Law Commons^™

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt

Benjamin L. Apt

A number of current theories attempt to explain the purpose and need for criminal punishment. All of them depend on some sort of normative basis in justifying why the state may penalize people found guilty of crimes. Yet each of these theories lacks an epistemological foundation; none of them explains how we can know what form punishments should take. The article analyses the epistemological gaps in the predominant theories of punishment: retributivism, including limited-retributivism; and consequentialism in its various versions, ranging from deterrence to the reparative theories such as restorative justice and rehabilitation. It demonstrates that the common putative epistemological …

One Small Problem With Administrative Driver’S License Suspension Laws: They Don’T Reduce Drunken Driving, Steve R. Darnell

Steve R Darnell

Only eight states continue to rely on the judicial system to suspend a drunken driver’s license instead of an administrative process. Federal agencies and special interest groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety press for Administrative License Suspension (ALS) laws arguing these laws reduce drunken driving. While some research supports this view, there is an equally and more compelling literature indicating ALS laws are not effective in reducing drunken driving. This study analyzed data from eight states that have adopted ALS laws to determine if the ALS laws reduced drunken driving. A …

Demon At The Back Door: Rise Of The Mexican Drug Cartels, Oliver T. Beatty

Oliver T Beatty

This article addresses the rise of the violent Mexican drug cartels and searches within the legislative and law enforcement toolbox on how to dethrone the epidemic of violence on the border. The Mexican drug cartels rose from the ashes and structural framework of the Colombian cocaine cartels which gave these new criminal empires their routes, connections, and ease at taking over Pablo Escobar’s monopoly on the drug trafficking game. In addressing the origins of the cartels this article explores the trajectory of cocaine from imported medical remedy to criminalized substance. Additionally this article explores how the Italian mafia was dismantled …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Crossing The Fault Line In Corporate Criminal Law, Amy Sepinwall

Amy J. Sepinwall

Why is it that so few bankers have been prosecuted and punished in the wake of the financial meltdown? Pundits are quick to point to inadequate funding for addressing financial crime or, more cynically, the revolving door between government regulatory agencies and Wall Street. But the ultimate answer may be at once more banal and more dispiriting, lying as it does at the very foundations of our criminal law.

The conception of responsibility underpinning much of our criminal law contemplates the individual in isolation from others. As a result, our criminal law has tremendous difficulty tracking culpability in organizational contexts. …

Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim

Andrew Chongseh Kim

Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …

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.

The Legitimacy Of Crimmigration Law, Juliet P. Stumpf

Juliet P Stumpf

Crimmigration law—the intersection of immigration and criminal law—with its emphasis on immigration enforcement, has been hailed as the lynchpin for successful political compromise on immigration reform. Yet crimmigration law’s unprecedented approach to interior immigration and criminal law enforcement threatens to undermine public belief in the fairness of immigration law. This Article uses pioneering social science research to explore people’s perceptions of the legitimacy of crimmigration law. According to Tom Tyler and other compliance scholars, perceptions about procedural justice—whether people perceive authorities as acting fairly—are often more important than a favorable outcome such as winning the case or avoiding arrest. Legal …

Holmes And The Common Law: A Jury's Duty, Matthew P. Cline

Matthew P Cline

The notion of a small group of peers whose responsibility it is to play a part in determining the outcome of a trial is central to the common conception of the American legal system. Memorialized in the Constitution of the United States as a fundamental right, and in the national consciousness as the proud, if begrudged, duty of all citizens, juries are often discussed, but perhaps not always understood. Whatever misunderstandings have come to be, certainly many of them sprang from the juxtaposition of jury and judge. Why do we have both? How are their responsibilities divided? Who truly decides …

Punishment And Rights, Benjamin L. Apt

Benjamin L. Apt

Prevalent theories of criminal punishment lack a rationale for the precise duration and nature of state-ordered criminal punishment. In practice, too, criminal penalization suffers from inadequate evidence of punitive efficacy. These deficiencies, in theory and in fact, would not be so grave were the state to enjoy unfettered power over the disposition of criminal penalties. However, in societies that recognize legal rights, criminal punishments must be consistent with rights. Efficacy, even where demonstrable, does not suffice as a legal justification for punishment. This article analyzes the source of rights and how they function as primary rules in a legal system. …

