Law Commons^™

Bringing Balance To The Force: The Militarization Of America’S Police Force And Its Consequences, Anta Plowden

University of Miami Law Review

The current trend in the militarization of police can be traced back to the earliest times in our country. We are soon approaching a tipping point in which the combination of aggressive military tactics, wrongful deaths and injuries, and a lack of accountability will lead to an increase in civil unrest and animosity towards those who have sworn to uphold the law. In an ironic twist of fate, the military force, which law enforcement is trying to emulate, has made sharp adjustments in the way it operates due to the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has adopted more police-like …

No Quick Fix: The Failure Of Criminal Law And The Promise Of Civil Law Remedies For Domestic Child Sex Trafficking, Charisa Smith

University of Miami Law Review

Pimps and johns who sexually exploit children garner instant public and scholarly outrage for their lust for a destructive “quick fix.” In actuality, many justifiably concerned scholars, policymakers, and members of the public continue to react over-simplistically and reflexively to the issue of child sex trafficking in the United States—also known as commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC)—in a manner intellectually akin to immediate gratification. Further, research reveals that the average john is an employed, married male of any given race or ethnicity, suggesting that over-simplification and knee-jerk thinking on CSEC are conspicuous. This Article raises provocative questions that too …

Taking The Direct File Statute To Criminal Court: Immigration Consequences For Juveniles, Marlon J. Baquedano

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

Florida is one of fifteen jurisdictions in the United States that have enacted a direct file statute that grants prosecutors the ability to transfer juveniles from the juvenile justice system to adult court. Critiques of the direct file statute have focused on its effectiveness on deterrence and recidivism, its arbitrariness in application, and the tension with the role of juvenile justice in reforming rather than punishing youth. This Note explores the harmful consequences of the direct file statute on non-citizen youth in immigration proceedings and the probability of obtaining immigration relief. An adult conviction as opposed to a juvenile delinquency …

Isis’S Get Rich Quick Scheme: Sell The World’S Cultural Heritage On The Black Market—Purchasers Of Isis-Looted Syrian Artifacts Are Not Criminally Liable Under The Nspa And The Mcclain Doctrine In The Eleventh Circuit, Lindsey Lazopoulos Friedman

University of Miami Law Review

This article explores how an individual importing a looted artifact may face prosecution and liability in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit. The article begins with a background section that provides additional information about the history of ISIS and ISIS’s current plundering scheme. The background section also provides the legal framework and historical treatment of looted art and stolen artifacts. In particular, this section explains the Eleventh Circuit doctrine on this issue, the McClain doctrine. The McClain doctrine applies the National Stolen Property Act (“NSPA”) to foreign found-in-the-ground claims. Supporters of the doctrine argue that it helps “prevent looting internationally without placing …

Sentence Structure: Prohibiting “Second Or Successive” Habeas Petitions After Patterson V. Secretary, Christina M. Frohock

University of Miami Law Review

The Eleventh Circuit’s recent opinion in Patterson v. Secretary includes a heated dispute over the prohibition against “second or successive” habeas corpus petitions in 28 U.S.C.§ 2244(b). Considering an amended criminal sentence from Florida state court, the majority and dissenting opinions structure that sentence differently and, thus, apply the prohibition differently. This Article argues that both the majority and the dissent conceal policy judgments beneath the surface of legal decision-making. First, the Article analyzes the statutory prohibition against “second or successive” habeas petitions, as applied previously by the U.S. Supreme Court in Magwood v. Patterson and by the Eleventh Circuit …

Hurst V. Florida’S Ha’P’Orth Of Tar: The Need To Revisit Caldwell, Clemons, And Proffitt, Craig Trocino, Chance Meyer

University of Miami Law Review

In Hurst v. Florida, the Supreme Court held Florida’s death penalty scheme violated the Sixth Amendment because judges, rather than juries, found sentencing facts necessary to impose death. That Sixth Amendment ruling has implications for Florida’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence.

Under the Eighth Amendment rule of Caldwell v. Mississippi, capital juries must appreciate their responsibility for death sentencing. Yet, Florida has instructed juries that their fact-findings merely support sentencing recommendations, while leaving the ultimate sentencing decision to a judge. Because Hurst clarifies that the Sixth Amendment requires juries to find the operative set of facts on which sentences are …

Doug Kahn - A Personal Appreciation, Patricia D. White

Articles

No abstract provided.

