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Fordham Law Review

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Secret Faits Accomplis: Declination Decisions, Nonprosecution Agreements, And The Crime Victim’S Right To Confer, Zulkifl M. Zargar Oct 2020

Secret Faits Accomplis: Declination Decisions, Nonprosecution Agreements, And The Crime Victim’S Right To Confer, Zulkifl M. Zargar

Fordham Law Review

The state’s monopoly power over the institution of prosecution is a feature as familiar as any in the American criminal justice system. That the criminal proceeding is between the state and the defendant leaves little doubt as to the identities of the victimized interest and the offender. But, in avenging societal harm alone, the criminal process treats another victim—the crime victim— as an outcast. Beginning in the 1970s, the victim’s rights movement mobilized to address this institutional neglect, and, by most accounts, it has triumphed. Federal and state victim’s rights laws now empower victims to attend criminal proceedings, deliver impact …


Access To Justice And Dispute Resolution Across Cultures, Sukhsimranjit Singh May 2020

Access To Justice And Dispute Resolution Across Cultures, Sukhsimranjit Singh

Fordham Law Review

There is a saying in the United States: the justice one receives is the justice one can afford. All too often, this saying proves true for both lower- and middle-class individuals. For the greatly impoverished, the access to justice crisis is twofold: part of the problem is knowing when to seek legal help and another is ensuring adequate delivery of legal assistance on request. Middle- class individuals face a different challenge, as they surpass the income threshold for free civil public legal aid but cannot afford the rising costs of conventional litigation. The problem persists across different cultures. This Article …


Convictions As Guilt, Anna Roberts May 2020

Convictions As Guilt, Anna Roberts

Fordham Law Review

A curious tension exists in scholarly discourse about the criminal legal system. On the one hand, a copious body of work exposes a variety of facets of the system that jeopardize the reliability of convictions. These include factors whose influence is pervasive: the predominance of plea bargaining, for example, and the subordination of the defense. On the other hand, scholars often discuss people who have criminal convictions in a way that appears to assume crime commission. This apparent assumption obscures crucial failings of the system, muddies the role of academia, and, given the unequal distribution of criminal convictions, risks compounding …


To “Otherwise Make Unavailable”: Tenant Screening Companies’ Liability Under The Fair Housing Act’S Disparate Impact Theory, Shivangi Bhatia May 2020

To “Otherwise Make Unavailable”: Tenant Screening Companies’ Liability Under The Fair Housing Act’S Disparate Impact Theory, Shivangi Bhatia

Fordham Law Review

Tenant screening companies present information to housing providers on prospective tenants’ criminal and eviction histories in the form of background screening reports. These screening reports disproportionately impact racial and gender minorities. Two opposing views exist on whether courts should interpret the Fair Housing Act to cover the discriminatory practices and policies of tenant screening companies. Some believe that background screening reports are a vital part of the housing industry, while others criticize them for their inaccurate, misleading, and discriminatory nature. This Note proposes that, moving forward, courts should interpret § 3604(a) and § 3604(b) of the Fair Housing Act to …


Loss Of Self-Control, Dual-Process Theories, And Provocation, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael Apr 2020

Loss Of Self-Control, Dual-Process Theories, And Provocation, Michal Buchhandler-Raphael

Fordham Law Review

Contemporary understanding of the provocation defense views the “loss of self-control” theory as the cornerstone of this partial excuse. In considering whether to reduce murder charges to manslaughter, juries and judges rely on this theory to determine if the defendant lost self-control after experiencing intense emotional arousal and if a reasonable person would have also likely lost self-control in similar circumstances. This Article questions this conventional wisdom by examining the various flaws embedded in provocation’s loss of self-control theory. It argues that the theory is both over- and underinclusive. It is overinclusive because it provides a basis for mitigation in …


Playing By The Rule: How Aba Model Rule 8.4(G) Can Regulate Jury Exclusion, Anna Offit Mar 2020

Playing By The Rule: How Aba Model Rule 8.4(G) Can Regulate Jury Exclusion, Anna Offit

Fordham Law Review

Discrimination during voir dire remains a critical impediment to empaneling juries that reflect the diversity of the United States. While various solutions have been proposed, scholars have largely overlooked ethics rules as an instrument for preventing discriminatory behavior during jury selection. Focusing on American Bar Association Model Rule of Professional Conduct 8.4(g), which regulates professional misconduct, this Article argues that ethics rules may, under certain conditions, deter the exclusionary practices of legal actors. Part I examines the specific history, evolution, and application of revised Model Rule 8.4(g). Part II delves into the ways that ethics rules in general, despite their …


