Law Commons^™

Mexico's Crisis: When There's A Will, There's A Way, Melanie M. Reid

Melanie M. Reid

The United States under the Obama administration is committed to many of the tools being advocated in Mexican President Felipe Calderón’s holistic approach to combat drug trafficking. This Article explores the United States’ Merida Initiative policy and critiques its effectiveness. The Beyond Merida Initiative announced in 2010 revamped the prior 2007 initiatives, and provided more emphasis on additional training rather than equipment or direct financial aid to Mexico. Neither initiative corrects problems endemic to Mexico which limits the possibility of success. Corruption, anti-American resentment, and a drastically different legal system in Mexico hinder our efforts to become an effective ally …

Repudiating The Narrowing Rule In Capital Sentencing, Scott W. Howe

Scott W. Howe

This Article proposes a modest reform of Eighth Amendment law governing capital sentencing to spur major reform in the understanding of the function of the doctrine. The article urges that the Supreme Court should renounce a largely empty mandate known as the “narrowing” rule and the rhetoric of equality that has accompanied it. By doing so, the Court could speak more truthfully about the important but more limited function that its capital-sentencing doctrine actually pursues, which is to ensure that no person receives the death penalty who does not deserve it. The Court could also speak more candidly than it …

Criminal Sentencing - The Geographical Lottery, David Field

David Field

'POSITION, POSITION, POSITION' It is one of the Holy Grails of our criminal law that: 'Where the facts and circumstances of crimes and the subjective factors of those who commit them are the same, arguably equal justice requires that there be an identity of, and not different, outcomes in the punishment that they receive.' This time-honoured axiom of 'parity in sentencing' is, however, under threat from the continued organisation of Australian criminal justice along state and territory lines. The punishment actually received for any given crime in Australia is as much the product of the precise geographical location in which …

Massachusetts Firearms Prosecutions In The Wake Of Melendez-Diaz, Kevin P. Chapman

Kevin P. Chapman

The Supreme Court ruling in Melendez-Diaz fundamentally changed the way that firearms offenses are prosecuted in Massachusetts. This paper presents the history of firearms prosecutions and the current state of the law, and it raises several unanswered questions that could further change the nature of future firearms prosecutions.

The Rise Of Planning In Industrial America, 1865-1914

Richard Adelstein

How American firms grew very large after the Civil War, and how Americans responded to them.

The Relational Contingency Of Rights, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky

Alex Stein

In this Article, we demonstrate, contrary to conventional wisdom, that all rights are relationally contingent. Our main thesis is that rights afford their holders meaningful protection only against challengers who face higher litigation costs than the rightholder. Contrariwise, challengers who can litigate more cheaply than a rightholder can force the rightholder to forfeit the right and thereby render the right ineffective. Consequently, in the real world, rights avail only against certain challengers but not others. This result is robust and pervasive. Furthermore, it obtains irrespectively of how rights and other legal entitlements are defined by the legislator or construed by …

The Antiterrorism And Effective Death Penalty Act Of 1996 – An Illustration Of John Kingdon’S “Three Streams” Theory Of How Public Policy Is Changed, Paul J. Larkin Jr.

Paul J Larkin Jr.

The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 serves as a recent illustration of John Kingdon’s “Three Streams” Theory explaining how public policy is made and changed.

"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

Expectations Of Privacy In Social Media, Stephen E. Henderson

Stephen E Henderson

This article, which largely tracks my remarks at Mississippi College’s Social Media Symposium, examines expectations of privacy in social media such as weblogs (blogs), Facebook pages, and Twitter tweets. Social media is diverse and ever-diversifying, and while I address some of that complexity, I focus on the core functionality, which provides the groundwork for further conversation as the technology and related social norms develop. As one would expect, just as with our offline communications and other online communications, in some we have an expectation of privacy that is recognized by current law, in some we have an expectation of privacy …

Achieving Fundamental Fairness For Oklahoma's Juveniles: The Role For Competency In Juvenile Proceedings, Mary Sue Backus

Mary Sue Backus

No abstract provided.