Law Commons^™

Mass Incarceration In America: Where's The Church?, Michael J. Wing

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Due to mass incarceration, correctional facilities in America are dealing with unprecedented levels of overcrowding, staff shortages, violence, suicide, and widespread mental illness among inmates. Budget cuts and the corresponding loss of vocational, educational, and treatment programs have exacerbated such problems. Mass incarceration and its deleterious consequences are challenging the very soul of America, and the church has largely stood by and watched this tragic situation unfold over the last fifty years. This research project has explored some of the barriers that have precluded churches from taking a more intentional, active, and impactful role in doing something about the national …

Bureaucratic Overreach And The Role Of The Courts In Protecting Representative Democracy, Katie Cassady

Liberty University Journal of Statesmanship & Public Policy

The United States bureaucracy began as only four departments and has expanded to address nearly every issue of public life. While these bureaucratic agencies are ostensibly under congressional oversight and the supervision of the President as part of the executive branch, they consistently usurp their discretionary authority and bypass the Founding Fathers’ design of balancing legislative power in a bicameral Congress.

The Supreme Court holds an indispensable role in mitigating the overreach of executive agencies, yet the courts’ inability to hold bureaucrats accountable has diluted voters’ voices. Since the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron, U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense …

Res Communis Omnium V. Res Nullius In U.S. Space Mining Law & Policy: A Multilevel Theoretical Analysis Of U.S. Public Policy On Space Minerals Mining Under Title Iv, §51301- §403, U.S. 2015 Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act (Public Law 114-90) & Its Implications For International Space Law Under Articles I & Ii, 1967 Outer Space Treaty, Samuel Chuks Japhets

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The outer space territory and celestial bodies are unfathomably rich in strategic mineral resources worth trillions of dollars such as water ice, helium-3, platinum, iron, cobalt, and ammonia. These space resources, distinct from their space territorial and celestial bodies loci, need to be located, characterized, captured, processed, concentrated, and transported to points of use in-situ or on Earth by capable state and private space investors, stakeholders, or national agencies, for private benefits. Investors in this embryonic space mining industry need legal certainty and predictability under unambiguous legal and policy frameworks that guarantee property interests over extracted minerals. The Problem is …

Mitigating School Violence Through The Lens Of School Officials In Southern States, Faith Derrick

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the threats of school violence to children and school personnel employed in the South Central and Southeastern part of the United States and to identify strategies to mitigate these threats. The theory that guided this study was Clarke’s (2019) Situational Crime Prevention as it aims to improve the understanding of violence and the impact of potential strategies for the prevention of violence. Data for the thematic analysis were obtained directly from school personnel. The information from the findings could aid in understanding the process of threat assessment to determine if …

“Always Said To Be Of Indian Extraction”: Native/African American Freedom Suits In Virginia 1773-1853, Cress Ann Posten

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Freedom suits of enslaved people in Virginia who claimed liberty based upon matrilineal descent from a Native American woman provide a multi-dimensional lens into social, cultural, and legal aspects of colonial and antebellum considerations of race, kinship, and self-determination. Within records of depositions are detailed transcriptions of questions posed to neighbors, family members, acquaintances of enslavers, and slaveowners themselves. Answers reveal a nuanced and complicated set of opinions concerning who had a right to freedom. Local memory banks overflowed with detailed descriptions of the plaintiff and his or her native ancestress, including skin color, hair texture, and manners. Within isolated …

From Lau To Now: A Phenomenological Study Of The Experiences Of Secondary Educators With Monolingual Driven Language Laws, Brooke Elizabeth Boutwell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the influence of monolingually biased federal language policies on English language learners and secondary educators in a middle school in the Oceana School District. The theory guiding this study was Richard Ruiz’s Orientations in Language Planning as it pertains to ideology behind language policy. The transcendental phenomenological study was conducted in the Oceana School district at Waves Middle School. Participants included seven middle school content teachers, a school administrator, and two English as a second language specialists. All participants were chosen based on the criteria of having worked in the Oceana …

Dehumanization And Medical Abuse: Understanding Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy And Physician Liability, Michelle Deutsch

