Law Commons^™

Schools Fail To Get It Right On Rap Music, Andrea L. Dennis

Popular Media

School officials treat rap music as a serious threat to the school environment. Fear and misunderstanding of, as well as bias against, this highly popular and lucrative musical art form negatively shape their perspectives on this vital aspect of youth culture.

As a result, students who express themselves through rap music in a way that challenges the schoolhouse setting risk the possibility of suspension, permanent exclusion and referral to the criminal justice system.

The ongoing case of Taylor Bell is the latest and most complex battleground on which this issue is playing out.

Criminal Law And Common Sense: An Essay On The Perils And Promise Of Neuroscience, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is based on the author’s Barrock Lecture in Criminal Law presented at the Marquette University Law School. The central thesis is that the folk psychology that underpins criminal responsibility is correct and that our commonsense understanding of agency and responsibility and the legitimacy of criminal justice generally are not imperiled by contemporary discoveries in the various sciences, including neuroscience and genetics. These sciences will not revolutionize criminal law, at least not anytime soon, and at most they may make modest contributions to legal doctrine, practice, and policy. Until there are conceptual or scientific breakthroughs, this is my story …

Lets Talk About Sexual Assault A Feminist Exploration Of The Relationship Between Legal And Experiential Discourses, Dana Erin Phillips

LLM Theses

This thesis challenges the tendency within feminist legal thought to imagine a sharp division between law and lived experience, and specifically between feminist methods that engage legal discourse and those that invoke grassroots narratives grounded in experience. In order to better elucidate the relationship between legal and experiential discourses, the author compares recent legal discourse on sexual assault focusing on two Supreme Court of Canada decisions with women's own accounts of sexual violence, as presented in mainstream news media in the wake of the 2014 Jian Ghomeshi story. The findings, examined through the lens of feminist scholarship, support a view …

Using Inhalants To Obtain A Cheap High Is No Laughing Matter In Medical /Legal Circles, Samuel D. Hodge Jr.

Samuel D. Hodge Jr.

Much attention has been devoted to the ill effects of drug and alcohol abuse. However, there is an equally disturbing trend of people using household or industrial products to obtain a “quick high” by inhaling the fumes from these items. These gases seem innocuous but when inhaled, they can be more dangerous than street drugs with life altering consequences. The abuse of inhalants is not a problem limited to a specific segment of the population. Rather, it is a widespread issue that has no economic, social or age related boundaries. Thirty-seven states have enacted statutes concerning inhalant abuse. A few …

Law's Exposure: The Movement And The Legal Academy, Amna A. Akbar

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Legal Beagle's Blog Archive For November 2015, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

From The Editors: Ferguson And Its Impact On Legal Education Symposium, Marc Spindelman, Thomas D. Cobb, Kellye Testy, Kate O'Neill

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Criminal Corruption: Why Broad Definitions Of Bribery Make Things Worse, Albert W. Alschuler

Fordham Law Review

Although the law of bribery may look profoundly underinclusive, the push to expand it usually should be resisted. This Article traces the history of two competing concepts of bribery—the “intent to influence” concept (a concept initially applied only to gifts given to judges) and the “illegal contract” concept. It argues that, when applied to officials other than unelected judges, “intent to influence” is now an untenable standard. This standard cannot be taken literally. This Article defends the Supreme Court’s refusal to treat campaign contributions as bribes in the absence of an “explicit” quid pro quo and its refusal to read …

Police Violence And Ferguson: (En)Racing Criminal Procedure, Jeannine Bell

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Moral Shock And Legal Education, Susan A. Bandes

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Reverse Broken Windows, Christopher R. Green

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Facing The Ghost Of Cruikshank In Constitutional Law, Martha T. Mccluskey

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Teaching "Ferguson", Chad Flanders

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

The Rebellious Law Professor: Combining Cause And Reflective Lawyering, Harold Mcdougall

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

The Fire This Time: Black Lives Matter, Abolitionist Pedagogy And The Law, Charles R. Lawrence Iii

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Federal Criminal Conspiracy, Todd R. Russell, O. Carter Snead

O. Carter Snead

No abstract provided.

Criminalizing The State, François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud

François Tanguay-Renaud, Associate Professor, Osgood Hall Law School speaks about political theory and criminal law, asking the underexplored question of whether the state, as opposed to its individual members, can intelligibly and legitimately be criminalized, with a specific focus on the possibility of its domestic criminalization. He identifies the core objections to the criminalization of states, for example, objections to the condemnation and punishment of the state, as a result of a suitably ‘criminal’ process of public accountability, for the culpable perpetration of legal wrongs. He then investigate ways in which these objections can be challenged.

Discussion Of Antony Duff's 'Or 'Emet Lecture: Legal Philosophy Between State And Transnationalism, Antony Duff, François Tanguay-Renaud, Michael Giudice

François Tanguay-Renaud

Follow-up seminar on Antony Duff’s ‘Or ‘Emet Lecture, delivered on Thursday, March 14, 2013. Part of the Legal Philosophy Between State and Transnationalism Seminar Series. Respondents: Michael Giudice, York Philosophy and François Tanguay-Renaud, Osgoode Hall Law School.

The Charter And Criminal Justice: Twenty-Five Years Later, Jamie Cameron, James Stribopoulos

Jamie Cameron

When the Charter of Rights and Freedoms turned twenty-five in 2007, Professors Jamie Cameron and James Stribopoulos organized a conference which brought together leading thinkers on the Charterand criminal justice. A strong faculty of academics, judges and practitioners debated and discussed the Charter's impact on criminal justice. The papers from this conference, which have now been edited by Professors Cameron and Stribopoulos, provide a fascinating look at how the Charter has transformed the Canadian criminal justice system.

