Law Commons^™

The Voice Of Reason—Why Recent Judicial Interpretations Of The Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act’S Restrictions On Habeas Corpus Are Wrong, Judith L. Ritter

Judith L Ritter

By filing a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus, a prisoner initiates a legal proceeding collateral to the direct appeals process. Federal statutes set forth the procedure and parameters of habeas corpus review. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) first signed into law by President Clinton in 1996, included significant cut-backs in the availability of federal writs of habeas corpus. This was by congressional design. Yet, despite the dire predictions, for most of the first decade of AEDPA’s reign, the door to habeas relief remained open. More recently, however, the Supreme Court reinterpreted a key portion …

Correcting A Fatal Lottery: A Proposal To Apply The Civil Discrimination Standards To The Death Penalty, Joseph Thomas

Joseph Thomas

Claims of discrimination are treated differently in the death penalty context. Discrimination in employment, housing, civil rights and jury venire all use a burden-shifting framework with the preponderance of the evidence as the standard. Discrimination that occurs in death penalty proceedings is the exception to the rule -- the framework offers less protections; there is only one phase of argumentation, with a heightened evidentiary standard of “exceptionally clear proof.” With disparate levels of protections against discrimination, the standard and framework for adjudicating claims of discrimination in the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Death is different as a punishment. But does discrimination …

Accounting For Federalism In State Courts - Exclusion Of Evidence Obtained Lawfully By Federal Agents, Robert M. Bloom, Hillary J. Massey

Robert Bloom

After the terrorist attacks on September 11th, Congress greatly enhanced federal law enforcement powers through enactment of the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The Supreme Court also has provided more leeway to federal officers in the past few decades, for example by limiting the scope of the exclusionary rule. At the same time, many states have interpreted their constitutions to provide greater individual protections to their citizens than provided by the federal constitution. This phenomenon has sometimes created a wide disparity between the investigatory techniques available to federal versus state law enforcement officers. As a result, state courts sometimes must decide whether …

The Constitutional Infirmity Of Warrantless Nsa Surveillance: The Abuse Of Presidential Power And The Injury To The Fourth Amendment, Robert M. Bloom, William J. Dunn

Robert Bloom

In recent months, there have been many revelations about the tactics used by the Bush Administration to prosecute their war on terrorism. These stories involve the exploitation of technologies that allow the government, with the cooperation of phone companies and financial institutions, to access phone and financial records. This paper focuses on the revelation and widespread criticism of the Bush Administration’s operation of a warrantless electronic surveillance program to monitor international phone calls and emails that originate or terminate with a United States party. The powerful and secret National Security Agency heads the program and leverages its significant intelligence collection …

"Shut Up. Pay More. This Is What You Voted For." Why You Don't See Me At San Francisco's Hall Of Justice., David D. Butler

David D. Butler

This 2,285 essay combines California's often violent history with European and American high and low culture to explain my decision to leave San Francisco in the 1970's and to study and practice law in other states. At the time, I was platflorm man (operator) on the 30 Stockton electric trolley through South of Market, the Financial District, Chinatown, Pacific Heights, and the Marina. Nevertheless, at the time the Nation of Islam had at least one armed group, the Zebra killers, murdering Whites, often slowly with machetes. I joined the White, Middle-Class, Taxpaying majority in their diaspora to safer places. My …

No Prisoner Left Behind? Enhancing Public Transparency Of Penal Institutions, Andrea Armstrong

Andrea Armstrong

Prisoners suffer life-long debilitating effects of their incarceration, making them a subordinated class of people for life. This article examines how prison conditions facilitate subordination and concludes that enhancing transparency is the first step towards equality. Anti-subordination efforts led to enhanced transparency in schools, a similar but not identical institution. This article argues that federal school transparency measures provide a rudimentary and balanced framework for enhancing prison transparency.

Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart

David C. Gray

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus …

An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen

Derek R VerHagen

It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …

U.S. Government Counterterrorism Asset Freezes: Regulatory Seizures In A Digital Age Of Terrorism, Adam S. Wallwork

Adam S Wallwork

This Article addresses the question of when, if ever, the Department of the Treasury’s counterterrorism asset freezes against US persons (US citizens, resident aliens, and US-based organizations) violate the Fourth Amendment. It addresses two questions that currently divide the federal courts: (1) whether OFAC blocking orders are seizures subject to the Fourth Amendment and (2) whether the Fourth Amendment’s warrant and probable-cause requirements apply to OFAC counterterrorism blocking orders if these orders are in fact seizures.

