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Troubled Waters: Mid-Twentieth Century American Society On "Trial" In The Films Of John Waters, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

In this Article Professor Banks argues that what makes many of filmmaker John Waters early films so subversive is his use of the “white-trash” body—people marginalized by and excluded from conventional white America—as countercultural heroes. He uses the white trash body as a surrogate for talk about race and sexuality in the early 1960s. I argue that in many ways Waters’ critiques of mid-twentieth century American society reflect the societal changes that occurred in the last forty years of that century. These societal changes resulted from the civil rights, gay pride, student, anti-war and women’s movements, all of which used …

No Harm, No Foul? A Critique Of The Current Legal Framework Dealing With Impermissible Closing Appeals To Racial Bias, Paul Christopher Estaris Torio

Paul Christopher Estaris Torio

No Harm, No Foul? examines the friction that exists between the core legal principles of zealous advocacy and equality in one particular but prominent context: racial appeals in closing arguments. Specifically, the article evaluates the harmless error principle, which underpins the current framework for either upholding or overturning a lower court’s decision on the grounds of improper race-based summations, and its role in exacerbating this friction.

The author argues that because the overall structure of the harmless error test gives attorneys the incentive to use racial appeals in closing argument, perhaps the most influential stage of a trial, the entire …

Truth Or Consequences: Self-Incriminating Statements And Informant Veracity, Mary Bowman

Mary N. Bowman

Courts treat self-incriminating statements by criminal informants as a significant factor favoring the reliability of the informant’s information when making probable cause determinations for the issuance of search warrants. Courts do so even though admissions of criminal activity usually undercut, rather than support, credibility. In using self-incriminating statements to support the informant’s reliability, courts tend to rely on a theory with significant theoretical flaws. Furthermore, recent United States Supreme Court jurisprudence in other contexts undercuts the reliability of using self-incriminating statements to support the veracity of other information. If courts adequately scrutinize the informant’s self-incriminating statements and the circumstances surrounding …

Strict In Theory, But Accommodating In Fact?, Ozan O. Varol

Ozan O Varol

No abstract provided.

Looking Into The Crystal Ball—The Jurisprudential Possibilities For Buxton V. City Of Plant City, Brandon Thompson

Brandon M Thompson

The paper addresses what process is due for government employees who have been terminated. It focuses specifically on what opportunity the employee will have for a name-clearing hearing after their job has ended. The central thesis is that the test laid down by the 11th Circuit is open to various interpretations but that courts should be mindful of the rights-granting nature of the process when applying this law.

Multilayered Racism: Courts' Continued Resistance To Colorism Claims, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

No abstract provided.

Recent Decisions, Phoebe A. Haddon

Phoebe A. Haddon

No abstract provided.

Incorporating The Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment Framework Into Substantive Due Process Jurisprudence Through The Introduction Of A Contingent-Based And Legislatively-Driven Constitutional Theory, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

A Critical Race Theory Critique On Parents Involved In Community Schools V. Seattle School District No. 1: Confirming The Majority’S Hegemonic View Concerning Diversity In Secondary Public Schools And Future Implications For Minority Students, Ryan C. Marques

Ryan C Marques

If any public elementary, middle, or high school student throughout this nation was asked today to describe the racial composition of his or her school, the common answer would most likely mirror the race or ethnicity of the student who was questioned. It is no surprise that over the past two decades this nation’s public secondary school system has experienced the trend of resegregation. Thus, in this article I apply the tenets of Critical Race Theory to Parents Involved in the quest to understand why the majority of the United States Supreme Court prohibited secondary public schools from prescribing inclusive …

A Critical Race Theory Critique On Parents Involved In Community Schools V. Seattle School District No. 1: Confirming The Majority’S Hegemonic View Concerning Diversity In Secondary Public Schools And Future Implications For Minority Students, Ryan C. Marques

Ryan C Marques

If any public elementary, middle, or high school student throughout this nation was asked today to describe the racial composition of his or her school, the common answer would most likely mirror the race or ethnicity of the student who was questioned. It is no surprise that over the past two decades this nation’s public secondary school system has experienced the trend of resegregation. Thus, in this article I apply the tenets of Critical Race Theory to Parents Involved in the quest to understand why the majority of the United States Supreme Court prohibited secondary public schools from prescribing inclusive …

