Digital Commons Network^™

Back To Fundamentals: The Worsening Results Of Ignoring The Social Contract In Baltimore City, John T. Stinson

John T Stinson Jr.

This article examines how "get tough" law enforcement policies like Project EXILE, which target otherwise underserved low-income communities, often result in deeper rifts between poor neighborhoods and "mainstream society." The article contrasts the Maryland EXILE program implemented in Baltimore City by the U.S. Attorney, D. Md., with the "Stop Snitching" phenomenon, concluding that both work together to advance the erosion of the traditional social contract thought to undergird American democracy.

Teaching 'Whren' To White Kids, M. Katherine B. Darmer

M. Katherine B. Darmer

This paper was inspired by my experiences as a white criminal procedure professor teaching mostly-white classes and arises at the intersection of WHREN v. UNITED STATES and GRUTTER v. BOLLINGER. The article starts from the premise that criminal procedure remains highly racialized, with blacks experiencing the criminal justice system in significantly different ways than do whites. The article suggests that the lack of minority voices in the classroom poses a significant barrier to effectively teaching criminal procedure and critiques current approaches to criminal procedure pedagogy.

The Cost-Shifting Consequences Of Failed Managed Care Regulation: Some Lessons From Pennsylvania’S Experience With Addiction Treatment, Greg Heller

Greg Heller

When managed care companies fail to pay for medical treatment, the costs of treatment are sometimes shifted to the public. This phenomenon is particularly common in the area of addiction treatment, because the incentives and opportunities for cost shifting are so great. This article sets forth the results of an empirical analysis that examines the extent of cost shifting for addiction treatment in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a strong law mandating coverage for addiction treatment, and much of the cost shifting was in violation of Pennsylvania law. This behavior was almost entirely missed by regulators. The article explores these regulatory failures, …

Efficiency Of Takeover Defence Regulations, Joy Dey

Joy Dey

Among the prevalent modes of corporate acquisitions, hostile takeovers is quite common. Although earlier such takeover attempts were seen mainly for small firms, it is now employed for large corporations as well, involving multi-billion dollar deals. Due to the fact that hostile bidders making tender offers seek to by-pass the friendly route of negotiations with the target company’s managers in order to seek control, it has the potential of upsetting the normal functioning of the target corporation at any time. This poses a threat not only to the shareholders of the target, but also the management, and thus the need …

Tortious Compensation In China, Anne Marie Morris

Anne Marie Morris

No abstract provided.

Thug Life: Hip Hop's Curious Relationship With Criminal Justice, André Douglas Pond Cummings

andré douglas pond cummings

I argue that hip hop music and culture profoundly influences attitudes toward and perceptions about criminal justice in the United States. At base, hip hop lyrics and their cultural accoutrements turns U.S. punishment philosophy upon its head, effectively defeating the foundational purposes of American crime and punishment. Prison and punishment philosophy in the U.S. is based on clear principles of retribution and incapacitation, where prison time for crime should serve to deter individuals from engaging in criminal behavior. In addition, the stigma that attaches to imprisonment should dissuade criminals from recidivism. Hip hop culture denounces crime and punishment in the …

System Criminality In International Law: Conclusions And Outlook, André Nollkaemper, Harmen Van Der Wilt

André Nollkaemper

No abstract provided.

Alford Pleas In The Age Of Innocence, Allison D. Redlich, Asil Ozdogru

Allison D Redlich

No abstract provided.

Bail In Australia: Legislative Introduction And Amendment Since 1970, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

This paper examines the rate of amendment of bail laws across Australian jurisdictions since the 1980’s. It examines stated justifications for those changes by Parliamentarians in a number of jurisdictions and seeks to provide insights into the increasing rate of legislative amendment in some states in recent years. The paper analyses whether Australia wide trends exist or whether the reasons for amendment are more locally based.

Recognition Of Overseas Same Sex Marriages: A Matter Of Equality And Sound Statutory Interpretation, Dr Leonardo J. Raznovich

Dr Leonardo J Raznovich

It is accepted that the institution of marriage is more than economic benefits. The availability of marriage to same sex couples in eight western democratic jurisdictions exerts pressure on courts to consider the substance and ethical dimension of marriage across borders. This paper analyses the legal and ethical problems that exclusion of same sex couples from marriage generates in relation to equality and individual freedoms in a democratic society. The paper focuses on the particular case of overseas same sex married couples that seek to immigrate to England. Part I analyses the legal recognition of overseas same sex marriages under …

Designing Justice: Legal Institutions And Other Systems For Managing Conflict, Lisa Blomgren Bingham

Lisa Blomgren Bingham

This article argues that lawyers are designing justice through institutional and dispute system design, but that we are neither training law students for their new role nor are we having a deliberative discussion of the nature of justice these systems provide. First, I briefly introduce the field of institutional analysis and design in social science. Second, I describe the field of dispute system design (DSD) and apply elements of institutional analysis. Third, I survey how scholars have discussed varieties of justice in relation to legal institutions and other systems for managing conflict. I conclude that we should move more knowingly …

