When Asma Al-Khshali and her family moved from Qatar to the United States seven years ago, their application for permanent residency was initially declined. The family hired an immigration attorney — Al-Khshali’s first exposure to the legal system in the U.S. “I was very intrigued by it,” she says. “The immigration judge who ultimately granted our stay in the country changed my family’s life, and my faith in the American justice system was cemented right there and then. I wanted to contribute to the system’s legacy ever since.” She headed to Wayne Law School a year ago, following her older brother — an attorney — into the legal world. 

Sears may be days away from bankruptcy. The long-troubled retailer has reportedly started making the moves for a filing, leaving nearly 1,000 Sears and Kmart locations on the chopping block. The company is $134 million in debt and hasn't turned a profit since 2010. Laura Bartel, professor of bankruptcy law at Wayne State University, has been watching it decline as the retail industry as a whole goes under, and online shopping takes over. Over the past decade, Sears has closed a lot of stores to downsize but hasn't been able to get its finances under control. In Michigan alone, in May, consumers learned four traditional Sears stores were closing. Then in July, it was announced the Sears at Oakland Mall and eight other locations would buckle by September.

Robert Sedler, Wayne State law professor and constitutional law expert, was a guest on the Craig Fahle Show discussing the state of the U.S. Supreme Court following the addition of Justice Kavanaugh. Sedler suggested that the public should ignore the media hype and the political statements from both sides. He said the Supreme Court acts as an institution and only about a third or less of its 70 or so cases each year are constitutional cases adding that the greater part of the Court's work is interpreting and applying federal laws and deciding questions involving the workings of the federal government. 

It's hard to look at a deal announced this week between the State of Michigan and Canadian oil giant Enbridge and not feel like Gov. Rick Snyder is really rolling the dice: Gambling that aging, damaged Line 5, an oil pipeline running through the Straits of Mackinac, won't have a significant breach or rupture in the 7 to 10 years. "This is a state and a department of environmental quality that have an absolutely horrendous record of everything from technical judgement to oversight, to, frankly, fundamentally protecting people’s water and people themselves. It’s like a bad deal between the two worst actors," says Noah Hall, a professor at Wayne State University Law School and founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.

Professor Peter J. Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School, has been named the Law School’s inaugural A. Alfred Taubman Endowed Chair. Hammer, who joined the Law School faculty in 2003, is a leading voice on economic and social issues impacting Detroit and the nation. He has spent more than 25 years engaging in matters of human rights law and development in Cambodia. Hammer is an expert on domestic health law and policy, as well as international public health and economic development. The $1.5 million endowed chair is part of a $3 million gift from the late A. Alfred Taubman in 2006 that led to the construction of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights building at Wayne Law.

Distinguished Professor of Law Robert A. Sedler wrote a piece for The Conversation about the definition of treason, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution. Sedler wrote: “In the furor over the anonymous New York Times op-ed by a Trump administration “senior official,” the word “treason” has been used by a variety of people. President Trump tweeted “TREASON?” in an apparent reference to the op-ed’s author.

Noah Hall, an environmental lawyer from Wayne State University, said the changes wrought by climate alterations could require amendments to water compacts. “The Great Lakes Compact states made a rare move to address a problem before it became a problem," Hall said. "While some of these reforms can happen at the state level," Hall wrote, "or through operational changes in compact administration, more fundamental changes will require revision of existing compacts." Such changes will not come easy, he added, and “will require leadership and political will." 

A plan being considered by Republican lawmakers to short-circuit two proposals now slated for the November ballot would be a "blatant" violation of the Michigan Constitution, several legal experts say. The two legislative initiatives in question are strongly opposed by business groups. To keep them off the ballot, some lawmakers have proposed adopting the initiatives this week and then amending them during the lame-duck session after the November election. "It would defeat the purpose of the initiative process for the legislature to turn around and amend the law at the same session," Wayne State University Law Professor Robert Sedler said in an email. 

Land contracts are a popular home buying tool in Detroit where mortgages have historically been hard to come by — have little protections for buyers. "Land contracts can be so pernicious there is no filing requirement, there is just no regulation on them," explained Peter Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne State University Law School. "They can just exist in this completely private space, and almost no accountability for them." 

Robert Sedler, professor of law and constitutional law expert, was a guest on the Craig Fahle show discussing recent Michigan Supreme Court decisions. Sedler said that Michigan school districts can ban the open carry of weapons on school property. Michigan law prohibits holders of concealed pistol permits from carrying them on school property except that parents picking up or dropping off children may have the pistol in the car. The Court held that Michigan law prohibiting units of local government - defined as city, village, township or county - from enacting gun regulation did not include school districts. Also discussed was the upcoming decision from the Michigan Supreme Court in a challenge to the ballot proposal for a redistricting commission. The challengers contend that it is a general revision of the constitution, which can only be done by a convention. The Court of Appeals unanimously held that it is a constitutional amendment and not a general revision. Sedler said that the decision is clearly correct, because the amendment only deals with one topic, redistricting, and does not change the form of government.

