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Crashing Into The Unknown: An Examination Of Crash Optimization Algorithms Through The Two Lanes Of Ethics And Law, Jeffrey K. Gurney Jan 2016

Crashing Into The Unknown: An Examination Of Crash Optimization Algorithms Through The Two Lanes Of Ethics And Law, Jeffrey K. Gurney

Jeffrey K Gurney

Autonomous vehicles will encounter situations where an accident is truly unavoidable, requiring the vehicle to decide whom or what to hit. In such situations, the vehicle will make difficult ethical decisions based upon its programming — more specifically, how its crash-optimization algorithm is programmed.This Article examines crash-optimization algorithms from an ethical and legal standpoint through the lenses of six moral dilemmas. Ethically, the Article focuses specifically on utilitarian and Kantian ethics. Legally, the Article considers the tort and criminal law implications of crash-optimization algorithms.In addition, the Article discusses whether autonomous vehicles should even make ethical decisions. Concluding that they should …


Machine Learning, Automated Suspicion Algorithms, And The Fourth Amendment, Michael L. Rich Jan 2016

Machine Learning, Automated Suspicion Algorithms, And The Fourth Amendment, Michael L. Rich

Michael L Rich

At the conceptual intersection of machine learning and government data collection lie Automated Suspicion Algorithms, or ASAs, algorithms created through the application of machine learning methods to collections of government data with the purpose of identifying individuals likely to be engaged in criminal activity. The novel promise of ASAs is that they can identify data-supported correlations between innocent conduct and criminal activity and help police prevent crime. ASAs present a novel doctrinal challenge, as well, as they intrude on a step of the Fourth Amendment’s individualized suspicion analysis previously the sole province of human actors: the determination of when reasonable …


A 'Velvet Hammer': The Criminalization Of Motherhood And The New Maternalism, Eliza Duggan Oct 2015

A 'Velvet Hammer': The Criminalization Of Motherhood And The New Maternalism, Eliza Duggan

Eliza Duggan

In 2014, Tennessee became the first state to criminalize the use of narcotics during pregnancy. While women have been prosecuted for the outcomes of their pregnancies and for the use of drugs during pregnancy in the past decades, Tennessee is the first state to explicitly authorize prosecutors to bring criminal charges against pregnant women if they use drugs. This Article suggests that this new maternal crime is reflective of a social and political paradigm called “maternalism,” which enforces the idea that women are meant to be mothers and to perform motherhood in a particular fashion. This concept has developed from …


Privately Failing: Recidivism In Public And Private Prisons, Lee N. Gilgan Sep 2015

Privately Failing: Recidivism In Public And Private Prisons, Lee N. Gilgan

Lee N Gilgan

This study would add to available research regarding recidivism rates following incarceration in private prisons in contrast to incarceration in government-run prisons. This is a non-experimental meta-analysis viewing numerous studies discussing the effects of multiple covariants within public and private prisons. Based on the information and conclusion in these studies, we find that there is little overall consensus concerning the effects of increased privatization on recidivism. While many studies find certain aspects of privatization to have some potential effect on recidivism, there are many other aspects that either are out of scope or have a negative effect on recidivism. However, …


The Hidden Psychology Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Tonja Jacobi, Jesse-Justin Cuevas Aug 2015

The Hidden Psychology Of Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Tonja Jacobi, Jesse-Justin Cuevas

Tonja Jacobi

There is vast empirical evidence of the difference in men and women’s perceptions of and responses to police authority, their speech patterns and conduct. Yet these differences are rarely reflected in constitutional criminal procedure law, despite many of its rules hinging on a person’s manner of expression or subtleties of behavior. Similar evidence exists for the systematic impact of juvenile status and intellectual disability, but only modest and ad hoc consideration has been given to these factors. The result is that the “reasonable person” is actually implicitly a white male, adult and able-minded. His speech and conduct are treated as …


Dealing With Dangerous Women: Sexual Assault Under Cover Of National Security Laws In India, Surabhi Chopra Prof. Aug 2015

Dealing With Dangerous Women: Sexual Assault Under Cover Of National Security Laws In India, Surabhi Chopra Prof.

