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40 B&B; • 7.15 C O L U M N S PROFESSOR MICHAEL MANNHEIMER RECEIVES FACULTY EXCELLENCE AWARD Chase Professor of Law Michael J. Z. Mannheimer received Northern Kentucky University's Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity, in recognition of the scholarly record he has established since joining the faculty in 2004. The award was presented on April 29, 2015. Mannheimer's research has generally been directed toward developing an originalist account that identifies a strong federalism ("states' rights") component of the Bill of Rights. In essence, he has sought to show that the Bill of Rights, properly understood, places different, and stricter, constraints on the federal government than it does on the States. He has expounded upon this claim in several articles with regard to the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment and has begun recently to apply this claim of a federalism-infused Bill of Rights to search-and-seizure law. In his most recent piece, The Contingent Fourth Amendment, 64 EMORY L.J. 1229 (2015), he argues that the Fourth Amendment was widely understood in 1791 as requiring that federal agents follow state law when searching and seizing. Mannheimer has 14 published or forthcoming law review articles. He has been not only prolific but also eclectic, having written on the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as substantive criminal law. His work has been cited by some of the leading casebooks in criminal law, criminal procedure, and sentencing; by other leading texts; and by over 90 law review articles. His argument, de- veloped in a 2006 article, that the federal death penalty in non-death penalty States is unconstitutional has been adopted by defense attorneys in federal capital cases in Iowa, New Mexico, New York, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and twice in Massachusetts, including United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bombing case. His other articles have been cited by attorneys in at least 16 cases in 11 different state and federal courts. STEPHEN LITTLE RECEIVES OUTSTANDING ALUMNUS AWARD Stephen D. Little received the Northern Kentucky University Alumni Association's Outstanding Alumnus Award for Chase College of Law. The award was presented on April 7, 2015. Little is president and chief executive officer of Crounse Corporation, a privately held company based in Paducah, Ky. Operating 35 towboats and 1,100 barges, the company is one of the major coal carriers on the inland waterways of the United States. After graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1974 with a B.A. in psychology, Little obtained his J.D. from NKU Chase College of Law in 1978. In 1979, Little was appointed counsel to the Merchant Marine & Fisheries Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he worked directly with Representative Gene Snyder (R-Ky.) for five years. In 1984, Little moved back into the private sector and joined Crounse as a dispatcher in the company's traffic department before being promoted to various administrative positions. He became executive vice president in 1996 and president in 2001. In 2008, he added the additional role of chairman. Little has served as legislative committee chairman of The American Waterways Operators in addition to serving as a member of its board of directors and executive committee. He is presently a member of the board of directors and executive committee of Waterways Council Inc., and formerly served as its general counsel. From 2008 to 2011, Little served as chairman of the Inland Waterways Users Boar (IWUB), a congressionally mandated committee that advises the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in establishing construction priorities for major navigation projects throughout the inland waterways system. NKU CHASE