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Systemic Inequality | Recasting The Exclusionary Rule’S Net, Zach Huffman May 2021

Systemic Inequality | Recasting The Exclusionary Rule’S Net, Zach Huffman

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.


Systemic Inequality | Ballot Access Behind Bars, Robin Fisher May 2021

Systemic Inequality | Ballot Access Behind Bars, Robin Fisher

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.


An Introduction To The Fordham Law Review Online Spring Issue, Systemic Inequality In The American Experience, Leili Saber, Kevin Sette May 2021

An Introduction To The Fordham Law Review Online Spring Issue, Systemic Inequality In The American Experience, Leili Saber, Kevin Sette

Fordham Law Review Online

No abstract provided.


Novel Perspectives On Due Process Symposium: Punishment Without Process: “Victim Impact” Proceedings For Dead Defendants, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe Aug 2020

Novel Perspectives On Due Process Symposium: Punishment Without Process: “Victim Impact” Proceedings For Dead Defendants, Bruce A. Green, Rebecca Roiphe

Fordham Law Review Online

When women accuse powerful men of sexual assault, there is increasing public pressure to resolve any doubts in the accusers’ favor before the criminal process is over, if not from the outset. Private individuals and institutions often do so without worrying about due process, but it is different for the trial court, where the presumption of innocence is supposed to apply. This is especially true where public shaming and the accompanying reputational consequences already constitute a kind of punishment. Although they may be sympathetic to accusers, especially those whose cause is championed by a strong and popular social movement, courts …


A2j Summit Collection Contributors, David Udell Apr 2019

A2j Summit Collection Contributors, David Udell

Fordham Law Review Online

A compilation of biographies for the authors and participants in this Collection.


All Rise For Civil Justice, Martha Bergmark Apr 2019

All Rise For Civil Justice, Martha Bergmark

Fordham Law Review Online

Equal justice under law is an American ideal. But every year, millions of people lose their cases in civil courts, not because they have done something wrong, but because they do not have the information or legal help they need to make their case. The United States civil justice system must be reformed so that it works for everyone, not just for the wealthy and the represented. For guidance, advocates of civil justice reform should look to the movement for criminal justice reform, which has successfully raised awareness and galvanized coalitions to effect policy change. I eagerly await the case …


A Few Interventions And Offerings From Five Movement Lawyers To The Access To Justice Movement, Jennifer Ching, Thomas B. Harvey, Meena Jagannath, Purvi Shah, Blake Strode Apr 2019

A Few Interventions And Offerings From Five Movement Lawyers To The Access To Justice Movement, Jennifer Ching, Thomas B. Harvey, Meena Jagannath, Purvi Shah, Blake Strode

Fordham Law Review Online

We are five lawyers who occupy very different corners of justice work. We are civil rights, human rights, and criminal defense lawyers, and we have worked at and managed legal services programs. We have taught law at law schools and universities and have built our own organizations. We currently work in interdisciplinary spaces with community organizers, funders, and other stakeholders in the justice system. As diverse as our perspectives are, we share a common belief that any mobilization around access to justice fails if it does not center the vision and strategies of larger social justice movements. We share here …


Building A Movement: The Lessons Of Fines And Fees, Lisa Foster Apr 2019

Building A Movement: The Lessons Of Fines And Fees, Lisa Foster

Fordham Law Review Online

I doubt we will ever experience something we (or others) would call an Access to Justice Movement in the United States. The goal is too amorphous, lacks immediacy, and doesn’t resonate: If people don’t perceive that many of their problems have a legal solution, why would they rally to support “100 percent access to effective assistance for essential civil legal needs”? The legal system is too big, too complicated, and too removed from people’s everyday experiences. And especially in low-income communities of color, distrust of the justice system runs deep. People don’t want access to a system they believe is …


