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Race, Genes, And Justice: A Call To Reform The Presentation Of Forensic Dna Evidence In Criminal Trials, Jonathan Kahn
Race, Genes, And Justice: A Call To Reform The Presentation Of Forensic Dna Evidence In Criminal Trials, Jonathan Kahn
Jonathan Kahn
The article considers how and when, if at all, is it appropriate to use race in presenting forensic DNA evidence in a court of law? This relatively straightforward question has been wholly overlooked by legal scholars. By pursuing it, this article promises to transform fundamentally the presentation forensic DNA evidence. Currently, it is standard practice for prosecutors to use race in presenting the odds that a given defendant’s DNA matches DNA found at a crime scene. This article takes an interdisciplinary approach to question the validity of this widespread but largely uninterrogated practice. It examines how race came to enter …
Free To Leave? An Empirical Look At The Fourth Amendment’S Seizure Standard, David K. Kessler
Free To Leave? An Empirical Look At The Fourth Amendment’S Seizure Standard, David K. Kessler
David K Kessler
Whether a person has been “seized” often determines if he or she receives Fourth Amendment protection. The Supreme Court has established a standard for identifying seizures: a person is seized when a reasonable person in his situation would not have felt free to leave or otherwise terminate the encounter with law enforcement. In applying that standard, today’s courts conduct crucial seizure inquiries relying only on their own beliefs about when a reasonable person would feel free to leave. Both the Court and scholars have noted that, though empirical evidence about whether people actually feel free to leave would help guide …