Public Defenders And Appointed Counsel In Criminal Appeals: The Iowa Experience, Tyler J. Buller

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Decisions To Prosecute Battered Women's Homicide Cases: An Exploratory Study, Sarah N. Welling, Diane Follingstad, M. Jill Rogers, Frances Jillian Priesmeyer

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Discretionary decisions to prosecute cases in which a battered woman kills her partner were investigated using several research strategies and targeting a range of case elements. Law students presented with case elements reported they would consider legal elements over nonlegal (or ‘supplemental’) elements when making a decision to prosecute. In contrast, law students assessed through an open-ended format as to important case factors for deciding to prosecute spontaneously generated high proportions of supplemental case elements compared with legal factors. Vignette comparisons of 42 case elements on participants’ likelihood to prosecute identified salient factors including legal and supplemental variables. Themes from …

Lessons Learned From Ferguson: Ending Abusive Collection Of Criminal Justice Debt, Neil L. Sobol

Faculty Scholarship

On March 4, 2015, the Department of Justice released its scathing report of the Ferguson Police Department calling for “an entire reorientation of law enforcement in Ferguson” and demanding that Ferguson “replace revenue-driven policing with a system grounded in the principles of community policing and police legitimacy, in which people are equally protected and treated with compassion, regardless of race.” Unfortunately, abusive collection of criminal justice debt is not limited to Ferguson. This Article, prepared for a discussion group at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools conference in July 2015, identifies the key findings in the Department of Justice’s report …

Criminal Law And Common Sense: An Essay On The Perils And Promise Of Neuroscience, Stephen J. Morse

Marquette Law Review

None

Criminal Law And The Counter-Hegemonic Potential Of Harm Reduction, Alana Klein

Dalhousie Law Journal

Harm reduction approaches to drug use have been lauded for saving lives, being cost-effective, elevating pragmatism over prohibitionist ideology, being flexible in tailoring responses to the problem, and for their counter-hegemonic potential to empower people who use drugs. This article examines the legal systems engagement with harm reduction, and, in particular,recent cases that incorporate harm reduction s focus on empirical evidence in policy making into Canadian constitutional rights jurisprudence. It argues that harm reduction approaches in this venue may hold promise as a bulwark against some of the marginalizing features of traditional criminaljustice approaches. However, the article also warns of …

Extraterritorial Criminal Enforcement Of Securities Fraud Regulations After United States V. Vilar, Edgardo Rotman

University of Miami Law Review

In August 2013, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of United States v. Vilar denied extraterritorial application of the criminal law antifraud provisions contained in the Securities Exchange Act. The specific object of this paper is to criticize this decision and negate its premises.

After delving in depth into the notion of extraterritoriality, the paper offers a dynamic interpretation of the 1922 Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Bowman, which is still the governing precedent on extraterritorial application of criminal laws. Furthermore, the paper criticizes the application of the 2010 Supreme Court’s decision …

Trafficked? Aids, Criminal Law And The Politics Of Measurement, Aziza Ahmed

University of Miami Law Review

Since early in the HIV epidemic, epidemiologists identified individuals who transact sex as a high-risk group for contracting HIV. Where the issue of transacting sex has been framed as sex work, harm-reduction advocates and scholars call for decriminalization as a primary legal solution to address HIV. Where the issue is defined as trafficking, advocates known as abolitionists argue instead for the criminalization of the purchase of sex.

Global health governance institutions are porous to these competing ideas and ideologies. This article first historicizes the contestation between harm-reduction and abolition in global governance on health. The paper then turns to a …

Privately Failing: Recidivism In Public And Private Prisons, Lee N. Gilgan

Lee N Gilgan

This study would add to available research regarding recidivism rates following incarceration in private prisons in contrast to incarceration in government-run prisons. This is a non-experimental meta-analysis viewing numerous studies discussing the effects of multiple covariants within public and private prisons. Based on the information and conclusion in these studies, we find that there is little overall consensus concerning the effects of increased privatization on recidivism. While many studies find certain aspects of privatization to have some potential effect on recidivism, there are many other aspects that either are out of scope or have a negative effect on recidivism. However, …

State V. Merlino, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 65 (Sept. 10, 2015), Brittany L. Shipp

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The issue before the Court was whether selling stolen property through a retractable sliding tray on a pawn shop’s drive-through window satisfied the element of unlawful entry of a building as defined in the burglary statute. The Court held that when the outer boundary of a building is not self-evident from the shape and contours of the structure itself, courts must apply California’s “reasonable belief” test which legally defines the outer boundary to include, “any element that encloses an area into which a reasonable person would believe that a member of the general public could not pass without authorization.”

State V. Smith, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 63 (Sept. 3, 2015), Jessie Vargas

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Defendant Terrance Reed Smith entered a no contest plea to one count of child abuse resulting in substantial bodily harm. The Supreme Court of Nevada held Smith’s plea was involuntary because the plea was made in response to acts of coercion by the Washoe County Department of Social Services (“DDS”).

The Improper Use Of Presumptions In Recent Criminal Law Adjudication, Charles W. Collier

Charles W. Collier

This note argues that, in developing the contemporary mandatory-permissive standard, the Supreme Court has misunderstood the effects of presumptions on juries. Presumptions that are ‘permissive’ in theory may nevertheless be ‘mandatory’ in fact, thereby leading some juries to convict regardless of their beliefs and inclinations. Thus, these legal presumptions may undermine the moral sense and political function of the jury. Part I of this note shows, through doctrinal analysis, that the mandatory-permissive distinction is an anomaly in the Court's jurisprudence. Part II shows that this distinction is at variance with a substantial body of empirical social science research. This part …