Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Institution
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law and Gender
“A Sea Of White Faces”: How Courtroom Portraits Undermine Justice In Virginia, Lauren Miller
“A Sea Of White Faces”: How Courtroom Portraits Undermine Justice In Virginia, Lauren Miller
Undergraduate Honors Theses
The presence of Confederate symbols and other reminders of white institutional power in courtrooms introduces a risk that impermissible factors such as implicit bias, conscious prejudice, and sympathy for white supremacy will harm litigants’ rights. I compiled data for 210 of 328 courts (64%) in the Commonwealth and found that there are more than 617 portraits on display in Virginia courtrooms. At least 357 portraits depict white men, six depict Black men, fifteen depict white women, and twenty-eight depict people who served in the Confederacy, either in the government or the Confederate States Army (CSA). At least fourteen different courts …
Who Are You Protecting?: A Feminist Analysis Of Gay And Trans Panic Defense Bans, How They Are Defined, And Who They Protect, Tyler S. Sesker
Who Are You Protecting?: A Feminist Analysis Of Gay And Trans Panic Defense Bans, How They Are Defined, And Who They Protect, Tyler S. Sesker
Undergraduate Honors Theses
As of April 2022, sixteen U.S. states ban Gay panic and Trans panic criminal defenses. These state-law prohibitions stemmed from several high-profile murder trials, focusing on the identity of the decedent, including the killings of Matthew Shepard and Latisha King. Between 1970 and 2020, criminal defenses interrogating the gender identity or sexual identity of victims of violence were used at least 104 times, with nearly a third of those cases resulting in reduced criminal charges and penalties. Today, in thirty-four states, the same tactics remain legal. Applying a feminist and outsider legal lens, this study engages in a textual analysis …