Andrea Armstrong

Law Visiting Committee Distinguished Professor of Law 

"Forced prison labor further economically isolates incarcerated people by preventing them from earning financial resources to contribute to their communities while in prison or upon release. Under an exception to the Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, people sentenced for a crime may be punished through involuntary servitude. Louisiana provides "incentive wages" for people forced to work while incarcerated, and state law caps compensation at $.20 an hour. In addition, incarcerated people are required to choose between receiving credit towards time served ("good time") and incentive wages. These wage policies can undermine a state's investment in re-entry programs by limiting people's ability to support themselves and their families immediately upon release."

Andrea Craig Armstrong, The Missing Link: Jail and Prison Conditions in Criminal Justice Reform, 80 La. L. Rev. 1 (2019).

Davida Finger

Associate Dean of Students and Rene August and Mary Jane Pastorek Distinguished Clinical Professor of Law 

"In Louisiana, a renter may not withhold rent even when the rental home is uninhabitable, a strategy that is legal for tenants in other states as a means to force repairs. In reviewing American Housing Survey data from 2015, the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center found that tens of thousands of rental properties in New Orleans fell below basic habitability standards, meaning housing units have water leaks, pest infestations, electrical wiring hazards, and other major issues that impact the health and safety of the renters. If a renter does stop paying rent when, for example, there is no working heat in the winter, the tenant is vulnerable to eviction." 

Davida Finger and Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, 'New Orleans' Eviction Geography: Results of an Increasingly Precarious Housing Market, (March 2019).

M. Isabel Medina

Ferris Family Distinguished Professor of Law

"When I come for the hearing at La Salle Immigration court with the family of a person I am representing, the guard refuses to allow the children of the person into the courtroom. I explain that I've checked with the Court administrator and federal guidelines and the ICE-ERO on the case and the Court administrator said the children were allowed to attend. 

When (the officer) returns she says the ICE officer in charge of the facility has determined that the children cannot go in. I ask why? She says that's what he's decided. Then a person not in uniform comes in and takes me into a bigger office. There he proceeds to threaten me with arrest-first, it sounds like he is going to arrest me himself but then he threatens that he is going to call the sheriff and have the sheriff arrest me. I ask him why he would do that. He is physically shaking with anger as he tells me again he is going to call the sheriff and have me arrested. I agree to be arrested but remind him that the facility operates by force of law and regulation-it can't operate as if law doesn't apply here. I am an attorney, I explain, I have to be able to assert my client's interests." 

M. Isabel Medina, A Bird's Eye View of the Right to Counsel for Immigrants Detained in the La Salle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, Law Professor Blogs Network: ImmigrationProfBlog (June 11, 2019), https:lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2019/06/guest-post-m-isabel-medina.html

Imre Szalai

Judge John D. Wessel Distinguished Professor of Social Justice

"The Supreme Court has found in the Federal Arbitration Act a strong federal policy favoring arbitration, but this policy is manufactured by the Court and not found anywhere in the text or history of the FAA. Moreover, the FAA now has super-preemptive status, overriding state laws of general applicability that are perceived as having a "disproportionate impact" on arbitration. At this current stage of its development, the FAA has been held to displace state tribunals specially designed to have exclusive jurisdiction to hear claims based on state law. Over the decades, the Supreme Court has held that the FAA overrides numerous state laws, and recently, even an agreement between parties as interpreted under state contract law by a state court. The application of the FAA to state courts raises serious federalism concerns and should be unconstitutional."

Imre S. Szalai, The Supreme Court's Landmark Decision in New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira: A Panoptic View of America's Civil Justice System and Arbitration, 68 Emory L. J. Online 1059 (2019).

William P. Quigley

Professor of Law and Director of the Loyola Law Clinic & the Gillis Long Poverty Law Center

"Between 2008 and 2017, Louisiana spent an average of at least $15,600,000 total criminal justice costs per year to maintain a capital punishment system. The state executed one person over that period. The actual costs may be significantly higher, as the costs do not include the prosecution or court costs spent on capital cases that ultimately did not go to trial as a capital case, or the costs of Louisiana Supreme Court review. Under conservative estimates, maintaining a system of capital punishment for an offense committed after August 1, 2019 through the person's trial in 2022 and through an execution in 2037 would cost: two hundred and eighty-one million dollars ($281,000,000)."

Calvin Johnson, William P. Quigley, An Analysis of the Economic Cost of Maintaining a Capital Punishment System in the Pelican State, Loyola University New Orleans College of Law (May 1, 2019), http://law.loyno.edu/economic-cost-death-penalty-louisiana-paper

Mary Garvey Algero

Associate Dean of Faculty Development and Academic Affairs, Philip and Eugenie Brooks Distinguished Professor of Law, and Warren E. Mouledoux Distinguished Professor of Law

"...developing appellate advocacy skills in law schools introduces students to professional and ethical norms that serve to give these burgeoning lawyers a taste of the legal profession and its traditions. Following rules, extending deference in a professional manner to the court, and showing respect for opposing counsel are all norms that should be learned in law schools and carried into the profession. Participating in the ceremony and discourse required in courses that teach appellate advocacy initiate these soon-to-be lawyers and welcome them into the legal community."

Mary Garvey Algero, Continue Teaching the New Dogs, Old Tricks: The Value of Teaching Appellate Advocacy to Law Students, APPELLATE ADVOCACY BLOG (Apr. 25, 2020, 10:03PM), https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/appellate_advocacy/2020/02/continue-teaching-the-new-dogs-old-tricks-the-value-of-teaching-appellate-advocacy-to-law-students.html.