COVID-19 Essays, Schemes and Mind Maps of Law

Download COVID-19 Essays and more Schemes and Mind Maps Law in PDF only on Docsity! COVID-19 Essays On April 27,2019, Professor Stephen Miller, faculty advisor for the Idaho Law Review, sent out a call for essays on coronavirus related topics. He noted: The novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic has disrupted life in ways unimaginable just a few months ago. . . .The Review seeks submissions from law students, faculty and staff at the College of Law, as well as judges and practitioners in Idaho, about how the coronavirus pandemic affected legal education at the College of Law, the administration of justice, and legal practice in Idaho. Students, judges, and professionals alike submitted the essays published below. These essays were published in an effort to create a snapshot of the unique challenges that were presented to the legal community in the year of 2019 due to COVID-19. These essays have been kept in a format that most closely resembles the authors’ style and creative liberties. TABLE OF CONTENTS COVID-19 ESSAYS ................................................................................................. 565 I. Idaho’s Judicial Response to COVID-19: A View from “the Fog” ..................... 566 II. Administering the Trial Courts in the Time of COVID-19 ................................. 571 III. DEFACEMENT .................................................................................................. 575 IV. 3L Year: Cancer and Coronavirus .................................................................... 585 V. Law in the Time of COVID ................................................................................ 589 IV. How Not To Go To Law School and Other Musings From a Non-Traditional Student During a Pandemics .......................................... 591 IDAHO LAW REVIEW VOL. 56 566 Idaho’s Judicial Response to COVID-19: A View from “the Fog” Gregory W. Moeller, Justice, Idaho Supreme Court June 26, 2020 Having been asked to submit an essay outlining the impact that the COVID- 19 pandemic has had on my professional life—especially as it concerns the administration of justice in my role as a member of the Idaho Supreme Court—I am taken aback by the challenge this topic presents. “The fog of war” is a phrase often used to describe the strategic uncertainties soldiers and generals face as they attempt to make tactical decisions in the midst of a fluid battle. Typically, such decisions are based on ambiguous information and diminished situational awareness. As I sit alone in my office in the Idaho Supreme Court typing this, overlooking a virtually empty parking lot, I feel a little bit like a soldier who has been asked to discuss his insights about a battle that is still being waged—one where the outcome is still far from certain. Inasmuch as the cases of COVID-19 in Idaho appear to have spiked, relented, and are currently spiking again, it is equally difficult to know whether we have made all the right calls so far in responding to the crisis, as it is to know how many more critical decisions we will have to make in the future. On a personal level, the pandemic occurred at the confluence of several big events in my life. On Friday, March 13, 2020, I had taken a rare day off from work because my wife and I were moving into our new home. That was also the day I would find out whether I would be facing an opponent in the upcoming primary election because it was the final day to file a declaration of candidacy for state office. To add to the stress, the Chief Justice had scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss a statewide order that the Idaho Supreme Court was about to issue in anticipation of Idaho’s Governor making an emergency declaration due to the pandemic emergency. This would be the first of many “Zoom” meetings that would take place among the five justices on a regular basis. As I loaded furniture into the moving van, I listened through my earbuds as we discussed now familiar terms that were new to most of us at the time, such as “social distancing” and “flattening the curve.” Earlier that morning, the President of the United States issued the national COVID-19 Emergency Declaration. After the Governor of Idaho issued a similar statewide proclamation declaring an emergency, we issued our order. Later that day, Idaho recorded its first confirmed case of COVID-19. As I attempted to process all that was happening around me, I remember turning to my wife as we unloaded the moving van and saying, “Remember how you used to tell me that ‘the world wouldn’t come to an end if I took just ONE day off?’ Well, we may need to rethink that.” As the crisis developed, the Idaho Supreme Court, acting as the presiding constitutional officers of a unified court system, issued a series of orders designed to keep the public, court personnel, litigants, witnesses, attorneys, jurors, and judges safe. Our guiding star was the recognition that, as a judiciary, we faced a unique challenge. Of course, we keenly felt the need to protect the courthouse 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 569 recognized that their dedication and inspired problem-solving ability were crucial to our success. Importantly, our response was only made possible by the herculean effort of our IT staff. Their efforts remind me of the famous observation by Winston Churchill during the battle of Britain: “Never … was so much owed by so many to so few.” Between March 1 and May 13, the Idaho Courts rapidly embraced new technological solutions to provide remote judicial services statewide. Zoom was deployed statewide to all courts; 835 new users were provisioned and 4,249 sessions were held by our trial courts. This includes the first ever fully remote oral arguments before the Idaho Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals. New hardware was acquired and installed, including 255 webcams, 202 laptops for the trial courts, and additional laptops for employees of the Supreme Court. Internet bandwidth was increased by 40%, remote access by Citrix increased by 100%, and cyber security enhancements were provided to upgrade security for remote users and Zoom meetings. Of course, all of this also required substantial training and resources for all court employees and judicial officers as we transitioned into a high tech judicial system almost overnight. Ongoing challenges continue to arise. For example, we will need to leverage that same “can-do attitude” from our AOC staff as we address anticipated budget cutbacks and their fiscal impact on judicial services as we strive to fulfill our constitutional duty to the people of Idaho. Although this crisis continues, and is showing troubling signs of worsening, I have never been prouder to be a member of the Idaho judiciary. The capacity of all of our personnel to innovate and adapt in the midst of a state and national emergency has been nothing short of miraculous, and has helped us to stay ahead of the curve in our response to the crisis. While we are still experiencing the “fog of war,” the passage of time will eventually bless us with the gift of clearer perspective. When that day comes, and we can fully assess the terrible costs of the pandemic, I hope all of us working in the judicial branch can also look back at these last months and realize that we were part of something rare and extraordinary. As I type this with my breath seeping through the top of my facemask and fogging my glasses, I am ever hopeful that day will not be too far in the future. 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 571 Administering the Trial Courts in the Time of COVID-19 Melissa Moody, Administrative District Judge, Fourth Judicial District of Idaho On Friday, March 20, 2020, I was kicked out of Whole Foods in the middle of the day. For me, that was the beginning of it. There were ten of us. I know that there were ten because there were more to begin with, but we had whittled our own numbers so as not to raise eyebrows. The guy who kicked us out did it in a nice way. He said: “hey, I know you guys are from the courthouse, and we know that you just had to evacuate because someone had the virus there, and so, um, it’s kind of making people nervous that you’re standing here, and, well, um, it’s a really nice day outside so maybe you could go outside and, uh, enjoy the fresh air.” Of course we left. This was not a group that was going to get into a scuffle with a Whole Foods employee, just trying to do his job. We were just trying to do our jobs too. Just twenty minutes before being unceremoniously dumped from a grocery store, we had indeed evacuated the courthouse upon learning that the husband of a courthouse employee had tested positive for COVID-19. Consulting with the Ada County Commissioners, I made the decision to evacuate because I didn’t know what else to do. When you don’t know what to do, you protect peoples’ health as the first priority. That was the default then and continues to be the default as I write this. So there we were, standing directly outside Whole Foods, yelling at each other to be heard over the wind and the traffic on Front Street. There was a sense of urgency: the courthouse group needed to meet, and we needed to meet right now, but where to do it? This simple challenge proved a bigger obstacle than it should have but was only the first of hundreds to come. It was Friday afternoon, the courthouse was empty (having just been evacuated), and we had nowhere else to go. The impromptu meeting at Whole Foods had been a failure. We couldn’t meet outside because the wind and traffic drowned out any conversation. We only saw one option: the mothership. The Ada County Courthouse. All of us --- the Trial Court Administrator, the top Ada County Clerks, the elected Ada County Prosecutor and her top deputies, the Chief Public Defender and his top deputy, the Chief Marshal, the Ada County Sheriff’s deputy assigned to the courthouse – returned to the building and hunkered down. I don’t remember what we talked about. Courthouse stuff. The C virus had descended into the courthouse and we were struggling to identify the repercussions. We wondered: How are we going to run this courthouse when we can’t? What will happen to the hundreds of cases that we have on