Surabhi Chopra Prof.

DEALING WITH DANGEROUS WOMEN: SEXUAL ASSAULT UNDER COVER OF NATIONAL SECURITY LAWS IN INDIA

This article examines violence against women suspected of being security threats in India’s internal conflict zones, one of the very few scholarly works to do so.

I focus on two cases in particular. In 2004, Thangjam Manorama was arrested by paramilitaries on suspicion of belonging to a violent separatist group, and found raped and murdered several hours later. I look at her family’s attempts to hold the armed forces accountable for her death. I also look at the ongoing criminal prosecution of Soni Sori, an indigenous …


Legal Thinking, The Adversarial Process And Exonerating Innocent Defendants: A Socio-Legal View Of The Wrongful Conviction Process., Gary J. Kowaluk Aug 2015

Legal Thinking, The Adversarial Process And Exonerating Innocent Defendants: A Socio-Legal View Of The Wrongful Conviction Process., Gary J. Kowaluk

Gary J Kowaluk

Little is as frustrating as advocating the release of an innocent defendant who has been wrongfully convicted. Surprisingly, most of the wrongfully convicted fail to overturn their cases through the courts, and rely on government officials and prosecutor’s to find other ways to release them from custody. Too often the wrongful conviction process leaves lawyers and judges arguing to legally support injustices in the face of a practical common sense indicating a defendant’s innocence. This paper is an attempt to understand the tendency of legal professionals to argue against remedying a wrongful conviction in favor of the continued social injustice …


Revealing The Rapist Next Door: Property Impacts Of A Sex Offender Registry, Susan Yeh Aug 2015

Revealing The Rapist Next Door: Property Impacts Of A Sex Offender Registry, Susan Yeh

Susan Yeh

How do homebuyers respond to perceived crime risks about sex offenders in the neighborhood? I evaluate local property and crime responses to Internet sex offender registry listings. Among more permanent listings, a nearby offender depresses house prices by up to 4 percentage points. I document that the majority of registered sex offenders are transient, with durations of less than 6 months at an address. While a growing literature suggests that housing stability is important in reducing criminal behavior, the market perceives heightened crime risks to be attached to the listings of registered offenders with more stable housing, but not to …


Domestic Violence And The Confrontation Clause: The Case For A Prompt Post-Arrest Confrontation Hearing, Robert M. Hardaway Jul 2015

Domestic Violence And The Confrontation Clause: The Case For A Prompt Post-Arrest Confrontation Hearing, Robert M. Hardaway

Robert Hardaway

Prior to the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in case of Crawford v. Washington, a prosecutor could pursue a domestic violence case and introduce the prior accusatory testimonial statement of the victim even where the victim refused to appear at trial, declined to testify at trial, retracted a prior statement made to police, or claimed lack of memory as to the events described in her prior statement if: 1) the victim was unavailable, and 2) the statement bore ‘adequate indicia of reliability’ as indicated by falling within a ‘firmly rooted hearsay exception’, or satisfied ‘particularized guarantees of trustworthiness’. Ohio v. Roberts …


Reconsidering Federal And State Obstacles To Human Trafficking Victim Status And Entitlements, Amanda J. Peters Apr 2015

Reconsidering Federal And State Obstacles To Human Trafficking Victim Status And Entitlements, Amanda J. Peters

Amanda J Peters

Federal and state anti-trafficking laws describe the victim in the process of criminalizing the act of human trafficking. Nearly half of all states adopt the federal definition of victim, which requires proof of forced, defrauded or coerced labor, whereas the other half narrows this definition thereby limiting the number of victims qualifying for state victims services. Using this definition, victims must prove their status before they can access victim entitlements. Even when victims prove their status, they may be denied traditional crime victim benefits like restitution and Crime Victim Compensation funds. In this way, their victim status may be rendered …


The Hypocrisy Of "Equal But Separate" In The Courtroom: A Lens For The Civil Rights Era, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin Apr 2015

The Hypocrisy Of "Equal But Separate" In The Courtroom: A Lens For The Civil Rights Era, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

This article serves to examine the role of the courthouse during the Jim Crow Era and the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement, as courthouses fulfilled their dual function of minstreling Plessy’s call for “equality under the law” and orchestrating overt segregation.


