The California Supreme Court Historical Society has announced the winners of this year’s Selma Moidel Smith Law Student Writing Competition. (I’m on the Society’s board of directors.)
The winners, who will receive cash prizes and have their papers published in the next edition of the Society’s journal California Legal History, are:
First place: Leah Haberman, Columbia Law School (JD Candidate, class of 2024) for “More than Moratoriums: The Obstacles to Abolishing California’s Death Penalty.”
Second place: Ryan Carter, UCLA School of Law (MLS, 2022), for “San Fernando Valley Secession: How a Quest to Change the Law Almost Broke L.A. Apart (and Whether It Still Could).”
Third place: Simon Ruhland, UCLA School of Law (LLM, 2022), for “Wind of (Constitutional) Change: Amendment Clauses in the Federal and State Constitutions.”
The competition judges were Professors Lawrence Friedman of Stanford Law School and Rebecca Latham Brown of USC Gould School of Law.
[September 7 update: Douglas Saunders Sr. reported for the Daily Journal on the Society’s virtual ceremony honoring the competition winners. Video of the ceremony is here.]