the docket for Monday? Will we even be open on Monday? (Yes). Who is going to reschedule everything, and how? How will we notify people that their court cases have been rescheduled? We don’t have time to get written notices out; do we have the 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 575 DEFACEMENT Ritchie Eppink Police officers executed George Floyd, and within a week I had stopped checking Instagram. At first it was because I was getting up before six a.m. and working straight through, no breaks, until the nightly untamed Capitol steps protests would disband around three in the morning. The Sunday New York Times still lay unread unopened out on the settee SPREADING UNREST LEAVES A NATION ON EDGE its headline, big as a war. Its twin next to it, last Sunday’s front page, with the list of a hundred thousand names (“AN INCALCULABLE LOSS”). That one a whole day innocent of George Floyd’s murder. 14 hours at least every day in litigation against a recalcitrant state or else telling desperate people no and yet I would try to read the history of AIDS at midnight to relax. IDAHO LAW REVIEW VOL. 56 576 “How to Survive a Plague.” I could never go more than a half chapter at a time, detoured remembering the carefree 2019 summer when the Guggenheim framed a swath from Keith Haring’s studio wall Defacement which Jean-Michel Basquiat formally titled The Death of Michael Stewart ¿ D E F A C ▌M E N T © ? with a flyer in that same exhibition contemporary with Michael Stewart’s death September 28 1983 arrested for spray painting “RQS” on a train and strangled by police (“physical injury to the spinal cord in the upper neck” the Times reported), that flyer with its own list of names REMEMBER MICHAEL STEWART & ARTHUR MILLER & EMMETT TILL & FRED HAMPTON & GEORGE JACKSON & SANDRA PRATT & ARTHUR McDUFFY & LIL’ BOBBY HUTTON & DOROTHY BROWN & KENNY GAMBLE & DONALD KIZART & JAMES ROBERTS & NEVEL JOHNSON & WILLIAM GREEN & ERNEST LACY & MALCOLM X & EDMUND PERRY… 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 579 renew the excitement; repeat the flight. (Mierle Laderman Ukeles) No running water at Cottonwood. A hundred and twenty prisoners jumbling into portable toilets. Handwashing outdoors from spigots that freeze overnight It’s especially important to wash: • Before eating or preparing food • Before touching your face • After using the restroom • After leaving a public place • After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing (Centers for Disease Control & Prevention) All civil hearings suspended except emergency cases listed. Judicial bypasses, for teenagers who need a judge to approve their abortion, not on the list. Scramble to get a letter out. They promise the cases will go forward. No they will not make it clear in writing. IDAHO LAW REVIEW VOL. 56 580 On May 5 Boise Police arrest a man for yelling inside his apartment about being put on hold while his father was abusing his mother. They jail him. Prisoners in the jail could not and still cannot follow public health experts’ instructions for preventing disease and death by COVID. That week evictions resume. More than two dozen families haled to an Ada County courthouse that was closed. A destitute tenant stranded in the parking lot to haggle for one last week of shelter. THE COURT: All right, all right. We’re dealing with really unusual circumstances. And we wanted at least -- these cases have been scheduled without, I don’t know, a whole lot of thought about how best to handle them. A law student was giving out the phone number for Idaho Legal Aid to families walking up to the building. A marshal commanded him to desist. The State shuts down all polling places. A primary election entirely by mail, unprecedented and poorly planned. 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 581 The ballot request website goes down repeatedly, straining under record voter turnout. Error 520 Ray ID: 595f0d1d6c04e38a • 2020- 05-19 16:04:00 UTC Web server is returning an unknown error. Over the State’s vigorous objection, a federal district judge extends the deadline. Public records reveal election officials did not even track the website’s downtime. Their internal emails about it don’t start until after the ACLU asks to see those records. The next Friday a city attorney calls me after five pm from her car. The city will not issue Black Lives Matter a permit to rally because: the city’s unconstitutional assembly ordinance, which is unconstitutional. The police chief urged the activists to wait to protest until after all this blows over. Whites with assault rifles will rally the same day across town unmolested. But no city official will issue any statement to reassure that the City will equally honor Black Lives Matter supporters’ free speech. The city attorney texts me a 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 585 3L Year: Cancer and Coronavirus Paola Aguilar, University of Idaho Law Student My 3L year was a year that I always imagined to be quite boring with everything going according to plan before I would spend a summer hunkering down to take the bar exam. My fall 3L semester consisted of a semester in practice at the Ada