A Critical Race Theory Critique On Parents Involved In Community Schools V. Seattle School District No. 1: Confirming The Majority’S Hegemonic View Concerning Diversity In Secondary Public Schools And Future Implications For Minority Students, Ryan C. Marques

Ryan C Marques

If any public elementary, middle, or high school student throughout this nation was asked today to describe the racial composition of his or her school, the common answer would most likely mirror the race or ethnicity of the student who was questioned. It is no surprise that over the past two decades this nation’s public secondary school system has experienced the trend of resegregation. Thus, in this article I apply the tenets of Critical Race Theory to Parents Involved in the quest to understand why the majority of the United States Supreme Court prohibited secondary public schools from prescribing inclusive …

A Critical Race Theory Critique On Parents Involved In Community Schools V. Seattle School District No. 1: Confirming The Majority’S Hegemonic View Concerning Diversity In Secondary Public Schools And Future Implications For Minority Students, Ryan C. Marques

Ryan C Marques

If any public elementary, middle, or high school student throughout this nation was asked today to describe the racial composition of his or her school, the common answer would most likely mirror the race or ethnicity of the student who was questioned. It is no surprise that over the past two decades this nation’s public secondary school system has experienced the trend of resegregation. Thus, in this article I apply the tenets of Critical Race Theory to Parents Involved in the quest to understand why the majority of the United States Supreme Court prohibited secondary public schools from prescribing inclusive …

About Time: The Timeliness Of Habeas Corpus And An Exceptional Circumstance In Boumediene V. Bush, Benjamin Lozano

Benjamin J Lozano

In wartime states of emergency, the Supreme Court has historically held that a constitutional entitlement to habeas review is neither predicated on the length of detention nor the timeliness of due process, but rather is objective, concrete, and atemporal. The question of wartime habeas corpus has therefore always been an ontological question, exclusively determined by the corresponding categories of subject and space. However, this paper argues that a surreptitious shift in methodology buried inside the ostensible precedent of Boumediene v. Bush should not be overlooked, for the ruling signals the inaugural moment whereby the length and indefinite duration (i.e. the …

Equality And Sorority During The Decade After Brown, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

No abstract provided.

A Few Random Thoughts About Socio-Economic "Rights" In The United States In Light Of The 2008 Financial Meltdown, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

Socio-economic rights, first articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) sixty years ago, are regaining currency. Legal practitioners around the world, emboldened by emerging constitutional democracies in Eastern Europe and South Africa that constitutionalized socio-economic rights, are actively seeking to enforce these rights. The UDHR “reaffirim[ed] faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person,” and served as the basis for the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Among those rights included in the Covenant are housing, food, and healthcare.

A Fair And Implicitly Impartial Jury: An Argument For Administering The Implicit Association Test During Voir Dire, Dale Larson

Dale K Larson

While many refer to jury selection as a science, others—perhaps more accurately—liken the process to voodoo. The jury consulting industry has exploded over the last thirty years, with many attorneys paying large amounts for voir dire for erratic and unpredictable results and a general inability to detect bias accurately in potential jurors. One explanation for these poor results, even when using the latest findings in the scientific jury selection field, is that the tools currently available to attorneys and jury consultants give us only a partial picture of the individuals in question. Currently, voir dire consists of oral questioning and …

Noonan V. Staples: Libel Law’S Shocking New Precedent And What It Means For The Motion Picture Industry, Lindsee Gendron

Lindsee Blair Gendron

No abstract provided.

Will The Supreme Court Send The Vra’S Biggest Sunset Provision Into The Sunset?: Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One And The 2006 Reauthorization Of Section Five Of The Voting Rights Act, Cameron Eubanks

Cameron W Eubanks

The D.C. Circuit correctly decided Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Mukasey. The court subjected the 2006 reauthorization of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act to the rational and appropriate test announced in South Carolina v. Katzenbach. Under this test the court found that Congress had a rational basis to extend § 5 based on evidence of continued racial discrimination in voting. On review, the Supreme Court will uphold the § 5 reauthorization in spite of the congruent and proportional test announced in City of Boerne v. Flores which is used to review enactments passed pursuant to …

Human Dignity Under The Fourth Amendment, John D. Castiglione

John D. Castiglione

This article adapts for reprint "Human Dignity Under the Fourth Amendment," originally published in the Wisconsin Law Review (2008).