Integrating The Access To Justice Movement, Lauren Sudeall Apr 2019

Integrating The Access To Justice Movement, Lauren Sudeall

Fordham Law Review Online

Last fall, advocates of social change came together at the A2J Summit at Fordham University School of Law and discussed how to galvanize a national access to justice movement—who would it include, and what would or should it attempt to achieve? One important preliminary question we tackled was how such a movement would define “justice,” and whether it would apply only to the civil justice system. Although the phrase “access to justice” is not exclusively civil in nature, more often than not it is taken to have that connotation. Lost in that interpretation is an opportunity to engage in a …


Don't Go It Alone, Ariel Simon, Sandra Ambrozy Apr 2019

Don't Go It Alone, Ariel Simon, Sandra Ambrozy

Fordham Law Review Online

Civil legal challenges cut across an astonishing range of headline-making social issues. And so, while it is possible to make a compelling case for “access to justice” without tying it to issues of inequality, mobility, race, and equity, that is no way to build or ally with a movement. Access to justice should not just be about “justice” in a narrow legalistic sense, but in the way that the broader world understands it and people feel it, driven by imperatives such as: expanding opportunities for underserved populations; creating legal systems that protect the most vulnerable; and building institutions and structures …


Access To Legal Help Is A Human Service, Jo-Ann Wallace Apr 2019

Access To Legal Help Is A Human Service, Jo-Ann Wallace

Fordham Law Review Online

We are in a pivotal, transformational moment for justice reform in the United States. One of the key strategies undergirding the transformation is a redefinition of interrelated systems that can work together to improve lives. This includes defining access to legal help as an integral part of human services systems.


A Perspective From The Judiciary On Access To Justice, Jonathan Lippman Apr 2019

A Perspective From The Judiciary On Access To Justice, Jonathan Lippman

Fordham Law Review Online

I decided early in 2009, upon becoming Chief Judge and the steward of the justice system in New York, to focus my energy on ensuring that everyone gets their day in court. Regardless of how a person looks or where he or she was born, and regardless of whether or not a person has resources or power, justice cannot be about the color of your skin or the amount of money in your pocket. Justice must mean that when people are fighting for the necessities of life, for the roof over their heads, they must get the legal assistance that …


Building The Access To Justice Movement, David Udell Apr 2019

Building The Access To Justice Movement, David Udell

Fordham Law Review Online

There are innumerable individual problems of access to civil justice. Civil justice, or its absence, will often determine whether people can keep their homes, their family relationships, their health and well-being, their actual safety, their jobs, and their opportunity for a fair resolution of so many more of the challenges that life presents. There are presently many important efforts that enable people to obtain justice, both through the direct provision of legal services and through the broader pursuit of systemic reforms, such as securing and expanding civil rights to counsel, expanding roles for non-lawyers to empower individuals and communities, making …


Don't Bring A Cad File To A Gun Fight: A Technological Solution To The Legal And Practical Challenges Of Enforcing Itar On The Internet, Catherine Tremble Mar 2019

Don't Bring A Cad File To A Gun Fight: A Technological Solution To The Legal And Practical Challenges Of Enforcing Itar On The Internet, Catherine Tremble

Fordham Law Review Online

This Essay begins by outlining Cody Wilson’s motivation to found his organization, Defense Distributed, and the organization’s progress toward its goals. Then, Part II provides a brief overview of the protracted legal battle between Wilson and the State Department over the right to publish Computer-Aided Design (CAD) files on the internet that enable the 3D printing of guns and lower receivers. Part III.A takes a brief look at whether these CAD files are rightly considered speech at all and, if so, what level of protection they might receive. Part III.B then addresses the problem of even asking whether the files …


More Color More Pride: Addressing Structural Barriers To Interracial Lgbtq Loving, Praatika Prasad Mar 2019

More Color More Pride: Addressing Structural Barriers To Interracial Lgbtq Loving, Praatika Prasad

Fordham Law Review Online

Through an examination of State-supported racial structures, this Essay illustrates that even after the legalization of interracial and same-sex marriages, the State’s control over housing, education, and employment prospects impedes the formation of interracial LGBTQ relationships. This Essay suggests that reducing residential segregation can be a first step in dismantling structural barriers to interracial LGBTQ loving, as truly integrated housing would increase cross-racial contact, lead to better educational and employment outcomes, and give LGBTQ people of color a chance to improve their social capital. This, together with altering how issues of race are framed within the LGBTQ community, will help …


