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Articles 1 - 30 of 2405
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Video Analytics And Fourth Amendment Vision, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
Video Analytics And Fourth Amendment Vision, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
What does the Fourth Amendment have to say about video analytics running on citywide camera systems? Video analytics (also known as computer vision) involves hardware and software in cameras that turns video surveillance streams into useful data, identifying, categorizing, matching, and alerting police about objects, people, and incidents. Video analytics can identify objects (e.g., hat, backpack, person, car) and track that person or thing back in time and through the streets using video surveillance footage. For police officers conducting virtual patrols or retrospective investigations, video analytics lets police scan thousands of linked cameras for suspicious behavior or a particular suspect, …
Imperfect Insanity And Diminished Responsibility, E. Lea Johnston
Imperfect Insanity And Diminished Responsibility, E. Lea Johnston
UF Law Faculty Publications
Insanity’s status as an all-or-nothing excuse results in the disproportionate punishment of individuals whose mental disorders significantly impaired, but did not obliterate, their capacities for criminal responsibility. Prohibiting the trier of fact from considering impairment that does not meet the narrow definition of insanity contradicts commonly held intuitions about mental abnormality and gradations of responsibility. It results in systemic over-punishment, juror frustration, and, at times, arbitrary verdicts as triers of fact attempt to better apportion liability to blameworthiness.
This Article proposes a generic partial excuse: Diminished Responsibility from Mental Disability. This excuse could be asserted as an affirmative defense at …
Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine
Redistributing Justice, Benjamin Levin, Kate Levine
Faculty Articles
This Essay surfaces an obstacle to decarceration hiding in plain sight: progressives’ continued support for the carceral system. Despite progressives’ increasingly prevalent critiques of criminal law, there is hardly a consensus on the left in opposition to the carceral state. Many left-leaning academics and activists who may critique the criminal system writ large remain enthusiastic about criminal law in certain areas— often areas in which defendants are imagined as powerful and victims as particularly vulnerable.
In this Essay, we offer a novel theory for what animates the seemingly conflicted attitude among progressives toward criminal punishment—the hope that the criminal system …
Rethinking Culpability And Wrongdoing (In The Criminal Law—And Everyday Life), T. Markus Funk
Rethinking Culpability And Wrongdoing (In The Criminal Law—And Everyday Life), T. Markus Funk
University of Cincinnati Law Review
Determining an offender’s “culpability” is fundamental to justice systems worldwide. However, this crucial concept, built on a blending of moral responsibility with legal guilt, remains significantly diluted. For instance, the U.S. Model Penal Code uses an offender’s moral culpability merely to “grade” offenses and determine sentences. This prevailing perpetrator-centric approach, mirrored in U.S. state and federal laws and academic discourse, affects individual cases and has far-reaching societal implications.
Viewed this way, “harm” narrowly refers to the concrete damage (or the “injury”), such as physical pain and damage or loss of property, the perpetrator caused. “Culpability,” on the other hand, is …
Parental Kidnapping And Domestic Violence: The Need To Reform And Enforce State Action, Anna Ratterman
Parental Kidnapping And Domestic Violence: The Need To Reform And Enforce State Action, Anna Ratterman
Georgia Criminal Law Review
When civil family issues intersect with criminal acts, the civil and criminal systems fail to effectuate a complete remedy. Specifically, there are few effective protections for victims of domestic violence during the pendency of domestic relations proceedings. Given the complicated gender dynamics and inequalities that have developed throughout history, it is unsurprising that the criminal and civil systems have failed to prioritize prosecution of crimes against women. Current criminal laws fail to treat domestic violence and parental kidnapping as serious crimes and instead adopt the view that domestic disputes are private issues to be handled within the family. In turn, …
Paying For Prison: Equal Protection Remedies For The United States' Wealth Discrimination Problem, Alexandra Smolyar
Paying For Prison: Equal Protection Remedies For The United States' Wealth Discrimination Problem, Alexandra Smolyar
Georgia Criminal Law Review
The American dream promises wealth, mobility, and security, yet daily millions of Americans live in abject poverty. What’s more, state and local policies render low-income people uniquely vulnerable to criminalization, further lessening their ability to attain this purported American dream. These effects are not incidental. Rather, they reflect a complexly interwoven system of wealth-based discrimination oftentimes promulgated and perpetuated by government actors. Yet, most constitutional anti-discrimination measures do not reach wealth-based discrimination despite the horrific everyday effects felt by low-income communities nationwide. The criminalization of poverty compounds these problems to create a never-ending cycle of discrimination and collateral consequences whose …
Burning The Candle At Both Ends: A Case For The Right To Counsel At The State Habeas Level, Sierra Stanfield
Burning The Candle At Both Ends: A Case For The Right To Counsel At The State Habeas Level, Sierra Stanfield
Georgia Criminal Law Review
Shinn v. Ramirez is the latest in a line of court decisions that place debilitating restrictions on the habeas corpus process, making it more difficult than ever for ineffective assistance of counsel claimants to prevail on a federal habeas claim. Paired with the growing restrictions placed on the criminal appellate process, both by the states and by the Supreme Court, these decisions make it near-impossible for many criminal defendants to challenge their convictions and guarantee their rights.
The decision not to guarantee counsel at the state habeas level is grounded in logic that predated these restrictions. The state habeas hearing …
"Hired Guns": Establishing The Scope Of The Proper Cross-Examination And Argument Relating To Expert Witness' Compensation In Criminal Trials, Michael C. Kovac
"Hired Guns": Establishing The Scope Of The Proper Cross-Examination And Argument Relating To Expert Witness' Compensation In Criminal Trials, Michael C. Kovac
Georgia Criminal Law Review
The outcomes of criminal cases can turn on the credibility of the parties’ expert witnesses. The compensation such experts receive in exchange for their work on cases can undermine their credibility, as it provides the experts with a financial incentive that might bias them in favor of the parties who retain them. While concerns with such bias have existed for decades, courts have been inconsistent in the defining the permissible scope of cross-examination and argument on the issue. Some courts have unduly curtailed such cross-examination and argument. Courts have also been inconsistent in their views of whether calling such expert …
Proportionalities, Youngjae Lee
Proportionalities, Youngjae Lee
Notre Dame Law Review Reflection
“Proportionality” is ubiquitous. The idea that punishment should be proportional to crime is familiar in criminal law and has a lengthy history. But that is not the only place where one encounters the concept of proportionality in law and ethics. The idea of proportionality is important also in the self-defense context, where the right to defend oneself with force is limited by the principle of proportionality. Proportionality plays a role in the context of war, especially in the idea that the military advantage one side may draw from an attack must not be excessive in relation to the loss of …
Why Mississippi Should Reform Its Penal Code, Judith J. Johnson
Why Mississippi Should Reform Its Penal Code, Judith J. Johnson
Mississippi College Law Review
The Mississippi Penal Code was determined at the turn of this century to be the fifty-second-worst penal code in the United States. As much as Mississippi is often used to being - and is even proudly defiant for being - ranked low on national scales, this is an issue about which we should be deeply concerned. A well-drafted penal code is crucial because it is at the core of the primary value of justice. While we are experienced with being ranked last in many situations, often unfairly, the criticism of the Mississippi Penal Code is accurate. Although many of the …
Whom Do Prosecutors Protect?, Vida Johnson
Whom Do Prosecutors Protect?, Vida Johnson
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Prosecutors regard themselves as public servants who fight crime and increase community safety on behalf of their constituents. But prosecutors do not only seek to protect those they are supposed to serve. Instead, prosecutors often trade community safety, privacy, and even the constitutional rights of the general public to enlarge police power. Prosecutors routinely advocate for weaker public rights, shield police from public accountability, and fail to prosecute police when they break the law.
This Article will show how prosecutors often protect police at the expense of the public. This Article suggests a novel theory of evaluating the conduct of …
De-Facto-Life And The Rare Juvenile, Julie Burke
De-Facto-Life And The Rare Juvenile, Julie Burke
Mississippi College Law Review
We have all been young once. We all remember doing stupid things with our friends growing up. Now imagine if one of those decisions caused you to be thrown into prison for the rest of your life. Despite the United States Supreme Court[s decisions that sentencing juveniles to life in most cases is unconstitutional, lower courts are still giving juveniles de-facto-life sentences.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that children are different from adults in several recent cases. In 2005, Roper v. Simmons, the Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to death. More pertinent to …
The Miller Trilogy, Jones, And The Future Of Juvenile Sentencing And Constitutional Interpretation In The Post-Jones America, Gabriela Seguinot
The Miller Trilogy, Jones, And The Future Of Juvenile Sentencing And Constitutional Interpretation In The Post-Jones America, Gabriela Seguinot
Senior Theses and Projects
The United States is an outlier in juvenile sentencing practices, often subjecting youth offenders to extreme and lengthy punishments. While the Supreme Court over the past two decades has been slowly narrowing the nation’s use of such sentences against children through a series of cases known as the Miller Trilogy, this progress came to a sudden halt in the 2021 case of Jones v. Mississippi. However, in surprising turn of events, the Supreme Court’s recent national display of restraint has not stopped sentencing reform efforts in the states. Contrary to the current Supreme Court, states in the U.S. have …
“[T]Here Appears To Be Intentional Discrimination In The Panel”: The Case For Abolishing Peremptory Challenges In Georgia, Ariane Williams
“[T]Here Appears To Be Intentional Discrimination In The Panel”: The Case For Abolishing Peremptory Challenges In Georgia, Ariane Williams
Georgia Criminal Law Review
In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986), the Supreme Court attempted to prevent peremptory strikes motivated by race. However, evidence and jurisprudence since Batson have indicated that the Court did not succeed. Furthermore, peremptory strikes perpetuate racial imbalance in juries and erode public faith in an unbiased legal system, as seen in reactions to the recent McMichael-Bryant trial in Georgia, in which only one black juror was seated. Given the longstanding and intractable issues with peremptory challenges, the Arizona Supreme Court decided to eliminate them entirely in 2021. This Article argues that Georgia should follow suit and abolish …
Answering The Call From Victims Of Dating Violence: Georgia’S New Dating Violence Law, Sydney K. Parish
Answering The Call From Victims Of Dating Violence: Georgia’S New Dating Violence Law, Sydney K. Parish
Georgia Criminal Law Review
Dating violence is a topic that has garnered increased awareness in recent days, both in the media and in the legal field. Many states have begun to pass legislation in attempt to address this issue and provide relief for victims of dating violence. In the summer of 2021, the state of Georgia passed House Bill 231, what later became known as Georgia’s Dating Violence law. This Article first examines our nation’s history of intimate partner violence to show why dating violence legislation was so desperately needed and how these legislative reforms have attempted to heal a system that for so …
The Death Dignity Demands: The Eighth Amendment Requires Incarcerated People Decide Their Method Of Execution, Kali A. Haney
The Death Dignity Demands: The Eighth Amendment Requires Incarcerated People Decide Their Method Of Execution, Kali A. Haney
Georgia Criminal Law Review
Recently, there have been a number of incarcerated people on death-row challenging their method of execution and proposing an alternative: usually, firing squad. Courts are hesitant to grant this request for a number of reasons, including the rare use of the firing squad. But there is substantial evidence this method is the most humane. Additionally, it appears incarcerated people think so, which is why so many in recent years chose—or petitioned for—death by firing squad rather than lethal injection or electrocution. As pharmaceutical companies halt their drugs’ distribution to prisons, prisons are forced to come up with their own—often more …
The Use Of Oral Fluid Samples To Test For Driving Under The Influence Of Marijuana, Ian Wise
The Use Of Oral Fluid Samples To Test For Driving Under The Influence Of Marijuana, Ian Wise
Georgia Criminal Law Review
Driving Under the Influence of Drugs (DUID) cases pose unique challenges to the criminal justice system. An evidentiary chemical test is a vital piece of evidence in a DUID prosecution because unlike alcohol, drugs do not cause impairment in a uniform fashion. Breath tests cannot detect drugs, and the intrusiveness of blood and urine tests has been the focus of Court cases over the past half-century with decisions in Missouri v. McNeely and Birchfield v. North Dakota curtailing the government’s ability to obtain this evidence without a warrant.