Costs Of Codification, Dru Stevenson

Dru Stevenson

Between the Civil War and World War II, every state and the federal government shifted toward codified versions of their statutes. Academia has so far ignored the systemic effects of this dramatic change. For example, the consensus view in the academic literature about rules and standards has been that precise rules present higher enactment costs for legislatures than would general standards, while vague standards present higher information costs for courts and citizens than do rules. Systematic codification – featuring hierarchical format and numbering, topical arrangement, and cross-references – inverts this relationship, lowering transaction costs for legislatures and increasing information costs …

Public Wrongs And The ‘Criminal Law’S Business’: When Victims Won’T Share, Michelle Madden Dempsey

Working Paper Series

Amongst the many valuable contributions that Professor Antony Duff has made to criminal law theory is his account of what it means for a wrong to be public in character. In this chapter, I sketch an alternative way of thinking about criminalization, one which attempts to remain true to the important insights that illuminate Duff’s account, while providing (it is hoped) a more satisfying explanation of cases involving victims who reject the criminal law’s intervention.

Why Our Justice System Convicts Innocent People And The Challenges Faced By Innocence Projects Trying To Exonerate Them, Steven A. Krieger

Steven A. Krieger

Despite the prominence and success of the over sixty innocence projects in the United States, there is almost no empirical literature discussing how these organizations operate, what resources or factors contribute to their success, and what challenges they must overcome. This article is a foundational step to fill this void. Following a brief introduction, Part I of the article surveys the reasons why innocent individuals get convicted, including: inaccuracy of eyewitnesses, perjured testimony, availability of DNA testing, accuracy of DNA testing and scientific evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense representation, ineffective capital representation, police misconduct: false confessions, and pretrial criminal procedure …

Presidential Authority And The War On Terror, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

Immediately after the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush claimed, among other powers, the power to launch preemptive wars on his own authority; the power to disregard the laws of war pertaining to occupied lands; the power to define the status and treatment of persons detained as “enemy combatants” in the war on terror; and the power to authorize the National Security Agency to undertake electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. With the exception of the power to launch a preemptive war on his own authority (for which he …

Son Of Sam Resurrected: Did Greedy Criminals Unwittingly Give New Life To The “Son Of Sam” Laws?, Arthur M. Ortegon

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Prosecutors: Factors To Aid Your Filing Decisions With Respect To Fatal Traffic Collisions, Kimberly Rebecca Bird

ExpressO

As you may know, on a fairly regular basis, prosecutors are faced with filing decisions with respect to fatal traffic collisions. Many of them, of course, do not involve criminal negligence and are not prosecuted as crimes. Sometimes, on the other hand, the circumstances are egregious and the decision to be made is whether to file a case as a vehicular manslaughter or as a murder, on an implied malice theory. There are a finite number of California Supreme Court and Court of Appeal cases (beginning with People v. Watson (1981) 30 Cal.3d 290) that have addressed the sufficiency of …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Off To Elba: The Legitimacy Of Sex Offender Residence And Employment Restrictions, Joseph L. Lester

ExpressO

Overborne by a mob mentality for justice, officials at every level of government are enacting laws that effectively exile convicted sex offenders from their midst with little contemplation as to the appropriateness or constitutionality of their actions. These laws fundamentally alter the liberties and freedom of convicted sex offenders to satisfy the ignorant fear of the masses. As a result, residence and employment restrictions which in theory are to protect society, in practice only exacerbate the perceived recidivism problem. When such laws are passed and the political process is broken, it is necessary for the judicial branch to step forward …

Conversational Standing: A New Approach To An Old Privacy Problem, Christopher M. Drake

ExpressO

American society has long considered certain conversations private amongst the participants in those conversations. In other words, when two or more people are conversing in a variety of settings and through a variety of media, there are times when all parties to the conversation can reasonably expect freedom from improper government intrusion, whether through direct participation or secret monitoring. This shared expectation of privacy has been slow to gain judicial recognition. Courts have indicated that the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution only protects certain elements of the conversation, such as where and how it takes place, but that …

