Other Law Commons^™

Guerrina V. State, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 45 (June 7, 2018), Xheni Ristani

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court affirmed Lyons v. State, which gives the courts discretion to reject a defendant’s request for self-representation if the request is untimely. Further, the Court affirmed the Mendoza v. State test, which allows a single incident to sustain convictions for both robbery and kidnapping if any movement or restraint creates a risk to the victim substantially exceeding what is necessarily present in the crime of robbery. Finally, the Court held that the State must satisfy NRS § 193.165 to sustain deadly weapon charges.

Mass Incarceration At Sentencing, Anne R. Traum

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Courts can address the problem of mass incarceration at sentencing. Although some scholars suggest that the most effective response may be through policy and legislative reform, judicial consideration of mass incarceration at sentencing would provide an additional response that can largely be implemented without wholesale reform. Mass incarceration presents a difficult problem for courts because it is a systemic problem that harms people on several scales-individual, family, and community-and the power of courts to address such broad harm is limited. This Article proposes that judges should consider mass incarceration, a systemic problem, in individual criminal cases at sentencing. Sentencing is …

When Reading Between The Lines Is Not Enough: Lessons From Media Coverage Of A Domestic Violence Homicide-Suicide, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

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In October 2008, Karthik Rajaram murdered his wife, mother-in-law, sons and, ultimately, himself, in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. This Article analyzes media reports about the deaths to illustrate the resilience of patriarchy and significant gaps in research and scholarship about domestic violence, and suggests a strategic approach to building counter-narratives about violence against women.

The Article is composed of five parts. Part I is the Introduction. Part II draws on narrative theory and critical media scholarship to lay the groundwork for analysis, and to show why media coverage of homicide-suicide is implicated in the production of dominant ideology.

Part …

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

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The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

Bringing Families In: Recommendations Of The Incarceration, Reentry And Family Roundtables, Ann Cammett, Johnna Christian, Nancy Fisherman, Lori Scott-Pickens

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Building on the findings of the New Jersey Reentry Roundtable and a growing concern around the state about how to improve outcomes for the more than 70,000 individuals expected to return home from prison over the next five years, the roundtable examined the complex role that families – broadly defined – play in the lives of prisoners during incarceration and after their release. This document presents a set of recommendations emerging directly from roundtable sessions and provides a road map for individual and collaborative efforts accepted by a range of key players in New Jersey, including government officials, community and …

Justice Miriam Shearing: Nevada's Trailblazing Minimalist, Mary E. Berkheiser

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Nevada Supreme Court Justice Miriam Shearing retired at the end of her second term on January 4, 2005. Over the nearly thirty years of her very public life on the bench, many have written of her accomplishments as the firs woman to enter the brotherhood of the Nevada judiciary. With Justice Sharing’s retirement, the time is ripe for an examination of her judicial decisions during the twelve years she served on the Nevada Supreme Court. The analysis here provides one perspective on her body of work. It begins, as it must, with a glimpse into the person behind the work.

Making Work Pay: Promoting Employment And Better Child Support Outcomes For Low-Income And Incarcerated Parents, Ann Cammett

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The New Jersey Institute for Social Justice prepared this report in response to concerns about child support debt—in particular as it creates a barrier to employment for low-income parents and works at cross-purposes with the goals of the child support program. Drawing on examples from other states, this report identifies a range of policies that inform child support practice in New Jersey and offers administrative, legislative, and programmatic solutions to address child support arrears owed by low-income and incarcerated parents.

Wings For Talons: The Case For Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Over Sexual Exploitation Of Children Through Cyberspace, Christopher L. Blakesley

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To cope more effectively with the changed landscape of child exploitation, it is necessary for laws to expand their extraterritorial reach. Some statutes in the “child exploitation arena” have already been ruled to apply extraterritorially. The prime example of this is 18 U.S.C. § 2252 (2004) (certain activities relating to the material involving the sexual exploitation of minors). Two of the more useful statutes in combating online pedophiles are 18 U.S.C. § 1470 (2003) (transfer of obscene materials to minors) and 18 U.S.C. § 2422 (2003) (coercion and enticement). These latter statutes, however, have yet to receive significant or …

Lawyers Should Be Lawyers, But What Does That Mean?: A Response To Aiken & Wizner And Smith, Katherine R. Kruse

