Digital Commons Network^™

Advocacy And Influence: Lobbying And Legislative Outcomes In Wisconsin, Daniel C. Lewis

Daniel Lewis

Gauging the influence of organized interests in the American legislative process is undeniably a difficult undertaking. Interest groups and their lobbyists have little incentive to publicly reveal their goals and the extent of their efforts in pursuing those goals. Nationally, and in most states, lobbyists and interest groups are only required to publicly report their lobbying expenditures and the general policy areas in which they are interested in. Thus, it is extremely difficult to assess whether groups are successful in advocating for or against a particular bill. However, a few states have recently begun to require lobbyists and organized interests …

Sorority Women’S And Fraternity Men’S Rape Myth Acceptance And Bystander Intervention Attitudes, R Sean Bannon, Matt W. Brosi, John D. Foubert

John D. Foubert

Sorority women and fraternity men are more likely than other students to be survivors and perpetrators of sexual assault, respectively. The present study examined sorority and fraternity members’ rape myth acceptance, bystander efficacy, and bystander willingness to help in potential sexual assault situations. Sorority women were more rejecting of rape myths and were more willing to intervene than fraternity men. However, no difference in bystander efficacy was found. Implications of this contrast are discussed.

Searching For A Limiting Principle: Cell Phone Tracking, The Fourth Amendment, And The Dragnet Search Doctrine, Usman Ahmed, Hannah Murray Naltner, Luke Pelican

Usman Ahmed

SEARCHING FOR A LIMITING PRINCIPLE: CELL PHONE TRACKING, THE FOURTH AMENDMENT, AND THE DRAGNET SEARCH DOCTRINE By Usman Ahmed, Hannah Murray Naltner, & Luke Pelican Abstract The recently revealed National Security Agency (NSA) program capturing Verizon customers’ metadata has demonstrated the ability of the government to secure information generated by an individual’s cell-phone from a cell phone service provider. The NSA’s program was focused on foreign individuals and was approved by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. US law enforcement officials, however, regularly capture cell phone location information in criminal cases targeting US citizens. In past cases, where citizens have challenged …

Did Changes In Juvenile Sanctions Reduce Juvenile Crime Rates? A Natural Experiment, Franklin Zimring, Stephen Rushin

Franklin E. Zimring

This essay examines whether state statutory changes to the juvenile justice system during the 1990s contributed to the subsequent decline in juvenile homicide rates. Between 1985 and 1993, juvenile crime rates soared in the United States. Many prominent scholars and politicians argued that this uptick in youth crime was just the beginning of a forthcoming wave of juvenile violence. In response, between 1992 and 1997, forty-seven states enacted statutory changes that made the juvenile justice system more punitive. Between 1993 and 2010, juvenile crime declined markedly, leading some to conclude that that the punitive statutory changes caused the decline in …

Defying Dna: Rethinking The Role Of The Jury In An Age Of Scientific Proof Of Innocence, Andrea L. Roth

Andrea L Roth

No abstract provided.

Hate Talk, Straight Thought And Wisdom: A Guide To Critical Thinking, Argumentation And Decision Making (Pdf), T. L. Brink

T. L. Brink

Reassessing Corporate Personhood In The Wake Of Occupy Wall Street, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

This article is about corporate personhood, discussed on the backdrop of class consciousness and criticisms of capital generated, in large part, by the recent and continuing Occupy Movements. I am at first concerned with articulating the evolving jurisprudence of corporate personhood as developed in the Supreme Court of the United States. Combined with this doctrinal approach, I offer a Marxist criticism of corporate personhood jurisprudence that culminates in a discussion of the Occupy Movements' logic of resistance to corporate domination in the United States' law and policy. First, I discuss the role Marxist criticism has played in legal discourse and …

Thinking Out Cloud: California State Sales And Use Taxability Of Cloud Computing Transactions, Matthew A. Susson

Matthew A Susson

Confronted with growing budget deficits and decreasing tax bases, states have sought to expand sales tax laws to capture revenue from sales of digital products. Just as states have begun to impose such taxes, however, the shift from downloaded products to cloud-based data and applications—accessible from anywhere in the world—poses new challenges to the states’ ability to reach such transactions with their taxing powers.

Thus far, state governments have taken inconsistent and patchwork approaches towards determining taxability. Rather than supplement or amend state tax codes to address cloud computing transactions directly, they have sought to apply existing provisions dealing with …

Evidence, Probability, And The Burden Of Proof, Ronald J. Allen, Alex Stein

Alex Stein

This Article analyzes the probabilistic and epistemological underpinnings of the burden-of-proof doctrine. We show that this doctrine is best understood as instructing factfinders to determine which of the parties’ conflicting stories makes most sense in terms of coherence, consilience, causality, and evidential coverage. By applying this method, factfinders should try—and will often succeed—to establish the truth, rather than a statistical surrogate of the truth, while securing the appropriate allocation of the risk of error. Descriptively, we argue that this understanding of the doctrine—the “relative plausibility theory”—corresponds to our courts’ practice. Prescriptively, we argue that the relative-plausibility method is operationally superior …

Response, The Obama Administration, In Defense Of Daca, Deferred Action, And The Dream Act, Shoba S. Wadhia

Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia

This essay responds to “The Obama Administration, the DREAM Act and the Take Care Clause” by Robert J. Delahunty and John C. Yoo. Though I credit Yoo and Delahunty for considering the relationship between the DACA program and the President’s duties under the “Take Care” clause, they miss the mark in at least three ways: 1) Contrary to ignoring immigration enforcement, the Obama Administration has executed the immigration laws faithfully and forcefully; 2) Far from being a new policy that undercuts statutory law, prosecutorial discretion actions like DACA have been pursued by other presidents, and part of the immigration system …

J. William Conger: An Inspiration To China’S Future Trial Lawyers, Lee Peoples

Lee Peoples

No abstract provided.