County Prosecutor’s office. I was excited to spend an entire semester working and doing the kind of work that I wanted to do after graduation. I enjoyed the work I was doing and had a comfortable routine consisting of indoor cycling classes every morning before work and spending my free time with my friends and family. It was in October that I found myself perpetually tired. No amount of coffee could wake me up anymore. Cycling classes were getting more difficult instead of getting easier. One night before bed, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my chest. I spent the next week getting short of breath and it got worse with every day that went by. On November 5th, 2019, I had the most difficult time I had ever had walking from the parking lot to the courthouse. I had to take frequent breaks and was breathing heavily. In court, I would have to take breaks after each sentence because I was out of breath just from reading out loud. I left work early that day to go take my composite photo at the school. I was uncomfortable from the tightness in my chest but still took my photos. Afterwards I called my best friend and told her how tired I was and wondered out loud whether I should go to the doctor that night or wait until the next morning. I worried that it was nothing, but my friend insisted that I go that night, so I did. I walked into urgent care an hour before they closed. The nurse practitioner that helped me that night told me that all of my vitals were perfect but insisted on doing a chest x-ray before sending me home. The x-ray showed one normal lung and one that was opaque and white, likely indicating fluid that had built up in the pleura of my lung. The next day I was scheduled to get a CT scan to confirm that there was a pleural effusion in my lung and to proceed with draining the effusion. I was relieved that the problem had easily been identified and that I was going to be “fixed” soon. I expected this is something that would happen, and I would be back to work by Monday and my routine would be back to normal. What I didn’t expect was the phone call I would get in my apartment on the afternoon of November 6th telling me I had a large tumor on my right kidney and that I was immediately being referred to an oncologist. I went to the ER the next day to get my first of many procedures done to drain my effusion and to have scans and labs done. I was given urgent referrals and spent dinner with my parents that evening calling my oncologist’s office. With the panic IDAHO LAW REVIEW VOL. 56 586 of what was happening to me setting in, I immediately spoke to our Director of Student Affairs and took an “Incomplete” for the semester. Everything after that was a blur. I was in the hospital for every kind of scan, test, and appointment under the sun. At some point after words like chemo and oncology were thrown around, it was confirmed that I had Stage IV Clear Cell Renal Carcinoma, kidney cancer. My parents live an hour away from Boise, so I stayed with them. I spent my days in bed and lost 20 pounds within a month. I suspect this was mostly because of the depression. I was too tired to stay awake for an entire movie but all I wanted to do was to go back to work and to be with my friends again. I yearned to be in a court room again, making an impact on lives instead of lying in bed watching Judge Judy. I wanted more than anything to be in my indoor cycling classes instead of being out of breath every time I walked down the stairs. My “normal” routine had completely changed but by the time January came around, I wanted to take a chance at finishing law school. Classes were not easy. I no longer had the energy to power through readings in the evenings after class without taking a nap. After my naps, I only had a limited amount of time before I became fatigued again. Not to mention the energy it took to cook, do laundry, go grocery shopping . . . all of the normal things I used to do just fine on my own. Not to mention, I was angry. I was angry that this was happening to me. I was so bitter that I had been diagnosed with cancer just as I was about to finish law school. I had spent so much time focused on finishing this one goal and the most unpredictable obstacle was in my way when I was so close to the end. Slowly though, I got better. I got more energy to regain a somewhat normal routine. I regularly spoke to a social worker and worked through my anger and impatience with my body. More importantly, I learned very quickly how to be a lot nicer to myself and to appreciate the small things my body was allowing me to do. I decided to take the February 2021 bar exam and to spend the summer traveling to Europe like I had always dreamed of doing. I also planned trips in April and May to visit my friends and go see a concert. By the time March had rolled around, graduating law school felt real again. It didn’t feel make believe anymore. I ordered my cap and gown, I was preparing for a celebration with my family, and I was imagining what it would feel like to be hooded and walk across the stage in front of my family, my team, who helped me cross this last finish line all while managing to