The Race To The Top To Reduce Prosecutorial Misconduct, Adam M. Gershowitz Mar 2020

The Race To The Top To Reduce Prosecutorial Misconduct, Adam M. Gershowitz

Fordham Law Review

This Essay offers an unconventional approach to detering prosecutorial misconduct. Trial judges should use their inherent authority to forbid prosecutors from appearing and handling cases in their courtrooms until the prosecutors have completed training on Brady v. Maryland, Batson v. Kentucky, and other types of prosecutorial misconduct. If a single trial judge in a medium-sized or large jurisdiction imposes training prerequisites on prosecutors, it could set off a race to the top that encourages other judges to adopt similar (or perhaps even more rigorous) training requirements. A mandate that prosecutors receive ethics training before handling any cases is comparable to …


A Public Concern: Protecting Whistleblowers Under The First Amendment, Steven Still Mar 2020

A Public Concern: Protecting Whistleblowers Under The First Amendment, Steven Still

Fordham Law Review

The United States has just witnessed an impeachment debate which may have far-reaching ramifications for our democratic institutions. These hostilities began with an anonymous whistleblower complaint from a government employee, disclosing what he or she believed were illegal activities directed by President Donald J. Trump. Ever since, discussion of whistleblowers has taken on greater salience in the news cycle. Today, there are a number of whistleblower statutes that protect employees who disclose knowledge of their employer’s illicit activities from workplace retaliation. Although whistleblowing is not unique to government workers, these individuals have an added layer of protection afforded to them …


Policing Procedural Errors In The Lower Criminal Courts, Justin Murray Mar 2020

Policing Procedural Errors In The Lower Criminal Courts, Justin Murray

Fordham Law Review

The criminal justice system depends on reviewing courts to formulate norms of procedural law and to make sure those norms are actually followed in the lower courts. Yet reviewing courts are not performing either of these functions very well. No single factor can fully explain why this is the case, for there is plenty of blame to go around. But the harmless error rule is a major culprit. The conventional approach to harmless error review prohibits reversal of a defendant’s conviction or sentence, even when the law was violated during proceedings in the lower court, unless that violation influenced the …


Restorative Justice From Prosecutors’ Perspective, Bruce A. Green, Lara Bazelon Jan 2020

Restorative Justice From Prosecutors’ Perspective, Bruce A. Green, Lara Bazelon

Fordham Law Review

Restorative justice processes have been promoted as an alternative to criminal adjudication for many years outside the United States and, in recent years, in the United States as well. In the United States, restorative justice processes are used in some jurisdictions in cases involving juvenile offenders or low-level, nonviolent offenses by adults, but they have rarely been used in cases of adult felony offenders charged with serious violent crimes. Whether restorative justice processes will be used more broadly depends largely on whether prosecutors become receptive to their use. A handful of newly elected “progressive prosecutors” have expressed interest in applying …


Toward National Criminal Bar Admission In U.S. District Courts, Gabriel J. Chin Jan 2020

Toward National Criminal Bar Admission In U.S. District Courts, Gabriel J. Chin

Fordham Law Review

In the extensive litigation over bar admission in federal district courts, courts have upheld state bar membership requirements. Nevertheless, the changes to legal practice flowing from the COVID-19 pandemic—the disconnection between workplace and residence, the ability to meet and to hold court proceedings by video, and the unjustifiability of charging clients time and travel for brief, perfunctory in-person meetings and conferences that could be handled effectively and expeditiously online—will make these questions ever more serious


Access To Algorithms, Hannah Bloch-Wehba Jan 2020

Access To Algorithms, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Fordham Law Review

Federal, state, and local governments increasingly depend on automated systems—often procured from the private sector—to make key decisions about civil rights and liberties. When individuals affected by these decisions seek access to information about the algorithmic methodologies that produced them, governments frequently assert that this information is proprietary and cannot be disclosed. Recognizing that opaque algorithmic governance poses a threat to civil rights and liberties, scholars have called for a renewed focus on transparency and accountability for automated decision-making. But scholars have neglected a critical avenue for promoting public accountability and transparency for automated decision-making: the law of access to …


The Role Of “Coordinating Discovery Attorneys” In Multidefendant Federal Criminal Cases, Hannah Silverman Dec 2019