Senior Honors Theses

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is a relatively rare psychiatric disorder and form of child abuse wherein a caretaker will either purposefully induce real symptoms to make their child appear gravely sick or fabricate false medical symptoms, even in the absence of external rewards. It remains difficult to diagnose perpetrators of MSBP because the caretaker’s extreme concern for their child’s supposed ailments is rationalized as caring and devoted. However, the victim may suffer grievous physical and psychological damage, including death. Thus, it is pivotal that medical professionals and forensic evaluators …

Recidivism Among Rehabilitated Offenders With Mental Illness: A Quantitative Study, Robert Olando Walker

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Offenders with severe mental illness (SMI) found a place within the criminal justice system (CJS) with its most crucial objectives including the reduction of recidivism among discharged offenders and their safe reintegration into a free community as rehabilitated offenders. Beyond the monetary costs of recidivism, the continued potential for criminality among offenders with mental illness (OMI) added enormous costs to all law-abiding citizens and their respective communities. However, no study was found in the literature that attempted to investigate the relationship between recidivism and the successful rehabilitation of patients with mental illness. Those found involved offenders without mental illness and …

The Impact Of Juvenile Transfer Laws, Kerina Lynn Ibarra

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This study will examine the relationship between juvenile transfer laws, certified juveniles, the criminal justice system, and the potential collateral consequences juveniles face when subjected to juvenile transfer laws. To obtain a deeper understanding of the impact of juvenile transfer laws and their potential collateral consequences, a qualitative study will be conducted utilizing several methods of data collection to include interviews; observations; and textual analysis of adult 1, adult 2, and criminal justice practitioners, to include, jail administrator, corrections officer, police, probation and parole officer, prosecuting attorney, and DOC staff. In the interview process, information will be gathered to contribute …

What If Critical Race Theory Were Just A Legal Theory? A Christian Critique, Timon Cline, Neil Shenvi

Liberty University Law Review

The national debate over Critical Race Theory (CRT) continues to grow and deepen. Some Christians seemingly find CRT legitimate, useful, and nonthreatening to Christian theological commitments. This view is incorrect. CRT is in fundamental conflict with Christianity due to its misguided perspectives on law, morality, truth, and justice. Although CRT is more than “just a legal theory,” this article examines CRT’s legal origins and outlook, showing the inevitable tension between its claims and a Christian understanding of reality. This article also calls attention to several policy proposals suggested by CRT scholars to demonstrate how they are incompatible with Christian views …

Racial Reconciliation: A Biblical Framework, Rodney D. Chrisman

Liberty University Law Review

American society is greatly polarized and divided on many issues, including issues relative to racial reconciliation. Attempts at progress in this area are impeded by the United States’s historical backdrop of slavery, the statesponsored oppression of Jim Crow laws, and personal racism, among other complications. Even the American church tolerated and justified these racial divides. Modern discussions are plagued by the widespread misuse of important terms as well as disagreements on what racial reconciliation looks like and how to achieve it. Starting from the belief that God has spoken authoritatively on all issues, this article attempts to provide a biblical …

Racial-Ethnic Harm And Healing: Comparative National Mechanisms For Social Remorse And Repair, R Drew Smith

Liberty University Law Review

Today a sharp divide exists between Americans. Although they agree that racial harm occurred in this country’s history, they disagree about the extent of harm to be acknowledged and the means of repair to achieve justice and social healing. The United States’ history of (attempted) racial reconciliation includes initiatives by white Christians since the 1950s that formally acknowledged the sin of racism but mostly lacked corresponding political activism. The tensions and divergences between attitudinal and structural approaches to interracial cooperation that existed a half-century ago persist today. This article seeks to provide a broader, global perspective to the United States’ …

Reimagining Resistance: The Voting Rights Act's Immediate Resistance, Julian Maxwell Hayter

Liberty University Law Review

This piece situates the current fight over voting rights and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into historical context. More specifically, Hayter argues that current contention over minority voting dates to 1965 itself. Resistance to the Voting Rights act is not only older than many people know, but the continuity of that resistance also forces us to question telling the story of the American Civil Rights Movement as a triumph narrative.

