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Tightening The Ooda Loop: Police Militarization, Race, And Algorithmic Surveillance, Jeffrey L. Vagle Oct 2016

Tightening The Ooda Loop: Police Militarization, Race, And Algorithmic Surveillance, Jeffrey L. Vagle

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article examines how military automated surveillance and intelligence systems and techniques, when used by civilian police departments to enhance predictive policing programs, have reinforced racial bias in policing. I will focus on two facets of this problem. First, I investigate the role played by advanced military technologies and methods within civilian police departments. These approaches have enabled a new focus on deterrence and crime prevention by creating a system of structural surveillance where decision support relies increasingly upon algorithms and automated data analysis tools and automates de facto penalization and containment based on race. Second, I will explore these …


Closing The Gap Between What Is Lawful And What Is Right In Police Use Of Force Jurisprudence By Making Police Departments More Democratic Institutions, Jonathan M. Smith May 2016

Closing The Gap Between What Is Lawful And What Is Right In Police Use Of Force Jurisprudence By Making Police Departments More Democratic Institutions, Jonathan M. Smith

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri, by police officer Darren Wilson. Members of the Ferguson community rose up in response. Protests demanding that police violence against African Americans cease and that accountability for police misconduct be addressed erupted across the country, and they have not subsided since. Incidents in Baltimore, Maryland; Chicago, Illinois; WallerCounty, Texas; and elsewhere have kept the movement alive. The mass media, the political elite, and the White middle class woke up to a reality that had been long known to communities of color – force is used disproportionately against …


The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane Jan 2014

The Danger Of Nonrandom Case Assignment: How The Southern District Of New York's "Related Cases" Rule Shaped Stop-And-Frisk Rulings, Katherine A. Macfarlane

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The Southern District of New York’s local rules are clear: “[A]ll active judges . . . shall be assigned substantially an equal share of the categories of cases of the court over a period of time.” Yet for the past fourteen years, Southern District Judge Shira Scheindlin has been granted near-exclusive jurisdiction over one category of case: those involving wide-sweeping constitutional challenges to the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) stop-and-frisk policies. In 1999, Judge Scheindlin was randomly assigned Daniels v. City of New York, the first in a series of high-profile and high-impact stop-and-frisk cases. Since then, she has overseen …


The Court Loses Its Way With The Global Positioning System: United States V. Jones Retreats To The “Classic Trespassory Search”, George M. Dery Iii, Ryan Evaro Dec 2013

The Court Loses Its Way With The Global Positioning System: United States V. Jones Retreats To The “Classic Trespassory Search”, George M. Dery Iii, Ryan Evaro

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article analyzes United States v. Jones, in which the Supreme Court considered whether government placement of a global positioning system (GPS) device on a vehicle to follow a person’s movements constituted a Fourth Amendment “search.” The Jones Court ruled that two distinct definitions existed for a Fourth Amendment “search.” In addition to Katz v. United States’s reasonable-expectation-of-privacy standard, which the Court had used exclusively for over four decades, the Court recognized a second kind of search that it called a “classic trespassory search.” The second kind of search occurs when officials physically trespass or intrude upon a constitutionally protected …


A Failure Of The Fourth Amendment & Equal Protection's Promise: How The Equal Protection Clause Can Change Discriminatory Stop And Frisk Policies, Brando Simeo Starkey Sep 2012

A Failure Of The Fourth Amendment & Equal Protection's Promise: How The Equal Protection Clause Can Change Discriminatory Stop And Frisk Policies, Brando Simeo Starkey

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Terry v. Ohio changed everything. Before Terry, Fourth Amendment law was settled. The Fourth Amendment had long required that police officers have probable cause in order to conduct Fourth Amendment invasions; to administer a "reasonable" search and seizure, the state needed probable cause. But in 1968, the Warren Court, despite its liberal reputation, lowered the standard police officers had to meet to conduct a certain type of search: the so-called "'stop' and 'frisk.'" A "stop and frisk" occurs when a police officer, believing a suspect is armed and crime is afoot, stops the suspect, conducts an interrogation, and pats him …


Bête Noire: How Race-Based Policing Threatens National Security, Lenese C. Herbert Jan 2003

Bête Noire: How Race-Based Policing Threatens National Security, Lenese C. Herbert

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article asserts that race-based policing, enabled and exacerbated by race-blind judicial review, creates an ire with a purpose that promises, especially after September 11, to make us all less safe. The illegitimate marginalization of American citizens aggravates an already alienated population and primes them for cooperation with those who seek to harm the United States. Race-based policing guts the expectation of fair-dealing, legitimacy, and justice in the criminal justice system, creating marginalized populations, especially of African Americans. Lack of judicial redress in the face of such policing irrevocably stains already beleaguered African Americans (and others so policed) as inferior …


When Success Breeds Attack: The Coming Backlash Against Racial Profiling Studies, David A. Harris Jan 2001

When Success Breeds Attack: The Coming Backlash Against Racial Profiling Studies, David A. Harris

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The author proposes that in an ongoing debate on questions concerning the possibility of racial or other types of invidious discrimination by public institutions, we should apply a prima facie standard to these claims in the public arena. In other words, if African Americans or Latinos say that they have been the victims of racial profiling, we should not ask for conclusive proof in the strictest statistical sense; rather, if they can present some credible evidence beyond anecdotes, some statistics that indicate that we may, indeed, have a problem, the burden should then shift to the public institution-here, law enforcement …


Striking A Sincere Balance: A Reasonable Black Person Standard For "Location Plus Evasion" Terry Stops, Mia Carpiniello Jan 2001

Striking A Sincere Balance: A Reasonable Black Person Standard For "Location Plus Evasion" Terry Stops, Mia Carpiniello

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Randall Susskind originally proposed the "reasonable African American standard” for Terry stops as a way to minimize racial disparities in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. This paper will expand upon Susskind's suggested standard within the specific context of "location plus evasion" stops, in which suspects are stopped upon flight in a high-crime neighborhood. Part one will present the reasonable Black person standard in the context of Illinois v. Wardlow, a recent "location plus evasion case." Part one will then show how this alternative standard better accounts for Wardlow's "raced" decision to flee, the police officers' "raced" decision to stop him, and …


The Adversity Of Race And Place: Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence In Illinois V. Wardlow, 528 S. Ct. 673 (2000), Adam B. Wolf Jan 2000

The Adversity Of Race And Place: Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence In Illinois V. Wardlow, 528 S. Ct. 673 (2000), Adam B. Wolf

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Case Note lays out Wardlow's pertinent facts, describes the decisions of the Court and lower courts, and then analyzes the ramifications of the Court's holding. In particular, this Case Note argues that the Court's ruling recognizes substantially less Fourth Amendment protections for people of color and indigent citizens than for wealthy Caucasians. This perpetuates a cycle of humiliating experiences, as well as fear and mistrust of the police by many poor people of color.


Fourth Amendment Accommodations: (Un)Compelling Public Needs, Balancing Acts, And The Fiction Of Consent, Guy-Uriel E. Charles Jan 1997

Fourth Amendment Accommodations: (Un)Compelling Public Needs, Balancing Acts, And The Fiction Of Consent, Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The problems of public housing-including crime, drugs, and gun violence- have received an enormous amount of national attention. Much attention has also focused on warrantless searches and consent searches as solutions to these problems. This Note addresses the constitutionality of these proposals and asserts that if the Supreme Court's current Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is taken to its logical extremes, warrantless searches in public housing can be found constitutional. The author argues, however, that such an interpretation fails to strike the proper balance between public need and privacy in the public housing context. The Note concludes by proposing alternative consent-based regimes …