent, guardian or other person legally charged with the care or custody of a child . . . fails or refuses to exercise reasonable diligence in the care or control of such child.”); see also State v. Scruggs, 905 A.2d 24, 36–37 (Conn. 2006) (“Although the defendant reasonably could have been aware that the conditions were not optimal, we are not persuaded that the nature and severity of the risk were such that the defendant reasonably could not have believed that they were within the acceptable range.”). 75 Donald Braman, Cultural Cognition and the Reasonable Person, 14 LEWIS & CLARK L. REV. 1455, 1460 (2010). 76 Todd E. Pettys, The Emotional Juror, 76 FORDHAM L. REV. 1609, 1611 (2007). 77 See GARDNER, supra note 28, at 116–19. 78 Most of the statutes do not require that any harm come to the child. A parent may be found liable merely for exposing the child to a risk of harm. E.g., FLA. STAT. § 827.03(3)(b)-(c) (2011) (making child neglect a second-degree felony if the child suffers great bodily harm, and a third-degree felony if the child does not). 56
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