Castle Doctrine And Cohabitants: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography, Luis Debonopaula Apr 2015

Castle Doctrine And Cohabitants: A Selective, Annotated Bibliography, Luis Debonopaula

Luis deBonoPaula

No abstract provided.


Justice-As-Fairness As Judicial Guiding Principle: Remembering John Rawls And The Warren Court, Michael Anthony Lawrence Mar 2015

Justice-As-Fairness As Judicial Guiding Principle: Remembering John Rawls And The Warren Court, Michael Anthony Lawrence

Michael Anthony Lawrence

This Article looks back to the United States Supreme Court’s jurisprudence during the years 1953-1969 when Earl Warren served as Chief Justice, a period marked by numerous landmark rulings in the areas of racial justice, criminal procedure, reproductive autonomy, First Amendment freedom of speech, association and religion, voting rights, and more. The Article further discusses the constitutional bases for the Warren Court’s decisions, principally the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection and due process clauses.

The Article explains that the Warren Court’s equity-based jurisprudence closely resembles, at its root, the “justice-as-fairness” approach promoted in John Rawls’s monumental 1971 work, A Theory of …


Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser Jan 2015

Definitions, Religion, And Free Exercise Guarantees, Mark Strasser

Mark Strasser

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the free exercise of religion. Non-religious practices do not receive those same protections, which makes the ability to distinguish between religious and non-religious practices important. Regrettably, members of the Court have been unable to agree about how to distinguish the religious from the non-religious—sometimes, the implicit criteria focus on the sincerity of the beliefs, sometimes the strength of the beliefs or the role that they play in an individual’s life, and sometimes the kind of beliefs. In short, the Court has virtually guaranteed an incoherent jurisprudence by sending contradictory signals with …


An Empirical Evaluation Of The Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, And Geographic Disparities?, John J. Donohue Dec 2014

An Empirical Evaluation Of The Connecticut Death Penalty System Since 1973: Are There Unlawful Racial, Gender, And Geographic Disparities?, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

This article analyzes the 205 death-eligible murders leading to homicide convictions in Connecticut from 1973–2007 to determine if discriminatory and arbitrary factors influenced capital outcomes. A regression analysis controlling for an array of legitimate factors relevant to the crime, defendant, and victim provides overwhelming evidence that minority defendants who kill white victims are capitally charged at substantially higher rates than minority defendants who kill minorities, that geography influences both capital charging and sentencing decisions (with the location of a crime in Waterbury being the single most potent influence on which death-eligible cases will lead to a sentence of death), and …


The Future Of Sex Offense Courts: How Expanding Specialized Sex Offense Courts Can Help Reduce Recidivism And Improve Victim Reporting, Catharine Richmond, Melissa Richmond Aug 2014

The Future Of Sex Offense Courts: How Expanding Specialized Sex Offense Courts Can Help Reduce Recidivism And Improve Victim Reporting, Catharine Richmond, Melissa Richmond

Catharine Richmond

Specialty sex offense courts are a nascent judicial innovation that seek to improve general public safety through reducing recidivism. Decreased recidivism results from swifter, personalized, experienced, and consistent judicial action that encourages sex offenders to take more responsibility and seek rehabilitative assistance. In these specialized courts, communities of stakeholders work collaboratively to prevent future crime. Although somewhat counterintuitive, specialty courts that offer such intensive and specific attention are often more cost effective and efficient than their traditional counterparts. This Note argues that sex offense courts should be expanded beyond the handful of jurisdictions where they currently exist, not only to …


Gay Panic And The Case For Gay Shield Laws, Kelly Strader, Molly Selvin, Lindsey Hay Aug 2014

Gay Panic And The Case For Gay Shield Laws, Kelly Strader, Molly Selvin, Lindsey Hay