Immigration Enforcement And State Post-Conviction Adjudications: Towards Nuanced Preemption And True Dialogical Federalism, Daniel Kanstroom

University of Miami Law Review

The relationship between federal immigration enforcement and state criminal, post-conviction law exemplifies certain inevitable complexities of preemption and federalism. Because neither perfect uniformity nor complete preemption is possible, we must consider two questions: First, whether (and, if so, how) state courts adjudicating rights should account for legitimate federal immigration law goals, such as uniformity and finality? Second, how should federal courts deploy preemption and federalism principles when faced with challenges by federal authorities to such state court actions? This article offers a framework of “dialogical federalism,” seeking to normalize certain tensions under a rubric of dialogue, rather than formal hierarchy …

Keynote Address, Justice John Paul Stevens (Ret.)

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Immigration, Criminalization, And Disobedience, Allegra M. Mcleod

University of Miami Law Review

This Article explores two contending visions of immigration justice: one focused on expanding procedural rights for immigrants, and a second associated with a movement of immigrant youth who have come out as “undocumented and unafraid,” issuing a fundamental challenge to immigration restrictionism. As immigration enforcement in the United States increasingly relies on criminal prosecution and detention, advocates for reform have increasingly turned to constitutional criminal procedure, seeking greater procedural protections for immigrants. But this Article argues that this focus on enhanced procedural protections is woefully incomplete as a vision of immigration justice. Although a right to counsel, for example, may …

Confronting Nonconsensual Pornography With Federal Criminalization And A “Notice-And-Takedown” Provision, Dalisi Otero

University of Miami Law Review

The issue of nonconsensual pornography has recently been brought into the limelight because of events like the online postings of celebrities’ intimate photos. Non-celebrities, however, have been victimized in this way since long before the recent hackings, and their lives are also changed in the worst possible way. The harms that result from the unconsented-to distribution of an individual’s intimate photos and videos are severe and oftentimes long-lasting. This Comment suggests that an alternative proposal to help nonconsensual pornography victims regain their reputations, their privacy, and their lives, is to federally criminalize the nonconsensual distribution of a person’s intimate images …

The War Against Ourselves: Heien V. North Carolina, The War On Drugs, And Police Militarization, Mallory Meads

University of Miami Law Review

Approximately fifty years ago, America declared a war against itself—the “War on Drugs.” Since then, our local and state police, armed with military weapons and federal funding, have fought tirelessly against “public enemy number one”—drugs. Not surprisingly, this war has created an atmosphere where it is now common to see police officers equipped with a mentality and armor that had previously only been seen in the dark-trenches of an international war zone. Worse yet, this battlefield mentality has leaked into almost every area of police-civilian encounters.

As a “loyal foot solider” in the Executive’s War on Drugs, however, the Supreme …

Amnesty Now! Ending Prison Overcrowding Through A Categorical Use Of The Pardon Power, Jonathan Simon

University of Miami Law Review

America’s practice of mass incarceration is coming under growing criticism as fiscally unsustainable and morally indefensible. Chronic overcrowding of prisons, a problem that epitomizes the destructive and unlawful core of mass incarceration, now afflicts the federal prison system and nearly half the states. Actual reforms, however, like President Obama’s recent grant of clemency to forty-six federal prisoners serving long drug sentences for non-violent conduct, or recent one-off sentencing reforms aimed at preventing imprisonment for minor drug or property crimes, are manifestly insufficient to end mass incarceration, or even the chronic overcrowding that represents its most degrading and destructive aspect. The …

Expanding Public Safety In The Era Of Black Lives Matter, Nicole D. Porter

University of Miami Law Review

Traditional public safety responses to crime involve interactions with the criminal justice system. However, recent killings by police of unarmed black men, women, and children have led to a national dialogue on the fundamental strategy of public safety. The narrative of “Black Lives Matter” offers a new framework for policymakers, activists, practitioners, and other stakeholders to think about a public safety strategy that is not solely defined by arrests and admissions to prison. This essay provides an overview of evidence-based approaches for public safety interventions that exist outside of law enforcement interactions.

Ready, Fire, Aim: How Universities Are Failing The Constitution In Sexual Assault Cases, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

This Article looks critically at the procedural protections American universities give students accused of sexual assault. It begins by situating these policies historically, providing background to Title IX and the different guidelines promulgated by the Department of Education. Next, it presents original research on the procedural protections provided by the fifty flagship state universities. In October 2014, university administrators were contacted and asked a series of questions about the rights afforded to students, including the standard of proof right to an adjudicatory hearing, right to confront and cross examine witnesses, right to counsel, right to silence, and right to appeal. …