Mediation, Self-Represented Parties, And Access To Justice: Getting There From Here, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley Mar 2019

Mediation, Self-Represented Parties, And Access To Justice: Getting There From Here, Jacqueline Nolan-Haley

Fordham Law Review Online

Mediation is enthusiastically promoted as a vehicle for providing access to justice. This is as true in developing countries as it is in the United States. For individuals, mediation promises autonomy, self-determination and empowerment; for courts, there is the lure of procedural and administrative reforms—reduced dockets and greater efficiencies. Unburdened with formal discovery, evidentiary and procedural rules, pleadings, and motions, mediation is thought to generate access to justice at a faster pace than litigation. Commentators sing its praises while bemoaning its underutilization. I argue that claims about mediation’s ability to provide access to justice should be more modest because mediation …


Disturbing Disparities: Black Girls And The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Leah A. Hill Mar 2019

Disturbing Disparities: Black Girls And The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Leah A. Hill

Fordham Law Review Online

Recent scholarship on the school-to-prison pipeline has zeroed in on the disturbing trajectory of black girls. School officials impose harsh punishments on black girls, including suspension and expulsion from school, at alarming rates. The most recent data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights reveals that one of the harshest forms of discipline—out of school suspension—is imposed on black girls at seven times the rate of their white peers. In the juvenile justice system, black girls are the fastest growing demographic when it comes to arrest and incarceration. Explanations for the disproportionate disciplinary, arrest, and incarceration rates …


Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor?, Ellen Yaroshefsky Sep 2018

Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor?, Ellen Yaroshefsky

Fordham Law Review Online

Most people who become prosecutors are honest and ethical public servants who take that job for varied reasons including protecting the community, assisting victims of crime, gaining trial experience, or enhancing future employment prospects and long-term political goals. Earnest and hard-working, these prosecutors bristle at the very question of whether a good person can be a good prosecutor. The question though is not about a good person and their motives or ethical compass, but about the role: What does it mean to be a good prosecutor especially in the era of mass incarceration?


The Necessity Of The Good Person Prosecutor, Jessica A. Roth Sep 2018

The Necessity Of The Good Person Prosecutor, Jessica A. Roth

Fordham Law Review Online

In a 2001 essay, Professor Abbe Smith asked the question whether a good person—i.e., a person who is committed to social justice—can be a good prosecutor. Although she acknowledged some hope that the answer to her question could be “yes,” Professor Smith concluded that the answer then was “no”—in part because she saw individual prosecutors generally as having very little discretion to “temper the harsh reality of the criminal justice system.” In this Online Symposium revisiting Professor Smith’s question seventeen years later, my answer to her question is “yes”—a good person can be a good prosecutor.


Revisiting Abbe Smith's Question, "Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor?" In The Age Of Krasner And Sessions, Rebecca Roiphe Sep 2018

Revisiting Abbe Smith's Question, "Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor?" In The Age Of Krasner And Sessions, Rebecca Roiphe

Fordham Law Review Online

In an article published over fifteen years ago, Georgetown Law Professor Abbe Smith argued that one cannot be a good person and a good prosecutor. In other words, if you are concerned with social justice, it would be selfdefeating to work in a prosecutor’s office. With Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the helm, the federal criminal justice system has changed since Smith wrote this article, in many ways for the worse. At the same time, in response to a powerful grass roots movement, the reformist approach to criminal justice has gained some ground. In this oddly polarized context, this essay …


A Defender's Take On "Good" Prosecutors, David E. Patton Sep 2018

A Defender's Take On "Good" Prosecutors, David E. Patton

Fordham Law Review Online

When Professor Abbe Smith asked “Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor” in 2001 (and answered it mostly in the negative), she began a conversation that would result in me, a public defender, having to repeatedly answer the question from earnest law students and young lawyers. I haven’t yet forgiven Professor Smith. My first impulse when I’m asked the question is to hand out her home phone number. My second impulse is to answer: “Why are you asking me?” I’m a defense lawyer. Worse still, I am a public defender. I’m not, shall we say, naturally drawn …


