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Articles 1 - 30 of 56
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Policing Queer Sexuality, Ari Ezra Waldman
Policing Queer Sexuality, Ari Ezra Waldman
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Vice Patrol: Cops, Courts, and the Struggle over Urban Gay Life Before Stonewall. By Anna Lvovsky.
Lawyering The Indian Child Welfare Act, Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Wenona T. Singel
Lawyering The Indian Child Welfare Act, Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Wenona T. Singel
Michigan Law Review
This Article describes how the statutory structure of child welfare laws enables lawyers and courts to exploit deep-seated stereotypes about American Indian people rooted in systemic racism to undermine the enforcement of the rights of Indian families and tribes. Even when Indian custodians and tribes are able to protect their rights in court, their adversaries use those same advantages on appeal to attack the constitutional validity of the law. The primary goal of this Article is to help expose those structural issues and the ethically troublesome practices of adoption attorneys as the most important Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) case …
Racial Trauma In Civil Rights Representation, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Anthony V. Alfieri
Racial Trauma In Civil Rights Representation, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Anthony V. Alfieri
Michigan Law Review
Narratives of trauma told by clients and communities of color have inspired an increasing number of civil rights and antiracist lawyers and academics to call for more trauma-informed training for law students and lawyers. These advocates have argued not only for greater trauma-sensitive practices and trauma-centered interventions on behalf of adversely impacted individuals and groups but also for greater awareness of the risks of secondary or vicarious trauma for lawyers who represent traumatized clients and communities. In this Article, we join this chorus of attorneys and academics. Harnessing the recent civil rights case of P.P. v. Compton Unified School District …
Through A Glass, Darkly: Systemic Racism, Affirmative Action, And Disproportionate Minority Contact, Robin Walker Sterling
Through A Glass, Darkly: Systemic Racism, Affirmative Action, And Disproportionate Minority Contact, Robin Walker Sterling
Michigan Law Review
This Article is the first to describe how systemic racism persists in a society that openly denounces racism and racist behaviors, using affirmative action and disproportionate minority contact as contrasting examples. Affirmative action and disproportionate minority contact are two sides of the same coin. Far from being distinct, these two social institutions function as two sides of the same ideology, sharing a common historical nucleus rooted in the mythologies that sustained chattel slavery in the United States. The effects of these narratives continue to operate in race-related jurisprudence and in the criminal legal system, sending normative messages about race and …
The Geopolitics Of American Policing, Andrew Lanham
The Geopolitics Of American Policing, Andrew Lanham
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Badges Without Borders: How Global Counterinsurgency Transformed American Policing. by Stuart Schrader.
Equal Protection Under Algorithms: A New Statistical And Legal Framework, Crystal S. Yang, Will Dobbie
Equal Protection Under Algorithms: A New Statistical And Legal Framework, Crystal S. Yang, Will Dobbie
Michigan Law Review
In this Article, we provide a new statistical and legal framework to understand the legality and fairness of predictive algorithms under the Equal Protection Clause. We begin by reviewing the main legal concerns regarding the use of protected characteristics such as race and the correlates of protected characteristics such as criminal history. The use of race and nonrace correlates in predictive algorithms generates direct and proxy effects of race, respectively, that can lead to racial disparities that many view as unwarranted and discriminatory. These effects have led to the mainstream legal consensus that the use of race and nonrace correlates …
Civil Rights Ecosystems, Joanna C. Schwartz
Civil Rights Ecosystems, Joanna C. Schwartz
Michigan Law Review
The Philadelphia and Houston Police Departments are similarly sized, but over a recent two-year period, ten times more civil rights suits were filed against Philadelphia and its officers than were filed against Houston and its officers. Plaintiffs in cases brought against Philadelphia and its officers were awarded one hundred times more in settlements and judgments. What accounts for these differences? Although the frequency and severity of misconduct and injury may play some role, I contend that the volume and outcome of civil rights litigation against any given jurisdiction should be understood as a product of what I call its civil …
Equality's Understudies, Aziz Z. Huq
Equality's Understudies, Aziz Z. Huq
Michigan Law Review
Review of Robert L. Tsai's Practical Equality: Forging Justice in a Divided Nation.
Redefining Reproductive Rights And Justice, Leah Litman
Redefining Reproductive Rights And Justice, Leah Litman
Michigan Law Review
Review of Reproductive Rights and Justice Stories edited by Melissa Murray, Katherine Shaw, and Reva B. Siegel.