Review Of Demands Of The Dead In Journal Of Dramatic Theory & Criticism, Katy Ryan

Katy Ryan

No abstract provided.

Foster Youth & The Transition To Adulthood: The Theoretical & Conceptual Basis For Natural Mentoring, Johanna K.P. Greeson

Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP

The transition from adolescence to adulthood is considered a significant developmental stage in a young person’s growth. Most youth receive family support to help them weather the difficulties associated with this stage. When foster youth age out of the child welfare system, they confront the challenges associated with this developmental stage and are at risk of having to transition without family support. This article applies the life course perspective to describe the theoretical and contextual foundation that explains the hardships foster youth experience when they emancipate from the U.S. child welfare system. Next, the theoretical basis for natural mentoring among …

Rethinking Schneckloth V. Bustamonte, Brian Gallini

Brian Gallini

Criminal Wrongs And Constitutional Rights: A View From India, Shubhankar Dam

Shubhankar Dam

This essay offers an overview of how ideas of constitutionalism, rule of law and fundamental rights contributed to the development of criminal law in India. Various courts, and the Supreme Court in particular, have summoned these broad constitutional concepts to understand, interpret and develop criminal law doctrines. But they are also drawing on these concepts to increasingly address “structural” issues of the criminal justice system - the very apparatus responsible for implementing the doctrines.

Not Only ‘Who Decides’: The Rhetoric Of Conflicts Over Judicial Appointments, Fernando Muñoz

Fernando Muñoz

This article looks at the conflicts surrounding the appointment of constitutional judges, focusing not so much on the characteristics of particular candidates but on the debates that they give rise to. Who are the actors in these conflicts? What arguments do they employ? What are their agendas? What is at stake in these disputes?

The War Of 1812: Complete Chronology With Biographies Of 63 General Officers, Michael Tosko

Michael P Tosko

No abstract provided.

Serving Time By Coming Home:Communicating Hope Through A Reentry Court, Jeralyn L. Faris

Jeralyn L Faris

El Sistema Penal Juvenil Como “Privilegio". A Propósito Del Proyecto De Ley Para Reducir La Edad De Imputabilidad Penal, José Balcázar Quiroz

José Balcázar Quiroz

No abstract provided.

Law Reform On Sexual And Gender-Based Crimes In Mass Violence, Saumya Uma

Dr. Saumya Uma

Integrating Victims' Rights In The Indian Legal Framework, Saumya Uma

Dr. Saumya Uma

Evolutionary Biology For The 21st Century, Robert Ricklefs, Jonathan B. Losos, Stevan J. Arnold, Gill Bejerano, E. D. Brodie Iii, David Hibbett, Hopi E. Hoekstra, David P. Mindell, Antonia Monteiro, Craig Moritz, H. Allen Orr, Dmitri A. Petrov, Susanne S. Renner, Pamela S. Soltis, Thomas L. Turner

Robert Ricklefs

No abstract provided.

A Mixed Methods Examination Of Structural Bigenderism And The Consequences For Transgender And Gender Variant People, Kristie L. Seelman

Kristie L Seelman

For years, transgender activists and their allies have spoken out about the oppression that transgender and gender non-conforming people experience in relation to societal systems and institutions, due to policies and practices that do not acknowledge non-binary experiences of gender, that do not recognize that one’s gender may change over time or may not match cultural expectations for gender expression, and that punish and discriminate against trans people (Gilbert, 2009; Lombardi & Davis, 2006; Markman, 2011; Spade, 2006; WWRC, 2010). Scholars have called for human services professionals and researchers to critique the failures of institutions in society (and the people …

Interactive Visualization Of New Jersey Gang Data, Manfred Minimair

Manfred Minimair

This article describes the design and functionality of an online visualization software of data from a survey on gang activities in New Jersey municipalities. The visualization enables the user to explore the distribution of numbers of gang sets across different municipalities in New Jersey, and study certain derived information. The purpose of the visualization is to make data from the gang survey easily and universally accessible through some engaging visual display, to facilitate seamless exploration of the data, and to thus foster discourse on the data among experts and the general public. In order to achieve these goals, bubble charts, …

How Canada Built Its Supermax Prisons, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Correctional Officer Deviance: Toward Typologies Of Actions And Controls, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Convict Criminology At The Crossroads, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D., Greg Newbold

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

American Bar Association Criminal Justice Standards On Law Enforcement Access To Third Party Records, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

Search, Seizure, And Immunity: Second-Order Normative Authority And Rights, Stephen E. Henderson, Kelly Sorensen

Stephen E Henderson

A paradigmatic aspect of a paradigmatic kind of right is that the rights holder is the only one who can alienate it. When individuals waive rights, the normative source of that waiving is normally taken to be the individual herself. This moral feature—immunity—is usually in the background of discussions about rights. We bring it into the foreground here, with specific attention to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kentucky v. King (2011), concerning search and seizure rights. An entailment of the Court’s decision is that, at least in some cases, a right can be removed by the intentional actions of …

Real-Time And Historic Location Surveillance After United States V. Jones: An Administrable, Mildly Mosaic Approach, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

In United States v. Jones, the government took an extreme position: so far as the federal Constitution is concerned, law enforcement can surreptitiously electronically track the movements of any American over the course of an entire month without cause or restraint. According to the government, whether the surveillance be for good reason, invidious reason, or no reason, the Fourth Amendment is not implicated. Fortunately, that position was unanimously rejected by the High Court. The Court did not, however, resolve what restriction or restraint the Fourth Amendment places upon location surveillance, reflecting a proper judicial restraint in this nuanced and difficult …