Law Commons^™

College Athletes As Defendants In Rape Trials: The Impact On Legal Decision-Making, Sophia Salyers

Lewis Honors College Thesis Collection

The issue of rape continues to be of concern in the United States. Rape is defined as any unwanted or forcible penetration without consent (United States Department of Justice, 2017). More specifically, rape can include sexual violence tactics such as force, threats, manipulation, or coercion (National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2022). The magnitude of the issue of rape has been demonstrated, with adult rape data showing that on average, 319,950 people over the age of 12 were raped or sexually assaulted in the United States annually in 2020 (Morgan, 2021). Furthermore, every sixty-eight seconds an American is raped (Morgan). Finally, …

Toxic Public Goods, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Everybody loves public goods. After all, they are a perpetual utility machine. Obviously, we want as many of them as possible. But what if the consumption of a public good actually decreases net social welfare? I refer to this kind of public good as a "toxic public good." In this essay, I discuss three kinds of potential toxic public goods: trolling, pornography, and ideology, and I reflect on how we might make the production of toxic public goods more efficient.

Grounding Suicide Terrorism In Death Anxiety And Consumer Capitalism, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article examines an influential theory on suicide attacker motivations, the Significance Quest Theory, and suggests that this death anxiety approach can be improved by shifting its focus toward the related, but more comprehensive, Terror Management Theory. The theoretical productivity of this realignment is tested by examining the relationship between suicide attacks and one of the variables thought to trigger the underlying anxieties: the local pressures from global consumer capitalism. After describing the relationship between death anxiety and suicide terrorism generally, this article concludes by applying these insights to the ethnographic context of Egypt.

Limits Of The Rule Of Law: Negotiating Afghan “Traditional” Law In The International Civil Trials In The Czech Republic, Tomas Ledvinka, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Drawing on ethnographic research of judicial cases in the Czech Republic which involve the law in migrants' countries of origin, this Article outlines how multiple strategies handle encounters with the legal-cultural differences of Afghanistan in order to neutralize what may be called the “alterity” of law. The Article suggests that far from being analytical tools, concepts such as “context,” “culture,” and “customary” are strategically used by courts to neutralize unsettling aspects of foreign Afghan legalities. Further, it applies Leopold Pospíšil´s ethnological concept of legal authority as a vehicle for reinterpreting the contextual differentiation of Afghan “traditional” law as an alternative …

From 'Wonderful Grandeur' To 'Awful Things': What The Antiquitiesact And National Monuments Reveal About The Statue Statutes And Confederate Monuments, Zachary A. Bray

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

It may be easy, at least for some people who do not live near Confederate monuments in public spaces, to assume that these monuments represent little more than links to a shameful and long-ago past. From this assumption one might then view these monuments as a sort of last stand; the atavistic echo of a country that was, but is no longer, cemented into the present by their monumental form though ultimately doomed to erode in the undefined future. But, unpleasant though it may be to consider or admit, the truth is that many remaining Confederate monuments embody aspects of …

Outlaws, Pirates, Judges: Judicial Activism As An Expression Of Antiauthoritarianism In Anglo-American Culture, Beau Steenken

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article will argue that the rejection of what scholars otherwise

view as controlling legal authority lies at the heart of judicial activism.

Furthermore, it will argue that judicial activism itself channels the

antiauthoritarian current in American culture (and in English culture

predating its importation to America). Part II will examine the extensive

scholarly writings already existing on judicial activism in order to identify

common themes and to explore to what extent scholars have arrived at a

consensus definition of judicial activism. Part III will then show that

judicial activism may better be understood within the context of law as …

Monumental Questions And How We Honor Them, Melynda J. Price J.D., Ph.D.

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

We are in another moment where who and how we memorialize is being reconsidered in communities small and large. My colleague, Zachary Bray, and I proposed this symposium to the Kentucky Law Journal because the topic reflected our shared interests in the debate over memorials and which historical narrative should triumph in the public square. We arrive at the question from different intellectual paths, but the common concern is over when and how stakeholders can and will revise that narrative through the regulation of monuments. These revisions often come in the form of calls for, it not outright, removal outhouse …

Too Much, Too Soon? Obergefell As Applied Equality Practice, James M. Donovan, Alyssa Oakley Milby

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Abrupt cultural change inevitably arouses anxieties, and often those fears provoke a retrograde reaction seeking to preserve the familiar status quo. When the world by which we define ourselves undergoes unexpected transitions, especially in directions that contradict the comfortable taken-for-granted assumptions that had been earlier enjoyed, we feel threatened. One needs only recall how the new standards of racial equality announced in Brown I and Brown II elicited virulent protests as some districts chose to shutter all public schools rather than have them become racially integrated. In the shadow of such traumas, it may seem an obvious lesson that progress …

Johnny Appleseed: Citizenship Transmission Laws And A White Heteropatriarchal Property Right In Philandering, Sexual Exploitation, And Rape (The Whp) Or Johnny And The Whp, Blanche Cook