Kennedy And The Tail Of Minos, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

In Dante’s Inferno, the damned appeared before Minos, who judged the gravity of their sins and assigned their souls to their respective circles of Hell by wrapping his tail around his body. In this paper, I examine whether, in light of its decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana and its methodology for reviewing categorical exemptions from the death penalty, the Supreme Court has problematically assumed for itself the role of a kind of contemporary constitutional Minos, at least in the realm of capital punishment. First, I argue, Kennedy is a case about comparative resulting harms among violent crimes. The Kennedy dissent …

Minority Participation In Public Life: The Case Of Greece, Nikolas Kyriakou

Nikolas Kyriakou

This article examines Greece’s stance towards minorities in the light of the recent UN Report of the Independent Expert on Minority Issues regarding her mission to Greece. The epicentre of the paper is the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights in minority cases against Greece in which minority participation in public life and Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights are involved. The article concludes by supporting the idea of the necessity for a change of the current position maintained by Greece as regards the Macedonian and Turkish minorities living in Greece.

An Attack On Self-Defense, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

Debate about the distinction between justification and excuse in criminal law theory has been lively during the last thirty years. Questions as to the nature and structure of various affirmative defenses continue to be raised, and the doctrine of self-defense has been at the center of much discussion. Three main articulations have been advanced: a purely objective theory, a purely subjective theory, and an objective/subjective hybrid. In the present Article, I support a hybrid model and propose a three-requirement framework that delineates the criteria that must be met to satisfy self-defense as a legitimate justification. Because this three-requirement framework raises …

Social Information Processing And Aggressive Behavior: A Transactional Perspective, Reid G. Fontaine, Kenneth A. Dodge

Reid G. Fontaine

Chapter has no abstract

On The Boundaries Of Culture As An Affirmative Defense, Reid Griffith Fontaine, Eliot M. Held

Reid G. Fontaine

A “cultural defense” to criminal culpability cannot achieve true pluralism without collapsing into a totally subjective, personal standard. Applying an objective cultural standard does not rescue a defendant from the external imposition of values—the purported aim of the cultural defense—because a cultural standard is, at its core, an external standard imposed onto an individual. The pluralist argument for a cultural defense also fails on its own terms—after all, justice systems are themselves cultural institutions. Furthermore, a defendant’s background is already accounted for at sentencing. The closest thing to a cultural defense that a court could adopt without damaging the culpability …

The Wrongfulness Of Wrongly Interpreting Wrongfulness: Provocation Interpretational Bias And Heat Of Passion Homicide, Reid G. Fontaine

Reid G. Fontaine

In U.S. criminal law, a defendant charged with murder can invoke the heat of passion defense, an affirmative, partial-excuse defense so that he may be instead found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. This defense requires the defendant to demonstrate that he was significantly provoked and, as a direct result of the provocation, became extremely emotionally disturbed and committed the killing while in this uncontrolled emotional state. In this way, the law makes a partial allowance for emotional dysfunction—the wrongfulness of the homicide is mitigated when the emotionally charged reactivity restricts the actor’s capacity for rational thought and reasoned …

Development Of Response Evaluation And Decision (Red) And Antisocial Behavior In Childhood And Adolescence, Reid Griffith Fontaine, Chongming Yang, Kenneth A. Dodge, Gregory S. Pettit, John E. Bates

Reid G. Fontaine

Using longitudinal data on 585 youths (48% female; 17% African American, 2% other ethnic minority), the authors examined the development of social response evaluation and decision (RED) across childhood (Study 1; kindergarten through Grade 3) and adolescence (Study 2; Grades 8 and 11). Participants completed hypothetical-vignette-based RED assessments, and their antisocial behaviors were measured by multiple raters. Structural equation modeling and linear growth analyses indicated that children differentiate alternative responses by Grade 3, but these RED responses were not consistently related to antisocial behavior. Adolescent analyses provided support for a model of multiple evaluative domains of RED and showed strong …

Le Cas S. Et Marper Et Les Données Personnelles : L’Horloge De La Stigmatisation Stoppée Par Un Arrêt Européen, Rocco Bellanova, Paul De Hert

Rocco Bellanova

Le 8 décembre 2008, la Cour Européenne des Droits de l’Homme (CEDH) a prononcé un arrêt décisif concernant la requête d’effacement des données personnelles (empreintes digitales, échantillons et profils ADN) des deux citoyens britanniques S. et Marper, conservées dans les banques des données de la police. La conservation illimitée des données de personnes non condamnées est reconnue comme une violation du droit à la protection de la vie privée. Or, compte tenu du système technologique mobilisé et des pratiques policières dont il est question, l’arrêt devient encore plus important car il fixe des limites à la « simple conservation » …

Extraordinary And Compelling: A Re-Examination Of The Justifications For Compassionate Release, William W. Berry Iii