keep myself alive. COVID-19 quickly shut everything down just as I was getting used to my new “normal”. The palliative care treatments that kept my medication side-effects mild were no longer available. Zoom classes went on even though my motivation to do schoolwork was at an all-time low. The quarantine was eerily similar to the two 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 589 Law in the Time of COVID Kyle Slominski, University of Idaho Law Student1 June 26, 2020 When I originally received the call for essays about life as a law student in the midst of a pandemic, I glanced at it with mild curiosity before quickly moving on. I did not and still do not think I have anything particularly insightful or novel to add to the discussion. Upon reflection, however, I determined it would be a disservice to the community I am currently so enamored to be a part of to not at least try to document their behavior during these strange times. Moreover, I have always preferred the insight gleaned from, and personal touch of, primary historical sources such as diaries and letters to the often-mechanical retelling of history found in textbooks; I hope this can serve as some semblance of that. As Spring break began and I left the Idaho Law and Justice Learning Center for what was fated to be the last time during my first year of law school, I was flooded with feelings of both relief and consternation. While elated at the prospect of a temporary break from the obligations of school, I had been watching the academic response to COVID-19 across the nation and knew we may not be returning to campus. I struggle a great deal with depression and PTSD, and it was not uncommon for the highlight of my week to be a passing interaction with a faculty member or fellow student in the hallway. Though I tend to be a solitary person for large swaths of time, the idea of uninterrupted weeks or months of it on end was a daunting one. My mind was also awash with reservations about the idea of continuing my education remotely. It is extremely difficult for me to concentrate when surrounded by the myriad distractions available in my house, and I knew it would be easy to fall prey to the siren song of feigning technical difficulties in order to return to the comfort of bed, pound a brewski, or run off to play guitar. The first two weeks were rough. I was bogged down in a morass of depression and left the house only once to buy groceries. I wanted nothing more than to go see my mom, but was stopped by the combination of a slew of health issues on her part and what was then an even more uncertain knowledge of the factors which contributed to the spread of SARS-CoV-2. When classes began anew, though, I realized that most of my fears were unfounded. My professors without exception did a remarkable job of adapting to the online environment and taught classes through different but equally engaging approaches. Faculty members and colleagues alike reached out to me in a sincere fashion, for which I will be forever grateful. Mutual aid networks were established, and we began using the Zoom platform to have social gatherings in addition to classes. There may have even been a clandestine in-person gathering or two, in 1 Writing from the home office of two law school friends in Boise, ID who generously granted me access despite not being home as I told them it was difficult for me to concentrate at my own house, further emphasizing how fantastic our community is. IDAHO LAW REVIEW VOL. 56 590 celebration of birthdays which may or may not have occurred during lockdown. Counterintuitively enough, I believe I actually forged stronger bonds with many people during the quarantine than I would have without it. While it was admittedly difficult to be overly passionate about the twin aims of the Erie doctrine when I would rather be checking for the latest pre-print paper on the pandemic, I ended up with a wealth of new knowledge and finished all my classes feeling quite competent and well-versed. I truly am lacking the words to express how indebted I am to everyone with whom I kept contact and who offered me support during that time. It’s become a bit of a hackneyed cliché, but there is no way I could have done it without them. I could wax poetic for pages about how genuinely appreciative I am of the Vandal Law community, but in the interest of brevity I will move on. What has impressed me most over the past few months is the nature and quality of discourse fostered among my peers. It is uncontroverted that we are living in a contentious time, and contentious times can lead to vicious argument and conflict. All too often, one side of a debate completely ignores what the other is saying and resorts to petty ad hominem attacks as first recourse. Perhaps even more nefarious, though, are those who pay lip-service to the ideals of good faith argumentation and intellectual honesty while, in actuality, lashing out with bitter vitriol masked under a thin façade of civility. We as a community have had several difficult discussions lately, running the gamut from the relatively trivial (i.e. the merits or lack thereof of switching to pass/no pass grading) to