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Title 8, United States Code, Section 1409-one of this country's

citizenship transmission laws-creates a white heteropatriarchal property right

in philandering, sexual exploitation, and rape (the "WHP"). Section 1409

governs the transmission of citizenship from United States citizens to their

children, where the child is born abroad, outside of marriage, and one parent is a

citizen and the other is not. Section 1409, however, draws a distinct gender

distinction between women and men: An unwed female American citizen who

births a child outside the United States, fathered by a foreign man, automatically

transmits citizenship to her child. An unwed male American …

"It's Your #!": A Legal History Of The Bacardi Cocktail, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The Bacardi cocktail was the Cosmopolitan of the Jazz Age: a sweet and sour tipple with an attractive rosy hue and a deceptively alcoholic punch. Created in about 1913, and named after Bacardi rum, it soon became one of the most popular cocktails in America. Prohibition only increased its popularity, as wealthy Americans vacationing in Cuba enjoyed Bacardi cocktails and demanded them at speakeasies and at home. Of course, every good speakeasy offered white rum (or a passable facsimile thereof) and called it “bacardi” no matter who made it. After Repeal, the popularity of the Bacardi cocktail continued to rise …

The Ballad Of Harry James Tompkins, Brian L. Frye

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

At about 2:30 a.m. on Friday, July 27, 1934, William Colwell of Hughestown, Pennsylvania was awakened by two young men banging on his front door. When he went downstairs, they told him that someone had been run over by a train. Colwell looked out his side window. In the moonlight, he saw someone lying on the ground near the railroad tracks. He went back upstairs and told his wife that there had been an accident. She told him “not to go out, that them fellows was crazy,” but he dressed and went out to help anyway. Colwell's house was at …

The Transparency Tax, Andrew Keane Woods

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Transparency is critical to good governance, but it also imposes significant governance costs. Beyond a certain point, excess transparency acts as a kind of tax on the legal system. Others have noted the burdens of maximalist transparency policies on both budgets and regulatory efficiency, but they have largely ignored the deeper cost that transparency imposes it constrains one’s ability to support the law while telling a self-serving story about what that support means.

In order to understand this tax, this Article develops a taxonomy of transparency types. Typically, transparency means something like openness. But openness about what – the law’s …

Need For Non-Discrimination Laws Protecting Lgbt People In Kentucky, Ellen Riggle

Center for Equality and Social Justice Position Papers

Non-discrimination laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity provide protections for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT). Further, inclusive non-discrimination laws signal a commitment to equality and fairness in the treatment of all individuals. However, statewide nondiscrimination laws in Kentucky do not include protections against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This lack of protection creates risks for the unfair treatment of LGBT people in Kentucky.

Immigrants Benefit The Community And Economy, Jenny Minier

Center for Equality and Social Justice Position Papers

Immigration has historically been a defining characteristic of the United States, and it remains one of the country’s most significant economic advantages. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) was implemented by President Obama to grant temporary legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children, as long as they are enrolled in school or working. Given President Trump’s recent comments about ending the DACA program, Congress must work on a policy solution that will allow the nearly 800,000 “Dreamers” currently enrolled in DACA to remain legally in the U.S. There are both moral and economic reasons …

We Know Better: Shed Image Of Racist, Bigoted Community, Christia Spears Brown

Center for Equality and Social Justice Position Papers

Following Mayor Jim Gray’s announcement about relocating the Confederate statues at Cheapside, Lexington received the attention of national news organizations, and the attention of several racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic hate groups.

The Law Of Nonmarriage, Albertina Antognini

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The meaning of marriage, and how it regulates intimate relationships, has been at the forefront of recent scholarly and public debates. Yet despite the attention paid to marriage—especially in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges—a record number of people are not marrying. Legal scholarship has mostly neglected how the law regulates these nonmarital relationships. This Article begins to fill the gap. It does so by examining how courts distribute property at the end of a relationship that was nonmarital at some point. This inquiry provides a descriptive account to a poorly understood and largely under-theorized area of the law. …

Notes From The Underground (Sometimes Aboveground, Too), Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

When I was invited by Savannah Law Review to be a panelist at The Walking Dead Colloquium at Savannah Law School, I thought . . . that’s no crazier than the Bob Dylan and the Law Symposium. I was compelled to accept.