US Ecology, an Idaho-based company, is close to receiving approval for a large expansion of its hazardous waste facility on Detroit’s east side, near Hamtramck. The expansion would increase the facility’s storage capacity nine-fold, from 76,000 to 677,000 gallons. Despite the facility’s spotty history, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) is completing its approval of US Ecology’s proposed expansion. Noah Hall, founder of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center (GLELC) and professor of law at Wayne State University, is a sharp critic of MDEQ. He said the agency often gives polluters a free pass in Michigan, especially “in disenfranchised communities and in populations that our political system hasn’t cared much about.”

A former labor official told federal prosecutors that United Auto Workers President Dennis Williams directed subordinates to use funds from Detroit’s automakers, funneled through training centers, to pay for union travel, meals and entertainment. Money filtered through the training centers for the benefit of UAW officials is at the center of a widening scandal that has led to seven convictions, a shakeup at the highest levels of the auto industry and raised questions about the sanctity of labor negotiations between the union and Detroit's automakers. "Maybe this is what the senior levels of the UAW were used to, but at its core, this is a significant betrayal of trust," said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor. "This is how a small fraud becomes a much bigger one."

Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is hoping for clemency from President Donald Trump, but he might need friends in high places to plead his case directly with the White House. The 48-year-old Democrat has filed a petition for commutation — a reduction of his sentence — but he doesn't appear to meet the Justice Department's standards for considering clemency. Kilpatrick isn’t eligible for a pardon under the department’s guidelines because he’s still serving a prison sentence. In 2016, nearly 29,000 people signed a Change.org petition asking President Barack Obama to grant clemency to Kilpatrick, arguing that while Kilpatrick was “wrong,” 28 years in prison is "excessive." “Certainly, a 28-year sentence is among the longest given for a public corruption case ever. That’s the basis for a claim of unfairness. Whether that resonates is a different question,” said Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former federal prosecutor. “I think you can make an argument that he’s received a substantial punishment so far, but whether that results in a reduction in his sentence is very much an open question.” Henning added: “I suspect the local U.S. Attorney’s Office would not look upon it favorably on a pardon or clemency, but that doesn’t preclude it from happening.”

Abortion is re-emerging as a wedge issue in Michigan’s gubernatorial election amid speculation over the fate of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that invalidated broad state laws that criminalized abortion. Democrat hopefuls say they would fight for a woman’s right to choose a legal abortion if federal safeguards are overturned. Republican candidates say they would defend an old state law that would again make it a crime. Experts who say the ban would again take effect if Roe v Wade is overturned point to a Michigan Supreme Court decision in 1973. Justices blocked the enforcement of the state law against physicians but did not repeal it. The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in 1997 that there is no right to abortion under the state Constitution. Robert Sedler, a professor of law and constitutional expert at Wayne State University, agreed that if Roe were overturned, “as of that moment abortion would be illegal in Michigan.” But Sedler said he cannot imagine the high court, no matter its makeup, overturning Roe. “It would be cataclysmic,” he said. “The criteria for overturning is it has to be undercut by later decisions, and there can’t have been societal reliance on that decision.”

A Dearborn man captured on an Islamic State battlefield this month was tricked by fellow Muslims into traveling overseas and became trapped in war-torn Syria, his brother said Friday. Relatives, public records and legal experts helped establish a narrative timeline of Ibraheem Musaibli's final months in the United States, his alleged attempts to escape an Islamic State prison with help from the FBI and potential prosecution in a high-profile criminal case in Detroit. The chronology emerged Friday, one day after it was revealed the Dearborn native had been captured by Coalition-backed forces in Syria while believed to be fighting for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. Though Musaibli was captured overseas, he could be prosecuted in Detroit, the federal jurisdiction which covers his hometown of Dearborn, said Peter Henning, a Wayne State University law professor and former federal prosecutor. The Times reported that it is likely Musaibli has been charged in a sealed federal court filing. "We’re not going to have any issues of entrapment or that the government somehow acted unfairly in targeting him. He was on the battlefield," Henning said. "It's much easier when it's a black-and-white case."

On the top of what is likely Detroit's hippest parking structure, a mural is gaining attention. The focus on the colorful piece of artwork over the entrance to an elevator shaft, however, has as much to do with the artist's federal lawsuit against General Motors as it does about the impression left by the piece. The Swiss artist Adrian Falkner is accusing the Detroit automaker of copyright infringement in a GM ad campaign for Cadillac. Falkner, who signs his work "SMASH 137," maintains that the mural on top of the Z Garage, one piece of Dan Gilbert's empire of Bedrock-owned properties downtown, was a centerpiece of an ad campaign in 2016 for the Cadillac XT5. GM dismisses the claim, which seeks unspecified compensation. John Rothchild, an associate professor at Wayne State University Law School, said such cases are not necessarily unique. "It's not unusual to have a case challenging the use of an image in the background of an advertisement of a television program," he said. "That happens frequently. This is a little bit unusual because it involved graffiti in an outdoor location, but even that is not unique."

Professor Jonathan T. Weinberg is Wayne State University Law School’s inaugural associate dean for research and faculty development.  

On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of pro-life crisis pregnancy centers by holding that a 2015 California law regulating them, the Reproductive FACT Act, violates the First Amendment. I am a constitutional law professor who has written extensively on the First Amendment.

Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state could require nonmembers of a public employee union to pay an “agency fee,” otherwise known as costs of collective bargaining, for their representation by the union.

Unless you’ve fallen into the sinkhole on the White House lawn, you’re well aware of President Trump’s Twitter declaration that he can pardon himself just like he would anyone else.