more substantial subjects such as the realities of the Coronavirus pandemic and lockdown to the idea of nationwide systemic racism. The overwhelming majority of these conversations have been bereft of the deleterious style of argumentation previously mentioned. I have seen people respectfully disagree, concede points, engage in meaningful rhetoric, carefully consider and respond to what another person is saying, and be willing to have their minds changed with pleasantly alarming frequency. I am quite a bit older than most of my fellow students, and have been a member of many communities over the years; I cannot stress enough how pleased I am with the open minded yet passionate nature of the one in which I currently find myself. I am writing this on a whim with no pretense of editing or structure, and it is proving difficult to formulate and encapsulate my ultimate thoughts on the times in which we find ourselves. Volumes could be penned on the conspicuous educational, economic, health, and justice issues presented by pandemics and nationwide uprisings and calls for equality without even taking into consideration the numerous Nth order effects. There is no obvious end in sight, and this situation could last in perpetuity. Despite this, I think it is safe to say that on some personal selfish level I am glad to have experienced this. I believe it will serve as an important formative experience for myself and many others, and both underscores the importance of the legal education I am currently receiving as well as renewing my vigor for it. Hope springs eternal, and we are part of a generation that has the potential to make meaningful and lasting change both nationally and globally. Winston Churchill is purported to have said that he has gotten more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of him – while mentioning that was largely an excuse for me to bring up beer, I feel confident in saying that I have gotten more out of our current situation than it has taken from me. On that note, I am off to research any salient law I can find which will help breweries stay open until this all blows over. 2020 COVID ESSAY SUBMISSIONS 591 How Not To Go To Law School and Other Musings From a Non-Traditional Student During a Pandemic Heather Van Mullem, Univeristy of Idaho Law Student I am a non-traditional first year law student on the adjusted curriculum pathway, a Professor at a small, public college located about 45-minutes away from the University of Idaho College of Law, and a mother of three active, school-aged children. My days are full of classes I teach, classes I take, my research, and the experiences of my children. My life is chaotic, as I knew it would be going into law school. But I chose to take this path because my time as an athlete, coach, teacher, and researcher of gender issues in sports shaped and influenced my goal to work as a legal consultant with college athletic departments focusing on issues including Title IX, gender equity, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. In my dual role as professor and student, before COVID-19, I believed that college can be a great equalizer. While law school is unabashedly and undeniably competitive, the University of Idaho provides resources to support success for all students. For example, in Menard, all students have access to computers, books, legal journals, and the internet. Additionally, all students have access to assistance to help troubleshoot challenges we face with technology, scheduling, and mental health. As I teach, I am constantly considering the best way to create a positive, supportive, and equitable learning environment. When students come to my classes, for those 60-75 minutes, we are learning together. After schools closed campuses due to COVID-19, I worked from home like my colleagues, while homeschooling children, and completing the spring semester of coursework remotely. Balancing already teetering demands from my multiple roles became even more challenging. While time spent engaged in my usual 45- minute commute between the college I teach at and U of I was regained, shifting the coursework I teach to remote delivery while managing the educational needs of my children quickly consumed that time and much, much more. COVID-19 exposed how fragile the equity of learning at colleges and universities has become. Forced to work and learn from home, all students now no longer have access to the same things in the same ways. Internet reliability, time, and space has been dramatically impacted. Trying to attend and participate in synchronous, remote learning is a challenge if one’s internet connection is unreliable. It’s hard to meaningfully participate in a class discussion when you lose the internet connection repeatedly. How many times will a student try to rejoin a class session before they give up? What does that mean for a student’s understanding of the material and their retention in a program? As a teacher, this is what keeps me up at night. As a student in a highly competitive program, this, too, makes me lose sleep. How many times am I willing to reconnect? What are the ramifications for my answer?