The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, & Sovereign Power, Juliet P. Stumpf

ExpressO

This article provides a fresh theoretical perspective on the most important development in immigration law today: the convergence of immigration and criminal law. Although the connection between immigration and criminal law, or “crimmigration law,” is now the subject of national debate, scholarship in this area is in a fledgling state. This article begins to fill that void. It proposes a unifying theory – membership theory – for why these two areas of law recently have become so connected, and why that convergence is troubling. Membership theory restricts individual rights and privileges to those who are members of a social contract …

Jumping On The Bandwagon: How Canadian Lawyers Can & Should Get Involved In The Emerging Trend To Implement Therapeutic Jurisprudence Practices In Canadian Courts, Brooke Bloom

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder And Suicide? A Review Of International Evidence, Don B. Kates, Gary A. Mauser

ExpressO

The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments, firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular form of weaponry is irrelevant?

This article examines a broad range of international data that bear on two distinct but interrelated questions: first, whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing factor in murder and/or suicide, and second, whether the introduction of laws that restrict general access to …

When 2 Or 3 Come Together, Tracey L. Meares

ExpressO

This article investigates policies that are responsive to crime in disadvantaged, urban neighborhoods from a community-based context. The vehicle is an analysis of a community-wide prayer vigil held in Chicago in May of 1997. The vigil resulted from a collaboration between the Chicago Police Department and hundreds of (mostly) African-American churches on Chicago’s West Side. Strikingly, the local police district’s commander facilitated the vigil. We explain the sociological and political significance of this collaboration by drawing upon the “Chicago School” of urban sociology and demonstrating theoretically and empirically the potential for the collaboration, through the integration of key community institutions, …

Halbert V. Michigan: The Application Of The Douglas-Ross Dichotomy In Constitutionalizing Indigency In States’ Appellate Court Processes, Omari O. Jackson

ExpressO

This note centers on a discussion of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Halbert v. Michigan case. This case addressed the issue of whether an indigent defendant is entitled to assistance of counsel by the state to file a leave for appeal. The Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that an indigent defendant is entitled to assistance of counsel when an appeal is available by leave of the court. Prior decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court have addressed the issue of assistance of counsel during the trial and appellate stage of litigation. This note will present a historical …

Refugee Security And The Organizational Logic Of Legal Mandates, Mariano-Florentino Cuellar

ExpressO

While the refugee protection system is one of international law’s most recognizable features, it routinely places massive numbers of refugees in camps in the developing world, where they face chronic threats to their physical security from crime and disorder, coercion, and military attacks. Yet key actors responsible for refugee protection, including host states, advanced industrialized countries, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), generally have failed to prioritize refugee security. This article asks: (1) Why? (2) What have been the consequences? (3) And what do these answers reveal about how organizations carry out legal mandates in complicated political …

Necessity, Torture And Existential Politics, Christopher Kutz

ExpressO

This paper takes up the political theory sketched by the Office of Legal Counsel memorandum of August 1, 2002. That memorandum proposed a theory of executive emergency powers, including the power to use torturous interrogation techniques otherwise barred by domestic and international law. According to the memorandum, both the power to deploy torture and other forms of coercive interrogation, and the general freedom of the executive to direct policy in times of war, are grounded in a justification of necessity. The central aim of my paper is to explore the force and limits of necessity claims in moral and political …

Quantifying Reasonable Doubt: A Proposed Solution To An Equal Protection Problem, Harry D. Saunders

ExpressO

In this article we present the case that the Reasonable Doubt standard is in urgent need of repair. Our research reveals that a previously-recognized phenomenon arising from vagueness of the standard is more consequential than thus far realized and creates a serious equal protection problem. We show that the only legally feasible solution to this problem is to quantify the definition of the standard. While others have examined quantified standards, we make a direct case for it and overcome previous objections to it by offering a way to make it practical and workable.

The solution we envision will require new …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.