Judges Commons^™

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

Enough Is As Good As A Feast, Noah C. Chauvin

Seattle University Law Review

Ipse Dixit, the podcast on legal scholarship, provides a valuable service to the legal community and particularly to the legal academy. The podcast’s hosts skillfully interview guests about their legal and law-related scholarship, helping those guests communicate their ideas clearly and concisely. In this review essay, I argue that Ipse Dixit has made a major contribution to legal scholarship by demonstrating in its interview episodes that law review articles are neither the only nor the best way of communicating scholarly ideas. This contribution should be considered “scholarship,” because one of the primary goals of scholarship is to communicate new ideas.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor: The Court’S Premier Defender Of The Fourth Amendment, David L. Hudson Jr.

Seattle University Law Review

This essay posits that Justice Sotomayor is the Court’s chief defender of the Fourth Amendment and the cherished values it protects. She has consistently defended Fourth Amendment freedoms—in majority, concurring, and especially in dissenting opinions. Part I recounts a few of her majority opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. Part II examines her concurring opinion in United States v. Jones. Part III examines several of her dissenting opinions in Fourth Amendment cases. A review of these opinions demonstrates what should be clear to any observer of the Supreme Court: Justice Sotomayor consistently defends Fourth Amendment principles and values.

“Don’T Move”: Redefining “Physical Restraint” In Light Of A United States Circuit Court Divide, Julia Knitter

Seattle University Law Review

To reduce sentencing disparities and clarify the application of the sentencing guide to the physical restraint enhancement for a robbery conviction, this Comment argues that the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) must amend the USSC Guidelines Manual to provide federal courts with a clearer and more concise definition of physical restraint. Additionally, although there are many state-level sentencing systems throughout the United States, this Comment only focuses on the federal sentencing guidelines for robbery because of the disparate way in which these guidelines are applied from circuit to circuit.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Does The Woman Suffrage Amendment Protect The Voting Rights Of Men?, Steve Kolbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article—part of the Seattle University Law Review’s symposium on the centennial of the ratification of the Woman Suffrage Amendment—examines that open possibility. Concluding that the Nineteenth Amendment does protect men’s voting rights, this Article explores why and how that protection empowers Congress to address felon disenfranchisement and military voting. This Article also examines the advantages of using Nineteenth Amendment enforcement legislation compared to legislation enacted under other constitutional provisions.

Part I discusses the unique barriers to voting faced by voters with criminal convictions (Section I.A) and voters in the armed forces (Section I.B). This Part also explains how existing …

Say “No” To Discrimination, “Yes” To Accommodation: Why States Should Prohibit Discrimination Of Workers Who Use Cannabis For Medical Purposes, Anne Marie Lofaso, Lakyn D. Cecil

Seattle University Law Review

This Article addresses the question of how the law should treat medical cannabis in the employment context. Using Colorado as a primary example, we argue that states such as Colorado should amend their constitutions and legislate to provide employment protections for employees who are registered medical cannabis cardholders or registered caregivers.

Part I briefly traces the legal regulation of cannabis from an unregulated medicine known as cannabis to a highly regulated illicit substance known as marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Our travail through this history reveals, unsurprisingly, an increasing demonization of cannabis throughout the twentieth century. That socio-legal demonization …

Washington’S Young Offenders: O’Dell Demands A Change To Sentencing Guidelines, Erika Vranizan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the O’Dell decision was a watershed moment for criminal justice reform. It argues that the reasoning in O’Dell should be seized upon by the legislature to take action to remediate instances in which defendants are legal adults but do not possess the cognitive characteristics of an adult sufficient to justify adult punishment. Given both the scientific impossibility of identifying a precise age at which characteristics of youthfulness end and adulthood begins and the Court’s repeated recognition that these very factors impact culpability, the current approach to sentencing young offenders aged eighteen to twenty-five as adults simply …

In Memory Of Professor James E. Bond, Janet Ainsworth

Seattle University Law Review

Janet Ainsworth, Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law: In Memory of Professor James E. Bond.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dead Wrong: Why Washington’S Deadly Weapon Criminal Sentencing Enhancement Needs “Enhancement”, James Harlan Corning

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment confronts the difficult question of how to reformulate the deadly weapon sentencing enhancement to better align it with the policy goals of deterring and punishing armed crime. Part II explores the constitutional and practical defects in each of the three formulations of the sentencing enhancement’s armed requirement by delving into the enhancement’s legislative history and the judicial struggle to interpret it. Part III analyzes the need for a more nuanced approach to the weapon enhancement by exploring key criticisms about the enhancement’s scope and application. Part IV argues that the Washington legislature must provide courts with more rigid …

Actual Versus Perceived Performance Of Judges, Theodore Eisenberg, Talia Fisher, Issi Rosen-Zvi

Seattle University Law Review

Perceptions of judges ought to be based on their performance. Yet, few studies of the relation between perceived and actual judicial performance exist. Those claiming judicial bias should be especially sensitive to the relation between perception and performance. Judges perceived by the public or by the legal community as disfavoring a group may be regarded as biased, but that perception is unfair if the judges’ votes in cases do not disfavor the group. For example, it may be unfair to accuse an appellate judge of pro-state bias in criminal cases if the judge votes for defendants at a higher rate …

Preliminary Report On Race And Washington's Criminal Justice System, Task Force On Race And The Criminal Justice System

Seattle University Law Review

For this Report, the Research Working Group reviewed evidence on disproportionality in Washington’s criminal justice system and considered whether crime commission rates accounted for this disproportionality. We found that crime commission rates by race and ethnicity are largely unknown and perhaps unknowable, but that some researchers simply take arrest rates as good proxies for underlying commission rates for all crimes.We found that use of arrest rates likely overstates black crime commission rates for several reasons.68 But even if arrest rates are used as a proxy for underlying crime commission rates, the extent of racial disproportionality is not explained by commission …

A Call For Judicial Scrutiny: How Increased Judicial Discretion Has Led To Disparity And Unpredictability In Federal Sentencings For Child Pornography, Loren Rigsby

Seattle University Law Review

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) has made child pornography related crimes among the most harshly punishable federal offenses. Nevertheless, sentencing judges have regained the right to depart from the recommended Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines). The Guideline range for child pornography reflects sound and clear congressional intent to impose harsh penalties on defendants to deter, and ultimately eliminate, the market for child pornography. For this reason, this Comment argues that sentences that fall outside the Guidelines range should be reviewed with much greater scrutiny and should not be used solely to reflect a judge’s view that the advised sentence is …