Kelly Strader

In a highly publicized “gay panic” case, Brandon McInerney shot and killed Larry King in their middle school classroom. King was a self-identified gay student who sometimes wore jewelry and makeup to school and, according to those who knew him, was possibly transgender. Tried as an adult for first-degree murder, McInerney asserted a heat of passion defense based upon King’s alleged sexual advances. The jury deadlocked, with a majority accepting McInerney’s defense. Drawing largely upon qualitative empirical research, this article uses the Larry King murder case as a prism though which to view the doctrinal, theoretical, and policy bases of …


Victimology Of Interpersonal Violence: A Comprehensive Outlook Of Legislative Policies In India, Sukdeo Ingale Jun 2014

Victimology Of Interpersonal Violence: A Comprehensive Outlook Of Legislative Policies In India, Sukdeo Ingale

Sukdeo Ingale

Victimology is future of criminology. Hence, in contemporary era, every crime needs to be relooked through the ‘injured eyes’ of victim. Against this backdrop, this study investigates a largely unexplored area in victimology i.e. the victimization of men in interpersonal violence. The main object of the study is to evaluate the existence of men victimization by misuse of different laws and to describe and analyze how misuse of different laws by women and systematic bias against men increased probability of men victimization. After extensive literature review, the author found that the rate of men victimization throughout glob is increasing day …


The Scarlet Letter: Why Courts’ Reliance On Recidivist Statutes During Sentence Enhancement Hearings May Create Fifth And Eighth Amendment Violations, Jesse S. Weinstein Mar 2014

The Scarlet Letter: Why Courts’ Reliance On Recidivist Statutes During Sentence Enhancement Hearings May Create Fifth And Eighth Amendment Violations, Jesse S. Weinstein

Jesse Weinstein

No abstract provided.


Solving Batson, Tania Tetlow Mar 2014

Solving Batson, Tania Tetlow

Tania Tetlow

The Supreme Court faced an important ideological choice when it banned the racial use of peremptory challenges in Batson v. Kentucky. It could either ground the rule in equality rights designed to protect potential jurors from stereotyping, or it could base the rule on the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury” drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. By choosing Equal Protection analysis, the Court turned away from the defendant and the fair functioning of the criminal justice system and instead focused on protecting potential jurors. The Court thus built fatal error into the Batson rule, a …


Rationality, Insanity, And The Insanity Defense: Reflections On The Limits Of Reason, Theodore Y. Blumoff Mar 2014

Rationality, Insanity, And The Insanity Defense: Reflections On The Limits Of Reason, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Theodore Y. Blumoff

Individuals who suffer from chronic paranoid ideations live with deeply embedded conspiratorial delusions that are sometimes accompanied by unwanted visual and/or auditory stimuli, sometime neither: just psychotic delusions in which they feel as if they have lost control of their lives – and of course they have, albeit not from the performances of foreign forces. When those perceived forces persevere for even a fairly short period of time, they can dictate the performance of evil deeds that the individual ultimately feels helpless to oppose. What observations and findings from neuroscience make clear is that such individuals do not lack knowledge, …


Modern Prostitution Reform And The Return Of Volitional Consent, Amanda J. Peters Feb 2014

Modern Prostitution Reform And The Return Of Volitional Consent, Amanda J. Peters

Amanda J Peters

For decades, prostitution laws in America have focused exclusively on contractual consent: the agreement to exchange sexual services for a fee. Courts and legislatures alike ignored volitional consent, or traditional mens rea, by concentrating on the offer and acceptance of the prostitution agreement. In this way, the law disregarded the actor’s choice to engage in the crime. The de facto strict liability nature of the offense rendered it nearly impossible for prostitutes to successfully raise the defenses of duress and necessity. The failure of the law to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary prostitution resulted in charges, trials, and convictions …


Human Right Issues Of Victims Of Violent Crimes: Restless Waiting For Recognition As Minority, Sukdeo Ingale Jan 2014

Human Right Issues Of Victims Of Violent Crimes: Restless Waiting For Recognition As Minority, Sukdeo Ingale

Sukdeo Ingale

The essay argues vary unique issue of protection of human rights of victims of violent crimes by recognizing their ‘minority’ status. Most of the legal systems recognize minority groups based on different basis like ethical, cultural, religious and linguistic identity, etc characteristics of the group. It is to be noted that there is no universally agreed definition as to which groups constitute minorities. The existence of minority is a question of fact which depends on various objective and subjective factors. Recently the focus of academic researcher is on the recognition of minority status on new grounds like sexuality, etc. Though …