The Role Of “Coordinating Discovery Attorneys” In Multidefendant Federal Criminal Cases, Hannah Silverman

Fordham Law Review

The twenty-first century’s technological revolution has shifted the practice of law, including litigation, from being primarily paper-based to paperless. To manage the increasingly complex organization and review of evidence in civil and criminal cases, attorneys outsource legal tasks, work on teams, and use discovery coordinators. This Note examines the development of court-appointed coordinating discovery attorneys and their role in multidefendant federal criminal trials involving voluminous discovery. With a background in criminal defense and electronic discovery, these lawyers provide hands-on assistance as a way to cut costs, help overburdened and underfunded defense counsel, and improve representation of criminal defendants. In 2014, …


Reframing The Punishment Test Through Modern Sex Offender Legislation, Jane Ramage Dec 2019

Reframing The Punishment Test Through Modern Sex Offender Legislation, Jane Ramage

Fordham Law Review

Modern sex offender registration and notification laws blur the distinction between criminal and civil law. Despite being labeled as civil regulatory schemes, these laws impose severe burdens on personal liberty—burdens that we tend to associate with criminal punishment. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that at least one sex offender registration and notification program functioned as a civil remedy rather than a criminal sanction. In upholding the Alaska Sex Offender Registration Act, the Supreme Court held that the burdens imposed by the statute did not impose additional punishment on registered sex offenders and thus did not trigger the constitutional …


See No Evil, Hear No Evil: Applying The Sight And Sound Separation Protection To All Youths Who Are Tried As Adults In The Criminal Justice System, Lauren Knoke Nov 2019

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: Applying The Sight And Sound Separation Protection To All Youths Who Are Tried As Adults In The Criminal Justice System, Lauren Knoke

Fordham Law Review

American law treats youths within the criminal justice system with contrasting impulses. In some cases, the law deems youths worthy of special protections and places them within the juvenile justice system. In other situations, however, it views youths as posing distinct dangers and funnels them into justice systems designed for adults. So long as youths remain under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system, they are afforded the protections of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). One of the JJDPA’s core protections, sight and sound separation, aims to prevent youths from having any visual or spoken exchanges with …


Power, Process, And Automated Decision-Making, Ari Ezra Waldman Nov 2019

Power, Process, And Automated Decision-Making, Ari Ezra Waldman

Fordham Law Review

Automated decision-making systems based on “big data”–powered algorithms and machine learning are just as prone to mistakes, biases, and arbitrariness as their human counterparts. The result is a technologically driven decision-making process that seems to defy interrogation, analysis, and accountability and, therefore, undermines due process.


Milkovich, #Metoo, And “Liars”: Defamation Law And The Fact-Opinion Distinction, Pooja Bhaskar Nov 2019

Milkovich, #Metoo, And “Liars”: Defamation Law And The Fact-Opinion Distinction, Pooja Bhaskar

Fordham Law Review

Since the start of the #MeToo movement, sexual assault survivors have increasingly turned defamation law against their alleged assaulters. In these #MeToo defamation cases, an alleged victim publicly claims that another person, usually someone of considerable wealth and fame, sexually assaulted them. The alleged assaulter then calls their accuser a liar, causing their accuser to sue their alleged assaulter for defamation. These cases have consistently raised an element of the defamation analysis that has long challenged courts: distinguishing between statements of actionable “fact” and nonactionable “opinion.” #MeToo defamation cases raise the question of whether an alleged assaulter’s claim that their …


Liability For Ai Decision-Making: Some Legal And Ethical Considerations, Iria Giuffrida Nov 2019

Liability For Ai Decision-Making: Some Legal And Ethical Considerations, Iria Giuffrida

Fordham Law Review

The creation and commercialization of these systems raise the question of how liability risks will play out in real life. However, as technical advancements have outpaced legal actions, it is unclear how the law will treat AI systems. This Article briefly addresses the legal ramifications and liability risks associated with reliance on—or delegation to—AI systems, and it sketches a framework suggesting how we can address the question of whether AI merits a new approach to deal with the liability challenges it raises when humans remain “in” or “on” the loop.