William W Berry III

Federal law, unbeknownst to many, includes a provision that permits the immediate release of federal prisoners. This safety valve provision requires that the Director of the Bureau of Prisons make a motion on behalf of the prisoner in order to secure the prisoner's compassionate release. Far from being a veiled version of parole, this compassionate release provision is to be used only in circumstances deemed "extraordinary and compelling." While the Bureau of Prisons has read this language very narrowly for many years, considering only terminally ill inmates as candidates for compassionate release, the Sentencing Commission modified its Guideline commentary in …

Development Of Scale For Assessing Students’ Entrepreneurship Readiness In Tertiary Insitutions: Initial Psychometric Evaluation, Prof Ada Sam Omenyi, Ngozi Agu, Christy Odimegwu

Prof Ada Sam Omenyi

Entrepreneurship education in Nigeria is perceived as a means of developing youth employment and poverty alleviation. The readiness of students to become entrepreneurs would be greatly influenced by adequacy and accuracy of the assessment of students’ entrepreneurship preparation. While many authors have acknowledged that entrepreneurship competencies cannot be effectively assessed by written examination, little has been done to develop a scale capable of doing this job. This work therefore described the development and initial evaluation of the psychometric properties of Students’ Entrepreneurship Readiness (SERS) using a sample of 450 undergraduates. The scale was found to possess sufficient reliability as shown …

In With The New, Out With The Old: Expanding The Scope Of Retroactive Amelioration, S. David Mitchell

S. David Mitchell

The legislative decision to amend a statute and reduce a sentence but not to apply it retroactively to pending prosecutions or to finalized convictions is in accord with the principles of retroactivity, but contrary to legitimate goals of punishment, i.e. deterrence and retributivism. Genarlow Wilson, convicted at seventeen of aggravated child molestation, a felony, for consensual oral sex with a fifteen-year old classmate, was sentenced to a mandatory minimum of ten years. While his appeal was pending, the Georgia Legislature reclassified the conduct as a misdemeanor and reduced the sentence to a maximum of one year but decided not to …

The Prison-Keeper's Dilemma: Unsustainable And Undesirable Business Practices In Privatized Corrections, Stephen Raher

Stephen Raher

During the well-documented expansion of the American prison system in the late twentieth century, privately operated correctional institutions experienced an especially pronounced rate of growth. A substantial body of research has addressed operational shortcomings of private prisons, but less attention has been devoted to the business-law aspects of correctional outsourcing. This paper explores some of the persistent contractual and fiscal problems that arise when prison operation is delegated to for-profit firms.

Non-governmental prison operation inevitably leads to reduced transparency when private operators seek to prevent public access to operational information, typically by citing a proprietary interest in business records. Although …

Legal Storytelling: The Theory And The Practice - Reflective Writing Across The Curriculum, Nancy Levit

Nancy Levit

This article concentrates on the theory of narrative or storytelling and addresses the reasons it is vital to encourage in law schools in non-clinical or primarily doctrinal courses. Section I traces the advent of storytelling in legal theory and practice: while lawyers have long recognized that part of their job is to tell their clients' stories, the legal academy was, for many years, resistant to narrative methodologies. Section II examines the current applications of Writing Across the Curriculum in law schools. Most exploratory writing tasks in law school come in clinical courses, although a few adventurous professors are adding reflective …

Racial Profiling Who Is The Executioner And Does He Have A Face?, Michal Tamir

michal tamir

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Legalized Abortion On Teen Childbearing, John Donohue, Jeffrey Grogger, Steven Levitt

John Donohue

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Relative Benefits Of Incarceration: The Overall Change Over The Previous Decades And The Benefits On The Margin, John Donohue

John Donohue

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Road To Abolition, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

The two most important questions about the death penalty in the United States today are should we get rid of it and will we get rid of it? While he contributors to this important and interesting new book are unanimous that capital punishment should be abolished, opinions differ on whether abolition is likely to occur in the US any time soon, and if so, how.

If one wants to gain a deeper understanding of the effort to eliminate capital punishment in the U.S. over the last forty years, and what the future holds for this harsh feature of American exceptionalism, …

The Impact Of The Death Penalty On Murder, John J. Donohue

John Donohue

Both history and daily crime sheets underscore a depressing capacity for human violence and inhumanity. Some scholars feel that eliminating capital punishment would be a step toward reducing the toll of human suffering, whereas others feel that retaining the death penalty will prevent some murders at least. Kovandzic, Vieraitis, and Boots (2009, this issue) provide a comprehensive ordinary least-squares (OLS) state panel data assessment of the most recent postmoratorium data available and reach a strong conclusion that the death penalty does not deter murder. This article is an important piece in the complex jigsaw puzzle that will illuminate which factors …

Eindrapport Voor Het Eerst Geplaatste Delinquente Minderjaringen En Recidive, Jenneke Christiaens, Tinne Geluyckens, Els Enhus, Els Dumortier

Jenneke Christiaens

No abstract provided.