The need for a less intrusive alternative is driven by the doubling …
Protecting Our Nation’S Children In The Technological Age: Arguing For An Interpretation Of “Sexual Activity” In 18 U.S.C. § 2422(B) That Does Not Require Physical Contact, Allison Fine
Georgia Criminal Law Review
Our Nation’s justice system values “equal protection under the law.” This represents the belief that all individuals should be treated equally under the law regardless of personal characteristics. Traditionally, we think about this in a context of things like race, gender, or ethnicity. However, this also encompasses the general idea that individuals nationwide should be accountable to and protected by the same laws. As it relates to criminal law, this notion highlights the importance of uniformity in a criminal justice system. Without consistent application and execution, a criminal justice system will never be fair or “equal.”
The federal child enticement …
Purpose’S Purposes: Culpability, Liberty, Legal Wrongs, And Accomplice Mens Rea, Kevin Cole
Purpose’S Purposes: Culpability, Liberty, Legal Wrongs, And Accomplice Mens Rea, Kevin Cole
Georgia Criminal Law Review
The federal mens rea for accomplice liability—important in its own right and also as an example to the states—is unsettled. Three cases from the just completed Supreme Court term hint (somewhat surprisingly) at various directions the justices might take. This essay examines the cases with a particular focus on the alternative explanations that might be given for the traditional requirement of purposeful facilitation for accomplice liability. The purpose requirement is contestable so long as it is justified in terms of a narrow conception of culpability. It is better understood as serving a liberty-enhancing function. The liberty focus clarifies difficult questions …
The Minimalist Alternative To Abolitionism: Focusing On The Non-Dangerous Many, Christopher Slobogin Professor Of Law
The Minimalist Alternative To Abolitionism: Focusing On The Non-Dangerous Many, Christopher Slobogin Professor Of Law
Vanderbilt Law Review
In "The Dangerous Few: Taking Seriously Prison Abolition and Its Skeptics," published in the Harvard Law Review, Thomas Frampton proffers four reasons why those who want to abolish prisons should not budge from their position even for offenders who are considered dangerous. This Essay demonstrates why a criminal law minimalist approach to prisons and police is preferable to abolition, not just when dealing with the dangerous few but also as a means of protecting the non-dangerous many. A minimalist regime can radically reduce reliance on both prisons and police, without the loss in crime prevention capacity and legitimacy that is …
Medical Malpractice As Murder? Using Root Cause Analysis As A Guiding Framework For Criminal Medical Malpractice, Kinsey Novak Booth
Medical Malpractice As Murder? Using Root Cause Analysis As A Guiding Framework For Criminal Medical Malpractice, Kinsey Novak Booth
West Virginia Law Review
Unprecedented criminal prosecutions for medical errors have increased throughout the nation: A Tennessee nurse was charged with reckless homicide for an isolated medication error; two South Carolina nurses were charged with criminal neglect for failing to change a wound dressing for just two days; and an Ohio pharmacist was charged with involuntary manslaughter for failing to detect that a solution contained too much sodium. Introducing criminal charges for cases of typical medical malpractice, which are most often the result of system failures, will dismantle hospitals’ error-reporting systems and lead to long-term catastrophic results for patient safety. This Note applies system …
Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs
Aggressor Status And Its Impact On International Criminal Law Case Selection, Nancy Amoury Combs
Pace International Law Review
The laws of war apply equally to all parties to a conflict; thus, a party that violates international law by launching a war is granted the same international humanitarian law rights as a party that is required to defend against the illegal war. This doctrine—known as the equal application doctrine—has been sharply critiqued, particularly by philosophers, who claim the doctrine to be morally indefensible. Lawyers and legal academics, by contrast, defend the equal application doctrine because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will sharply reduce states’ willingness to comply with the international humanitarian law system …
Bad Attempts, Andrew Jensen Kerr
Bad Attempts, Andrew Jensen Kerr
Emory Law Journal Online
We assume that legal concepts are generic and indifferent to facts. But bad attempts at crime (something always unlawful) and bad attempts at art (something almost always lawful) are potentially treated very differently in many U.S. jurisdictions. Surprisingly, the bad attempt at art might be more likely to result in punishment. I draw on notions of capacity and responsibility to suggest why the amateur rapper should be excused for genuine aesthetic attempts that are perceived as threatening. In doing so, I comment on form and formalism in public law, and how principles of criminal law can help to maintain the …
Criminal Caselaw Notebook 2024, Hon. Ronald Kessler
Criminal Caselaw Notebook 2024, Hon. Ronald Kessler
Washington State Books
This publication from King County Superior Court judge Ronald Kessler is updated semi-annually and is distributed free of charge. It includes citations to Washington state case law on a variety of criminal law topics.