My Originalist analysis of OFAC counterterrorism blocking orders draws on evidence of the Framers’ original understanding of “unreasonable . . . seizures,” including the …

The Conspiracy Origin Of The First Amendment, Steven R. Morrison

Steven R Morrison

Scholars and jurists have misunderstood the import of three seminal 1919 First Amendment cases—Schenck v. United States, Frohwerk v. United States, and Abrams v. United States—as primarily free speech cases. They are better understood as free assembly cases. This is important for two reasons. First, individuals’ speech has the intended First Amendment effect only when speakers combine into groups. Second, the 1919 cases were the beginning of substantive First Amendment law, and so have resulted in a First Amendment jurisprudence that favors individual rights over group rights. This is a constitutional and normative mistake. Combined with the first reason, the …

Plugging The School-To-Prison Pipeline By Improving Behavior And Protecting Core Judicial Functions, Patrick Metze

Patrick Metze

The consolidation of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) and the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission (TJPC) into the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) in 2011, produced a unified state juvenile justice agency to promote public safety first and to produce positive outcomes for youth, families, and communities second. As Professor Metze’s second paper discussing ways to effect a change in the School-to-Prison Pipeline, he first highlights the progress of TJJD’s use of Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) in the Texas juvenile correctional context as continued evidence that such techniques, if effective in the correctional setting, will certainly work in the …

The Piranha Is As Deadly As The Shark: A Case For The Limitation On Deceptive Practices In Dna Collection, Brett A. Bauman

Brett A Bauman

Police deception tactics are utilized throughout the United States as a way to catch unsuspecting criminals. Although criticized in many respects, most deceptive police techniques are not only legal, but are actually encouraged. DNA collection and analysis is no exception—techniques are frequently used by law enforcement officers in an attempt to collect a suspect’s genetic specimen in the interest of solving crimes. While law enforcement officers typically have the best interests of society in mind, the current practices employed by officers to collect suspects’ DNA violate the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment provides protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, and …

Guns, Violence, And Schools: Policies To Prevent And Respond To School Shootings, Mark A. Velez

Mark A. Velez

The United States continues to deal with school shootings. The most recent massacre occurred in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Several strategies have been used to try and prevent such tragedies from happening. These strategies have included tough gun laws, gun-free school zones, and updating school policies and infrastructure. However, despite these, and other, strategies, school shootings continue to occur. Unfortunately, when a school shooting occurs, school personnel and children are left helpless until the police arrive or the shooter decides to end the rampage. During this time many lives may be lost. Therefore, it …

Terrorism And Associations, Ashutosh A. Bhagwat

Ashutosh Bhagwat

The domestic manifestation of the War on Terror has produced the most difficult and sustained set of controversies regarding the limits on First Amendment protections for political speech and association since the anti-Communist crusades of the Red Scare and McCarthy eras. An examination of the types of domestic terrorism prosecutions that have become common since the September 11 attacks reveals continuing and unresolved conflicts between national security needs and traditional protections for speech and (especially) associational freedoms. Yet the courts have barely begun to acknowledge, much less address, these serious issues. In the Supreme Court’s only sustained engagement with these …

Cipa V. State Secrets: How A Few Mistakes Confused Two Important National Security Privileges, Elisa Poteat

Elisa Poteat

No abstract provided.

Rebalancing The Fourth Amendment, Shima Baradaran

Shima Baradaran

The events of September 11 forever changed the political and legal response to terrorism. After more than ten years, two wars, several targeted military strikes, and significantly increased surveillance, we still have not succeeded in stopping the growth of Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. The war on terror has not just been a military one. To stop terrorism, it is imperative to cut off the flow of terrorism financing. To this end, a number of nations have created financial laws that prohibit the formation of anonymous companies and monitor suspicious bank transfers. These laws have been touted as evidence that …

Guns, Violence, And School Shootings: A Policy Change To Arm Some Teachers And School Personnel, Mark A. Velez

Mark A. Velez

The United States continues to deal with school shootings. The most recent massacre occurred in 2012 at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Several strategies have been used to try and prevent such tragedies from happening. These strategies have included tough gun laws, gun-free school zones, and updating school policies and infrastructure. However, despite these, and other, strategies, school shootings continue to occur. Unfortunately, when a school shooting occurs, school personnel and children are left helpless until the police arrive or the shooter decides to end the rampage. During this time many lives may be lost. Therefore, it …

