PROFESSOR DONELSON PUBLISHES PAPER ON KATZ CIRCULARITY
April 2021 — Professor Raff Donelson’s recent essay “The Real Problem with Katz Circularity” will be featured in the forthcoming 65th Volume of the Saint Louis University Law Journal. A prepublication version of his article is available here.
In this essay, Professor Donelson explores the much-discussed Katz test, the key doctrinal test for determining when a “search” has occurred for Fourth Amendment purposes. The Katz test has a so-called circularity problem, but Professor Donelson argues this problem has been misunderstood. In the article, Professor Donelson argues that the problem is much broader than other scholars have noticed.
Professor Raff Donelson is an Associate Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law who earned his J.D. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Northwestern University. Professor Donelson’s research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of philosophy, constitutional law, and criminal law. His more theoretical research interests include metaethics and general jurisprudence, while his doctrinal work focuses on constitutional protections for criminals and the accused. His scholarship includes contributions to books published by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press, as well as articles in U.S. and foreign law reviews and in philosophy journals such as Metaphilosophy. He has been an invited speaker at numerous legal and philosophy conferences and has addressed both U.S. and foreign academic audiences. His work is featured in Legal-Phi, which is an online venue that profiles the work of rising stars in the field of legal philosophy.