A Conversation On The Carceral Home, Ngozi Okidegbe, Kate Weisburd, Emmett Sanders, James Kilgore
A Conversation On The Carceral Home, Ngozi Okidegbe, Kate Weisburd, Emmett Sanders, James Kilgore
Faculty Scholarship
On February 8, 2024, scholars Ngozi Okidegbe, Kate Weisburd, Emmett Sanders, and James Kilgore met virtually at the Boston University School of Law to hold a conversation on Professor Weisburd’s article, The Carceral Home, 103 B.U. L. Rev. 1879 (2023).
Long History Of Leniency? A Call For A Georgia Statutory Mitigation Factor For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jonathan Fagundes
Long History Of Leniency? A Call For A Georgia Statutory Mitigation Factor For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jonathan Fagundes
Georgia Law Review
In Georgia, criminal sentencing marks a critical period for convicted defendants. As the final moment before the superior court fashions a punishment, the defendant faces a pivotal opportunity to introduce mitigating evidence, including evidence of mental health challenges, life circumstances, and other facts. Where such evidence is offered, the superior court can properly issue a sentence that aligns with the purposes of punishment or other state policies. But some populations, especially veterans convicted of nonviolent offenses, are exposed to unique stressors that likely affect their culpability. The existing sentencing regime, however, does not guarantee that this mitigating evidence will even …
Challenging The Criminalization Of Undocumented Drivers Through A Health-Justice Framework, Jason A. Cade
Challenging The Criminalization Of Undocumented Drivers Through A Health-Justice Framework, Jason A. Cade
Scholarly Works
States increasingly use driver’s license laws to further policy objectives unrelated to road safety. This symposium contribution employs a health justice lens to focus on one manifestation of this trend—state schemes that prohibit noncitizen residents from accessing driver’s licenses and then impose criminal sanctions for driving without authorization. Status-based no-license laws not only facilitate legally questionable enforcement of local immigration priorities but also impose structural inequities with long-term health consequences for immigrants and their family members, including US citizen children. Safe, reliable transportation is a significant social determinant of health for individuals, families, and communities. Applying a health justice lens …
The Criminal Metaverse, Eldar Haber
The Criminal Metaverse, Eldar Haber
Indiana Law Journal
Virtual worlds are no longer science fiction. New technologies that promise a world lacking physical or mental boundaries are finally becoming a reality. Commonly referred to as the metaverse, this innovative technology opens a world of opportunities for individuals everywhere to experience an almost unlimited virtual dimension where they can play, work, own property, engage in sexual activities, and fulfill their dreams. Unlike previous virtual worlds, the metaverse could be a gamechanger as it offers an immersive experience. It feels authentic to the users and will become even more realistic with advancements in haptic technology. With its benefits, the technology …
Counseling Oppression, Angelo Petrigh
Counseling Oppression, Angelo Petrigh
Faculty Scholarship
Critical scholars and public defenders alike have grappled with the contradictions at the heart of counseling clients in a carceral system. Systems of oppression operate within the public defender - client relationship because the defender’s role in translating the law also enforces its inequities. Counseling can obscure the workings of the system, providing an illusion of choice despite privileging certain forms of knowledge and tactics.
But the counseling site is also where defenders become exposed to client’s lived experiences, encounter collectivist tactics, and critically examine the tension of their role in the system. Likewise, through counseling defenders can pull back …
Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus, Steven Arrigg Koh
Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus, Steven Arrigg Koh
Faculty Scholarship
American criminal law is facing a crisis of meaning. On one hand, the “traditional school” invokes the archetype of the violent criminal—a murderer, rapist, or thief—who must be prosecuted and punished. On the other hand, the “critical school” invokes the archetype of the low-level drug offender, sentenced to a draconian prison term for mere possession of low levels of marijuana. On this account, the criminal legal system is itself systemically pathological, perhaps even warranting abolition. Like ships passing in the night, the two schools appear irreconcilable. This Article helps break this impasse and builds toward a justification for criminal law …