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Chicago, Illinois, is home to over 2.7 million individuals living under the supervision of a vast network of over forty thousand cameras integrated into a network of advanced technology run by the Chicago Office of Emergency Management. With little transparency, the City of Chicago has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past two decades rapidly expanding the network throughout the city while incorporating new technologies each year, posing substantial privacy risks for the millions of residents unaware of the ever-present eyes on them. To determine whether the network violates the Fourth Amendment, particularly in the wake of Carpenter v. United States, the city must increase transparency by releasing a complete accounting of the technologies integrated into the network. By building on contemporary Fourth Amendment research, while incorporating previously nonpublic details regarding Chicago’s surveillance capabilities, this Comment will show how these technologies pose a radical threat to the Court’s view of the Fourth Amendment in the twenty-first century.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson, national attention is being brought to discussions about the criminalization of homelessness and the experiences of homeless people in the criminal legal system. Community supervision (probation and parole) is an oftforgotten portion of the criminal justice system, despite there being nearly triple the number of people on parole or probation than the number of people incarcerated in the United States. Probation specifically is seen as an alternative to incarceration. Some view it as a more humane punishment than incarceration; others believe probation is far too lenient and sentenced too often. For homeless people, probation is often just a stepping stone to incarceration instead of a turn away from it. Using Illinois as a case study, this Comment demonstrates the way the criminalization of homelessness makes probation especially difficult for those without housing to successfully complete. There are over 470,000 people on probation in Illinois, compared to just over 27,000 in the Illinois prison population. Illinois does not keep statistics about the number of probationers experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, so studying the exact impact of homelessness on probation in Illinois is difficult. Studies from other areas of the country show that people who are facing housing insecurity are 36% more likely to unsuccessfully complete probation. Several general probation requirements are difficult for homeless people to follow. Requirements such as reporting to parole officers, avoiding interactions with law enforcement, not associating with convicted felons, and regularly appearing for court dates present unique problems for people without homes. To help alleviate the inequalities within the system, probation departments should begin collecting data on the housing status of probationers, create dedicated homeless programs within probation offices, work on inter-agency and resource collaboration for homeless services, end incarceration for probation violations, and invest in permanent supportive housing.

In 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) into law, granting the firearms industry near-perfect legal immunity. PLCAA shifted the risk of firearm production, distribution, marketing, and injuries to the public. Two decades ago, mass shootings were anomalies. Today, they are alarmingly common. From 2021 to 2023, the United States averaged 663 yearly mass shootings, and from 2004 to 2022, active shooter events spiked 1,150%. The larger gun violence epidemic now costs taxpayers over $550 billion annually, forcing Congress to seek solutions with increasing desperation. However, new state laws and lawsuits targeting gun manufacturers are beginning to erode this armor as courts link the arms trade’s behavior to the crisis. Firearm distribution, unlike ownership, is not a Second Amendment right, and immunity’s collateral socio-economic damage is more evident than ever. The tide is turning. Corporations should be accountable for the costs of their business models, as reflected in every other American sector. This Comment introduces a novel Blueprint to modernize a deregulated market of dangerous, inelastic goods. Its approach is simple: shift some mass shooting risk to industry giants, termed “Big Gun.” Prong One proposes a partial repeal of PLCAA, exposing manufacturers to mass shooting liability. Prong Two presents an insurance framework to maximize profitable manufacturer operations within the new risk landscape. Prong Three urges Congress to—constitutionally—create and institute a “Mass Shooting Court,” transferring mass shooting litigation claims for hybrid Article I administrative agency adjudication. As manufacturers reform their marketing and distribution practices that are currently linked to mass shootings, Mass Shooting Court judgments may decrease, resulting in lower insurance premiums. Executing the Blueprint would help reverse the course of the gun violence epidemic, preserve Second Amendment rights, and advance long-term industry interests.

The American juvenile court system does not recognize a right to a jury trial. It should. The juvenile court system was born out of the Progressive Era, a period of social and political change in the U.S. Its creators envisioned a system that cared for children and considered which individual treatment would suit each child in the system. However, the actual history of the juvenile court did not follow this idealistic vision. To combat the punitive system into which juvenile court had evolved, the Supreme Court decided in subsequent years that children deserve the due process rights recognized in adult criminal court: the right to counsel, notice, confrontation and cross-examination of witnesses, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of proof. The Court reasoned that because the juvenile court does not act all that differently from the adult criminal court, the same rights afforded to adults should be afforded to children. Despite upholding the above rights for juveniles, the Court has expressly rejected the jury trial right in the juvenile court. However, states should still elect to provide jury trials in their juvenile courts. Juries would give the juvenile court system more legitimacy, protect children from bias, and ensure that the juvenile court system has fair processes and appropriate punishments.