Law and Non-Legal Entitlements: Kate Manne’s Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley Wexler comments on philosopher Kate Manne’s recent book, Entitled, in which Mann tackles “privileged men’s sense of entitlement” as a “pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.” Wexler praises Manne’s work as “illuminating” and calls upon lawyers and law scholars to ask how such entitlements might best and safely be challenged and reallocated, and how new more egalitarian entitlements might be generated and enforced.

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Gentile v. Securities and Exchange Commission

Docket: 19-2252

Opinion Date: September 10, 2020

Judge: Phipps

Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Government & Administrative Law, Securities Law

The SEC investigated Gentile for his role in a penny-stock manipulation scheme in 2007-08 and civilly sued Gentile, who was indicted for securities fraud violations. The criminal prosecution was dismissed as untimely. The SEC separately investigated securities transactions through an unregistered broker-dealer in violation of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. 78o(a): Traders Café, a day-trading firm, maintained an account with Gentile’s Bahamian broker-dealer, which was not registered in the U.S. The SEC issued a Formal Order of Investigation into Café in 2013. Without issuing a new Formal Order, the SEC informed Gentile that he was a target in that investigation. The SEC subpoenaed Gentile for testimony. He refused to comply. The SEC did not seek enforcement against Gentile but subpoenaed Gentile’s attorney and an entity affiliated with Gentile’s Bahamian broker-dealer, which also refused to comply. The SEC commenced enforcement actions against those entities. Gentile unsuccessfully moved to intervene; the Florida district court ordered compliance. Gentile filed suit in New Jersey, seeking a declaration that the Café investigation was unlawful, requesting the quashing of the subpoenas, and seeking an injunction to prevent the SEC from using the fruits of that investigation against him. The Third Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. The APA’s waiver of sovereign immunity, 5 U.S.C. 702, includes an exception for “agency action committed to agency discretion by law,” section 701(a)(2); sovereign immunity prevents judicial review of the Formal Order of Investigation.

United States v. Williams

Docket: 17-2111

Opinion Date: September 10, 2020

Judge: D. Michael Fisher

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Twenty-one men from the South Side of York, Pennsylvania were charged on counts of racketeering conspiracy, drug-trafficking conspiracy, and drug trafficking. Four were also variously charged with federal firearms offenses related to the alleged trafficking. The indictment alleged that South Side had, since 2002, constituted the identity of a criminal enterprise associated with the Bloods, a national street gang, and ran an extensive drug-trafficking operation, conducted across a defined territory and nurtured by sporadic episodes of gang violence. Nine defendants pleaded guilty. Twelve proceeded to a joint trial, with more than 100 witnesses, including some of the original defendants. All 12 defendants were convicted of various charges and were sentenced to terms of imprisonment ranging from 60 months to life. The Third Circuit affirmed the convictions, rejecting arguments that the closure of the courtroom to the public during jury selection violated the Sixth Amendment right to a public trial and that the district court’s in camera disposition of a “Batson” challenge violated the defendants’ constitutional right to personal presence at all critical phases of their trial and was sufficiently prejudicial to warrant reversal. The court rejected challenges to the denial of motions to suppress evidence collected from the defendants’ residences pursuant to search warrants and to the admission and use of evidence at trial. The evidence was sufficient to support the verdicts. The court vacated certain sentences.