Law and Politics Commons^™

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

The Hypocrisy Of "Equal But Separate" In The Courtroom: A Lens For The Civil Rights Era, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

This article serves to examine the role of the courthouse during the Jim Crow Era and the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement, as courthouses fulfilled their dual function of minstreling Plessy’s call for “equality under the law” and orchestrating overt segregation.

Reflections On An Extraordinary Career: Thoughts About Jerry Caplan's Retirement, Michael Vitiello

Michael Vitiello

Reflections on an Extraordinary Career: Thoughts about Gerald Caplan’s Retirement Abstract: The occasion for this essay is the retirement of my colleague Gerald Caplan. But this is not a sentimental account of a friend’s career. Instead, I take the opportunity of Jerry’s retirement to reflect on the role of a thoughtful principled conservative as a Washington insider and as an academic. The essay explores three areas of Jerry’s distinguished career: the first is a discussion of his role in saving the Legal Services Corporation when it was under attack from the right wing, within and without the Reagan Administration. The …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Mediating Theft, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Mediating Theft, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Mediating Theftv, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Policing Terrorists In The Community, Sahar F. Aziz

Sahar F. Aziz

Twelve years after the September 11th attacks, countering domestic terrorism remains a top priority for federal law enforcement agencies. Using a variety of reactive and preventive tactics, law enforcement seeks to prevent terrorism before it occurs. Towards that end, community policing developed in the 1990s to combat violent crime in inner city communities is being adopted in counterterrorism as a means of collaborating with Muslim communities and local police to combat “Islamist” homegrown terrorism. Developed in response to paramilitary policing models, community policing is built upon the notion that effective policing requires mutual trust and relationships among law enforcement and …

Costs Of Codification, Dru Stevenson

Dru Stevenson

Between the Civil War and World War II, every state and the federal government shifted toward codified versions of their statutes. Academia has so far ignored the systemic effects of this dramatic change. For example, the consensus view in the academic literature about rules and standards has been that precise rules present higher enactment costs for legislatures than would general standards, while vague standards present higher information costs for courts and citizens than do rules. Systematic codification – featuring hierarchical format and numbering, topical arrangement, and cross-references – inverts this relationship, lowering transaction costs for legislatures and increasing information costs …

Why Our Justice System Convicts Innocent People And The Challenges Faced By Innocence Projects Trying To Exonerate Them, Steven A. Krieger

Steven A. Krieger

Despite the prominence and success of the over sixty innocence projects in the United States, there is almost no empirical literature discussing how these organizations operate, what resources or factors contribute to their success, and what challenges they must overcome. This article is a foundational step to fill this void. Following a brief introduction, Part I of the article surveys the reasons why innocent individuals get convicted, including: inaccuracy of eyewitnesses, perjured testimony, availability of DNA testing, accuracy of DNA testing and scientific evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense representation, ineffective capital representation, police misconduct: false confessions, and pretrial criminal procedure …

Interrogation Of Detainees: Extending A Hand Or A Boot?, Amos N. Guiora

ExpressO

The so called “war on terror” provides the Bush administration with a unique opportunity to both establish clear guidelines for the interrogation of detainees and to make a forceful statement about American values. How the government chooses to act can promote either an ethical commitment to the norms of civil society, or an attitude analogous to Toby Keith’s “American Way,” where Keith sings that “you’ll be sorry that you messed with the USofA, ‘Cuz we’ll put a boot in your ass, It’s the American Way.”

No aspect of the “war on terrorism” more clearly addresses this balance than coercive interrogation. …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

The Crimmigration Crisis: Immigrants, Crime, & Sovereign Power, Juliet P. Stumpf

ExpressO

This article provides a fresh theoretical perspective on the most important development in immigration law today: the convergence of immigration and criminal law. Although the connection between immigration and criminal law, or “crimmigration law,” is now the subject of national debate, scholarship in this area is in a fledgling state. This article begins to fill that void. It proposes a unifying theory – membership theory – for why these two areas of law recently have become so connected, and why that convergence is troubling. Membership theory restricts individual rights and privileges to those who are members of a social contract …

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder And Suicide? A Review Of International Evidence, Don B. Kates, Gary A. Mauser

ExpressO

The world abounds in instruments with which people can kill each other. Is the widespread availability of one of these instruments, firearms, a crucial determinant of the incidence of murder? Or do patterns of murder and/or violent crime reflect basic socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of one particular form of weaponry is irrelevant?

This article examines a broad range of international data that bear on two distinct but interrelated questions: first, whether widespread firearm access is an important contributing factor in murder and/or suicide, and second, whether the introduction of laws that restrict general access to …

Review Essay: Using All Available Information, Max Huffman

ExpressO

This is a review essay entitled “Using All Available Information,” in which I review and comment on Justice Stephen Breyer’s new book, Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution, published in September 2005. Justice Breyer’s book, adapted from the Tanner Lectures given in 2005 at Harvard Law School, serves partly as a response to Justice Scalia’s 1997 volume A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. I review Justice Breyer’s book in part by comparison to and contrast with Justice Scalia’s. I propose that much about Justice Breyer’s interpretive philosophy, which centers on determining the “purposes” of texts and interpreting …

Who Are The Good Guys? The Legacy Of Watergate And The Tangled Webs We Weave, Jeffrey A. Breinholt

ExpressO

This article examines the astounding revelation that Deep Throat, the anonymous source that brought down the Nixon Presidency, was Mark Felt, the man who ran the FBI during the Watergate Scandal. Was Mark Felt a hero or a villain? Thanks to the recent publication of Bob Woodward’s The Secret Man in combination with historical case law, we now have more historical evidence about what motivated Felt and how he reacted to his own legal misfortunes. This article examines this record and shows that categorizing Felt along the hero/villain continuum is not an easy task, but argues that this type of …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Is The End Of The War In Sight: An Analysis Of Canada’S Decriminalization Of Marijuana And The Implications For The United States “War On Drugs”, Kara Godbehere Goodwin

ExpressO

Discussion of marijuana decriminalization efforts by Canadian government and comparison of United States/Canadian drug legislation and healthcare. Public policy justifications are discussed as well as medical marijuana and effects of drug use on the two countries' prison and healthcare systems.

Suicide And Justice, Arthur J. Jacobson

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.