Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

PDF

Criminal Law

Criminal justice

Seattle University School of Law

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Lessons From Batson In A Comparative Criminal Context: How Implicit Racial Biases Remain Unaddressed In Canadian Jury Section, Brittney Adams May 2019

Lessons From Batson In A Comparative Criminal Context: How Implicit Racial Biases Remain Unaddressed In Canadian Jury Section, Brittney Adams

American Indian Law Journal

This Article highlights how Batson challenges may be instructive for addressing racial biases in jury selection in Canada and draws on the murder of Colten Boushie as an illustration of how the current system has failed to hold white defendants accountable in criminal cases involving Aboriginal victims. While far from perfect, peremptory Batson challenges in the United States serve as a nod to the ongoing issue of racial bias in jury selection in the United States. Canadian jury selection contains no similar challenges, which has too often resulted in all-white or mostly-white juries failing to hold white defendants accountable for …


Analyzing Stops, Citations, And Searches In Washington And Beyond, Mario L. Barnes, Robert S. Chang Apr 2011

Analyzing Stops, Citations, And Searches In Washington And Beyond, Mario L. Barnes, Robert S. Chang

Seattle University Law Review

Racial disproportionality in the criminal justice system is a fact. But the fact of racial disproportionality is the beginning and not the end of the conversation. The fact that blacks are overrepresented in stop, arrest, charge, pretrial detention, conviction, and incarceration statistics demonstrates only correlation and not causation. A number of commentators caution that disproportionality and the overrepresentation of blacks, Native-Americans, and Hispanics in Washington State’s prisons do not prove racial discrimination. Further, the fact of disproportionality at each stage of criminal justice processing does not prove that racial discrimination occurs at each particular stage. For example, the observed disproportionality …


O.P.P.: How "Occupy's" Race-Based Privilege May Improve Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence For All, Lenese C. Herbert Apr 2011

O.P.P.: How "Occupy's" Race-Based Privilege May Improve Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence For All, Lenese C. Herbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article submits that Occupy’s race problem could, ironically, prove to be a solution if protesters grow more serious about exposing the injury of political subordination and systems of privilege that adhere to the criminal justice system. Privilege is a “systemic conferral of benefit and advantage [as a result of] affiliation, conscious or not and chosen or not, to the dominant side of a power system.” Accordingly, now that police mistreatment affects them personally, Occupy may finally help kill a fictitious Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that ignores oppression through improper policing based on racial stigma. Occupy may also help usher in …


Mitigation Evidence And Capital Cases In Washington: Proposals For Change, Mary Pat Treuthart, Anne Branstad, Matthew Kite Jan 2002

Mitigation Evidence And Capital Cases In Washington: Proposals For Change, Mary Pat Treuthart, Anne Branstad, Matthew Kite

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this article examines the United States Supreme Court's recognition of the importance of mitigation evidence in capital cases. Part III then focuses on the role of mitigation evidence in Washington's death penalty scheme. The following section, Part IV, addresses the public policy implications when mitigation evidence is not presented. Finally, Part V proposes changes to the current sentencing procedure in Washington involving capital crimes.