The Procedural Annihilation Of Structural Rights, Steven G. Gey

Steven G. Gey

For several years the Supreme Court has been systematically erecting obstacles to the litigation of constitutional claims in federal court. These obstacles take several forms, including restrictions on standing, restrictions on raising facial challenges to unconstitutional statutes, and an increasingly unwillingness to allow federal courts to infer remedies when necessary to enforce federal statutory or constitutional claims. Although this trend toward limiting federal court authority affects all types of constitutional claims, including those involving traditional individual constitutional rights, the most serious effect is on what can be called "structural rights." The term "structural rights" describes constitutional provisions that are designed …

Contemporary Constitutional Issue: Deportation By Private Hospitals, Jinsung Chang

Jason Zang

An indigent alien’s rights under the Constitution and Immigration and Nationality Act was traversed when a private hospital transferred him to Guatemala on an invalid order by Florida state court which violated Due Process rights entitled him to a specified proceedings delineated by Congress.

How The Cleveland Bar Became Segregated: 1870-1930, Robert N. Strassfeld

Robert N. Strassfeld

Abstract

Paper Title: How the Cleveland Bar Became Segregated: 1900-1930

This article examines the changing perimeters of professional opportunity and the professional choices made by Cleveland’s African American lawyers in the early twentieth century. At the turn of the century, the Cleveland bar could fairly be described as racially integrated. The openness of the bar and the response of African American lawyers shaped the day-to-day professional lives of those lawyers. This openness manifested itself in a number of interracial law practices, in a client base for black lawyers that was predominantly white, in the court appointment practices of white judges, …

Thomas Paine And The Rights Of Man In European Jurisprudence: European Caselaw Confronts New York Times V. Sullivan : Different Results, Methods And Considerations: Time To Rethink Sullivan?∗, Allen E. Shoenberger

Allen E Shoenberger

The article compares and contrasts the defamation law of the European Court of Human Rights(ECHR) with that of the United States, with particular reference to NY Times v. Sullivan. It is suggested that american courts should themselves weigh and evalue the facts of defamation (as the NYTimes ct did); and also consider whether justification should be demanded for opinion statements, free attorney appointments for public interest defendants in defamation cases, and consideration given to a sliding scale of defamatory review for public officials who hold non-elected, lower rank positions.

Outsider Citizens: Film Narratives About The Internment Of Japanese Americans, Taunya Lovell Banks

Taunya Lovell Banks

This article examines the conflicting film narratives about the internment from 1942 through 2007. It argues that while later film narratives, especially documentaries, counter early government film narratives justifying the internment, these counter-narratives have their own damaging hegemony. Whereas earlier commercial films tell the internment story through the eyes of sympathetic whites, using a conventional civil rights template … Japanese and other Asian American documentary filmmakers construct their Japanese characters as model minorities — hyper-citizens, super patriots. Further, the internment experience remains largely a male story. With the exception of Emiko Omori’s documentary film memoir, Rabbit in the Moon (2004), …

Free At Last! Anti-Subordination And The Thirteenth Amendment, Rebecca Zietlow

Rebecca E Zietlow

Notwithstanding the powerful symbolism that liberty has in the American psyche, liberty is largely absent from our late Twentieth Century understanding of civil rights, which instead is based in the Equal Protection Clause and its promise of formal equality. People of color and women of every race have made significant advances under the Equal Protection model of equality, but they continue to lag behind whites and men under virtually every economic index. This paper argues for an alternative model of equality, an anti-subordination model, which allows decision-makers to focus on the material conditions that contribute to inequality in our society, …

An Iconic Social Activist, Mark S. Brodin

Mark S. Brodin

No abstract provided.

Fitting Punishment, Juliet P. Stumpf

Juliet P Stumpf

Proportionality is conspicuously absent from the legal framework for immigration sanctions. Immigration law relies on one sanction – deportation – as the ubiquitous penalty for any immigration violation. Neither the gravity of the violation nor the harm that results bears on whether deportation is the consequence for an immigration violation. Immigration law stands alone in the legal landscape in this respect. Criminal punishment incorporates proportionality when imposing sentences that are graduated based on the gravity of the offense; contract and tort law provide for damages that are graduated based on the harm to others or to society. This Article represents …

Debunking The Myth Of Civil Rights Liberalism: Visions Of Racial Justice In The Thought Of T. Thomas Fortune, 1880-1890 Symposium: The Lawyer's Role In A Contemporary Democracy: Promoting Social Change And Political Values, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle