Law Commons^™

Setting The Stage For Ferguson: Housing Discrimination And Segregation In St. Louis, Rigel C. Oliveri

Missouri Law Review

The history of St. Louis is replete with discriminatory housing laws, policies, and practices: racially restrictive covenants, redlining, blockbusting and white flight, and exclusionary zoning. While these were common in virtually every part of the United States, they were particularly egregious, widespread, and pervasive in industrial Midwestern cities like Chicago, Detroit, and St. Louis – which saw a large influx of blacks migrating from the south at the close of the nineteenth century. In fact, three of the most foundational housing cases originated in St. Louis. When we look closely at these cases – not just the legal principles that …

Vox Populi: Robert Mcculloch, Ferguson, And The Roles Of Prosecutors And Grand Juries In High-Profile Cases, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Missouri Law Review

The decisions of St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch during the grand jury investigation of the shooting of Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, have been criticized on a variety of grounds. In an article written for a Missouri Law Review symposium on the shooting and its aftermath, titled “‘No, You Stand Up’: Why Prosecutors Should Stop Hiding Behind Grand Juries,” Professor Ben Trachtenberg takes Mr. McCulloch to task for allowing the grand jury to deliberate without making a recommendation about whether charges should be filed. Professor Trachtenberg asserts that, at the close of the evidentiary …

Ferguson: Footnote Or Transformative Event?, S. David Mitchell

Missouri Law Review

“Ferguson.” No longer does this name simply represent the geographical boundaries of a city in St. Louis County formed initially by white flight from St. Louis City and that has become increasingly African American over time. It has come to represent so much more.

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.

Reflections On Ferguson: What’S Wrong With Black People?, Chuck Henson

Missouri Law Review

After Officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown on August 9, 2014, it seemed as if it was the summer of 1967 again. The same series of events that happened in Newark and Detroit in 1967 happened in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014. A white man shot and killed a black man. The predominantly black population protested, rioted, and looted. The predominantly white police force was overwhelmed. The governor called out the National Guard and imposed a curfew. When these things happened in the summer of 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson, by Executive Order 11365, established what would become known …

Ferguson And Police Use Of Deadly Force, Richard Rosenfeld

Missouri Law Review

The killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by Darren Wilson, a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked widespread protests in the St. Louis area and across the nation. Protests and civil unrest resumed after a St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict the police officer.2 Protesters and commentators raised several issues related to the Ferguson incident and police use of deadly force. This Article addresses four of those issues: (1) Why Ferguson? (2) Did the Ferguson killing and ensuing civil unrest increase crime rates in St. Louis? (3) What is known about police use of deadly …

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

Journal of Legal Education

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.

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.

Moral Shock And Legal Education, Susan A. Bandes

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Teaching "Ferguson", Chad Flanders

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

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

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Legal Education And The Legitimation Of Racial Power, Gary Peller

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

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 …

Does Work Law Have A Future If The Labor Market Does Not?, Noah D. Zatz

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This Essay is based on the 37th Annual Kenneth M. Piper Lecture. It offers a new perspective on the much-discussed “future of work.” That discussion typically highlights changes within the labor market that undermine the employment relationship’s role as the bedrock for work regulation. But might something even deeper be afoot, namely the disintegration of “the labor market” itself? Several recent developments challenge the legal construction of employment as occurring wholly inside a distinctive, and distinctively economic, market sphere. This Essay considers Uber and the relationship between work and “sharing,” Hobby Lobby and the relationship between work and religion, the …

Doj Clears Wilson But Excoriates Ferguson Police, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

From Mayberry To Ferguson: The Militarization Of American Policing Equipment, Culture, And Mission, Cadman R. Kiker Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

We are at the dawn of a new era of policing in the United States. In recent months, images of armed police officers patrolling the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, and of a toddler burned by a Georgia SWAT team’s grenade have been indelibly branded into America’s social consciousness. There is a unique bipartisan outcry from Washington in a time otherwise marked by bitter political divides. Politicians and journalists alike are questioning the efficacy of a militaristic police force and the path that led to this shift in the paradigm of policing.

This Essay examines the how and why of police …

From Fugitives To Ferguson: Repairing Historical And Structural Defects In Legally Sanctioned Use Of Deadly Force, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The lawful use of lethal force to subdue suspected wrongdoers has a long tradition in our nation. There is certainly nothing wrong with securing, incapacitating, or even killing violent persons who pose a serious threat to the lives of innocent individuals. One of the important roles of government is to protect people from harm and keep the peace. Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlighted the tension between the officers on the beat and citizens on the street. These tensions are not likely to subside unless there are major structural changes in the way the police do their job and …

Moral Panics And Body Cameras, Howard Wasserman

Faculty Publications

This Commentary uses the lens of "moral panics" to evaluate public support for equipping law enforcement with body cameras as a response and solution to events in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014. Body cameras are a generally good policy idea. But the rhetoric surrounding them erroneously treats them as the single guaranteed solution to the problem of excessive force and police-citizen conflicts, particularly by ignoring the limitations of video evidence and the difficult questions of implementing the body camera program. In overstating the case, the rhetoric of body cameras becomes indistinguishable from rhetoric surrounding responses to past moral panics.

Poor, Black And "Wanted": Criminal Justice In Ferguson And Baltimore, Michael Pinard

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

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

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Protest, Policing, And The Petition Clause: A Review Of Ronald Krotoszynski's Reclaiming The Petition Clause, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

This essay, a short book review of Ronald Krotoszynski Jr.'s book, Reclaiming the Petition Clause Seditious Libel, "Offensive" Protest, and the Right to Petition the Government for Redress of Grievances, examines the variety of restrictions that actually affect protestors in the modern landscape. Professor Krotoszynski effectively argues that the Supreme Court's current use of content neutral time place and manner restrictions allows government officials to engage in surreptitious content censorship and also revives the defunct crime of seditious libel. His proposal to locate protestors' rights in the petition clause of the First Amendment is both historically grounded and attempts to …

Policing And The Clash Of Masculinities, Ann Mcginley

Scholarly Works

In 2014 and 2015, the news media inundated U.S. society with reports of brutal killings by police of black men in major American cities. Unfortunately, police departments do not typically keep data on police killings of civilians. The data that exist do show, however, that at least for a five-month period in 2015, there was a disproportionate rate of police killings of unarmed black men.

There is no question that race and class play a key role in the nature of policing that occurs in poor black urban neighborhoods, but the relationship between police officers and their victims is not …

Federalism, Democracy, And The Challenge Of Ferguson, Samuel P. Jordan

Saint Louis University Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Three Essays In Criminal Justice, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

How could the New York Times call the grand jury’s decision to no bill the indictment against officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, a “verdict”? How could federal appellate judges call it a “procedural shortcut” when a state judge, in a death penalty case, signs the state attorney general’s proposed judicial opinion without even striking the word “proposed” or reviewing the full opinion? What do these incidents tell us about contemporary criminal justice? These essays explore these puzzles. The first, “Verdict and Illusion,” begins to sketch the role of illusions in justice. The second, “A Singe Voice of Justice,” interprets …