Livelihood, Ability To Pay, And The Original Meaning Of The Excessive Fines Clause, Nicholas M. Mclean

Nicholas M. McLean

Most modern courts that have been called upon to interpret and apply the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment have concluded that a fine or forfeiture can be unconstitutionally excessive only if it is grossly disproportionate to its associated offense. However, in light of its text, history, and purpose, the Excessive Fines Clause is appropriately understood as encoding both a proportionality principle and a further limiting principle linking financial penalties to the personal circumstances and economic status of the offender. This Article seeks to address a significant and surprising gap in the extant literature by articulating and systematically developing …

Partially Concurrent Sentences, Statutory Interpretation, And Legislative Intent: Amicus Brief Filed In State V. Bryant Wilson (Indiana Supreme Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Indiana Code § 35-50-1-2 states that terms of imprisonment “shall be served concurrently or consecutively.” The Code’s plain language does not authorize courts to impose partially consecutive, blended, or “split sentences. Partially consecutive sentences would impermissibly read into the Code a third sentencing option, thus contradicting Indiana’s well-settled jurisprudence and undermining the goal of reasonable uniformity in sentencing. The decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals should therefore be reversed.

Amicus Brief: State V. Glover (Maine Supreme Judicial Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

When law enforcement seeks to obtain a warrantless, pre-arrest DNA sample from an individual, that individual has the right to say “No.” If silence is to become a “badge of guilt,” then the right to silence—under the United States and Maine Constitutions—might become a thing of the past. Allowing jurors to infer consciousness of guilt from a pre-arrest DNA sample violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States and Maine Constitutions.

Closing The Widening Net: The Rights Of Juveniles At Intake, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Should juveniles have more, fewer, the same or different procedural rights than are accorded to adults? This question, posed by Professor Arnold Loewy for a panel at the 2013 Texas Tech Law Review Symposium on Juveniles and Criminal Law, requires us to examine our goals for the juvenile court system. My primary goal, having practiced in both adult criminal and juvenile delinquency forums for over twenty years, is to ensure that the reach of juvenile court is no wider than necessary, as research indicates that when children are processed through the juvenile court system and adjudicated delinquent, the impact is …

Knives And The Second Amendment, David B. Kopel, Claytom E. Cramer, Joseph P. Olson

David B Kopel

This Article is the first scholarly analysis of knives and the Second Amendment. Under the Supreme Court’s standard in District of Columbia v. Heller, knives are Second Amendment “arms” because they are “typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” including self-defense.

There is no knife that is more dangerous than a modern handgun; to the contrary, knives are much less dangerous. Therefore, restrictions on carrying handguns set the upper limit for restrictions on carrying knives.

Prohibitions on carrying knives in general, or of particular knives, are unconstitutional. For example, bans of knives that open in a convenient way (e.g., …

Mexico's Gun Control Laws: A Model For The United States?, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

This article explicates Mexico’s constitutional right to arms and Mexico’s main gun-control statute, the Federal Law of Firearms and Explosives (Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos). Along the way, the article notes various proposals to move U.S. gun laws in a Mexican direction.

Part II of this article is an English translation of the Mexican constitution’s guarantee of the right to arms, as well as predecessor versions of the guarantee.

Part III explains the operation of Mexico’s gun-control system and provides some historical and statistical information about gun ownership and gun smuggling in Mexico.

Part IV describes some …

The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David Gray, Danielle Citron

David C. Gray

We are at the cusp of a historic shift in our conceptions of the Fourth Amendment driven by dramatic advances in surveillance technology. Governments and their private sector agents continue to invest billions of dollars in massive data-mining projects, advanced analytics, fusion centers, and aerial drones, all without serious consideration of the constitutional issues that these technologies raise. In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court signaled an end to its silent acquiescence in this expanding surveillance state. In that case, five justices signed concurring opinions defending a revolutionary proposition: that citizens have Fourth Amendment interests in substantial quantities of …

The Right To Quantitative Privacy, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron

Danielle Keats Citron

We are at the cusp of a historic shift in our conceptions of the Fourth Amendment driven by dramatic advances in surveillance technology. Governments and their private sector agents continue to invest billions of dollars in massive data-mining projects, advanced analytics, fusion centers, and aerial drones, all without serious consideration of the constitutional issues that these technologies raise. In United States v. Jones, the Supreme Court signaled an end to its silent acquiescence in this expanding surveillance state. In that case, five justices signed concurring opinions defending a revolutionary proposition: that citizens have Fourth Amendment interests in substantial quantities of …

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.