Comparative and Foreign Law | Open Access Articles

Cycles Of Failure: The War On Family, The War On Drugs, And The War On Schools Through Hbo’S The Wire, Zachary E. Shapiro, Elizabeth Curran, Rachel C.K. Hutchinson Mar 2019

Cycles Of Failure: The War On Family, The War On Drugs, And The War On Schools Through Hbo’S The Wire, Zachary E. Shapiro, Elizabeth Curran, Rachel C.K. Hutchinson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Freamon, Bodie, and Zenobia’s statements cut straight to the heart of The Wire’s overarching theme: Individuals are trapped in a complex “cycle of harm” where social problems of inequality, crime, and violence are constantly reinforced. The Wire was a television drama that ran on HBO from 2002 through 2008, created by David Simon. The show focuses on the narcotics scene in Baltimore through the perspective of different stakeholders and residents of the city. The Wire highlights how self-perpetuating, interconnected, and broken social institutions act in concert to limit individual opportunity. These institutions squash attempts at reform by punishing good ideas …

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Uncertainty And The Search For Truth At Trial: Defining Prosecutorial "Objectivity" In German Sexual Assault Cases, Shawn Marie Boyne Sep 2010

Uncertainty And The Search For Truth At Trial: Defining Prosecutorial "Objectivity" In German Sexual Assault Cases, Shawn Marie Boyne

Washington and Lee Law Review

According to German legal scholar, Claus Roxin, German prosecutors are the "most objective civil servants" in the world. Roxin 's assessment of German prosecution practice reflects the conviction of many German legal scholars that prosecutors in Germany's inquisitorial system function as second judges dedicated to finding the objective "truth." In this Article I investigate how prosecutors "translate" the normative duty of objectivity enshrined in the German penal code into observable practices on the ground I examine prosecutorial decision-making in three sexual assault trials. Sexual assault cases pose unique challenges to prosecutors as well as to the definition of objectivity. Because …

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The French Prosecutor In Question, Jacqueline S. Hodgson Sep 2010

The French Prosecutor In Question, Jacqueline S. Hodgson

Washington and Lee Law Review

Both the pre-trial and dispositive roles of the French prosecutor have continued to expand over the last decades with a resulting shift in power away from the trial judge and the juge d'instruction. The recommendations of the Liger Commission in 2009 went beyond the redistribution of authority and proposed the abolition of the juge d'instruction, placing the prosecutor in charge of all criminal investigations, even the most serious, complex, and sensitive. At the same time, the prosecutor's role and status has been challenged in a number of ways-in particular concerning her function as judicial supervisor of the detention and interrogation …

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Twenty-Five Years Of Hudood Ordinances- A Review, Martin Lau Sep 2007

Twenty-Five Years Of Hudood Ordinances- A Review, Martin Lau

Washington and Lee Law Review

Shortly after coming into power in 1979, General Zia ul-Haq began to Islamize the Pakistan legal system. One measure used to convert Pakistan into an Islamic state was the introduction of hadd offenses-those offenses for which the Qur'an prescribed fixed punishments-into the criminal law. This Article specifically examines the impact of one of these provisions, the Offense of Zina (Enforcement of Hudood) Ordinance, on sexual offenses under the Pakistan Penal Code. This statute criminalized all forms of adultery and fornication outside of a legally valid marriage, including instances of rape where the burden of proof had not been met. In …

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Rape And The Exception In Turkish And International Law, Ruth A. Miller Sep 2007

Rape And The Exception In Turkish And International Law, Ruth A. Miller

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Comment suggests, first, that Turkey's new (2004) rape law is indebted to recent trends in international sexual legislation, and second, that both Turkish and international rape law are in turn the product of a century of European exceptionalism. The 2004 Turkish criminal code is a text that has redefined the Turkish state's approach to issues ranging from torture to corruption to immigrant smuggling to rape and adultery. Fundamentally a domestic document, it is aimed at rearticulating and liberalizing the state-citizen relationship in Turkey. At the same time, it is emphatically an international text-a spectacle geared toward moving Turkey one …

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A Comparative Review Of States' Recognition Of Reduced Degrees Of Felony Murder Sep 1983