Law Commons^™

It's Not Just Ferguson: Missouri Supreme Court Should Consolidate The Municipal Court System, Thomas Harvey, John Mcannar, Michael-John Voss, Joshua Feinzig, Chris Mcallister

All Faculty Scholarship

The Missouri Supreme Court's unprecedented decision to take control of Ferguson's Municipal Court was based primarily on issues raised during sustained protest following the killing of Mike Brown and reports published by ArchCity Defenders and the Department of Justice. These reports highlighted racial disparity in traffic stops, excessive revenue generation, and excessive warrants and arrests and confirmed the lived experiences of poor and Black people in St. Louis: there is a racially discriminatory and profit-driven approach to law enforcement made possible only by the collaborative efforts of local government, police, and courts.

These condemned practices are not unique to Ferguson. …

Let’S Pretend That Federal Courts Aren’T Hostile To Discrimination Claims, Marcia L. Mccormick

All Faculty Scholarship

Professor Sandra Sperino’s article, Let’s Pretend Discrimination Is a Tort,[1] makes a valuable contribution to the debate about the proper interpretation of Title VII and other employment discrimination laws in light of Supreme Court trends. Professor Sperino ably describes the way that the Supreme Court has used tort concepts increasingly in recent cases,[2] even having gone so far as to have called employment discrimination statutes federal torts.[3] This development has created significant concern among scholars,[4] including Professor Sperino herself.[5]

Rather than simply reiterate those concerns, however, in her article Professor Sperino adopts a novel approach: she takes the Court at …

The Supreme Court And The Rehabilitative Ideal, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

Graham v. Fl,orida,¹ the Supreme Court's 2010 decision finding a life without parole sentence for a non-homicide crime committed by a juvenile "cruel and unusual' ' has rightly been recognized as a "watershed."² A major focus of the extensive commentary on the case has been on its application of the "evolving standards of decency'' test to a punishment outside of the death penalty, and to whether Graham might apply also to adults.³ Equally important in Graham, but subject to comparatively less critical attention,⁴ is the central role that the rehabilitative theory of punishment plays in its …