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Criminal Law Commons

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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

Defending The Less Dead: Using The Decriminalization Of Sex Work To Combat The High Incidence Of Serial Homicide Of Street-Based Sex Workers, Lauren E. Fernandez Oct 2022

Defending The Less Dead: Using The Decriminalization Of Sex Work To Combat The High Incidence Of Serial Homicide Of Street-Based Sex Workers, Lauren E. Fernandez

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Sex workers have historically represented a disproportionate percentage of all victims of serial murder. Several serial murderers in the past thirty years have evaded detection for years, taking the lives of dozens of victims, by targeting sex workers, playing off the biases of society and law enforcement, and counting on the halfhearted investigation techniques that often followed missing person reports for less valued members of society, or the “less dead.” This Note argues that the decriminalization of all aspects of sex work is the surest way to improve the safety of street-based sex workers and reduce high victimization of this …


Southern Harm: Analyzing The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The Southern United States, 1983-2019, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell Oct 2021

Southern Harm: Analyzing The Criminal Enforcement Of Environmental Law In The Southern United States, 1983-2019, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa L. Jarrell

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

When violations of environmental laws involve significant harm or culpable conduct, the application of criminal enforcement tools is required. Yet, our understanding of how environmental laws have been criminally enforced historically in the Southern United States remains poor. Our goal is to analyze historical charging and sentencing patterns and show the broader themes that emerge in environmental crime prosecutions over time in the region. Through content analysis of all 2,588 criminal prosecutions resulting from U.S. EPA criminal investigations, 1983–2019, we select all 799 prosecutions occurring in the Southern United States. Results show that 44% of prosecutions focus on water pollution, …


Tasing The Constitution: Conducted Electrical Weapons, Other Forceful Arrest Means, And The Validity Of Subsequent Constitutional Rights Waivers, Andreas Kuersten Jul 2020

Tasing The Constitution: Conducted Electrical Weapons, Other Forceful Arrest Means, And The Validity Of Subsequent Constitutional Rights Waivers, Andreas Kuersten

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Conducted electrical weapons (CEWs)—the most famous and widely used of which are offered under the TASER brand—are ubiquitous tools of law enforcement, carried by the vast majority of law enforcement officers and routinely deployed. These devices subdue targets by coursing electric current through their bodies, thereby causing individuals to collapse as their muscles involuntarily contract. Yet this method of operation has raised concerns—voiced by researchers, advocates, and criminal defendants alike—that CEWs influence cognitive capacity in addition to muscle function as electric current potentially transits through the brain via the central nervous system. In the context of an arrest, this implicates …


Prosecutorial Dismissals As Teachable Moments (And Databases) For The Police, Adam M. Gershowitz Nov 2018

Prosecutorial Dismissals As Teachable Moments (And Databases) For The Police, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

The criminal justice process typically begins when the police make a warrantless arrest. Although police usually do a good job of bringing in the “right” cases, they do make mistakes. Officers sometimes arrest suspects even though there is no evidence to prove an essential element of the crime. Police also conduct unlawful searches and interrogations. And officers make arrests in marginal cases—schoolyard fights are a good example—in which prosecutors do not think a criminal conviction is appropriate. Accordingly, prosecutors regularly dismiss cases after police have made warrantless arrests and suspects have sat in jail for days, or even weeks. In …


Warning: Stop-And-Frisk May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Josephine Ross Dec 2016

Warning: Stop-And-Frisk May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Josephine Ross

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.


Voting To End Vulnerability: Understanding The Recent Proliferation Of State-Level Child Sex Trafficking Legislation, Kate Price, Keith Gunnar Bentele Nov 2016

Voting To End Vulnerability: Understanding The Recent Proliferation Of State-Level Child Sex Trafficking Legislation, Kate Price, Keith Gunnar Bentele

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article first focuses on the history of CSEC (commercially sexually exploited children) legislation in the United States by contextualizing the history of state anti-trafficking laws within the larger anti-trafficking policy framework of federal U.S. statutes and United Nations’ (U.N.) protocols. The second and third sections address the variables, statistical model, and results of our data analysis. The fourth section discusses the implications of these findings. The Article concludes with practical considerations for future CSEC legislative efforts on the state level.


The Inverse Relationship Between The Constitutionality And Effectiveness Of New York City "Stop And Frisk", Jeffrey Bellin Oct 2014

The Inverse Relationship Between The Constitutionality And Effectiveness Of New York City "Stop And Frisk", Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

New York City sits at the epicenter of an extraordinary criminal justice phenomenon. While employing aggressive policing tactics, such as “stop and frisk,” on an unprecedented scale, the City dramatically reduced both violent crime and incarceration – with the connections between these developments (if any) hotly disputed. Further clouding the picture, in August 2013, a federal district court ruled the City’s heavy reliance on “stop and frisk” unconstitutional. Popular and academic commentary generally highlights isolated pieces of this complex story, constructing an incomplete vision of the lessons to be drawn from the New York experience. This Article brings together all …


Corrections For Racial Disparities In Law Enforcement, Christopher L. Griffin Jr., Frank A. Sloan, Lindsey M. Eldred Apr 2014

Corrections For Racial Disparities In Law Enforcement, Christopher L. Griffin Jr., Frank A. Sloan, Lindsey M. Eldred

William & Mary Law Review

Much empirical analysis has documented racial disparities at the beginning and end stages of criminal cases. However, our understanding about the perpetuation of—and even corrections for—differential outcomes in the process remains less than complete. This Article provides a comprehensive examination of criminal dispositions using all DWI cases in North Carolina from 2001 to 2011, focusing on several major decision points in the process. Starting with pretrial hearings and culminating in sentencing results, we track differences in outcomes by race and gender. Before sentencing, significant gaps emerge in the severity of pretrial release conditions that disadvantage black and Hispanic defendants. Yet …


Subverting Symbolism: The Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act And Cooperative Federalism, Kami Chavis Simmons Oct 2012

Subverting Symbolism: The Matthew Shepard And James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act And Cooperative Federalism, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Hate crimes continue to persist in the United States and undermine the traditions and values to which the country aspires. Until recently, however, the stringent jurisdictional limitations of existing federal legislation made it difficult for the federal government to prosecute these crimes. In October 2009, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard James Byrd Jr., Hate Crimes Prevention Act (the "HCPA"). The HCPA significantly expands the federal government's authority to prosecute defendants accused of hate crimes because it dispenses with a previous jurisdictional requirement that made it difficult to prosecute many such crimes. The HCPA also represents an expansion …


Exempting Police From 18 U.S.C. § 924(C) , Noah A. Kuschel Mar 2010

Exempting Police From 18 U.S.C. § 924(C) , Noah A. Kuschel

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.


Involuntary Endogenous Rfid Compliance Monitoring As A Condition Of Federal Supervised Release - Chips Ahoy?, Isaac B. Rosenberg Oct 2008

Involuntary Endogenous Rfid Compliance Monitoring As A Condition Of Federal Supervised Release - Chips Ahoy?, Isaac B. Rosenberg

W&M Law Student Publications

Among the many cutting edge technologies law enforcement agencies increasingly covet is radio frequency identification ("RFID"). Researchers predict RFID will become the most pervasive computer technology in history. Among the more extraordinary and controversial government uses of RFID-and the focus of this Paper-include implantation of subdermal RFID transmitters. Privacy concerns abound. Not surprisingly, critics and privacy advocates are wary of subdermal RFID implants, fearful that only afine line separates relatively innocuous, voluntary implantation from arbitrary government-mandated implantation. But for involuntary implantation of RFID chips to take root, government implantation programs would have to start on the small scale, targeting the …