How Much Worse Will Trump Become, and How Quickly?

NEIL H. BUCHANAN

Neil H. Buchanan, law professor and economist at UF Levin College of Law, contemplates the world in which we are likely to live if President Trump is reelected. Focusing in this column on the effects on government employees and contractors, Buchanan predicts that our society will be almost unimaginably worse a year from today and thereafter.

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Letting His Hair Down: Why a School District in Texas Is Wrong to Deprive a Male Student of an Education Because of the Length of His Hair

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN, KATHARINE BARTLETT

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Duke law professor Katharine T. Bartlett explain why a public school district in Texas violated both the federal Constitution and Title IX by having (and enforcing) a hair-length policy for boys but not for girls. Grossman and Bartlett describe the facts of the case and the legal landscape for sex-specific dress and appearance policies before concluding that the school district’s decision to enforce the policy was not only poor judgment but illegal.

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United States v. Serrano

Dockets: 19-5186, 19-5141

Opinion Date: February 12, 2020

Judge: Nalbandian

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Cavazos and Serrano transported cocaine from Texas to Kentucky at the request of undercover FBI officers. Both pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute 500 grams or more of cocaine, 21 U.S.C. 841(a)(1), 846. The government gave notice that 21 U.S.C. 841(b)(1)(B) subjected them to enhanced statutory punishments because of prior felony drug convictions. Cavazos unsuccessfully objected to basing the enhancement on his 2004 federal conviction for possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. Serrano orally affirmed his prior conviction. The court calculated Cavazos’s sentencing range as 84-105 months. The statutory minimum enhanced the Guidelines recommendation to 120 months; the court imposed that sentence. The court found that Serrano’s prior federal conviction for conspiracy to possess with intent to deliver cocaine and prior Texas conviction for possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver qualified as predicate offenses under USSG 4B1.2; calculated Serrano’s guidelines range to be 262-327 months; and sentenced Serrano to 262 months. The Sixth Circuit affirmed Cavazos’s sentence. The court properly applied the enhancement; 21 U.S.C. 851(e) prevents any challenge to a prior conviction used to enhance the statutory penalty under section 841(b)(1)(B) when five years have elapsed between the prior conviction and “the information alleging such prior conviction.” The court vacated Serrano’s sentence. The Texas law under which Serrano was previously convicted included attempted delivery of controlled substances and was too broad to categorically qualify as “controlled substance offenses” under section 4B1.2.