Prosecutors Who Police The Police Are Good People, Vida B. Johnson Sep 2018

Prosecutors Who Police The Police Are Good People, Vida B. Johnson

Fordham Law Review Online

In 2001 Professor Abbe Smith asked if a person could be both a good prosecutor and a good person. Her answer was, essentially, “no.” My answer in 2018 is that only a prosecutor who focuses on the powerful, and particularly who is willing to prosecute police who do wrong, can be good.


The Progressive Prosecutor: An Imperative For Criminal Justice Reform, Angela J. Davis Sep 2018

The Progressive Prosecutor: An Imperative For Criminal Justice Reform, Angela J. Davis

Fordham Law Review Online

In a law review article written seventeen years ago, Professor Abbe Smith asked the question, “Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor?” Professor Smith ultimately answered the question in the negative. Whether or not one agreed with her conclusion at the time, today we know that the answer to the question is “Yes.” Anyone who believes that good people cannot be good prosecutors assumes and accepts a model of prosecution based on harsh, punitive policies and practices that incarcerate as many people as possible for as long as possible. Unfortunately, that unjust model of prosecution is the …


Good Person, Good Prosecutor In 2018, Abbe Smith Sep 2018

Good Person, Good Prosecutor In 2018, Abbe Smith

Fordham Law Review Online

Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote an essay on the ethics of prosecution in a time of mass incarceration called “Can You Be a Good Person and a Good Prosecutor?”1 I am both pleased and perplexed that the essay, which caused some controversy at the time, continues to strike a chord—at least with the organizers of this online conversation. I appreciate the invitation to weigh in on whether you can be a good person and a good prosecutor in 2018.


Foreword: Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor, Bruce A. Green Sep 2018

Foreword: Can A Good Person Be A Good Prosecutor, Bruce A. Green

Fordham Law Review Online

In 2001, Abbe Smith asked provocatively whether you can simultaneously be a good person and a good prosecutor, and she concluded that you cannot. The following online symposium, hosted by the Fordham Law Review Online, revisits Abbe Smith’s question. Even if she was right in 2001, is the answer the same seventeen years later? The problems of criminal justice in this country have in many ways gotten worse. But at the same time, one might argue, there is broader public acknowledgment of these problems, which has led to social movements such as the Innocence Movement and Black Lives Matter that …


Scientific Validity And Error Rates: A Short Response To The Pcast Report, Ted Robert Hunt May 2018

Scientific Validity And Error Rates: A Short Response To The Pcast Report, Ted Robert Hunt

Fordham Law Review Online

This Article was prepared as a companion to the Fordham Law Review Reed Symposium on Forensic Expert Testimony, Daubert, and Rule 702, held on October 27, 2017, at Boston College School of Law. The Symposium took place under the sponsorship of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules. For an overview of the Symposium, see Daniel J. Capra, Foreword: Symposium on Forensic Testimony, Daubert, and Rule 702, 86 Fordham L. Rev. 1459 (2018).


The Reliability Of The Adversarial System To Assess The Scientific Validity Of Forensic Evidence, Andrew D. Goldsmith May 2018

The Reliability Of The Adversarial System To Assess The Scientific Validity Of Forensic Evidence, Andrew D. Goldsmith

Fordham Law Review Online

This Article was prepared as a companion to the Fordham Law Review Reed Symposium on Forensic Expert Testimony, Daubert, and Rule 702, held on October 27, 2017, at Boston College School of Law. The Symposium took place under the sponsorship of the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Evidence Rules. For an overview of the Symposium, see Daniel J. Capra, Foreword: Symposium on Forensic Testimony, Daubert, and Rule 702, 86 Fordham L. Rev. 1459 (2018).