The Arab Spring's Four Seasons: International Protections And The Sovereignty Problem, Jillian Blake Jan 2014

The Arab Spring's Four Seasons: International Protections And The Sovereignty Problem, Jillian Blake

Jillian Blake

In December 2010, public demonstrations erupted throughout the Middle East against autocratic regimes, igniting a regional political transformation known as the Arab Spring. Depending on events, modern international criminal and humanitarian law provided certain protections to vulnerable populations. However, international law did not provide a uniform degree of protection to civilians and combatants who faced similar circumstances. This Article argues for a uniform standard of protections for all populations affected by armed conflict, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It evaluates each of five major Arab Spring uprisings (Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, and Libya) and describes the legal protections that …


The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton Jan 2014

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …


The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton Jan 2014

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …


Beyond Paroline: Ensuring Meaningful Remedies For Child Pornography Victims At Home And Abroad, W. Warren H. Binford Jan 2014

Beyond Paroline: Ensuring Meaningful Remedies For Child Pornography Victims At Home And Abroad, W. Warren H. Binford

W. Warren H. Binford

This article considers how the United States could fulfill its international treaty obligations to support the full restoration of child pornography victims in the aftermath of the recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Paroline v. United States. The article details how the United States provided leadership historically in creating a skeletal legal framework domestically and internationally to help combat child pornography and restore victims, and highlights how that framework is failing victims on a near-universal basis in an age dominated by technological innovation and globalization. The article proposes the adoption and implementation of effective domestic and international …


Gender Dysphoria In The Jailhouse: A Constitutional Right To Hormone Therapy?, Susan S. Bendlin Jan 2014

Gender Dysphoria In The Jailhouse: A Constitutional Right To Hormone Therapy?, Susan S. Bendlin

Susan S. Bendlin

This Article explores whether incarcerated inmates with Gender Dysphoria, such as Private Manning, have a constitutional right to receive medical treatment for gender re-assignment, and if so, whether they are likely to succeed in suing to obtain treatment if it is not provided by prison officials. Evaluating a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment claim involves two inquiries: an objective component as to whether the inmate displays a “serious medical need”, and a subjective component as to whether the prison officials were “deliberately indifferent” to that need.The issue is a sensitive one because the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria as a medical illness has …


Confronting Child Sacrifice In Uganda: A Multi-Layered View, David B. Dennison, Heather Pate, Frieda Faith Letacie Jan 2014

Confronting Child Sacrifice In Uganda: A Multi-Layered View, David B. Dennison, Heather Pate, Frieda Faith Letacie

David Brian Dennison

Child sacrifice is disturbingly commonplace in Uganda. Despite various efforts to combat this scourge, Ugandan children continue to suffer and die. The social, religious, economic and cultural roots that sustain child sacrifice in Uganda run deep. Engaging the challenge of eliminating child sacrifice requires a multi-layered assessment of the problem.

This paper begins by providing readers with a sense of scope and intensity of child sacrifice in Uganda. Next it catalogues certain duties and obligations relevant to child sacrifice arising from international and regional treaty commitments. The paper then presents the domestic legal framework relevant to child sacrifice matters and …


Lethal Injection And The Right Of Access: The Intersection Of The Eighth And First Amendments, Timothy F. Brown Jan 2014

Lethal Injection And The Right Of Access: The Intersection Of The Eighth And First Amendments, Timothy F. Brown

Timothy Brown

The Spring and Summer of 2014 have witnessed renewed debate on the constitutionality of the death penalty after a series of high profile legal battles concerning access to lethal injection protocols and subsequent questionable executions. Due to shortages in the drugs traditionally used for the lethal injection, States have changed their lethal injection protocols to shield information from both the prisoners and the public. Citing public safety concerns, the States refuse to release information concerning the procurement of the drugs to the public. Such obstruction hinders the public’s ability to determine the cruelty of the punishment imposed and creates the …