America's Paper Prisons: The Second Chance Gap, Colleen Chien
America's Paper Prisons: The Second Chance Gap, Colleen Chien
Michigan Law Review
Over the last decade, dozens of states and the federal government have enacted “second chance” reforms that increase the eligibility of individuals arrested, charged, or convicted of crimes to shorten their sentences, clear their criminal records, and/or regain the right to vote. While much fanfare has accompanied the increasing availability of “second chances,” little attention has been paid to their delivery. This study introduces the concept of the “second chance gap,” which it defines as the difference between eligibility and delivery of second chance relief; explores its causes; and approximates its size in connection with several second chance laws and …
Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar
Separate And Unequal: The Law Of "Domestic" And "International" Terrorism, Shirin Sinnar
Michigan Law Review
U.S. law differentiates between two categories of terrorism. “International terrorism” covers threats with a putative international nexus, even when they stem from U.S. citizens or residents acting only within the United States. “Domestic terrorism” applies to political violence thought to be purely domestic in its origin and intended impact. The law permits broader surveillance, wider criminal charges, and more punitive treatment for crimes labeled international terrorism. Law enforcement agencies frequently consider U.S. Muslims “international” threats even when they have scant foreign ties. As a result, they police and punish them more intensely than white nationalists and other “domestic” threats. This …
The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer
The New Housing Segregation: The Jim Crow Effects Of Crime-Free Housing Ordinances, Deborah N. Archer
Michigan Law Review
America is profoundly segregated along racial lines. We attend separate schools, live in separate neighborhoods, attend different churches, and shop at different stores. This rigid racial segregation results in social, economic, and resource inequality, with White communities of opportunity on the one hand and many communities of color without access to quality schools, jobs, transportation, or health care on the other. Many people view this as an unfortunate fact of life, or as a relic of legal systems long since overturned and beyond the reach of current legal process. But this is not true. On the contrary, the law continues …
The New Impartial Jury Mandate, Richard Lorren Jolly
The New Impartial Jury Mandate, Richard Lorren Jolly
Michigan Law Review
Impartiality is the cornerstone of the Constitution’s jury trial protections. Courts have historically treated impartiality as procedural in nature, meaning that the Constitution requires certain prophylactic procedures that secure a jury that is more likely to reach verdicts impartially. But in Peña- Rodriguez v. Colorado, 137 S. Ct. 855 (2017), the Supreme Court recognized for the first time an enforceable, substantive component to the mandate. There, the Court held that criminal litigants have a Sixth Amendment right to jury decisions made without reliance on extreme bias, specifically on the basis of race or national origin. The Court did not …
Saving Title Ix: Designing More Equitable And Efficient Investigation Procedures, Emma Ellman-Golan
Saving Title Ix: Designing More Equitable And Efficient Investigation Procedures, Emma Ellman-Golan
Michigan Law Review
In 2011, the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued guidance on Title IX compliance. This guidance has resulted in the creation of investigative and adjudicatory tribunals at colleges and universities receiving federal funds to hear claims of sexual assault, harassment, and violence. OCR’s enforcement efforts are a laudable response to an epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses, but they have faced criticism from administrators, law professors, and potential members of the Trump Administration. This Note suggests ways to alter current Title IX enforcement mechanisms to placate critics and to maintain OCR enforcement as a bulwark against …
It’S A Sin To Kill A Mockingbird: The Need For Idealism In The Legal Profession, Jonathan A. Rapping
It’S A Sin To Kill A Mockingbird: The Need For Idealism In The Legal Profession, Jonathan A. Rapping
Michigan Law Review
“[T]he first thing I lost in law school was the reason that I came.” This prescient quote by an unnamed law student defines, in a single sentence, our growing problem in training lawyers. From the moment he or she steps foot in a law school classroom, the future lawyer feels a strong pull to pursue a career that has nothing to do with justice. The law school experience will discourage the future lawyer from pursuing a career advocating for those in society who most need a voice. Once graduated, the young lawyer will enter a world where he or she …
Pinholster's Hostility To Victims Of Ineffective State Habeas Counsel, Jennifer Utrecht
Pinholster's Hostility To Victims Of Ineffective State Habeas Counsel, Jennifer Utrecht
Michigan Law Review
Cullen v. Pinholster foreclosed federal courts from considering new evidence when reviewing 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d) petitions for claims previously adjudicated on the merits in state court. This decision has a particularly adverse effect on petitioners whose state habeas counsel left an incomplete or undeveloped record. This Note discusses strategies for victims of ineffective state habeas counsel to avoid the hostile mandate of Pinholster. It argues that, in light of Martinez v. Ryan’s recognition of the importance of counsel in initialreview collateral proceedings, courts should be wary of dismissing claims left un- or underdeveloped by ineffective state habeas counsel. It …
Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss
Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss
Michigan Law Review
Not all Supreme Court cases have a midlife crisis. But it is fair to say that Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which recently turned forty, has some serious symptoms. Griggs established a foundational proposition of employment discrimination law known as disparate impact liability: policies that significantly disadvantage racial minority or female employees can violate federal employment discrimination law, even if there is no evidence that the employer “intended” to discriminate. Griggs is frequently described as one of the most important decisions of the civil rights era, compared to Brown v. Board of Education for its “momentous social consequences.” In 1989, …
Rights Lawyer Essentialism And The Next Generation Of Rights Critics, Alan K. Chen
Rights Lawyer Essentialism And The Next Generation Of Rights Critics, Alan K. Chen
Michigan Law Review
Richard Thompson Ford does not care much for the current state of civil rights. In his provocative new book, Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality, Ford lends an original, if often misdirected, voice to the chorus of contemporary critics of the American legal regime of rights. Situating himself among "second generation" rights critics (p. 259), Ford lays out a comprehensive indictment of current approaches to civil rights litigation as well as civil rights activism. His work is both intriguing and provocative, and it raises a number of issues that are surely worth serious consideration and discussion. …
Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt
Snyder V. Louisiana: Continuing The Historical Trend Towards Increased Scrutiny Of Peremptory Challenges, John P. Bringewatt
Michigan Law Review
In March 2008, the Supreme Court decided Snyder v. Louisiana, the latest in the line of progeny of Batson v. Kentucky. This Note demonstrates that Snyder is part of a historical pattern of Supreme Court decisions concerning the use of peremptory challenges in which the Court has moved away from permitting the unfettered use of the peremptory challenge in favor of stronger Equal Protection considerations. Snyder alters the requirements for trial judges in deciding Batson challenges by requiring them to provide some explanation of their reasons for accepting a prosecutor's justification of a peremptory challenge. Snyder is the …
Law Enforcement In Subordinated Communities: Innovation And Response, Richard Delgado
Law Enforcement In Subordinated Communities: Innovation And Response, Richard Delgado
Michigan Law Review
Policing styles and policy reform today exhibit a ferment that we have not seen since the turbulent sixties. The reasons propelling reform include some of the same forces that propelled it then - minority communities agitating for a greater voice, demands for law and order - but also some that are new, such as the greater premium that society places on security in a post-9/11 world. Three recent books discuss this new emphasis on styles of policing. Each centers on policing in minority communities. Steve Herbert's Citizens, Cops, and Power: Recognizing the Limits of Community examines the innovation known as …
First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji
First Amendment Equal Protection: On Discretion, Inequality, And Participation, Daniel P. Tokaji
Michigan Law Review
The tension between equality and discretion lies at the heart of some of the most vexing questions of constitutional law. The considerable discretion that many official decisionmakers wield raises the spectre that violations of equality norms will sometimes escape detection. This is true in a variety of settings, whether discretion lies over speakers' access to public fora, implementation of the death penalty, or the recounting of votes. Is the First Amendment violated, for example, when a city ordinance gives local officials broad discretion to determine the conditions under which political demonstrations may take place? Is equal protection denied where the …
Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell
Cleansing Moments And Retrospective Justice, Margaret M. Russell
Michigan Law Review
We live in an era of questioning and requestioning long-held assumptions about the role of race in law, both in criminal prosecutions specifically and in the legal process generally. Certainly, the foundational framework is not new; for decades, both legal literature and jurisprudence have explored in great detail the realities of racism in the legal system. Even among those who might prefer to ignore the role of race discrimination in more than two centuries of American law, denial is no longer a viable or intellectually defensible option. Rather, debate now centers upon whether or not the extensive history of American …
Retrying Race, Anthony V. Alfieri
Retrying Race, Anthony V. Alfieri
Michigan Law Review
This Essay investigates the renewed prosecution of long-dormant criminal and civil rights cases of white-on-black racial violence arising out of the 1950s and 1960s. The study is part of an ongoing project on race, lawyers, and ethics within the criminal-justice system. Framed by this larger project, the Essay explores the normative and sociolegal meaning of that resurgent prosecution. My hope in pursuing this inquiry is to better understand, and perhaps begin to refashion, the prosecutor's redemptive role in cases of racial violence. Both descriptive and prescriptive in nature, the inquiry addresses race in relation to law and community. Grappling with …
White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado
White Interests And Civil Rights Realism: Rodrigo's Bittersweet Epiphany, Richard Delgado
Michigan Law Review
I had just settled down, taken off my tie, and was about to go over the two-page handout entitled "Information for Wedding Parties " that the minister of the small church had handed me minutes earlier, when I heard a knock and familiar voice from the other side of the anteroom door.