Advancing The Study Of Violence Against Women: Evolving Research Agendas Into Science, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Decades of research produced by multiple disciplines has documented withering rates of violence against women in the United States and around the globe. To further an understanding of gendered violence, a field of research has developed, but recent critiques have highlighted weaknesses that inhibit a full scientific exploration of these crimes and their impacts. This review extends beyond prior reviews to explore the field’s unique challenges, its community of scientists, and the state of its written knowledge. The review argues for moving beyond “research agendas” and proposes creation of a transdisciplinary science for the field of study of violence against …

Advancing The Study Of Violence Against Women: Response To Commentaries And Next Steps, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

The Denial Of Emergency Protection: Factors Associated With Court Decision Making, Carol E. Jordan, Adam J. Pritchard, Pamela Wilcox, Danielle Duckett-Pritchard

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Despite the importance of civil orders of protection as a legal resource for victims of intimate partner violence, research is limited in this area, and most studies focus on the process following a court’s initial issuance of an emergency order. The purpose of this study is to address a major gap in the literature by examining cases where victims of intimate partner violence are denied access to temporary orders of protection. The study sample included a review of 2,205 petitions that had been denied by a Kentucky court during the 2003 fiscal year. The study offers important insights into the …

Delimiting The Culture Defense, James M. Donovan, John Stuart Garth

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This essay builds upon the arguments of Alison Dundes Renteln in her influential book, The Cultural Defense (2004), in which she argues persuasively for a uniformly recognized culture defense in certain litigations. Critiquing some of her details, we recast her three-prong culture defense test to more effectively balance the competing interests of minority culture members to have their ways of life taken seriously by the courts, and of members of the dominant tradition who wish to preserve the rule of law with its necessary perception as treating all parties equally. The offered formulation now includes the following five elements:

1. …

A Case-Control Study Of Farming And Prostate Cancer In African-American And Caucasian Men, Tamra E. Meyer, Ann L. Coker, Maureen Sanderson, Elaine Symanski

CRVAW Faculty Journal Articles

Objective: To determine the risk of prostate cancer associated with farming by duration, recency and specific activities among African-Americans and Caucasians.

Methods: This population-based case–control study had information on farming-related activities for 405 incident prostate cancer cases and 392 controls matched for age, race and region in South Carolina, USA, from 1999 to 2001. Cases with histologically confirmed, primary invasive prostate cancer who were aged between 65 and 79 years were ascertained through the South Carolina Central Cancer Registry. Appropriately matched controls were identified from the Health Care Financing Administration Medicare Beneficiary File. Data were collected using computer-assisted telephone interviewing, …

Criminal Prosecution And Civil Remedies For Victims Of Sexual Offenses: Amendment Of The Rape Shield Law, Carol E. Jordan, Elizabeth S. Hughes, Mary Jo Gleason

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

In 2003, the Kentucky Supreme Court adopted the amended KRS 412, effectively making the language of KRE 412 consistent with the analogous Federal Rule of Evidence 412. Now, as in federal court, the provisions of the Rape Shield Law apply in both criminal and civil cases to govern when and how evidence of a victim's alleged sexual behavior or sexual predisposition may be introduced. The article describes the intent of the original Rape Shield Law and the implications of its amended version in both civil and criminal cases.

Toward A National Research Agenda On Violence Against Women: Continuing The Dialogue On Research And Practice [Part Two], Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

Intimate Partner Violence And The Justice System: An Examination Of The Interface, Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Women entering the court system face a challenging experience, in part, because a courtroom can be an intimidating and difficult place for any person, and in part because women victimized by crimes in which the offender is known to them face distinctive difficulties when they seek the court’s remedies. The interface is also made more challenging for women as the literature offers disparate findings as to the efficacy of criminal justice responses and civil remedies. This article briefly explores the unique characteristics of intimate partner violence cases that influence the interface of these victims with the court system.Areviewis provided of …

Toward A National Research Agenda On Violence Against Women: Continuing The Dialogue On Research And Practice [Part One], Carol E. Jordan

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

No abstract provided.

Stalking: Cultural, Clinical, And Legal Considerations, Carol E. Jordan, Karen Quinn, Bradley O. Jordan, Celia R. Daileader

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

Crimes of violence against women are unique in their treatment by our culture and our system of legal justice. Both culturally and statutorily, victims of crimes which have historically been perpetrated against women, such as rape, domestic violence, and stalking have received significant focus. This article highlights cultural considerations and provides a statutory and case law analysis.

Capital Punishment As Human Sacrifice: A Societal Ritual As Depicted In George Eliot's Adam Bede, Roberta M. Harding

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The purpose of this article is to identify, describe, and analyze the historic and contemporary connection between the practices of capital punishment and human sacrifice. After describing how human sacrifice constitutes an integral component of capital punishment, it will be argued that the institutionalization of this antiquated barbaric ritual, vis-a-vis the use of capital punishment, renders the present use of the death penalty in the United States incompatible with "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society"; and that consequently, this facet of capital punishment renders the penalty at odds with the Eighth Amendment's prohibition …

Violence In College Students' Dating Relationships, Carol K. Sigelman, Carol E. Jordan-Berry, Katharine A. Wiles

Office for Policy Studies on Violence Against Women Publications

In a survey of 504 college students examining predictors of violence in heterosexual relationships, over half of both men and women had committed at least one physically violent act. Modest associations between physical violence and sexual aggression were uncovered. In a series of discriminant analyses, men who abused their partners were not readily distinguished from men who did not, but tended to by young, low in family income, traditional in attitudes toward women, abused as children, currently living with a women, and from Appalachian areas.