Prosecuting Dark Net Drug Marketplace Operators Under The Federal Crack House Statute, Thomas J. Nugent Oct 2019

Prosecuting Dark Net Drug Marketplace Operators Under The Federal Crack House Statute, Thomas J. Nugent

Fordham Law Review

Over 70,000 Americans died as the result of a drug overdose in 2017, a record year following a record year. Amidst this crisis, the popularity of drug marketplaces on what has been called the “dark net” has exploded. Illicit substances are sold freely on such marketplaces, and the anonymity these marketplaces provide has proved troublesome for law enforcement. Law enforcement has responded by taking down several of these marketplaces and prosecuting their creators, such as Ross Ulbricht of the former Silk Road. Prosecutors have typically leveled conspiracy charges against the operators of these marketplaces—in Ulbricht’s case, alleging a single drug …


Toxic Misogyny And The Limits Of Counterspeech, Lynne Tirrell May 2019

Toxic Misogyny And The Limits Of Counterspeech, Lynne Tirrell

Fordham Law Review

Gender equality, across all the ways that we humans are engendered, is an unrealized ideal of many contemporary Americans. It is not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, unless one interprets “men” to include women, which the Framers did not. Although passed by Congress in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) failed to gain the necessary thirty-eight state ratifications, and it has never become law. Thirty-five states initially ratified it between 1972 and 1977, then two more in 2017 and 2018. It remains one state short. These ratifications indicate significant social progress for women, but the progress is uneven, even within …


When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle Keats Citron, Jonathon W. Penney May 2019

When Law Frees Us To Speak, Danielle Keats Citron, Jonathon W. Penney

Fordham Law Review

A central aim of online abuse is to silence victims. That effort is as regrettable as it is successful. In the face of cyberharassment and sexualprivacy invasions, women and marginalized groups retreat from online engagement. These documented chilling effects, however, are not inevitable. Beyond its deterrent function, the law has an equally important expressive role. In this Article, we highlight law’s capacity to shape social norms and behavior through education. We focus on a neglected dimension of law’s expressive role: its capacity to empower victims to express their truths and engage with others. Our argument is theoretical and empirical. We …


May Federal Prosecutors Take Direction From The President?, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe Apr 2019

May Federal Prosecutors Take Direction From The President?, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Fordham Law Review

Suppose the president sought to serve as prosecutor-in-chief, telling prosecutors when to initiate or dismiss criminal charges in individual cases and making other discretionary decisions that are normally reserved to trained professionals familiar with the facts, law, and traditions of the U.S. Department of Justice. To what extent may prosecutors follow the president’s direction? In recent presidential administrations, the president has respected prosecutorial independence; while making policy decisions, the president deferred to the Attorney General and subordinate federal prosecutors to conduct individual criminal cases. In a recent article, we argued that this is as it should be because the president …


Hidden Nondefense: Partisanship In State Attorneys General Amicus Briefs And The Need For Transparency, Lisa F. Grumet Apr 2019

Hidden Nondefense: Partisanship In State Attorneys General Amicus Briefs And The Need For Transparency, Lisa F. Grumet

Fordham Law Review

In all fifty states, the State Attorney General (SAG)—as the state’s chief legal officer—is charged with defending state laws that are challenged in court. If an SAG declines to defend or challenges a state law on the ground that it is unconstitutional—an action scholars describe as “nondefense”— the SAG ordinarily will disclose this decision to the public. This Essay discusses a hidden form of nondefense that can occur when SAGs file amicus curiae briefs on behalf of their states in matters before the U.S. Supreme Court. Surprisingly, some SAGs have joined multistate amicus briefs that support invalidating other states’ laws …


Daca, Government Lawyers, And The Public Interest, Stephen Lee, Sameer M. Ashar Apr 2019

Daca, Government Lawyers, And The Public Interest, Stephen Lee, Sameer M. Ashar

Fordham Law Review

On June 15, 2012, the Obama administration announced a significant change in immigration policy: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano began to instruct immigration officials to defer enforcement actions against those noncitizens who would likely be eligible for relief under the DREAM Act, should Congress choose to pass it. This program, which came to be known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has become the most significant immigration-benefits program in a generation. Not since Congress passed a comprehensive reform bill in 1986, which included a pathway to citizenship, has an immigration program so quickly and positively changed the lives of …


Law And Nonlegal Norms In Government Lawyers' Ethics: Discretion Meets Legitimacy, W. Bradley Wendel Apr 2019

Law And Nonlegal Norms In Government Lawyers' Ethics: Discretion Meets Legitimacy, W. Bradley Wendel

Fordham Law Review

This Essay is about the role of unwritten norms in the ethical decisionmaking of government lawyers. Because the ethical obligations of lawyers, including government lawyers, are closely tied to the legal rights and obligations of clients, this analysis necessarily depends on understanding the relationship between written law and unwritten norms. As we all know, however, written law leaves gaps, ambiguities, and zones of unregulated discretion. Prosecutors in the United States, for example, have virtually unreviewable discretion to decide who to investigate and charge, what charges to bring, and whether to offer immunity in exchange for cooperation. No one has a …


Reevaluating School Searches Following School-To-Prison Pipeline Reforms, Josh Gupta-Kagan Apr 2019

Reevaluating School Searches Following School-To-Prison Pipeline Reforms, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court held in New Jersey v. T.L.O. that school officials could search students without a warrant and with only reasonable suspicion, not probable cause, because of schools’ need for discipline and the relationship between educators and students. That case belongs to a body of Fourth Amendment cases involving, in T.L.O.’s terms, “special needs, beyond the normal need for law enforcement.” What Fourth Amendment standard, then, governs searches involving one of the roughly 20,000 school resource officers (SROs) in American schools? Most state courts to decide the issue in the 1990s and 2000s found that T.L.O. applied to …


Policing The Admissibility Of Body Camera Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin, Shevarma Pemberton Mar 2019

Policing The Admissibility Of Body Camera Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin, Shevarma Pemberton

Fordham Law Review

Body cameras are sweeping the nation and becoming, along with the badge and gun, standard issue for police officers. These cameras are intended to ensure accountability for abusive police officers. But, if history is any guide, the videos they produce will more commonly be used to prosecute civilians than to document abuse. Further, knowing that the footage will be available as evidence, police officers have an incentive to narrate body camera videos with descriptive oral statements that support a later prosecution. Captured on an official record that exclusively documents the police officer’s perspective, these statements—for example, “he just threw something …


The Courier Conundrum: The High Costs Of Prosecuting Low-Level Drug Couriers And What We Can Do About Them, Adam B. Weber Mar 2019

The Courier Conundrum: The High Costs Of Prosecuting Low-Level Drug Couriers And What We Can Do About Them, Adam B. Weber

Fordham Law Review

Since the United States declared its “War on Drugs,” federal enforcement of drug-trafficking crimes has led to increased incarceration and longer prison sentences. Many low-level drug couriers and drug mules have suffered disproportionately from these policies; they face mandatory punishments that vastly exceed their culpability. Drug couriers often lack substantial ties to drug-trafficking organizations, which generally recruit vulnerable individuals to act as couriers and mules. By using either threats of violence or promises of relatively small sums of money, these organizations convince recruits to overlook the substantial risks that drug couriers face. The current policies of pursuing harsh punishments for …


The Light We Shine Into The Grey: A Restorative #Metoo Solution And An Acknowledgement Of Those #Metoo Leaves In The Dark, Nora Stewart Mar 2019

The Light We Shine Into The Grey: A Restorative #Metoo Solution And An Acknowledgement Of Those #Metoo Leaves In The Dark, Nora Stewart

Fordham Law Review

In the past year and a half, American women have publicly discussed experiences of sexual assault, harassment, and—notably—grey-area misconduct in an unprecedented manner. The rhetoric of the #MeToo movement is rife with references to “shining a light” on a set of unexplored issues hitherto obscured in cultural darkness, to following women’s experiences into the grey. What is new about #MeToo, and what likely will be the through line that defines its historical importance, has been its sensitivity to nuance. The grey range of #MeToo misconduct is not a new problem. It is emphatically new, however, as a subject of public …


Back To The Future: Permitting Habeas Petitions Based On Intervening Retroactive Case Law To Alter Convictions And Sentences, Lauren Casale Mar 2019

Back To The Future: Permitting Habeas Petitions Based On Intervening Retroactive Case Law To Alter Convictions And Sentences, Lauren Casale

Fordham Law Review

In 1948, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which authorizes a motion for federal prisoners to “vacate, set aside or correct” their sentences, with the goal of improving judicial efficiency in collateral review. Section 2255(e), known as the “savings clause,” allows federal inmates to challenge the validity of their imprisonments with writs of habeas corpus if § 2255 motions are “inadequate or ineffective to test the legality of [their] detention[s].” Due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s and Congress’s silence regarding what suffices as “inadequate or ineffective,” the circuit courts have adopted varied standards. The Sixth and Seventh Circuits hold that …