The Scope Of The Prison Mailbox Rule, Caitlyn B. Switzer

Liberty University Law Review

Federal courts are filled with situations where an inmate might rely on the prison mail system to mail a document to the court. However, the prison mail system is notoriously unreliable. The prison mailbox rule was formed to provide a fair opportunity for inmates to personally mail a filing to the court before the expiration of the legally permitted time to file.

Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(c) codifies the prison mailbox rule. It provides that an inmate’s appeal is considered filed with the clerk when the inmate delivers the filing to prison mail authorities. Prior to the Supreme Court’s …

The Right To The Copy: A Case For Applying Physical Takings Protection To Intellectual Property, Samuel S. Johnson

Liberty University Law Review

Perhaps the only exception to the rule that every rule has its exceptions is the law of unintended consequences. An example may be found in the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Allen v. Cooper. Seeking to protect the rights of states against the federal judiciary, the Court ruled that states are immune from suit in federal court for copyright infringement. As a consequence, the only courts with jurisdiction over copyright infringement cases were summarily closed to copyright owners who found themselves the victims of state piracy of their works.

Copyright owners thus find themselves in a materially weakened position relative …

A Premier Paradigm Shift: The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On U.S. Intellectual Property Laws, Dustin J. Corbett

Liberty University Law Review

Intellectual Property (IP) rights in the United States are constitutionally prescribed for the express purpose of encouraging human innovation. The patent and copyright systems fulfill this purpose by incentivizing authors and inventors to disclose their efforts to the public, which disseminates the knowledge to the public and thereby works to maximize the creative potential of humanity. In turn, human creativity has sparked successive eras of technological and industrial revolution, altering every aspect of human experience and redefining our everyday experiences and our vision of the future. However, the old guard of established industry—whose market is most susceptible to displacement by …

Parental Vaccine Refusal As A Fundamental Right: Why Jacobson V. Massachusetts Cannot Justify Rational Basis Review For Compulsory Vaccine Mandates Applied To Minor Children, Ethan Carlson

Liberty University Law Review

This Comment discusses the standard of review for compulsory vaccine mandates for minor children under the Fourteenth Amendment. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Court deferred to the wisdom of the legislature when the Board of Health in Cambridge, Massachusetts, created a compulsory vaccine mandate for every adult in Cambridge. Although the Court did not create the rational basis test in 1905, subsequent Supreme Court cases increasingly deferred to the state police and state parens patriae powers in justifying compulsory vaccine mandates for both children and adults. Both state and federal court opinions following Supreme Court precedent have upheld vaccine mandates …

Greened Out: Improving Virginia's Recreational Marijuana Legislation, M Logan Blake

Liberty University Law Review

With the passage of the Cannabis Control Act in 2021, Virginia became the first southern state to legalize recreational marijuana. However, the operative language of the new possession statute, “a person 21 years of age or older may lawfully possess on his person or in any public place not more than one ounce of marijuana,” coupled with the lawful ability to grow four marijuana plants in residences, created interpretational issues. What would happen to a lawful home-grower whose marijuana plants produced more than one ounce? The General Assembly fixed this problem in a 2022 budget amendment that created a blanket …

Shuttering The New Star Chamber: Toward A Populist Strategy Against Criminal Equity In The Family Court, David N. Heleniak

Liberty University Law Review

Representing a return to criminal equity, the American domestic violence restraining order system evokes the Anglo-American cultural memory of the Star Chamber. Turkey’s recent withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe’s counterpart to the United States’ Violence Against Women Act, is part of a larger populist opposition to “gender ideology” that is unlikely to take hold in the United States. Hopefully, however, it will inspire a populist movement in the United States that draws upon a commitment to traditional notions of due process and the preservation of parent–child relationships to put an end to at least some of …

Challenges Law Enforcement Faces In Utilizing Community Policing To Counter Violent Extremism, Steven Brett Beams

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

There has been a rise in violent extremist attacks throughout America since the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001. However, law enforcement has been challenged in developing means and methods to combat the rise in terrorist activities. Using and enhancing community policing strategies have shown promising results in identifying terroristic individuals. A literature review shows that community policing strategies have been effective in combating and reducing violence and may be effective in mitigating terrorist activities. Community policing can be a necessary means for identifying radical individuals involved in terrorist activities. This research proposes to discover an effective and …