American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez
American Racial Jusice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights, And The War On Terror, Eric K. Yamamoto, Susan K. Serrano, Michelle Natividad Rodriguez
Michigan Law Review
Much has been written recently on African American reparations and reparations movements worldwide, both in the popular press and scholarly publications. Indeed, the expanding volume of writing underscores the impact on the public psyche of movements for reparations for historic injustice. Some of that writing has highlighted the legal obstacles faced by proponents of reparations lawsuits, particularly a judicial system that focuses on individual (and not group-based) claims and tends to squeeze even major social controversies into the narrow litigative paradigm of a two-person auto collision (requiring proof of standing, duty, breach, causation, and direct injury). Other writings detail the …
Road Work: Racial Profiling And Drug Interdiction On The Highway, Samuel R. Gross, Katherine Y. Barnes
Road Work: Racial Profiling And Drug Interdiction On The Highway, Samuel R. Gross, Katherine Y. Barnes
Michigan Law Review
Hypocrisy about race is hardly new in America, but the content changes. Recently the spotlight has been on racial profiling. The story of Colonel Carl Williams of the New Jersey State Police is a wellknown example. On Sunday, February 28, 1999, the Newark Star Ledger published a lengthy interview with Williams in which he talked about race and drugs: "Today . . . the drug problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that's involved with that. " Williams condemned racial profiling - "As far as racial profiling is concerned, that is absolutely not right. It …
(E)Racing The Fourth Amendment, Devon W. Carbado
(E)Racing The Fourth Amendment, Devon W. Carbado
Michigan Law Review
It's been almost two years since I pledged allegiance to the United States of America - that is to say, became an American citizen. Before that, I was a permanent resident of America and a citizen of the United Kingdom. Yet, I became a black American long before I acquired American citizenship. Unlike citizenship, black racial naturalization was always available to me, even as I tried to make myself unavailable for that particular Americanization process. Given the negative images of black Americans on 1970s British television and the intra-racial tensions between blacks in the U.K. and blacks in America, I …
The Racial Origins Of Modern Criminal Procedure, Michael J. Klarman
The Racial Origins Of Modern Criminal Procedure, Michael J. Klarman
Michigan Law Review
The constitutional law of state criminal procedure was born between the First and Second World Wars. Prior to 1920, the Supreme Court had upset the results of the state criminal justice system in just a handful of cases, all involving race discrimination in jury selection. By 1940, however, the Court had interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate state criminal convictions in a wide variety of settings: mob-dominated trials, violation of the right to counsel, coerced confessions, financially-biased judges, and knowingly perjured testimony by prosecution witnesses. In addition, the Court had broadened its earlier decisions forbidding …
Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji
Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji
Michigan Law Review
Once again, issues of race, ethnicity, and class within our criminal justice system have been thrust into the public spotlight. On both sides of the country, in our nation's two largest cities, police are being called to account for acts of violence directed toward poor people of color. In New York City, a West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers, who fired forty-one bullets at the unarmed man as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in a poor section of the Bronx. Did race influence the officers' decisions to fire the …
The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof
The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof
Michigan Law Review
The war against bias crimes is far from finished. In contrast, the battle over bias-crime laws is largely over. Bias-crime laws, as commonly formulated, increase the penalties for crimes motivated by bias. The Supreme Court has held that such laws do not violate the First Amendment. Virtually every state has enacted some sort of biascrime law. Even the federal government, which may consider itself without power to enact a general bias-crime law, has made bias a sentence-aggravating factor for the range of federal criminal offenses. Bias-crime laws thus are an established feature of the legal landscape. Against this background, Frederick …