Strengthening Community Trust: A Qualitative Exploration Of College-Aged African American Males' Perceptions Of And Experiences With The Police, Craig Vernon Vanclief

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The researcher of this phenomenological qualitative multiple case study aimed to examine how community trust between the police and the community they serve is strengthened based on the perspectives of college-aged African American males. The following research questions that guided this study included what do college-aged African American males see as the most significant opportunities to strengthen the relationship between the police and the community they serve? What do college-aged African American males believe are the most essential steps law enforcement can take to increase community trust and confidence in the police? How can law enforcement foster more community engagement …

The Departure From The Original Intent Of The 14th Amendment, Johnny B. Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

No abstract provided.

Ordered Liberty: The Guardian Of Justice, Bessie Blackburn, Mary Prentice, Colton Grellier

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

No abstract provided.

Prostitution And Pornography: Reforming A Perspective, Mayce Combs

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

Happiness is a subjective emotion that can quickly be twisted by the depravity of humanity’s sinful nature. Human trafficking deprives an individual’s natural right to life, liberty, and their pursuit to happiness. Of the two divisions of human trafficking, sex trafficking, especially involving children, is the most despicable and most evolved. The United States and further the state of Virginia is a crucial player in combating human trafficking. While there are currently many successful tactics state governments and nonprofit groups are utilizing in order eliminate human trafficking there are further more intense strategies the Virginia State Government should implement. One …

Eugenics Not Eradication: How People With Disabilities Have Lost The Right To Life, Ava Standish

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

Disability-selective abortion stems from a eugenical philosophy not a hope of eradication. Disabilities cannot be eradicated because they are not diseases. Eugenics seeks to purify society from those who are considered “inferior” and to encourage the rate of births considered “superior.” Eugenics continues today through selective abortion of children with disabilities. These children deserve the right to life guaranteed by natural rights, human rights, and the laws of the United States. Children with disabilities, particularly Down Syndrome, have lost this right to life in the United States and abroad. In the United States, 67% of children with Down Syndrome are …

Bureaucratic Overreach And The Role Of The Courts In Protecting Representative Democracy, Katie Cassady

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

Although only four departments at the United States’ founding, the American bureaucracy has expanded to address nearly every issue of public life. While these agencies are ostensibly under congressional oversight through monetary allowance and the supervision of the President as part of the executive branch, they consistently usurp their discretionary authority and bypass the Founders’ design of legislative power vested solely in a bicameral legislature.

The Supreme Court holds an indispensable role in mitigating the overreach of bureaucratic agencies. However, despite their obligation to protect the rights of the American people, the courts’ inability to hold bureaucrats accountable has diluted …

Limitation For Liberty, Riley Banker

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

This paper examines how the foundational principals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are under attack in our nation today and demonstrates why protecting them through Federalism is so important.

Trade, Globalism, And The American System, Johnny B. Davis

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

No abstract provided.

Christian Influence On Roman Natural Law In The Corpus Juris Civilis, Bryce Tenberg

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

Few civilizations have influenced the contemporary world more than the Romans, and the same can be said regarding the field of law. Today, legal foundations throughout the West are built upon the Roman legal system, with the Code of Justinian—also known as the Corpus Juris Civilis—being arguably the most influential. This work compiled and simplified centuries of Roman law to ensure a more efficient jurisprudence, and due to its survival, it would form the foundation of the modern jurisprudence. However, at the same time this work was written, the empire had changed significantly with the adoption of Christianity. This …

Drug Ideologies Of The United States, Macy Montgomery

Helm's School of Government Conference - American Revival: Citizenship & Virtue

The United States has been increasingly creating lenient drug policies. Seventeen states and Washington, the District of Columbia, legalized marijuana, and Oregon decriminalized certain drugs, including methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine. The medical community has proven that drugs, including marijuana, have myriad adverse health side effects. This leads to two questions: Why does the United States government continue to create lenient drug policies, and what reasons do citizens give for legalizing drugs when the medical community has proven them harmful? The paper hypothesizes that the disadvantages of drug legalization outweigh its benefits because of the numerous harms it causes, such as …