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Lawyers should be more like social workers. That is the message of Law as Social Work, the provocative essay by Jane Aiken and Stephen Wizner (Aiken & Wizner) in the Washington University Journal of Law & Policy volume, which preceded the conference on Promoting Justice Through Interdisciplinary Teaching, Practice, and Scholarship, hosted by Washington University School of Law in March 2003. Almost as if in reply, Abbe Smith's contribution to the same pre-conference volume reasserts the importance of lawyers as zealous and partisan advocates, using the realities of the criminal defense context to argue for the value of the lawyer's …

Ruminations On Terrorism & Anti-Terrorism In Law And Literature, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Discussing terrorism in light of the September 11 atrocities is daunting. It requires one to wonder how to maintain an equilibrium in the face of a menace that wishes its own death as long as it flows from the slaughter of ‘the enemy.‘ How is it possible to combat this menace without falling into a trap of hatred or blind fear that leads to the use of terror to fight terrorism? The overarching issues relating to September 11, terrorism, and counter-terrorism include: whether oppression can provide any justification for that atrocity; similarly, whether that attack calls for or allows self-defense …

“Owing To The Extreme Youth Of The Accused”: The Changing Legal Response To Juvenile Homicide, David S. Tanenhaus, Steven A. Drizin

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In this essay, the authors seek to dispel the myth that the juvenile court was never intended to deal with serious and violent offenders; a myth that has largely been unchallenged, especially in the mainstream media, and one that critics of the juvenile court have used to undermine its legitimacy. The discovery of homicide data from the Chicago police department from the early twentieth century, the era in which modern juvenile justice came of age, provides us with new historical date with which to put this dangerous myth to rest, by showing that the nation’s model juvenile court—the Cook County …

The Fiction Of Juvenile Right To Counsel: Waiver In Juvenile Courts, Mary E. Berkheiser

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Although a number of juvenile justice advocates and scholars have decried the prevalence of juvenile waiver of right to counsel, no one has undertaken a comprehensive study of the problem. This Article attempts to fill that gap. The Article begins with a review of the historical context in which juvenile right to counsel arose and proceeds to a discussion of the landmark In re Gault decision and the due process underpinnings of juvenile right to counsel. The Article then chronicles the long-standing practice of permitting juveniles to waive their right to counsel and shows that the vast majority of nearly …

The Terrors Of Dealing With September 11th, Christopher L. Blakesley

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No abstract provided.

Biting Off What They Can Chew: Strategies For Involving Law Students In Problem-Solving Beyond Individual Client Representation, Katherine R. Kruse

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Problem-solving is most often taught in the context of representing individual clients in small manageable cases where students retain primary control and develop a sense of ownership. Increasingly, law school clinical programs are involving students in broader service projects designed to meet the needs of clients that go unaddressed by the legal system. Student involvement in these projects presents challenges for the traditional model of problem-solving taught in individual case representation. This article explores the challenges of translating the problem-solving techniques employed in direct representation of individual clients into the larger context of problem-solving for a client community by examining …

The William S. Boyd School Of Law Juvenile Justice Clinic, Mary E. Berkheiser

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This article reviews the work of the Juvenile Justice Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law.

Growing Up Dependent: Family Preservation In Early Twentieth-Century Chicago, David S. Tanenhaus

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Beginning in 1911 with Illinois’ passage of the Funds to Parents Act—the first statewide mothers’ pensions legislation—the Chicago Juvenile Court built a two-track system for dependency cases that used the gender of single parents to track their children. The first or “institutional” track followed a nineteenth century model of family preservation that poor families had relied upon since before the Civil War, in which parents had used institutions to provide short-term care for their children during hard times. The juvenile court also established a “home-based” track for dependency that reflected a new model of family preservation. Progressive child-savers denounced the …

The Autumn Of The Patriarch: The Pinochet Extradition Debacle And Beyond- Human Rights Clauses Compared To Traditional Derivative Protections Such As Double Criminality, Christopher L. Blakesley

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This article will analyze human rights law to see whether it plays any role in the protection of the individual in the face of international extradition or other international cooperation in criminal matters. I will consider two approaches to extradition and human rights that seem to be vying for position in the world arena and the tension between them. The first is to apply the traditional statist exemptions to extradition, which sometimes have enabled a few human rights protections. This approach is based on the concept that states are the only subjects of international law. Thus, it is state's interests, …

Supreme Court Of Nevada, Administrative Office Of The Courts, Nevada Domestic Violence Resource Manual, Mary E. Berkheiser

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No abstract provided.

Association Of American Law Schools Panel On The International Criminal Court, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Professor Blakesley participates in this panel discussion on the International Criminal Court. The Association of American Law Schools sponsored the panel.

Comparativist Ruminations From The Bayou On Child Custody Jurisdiction: The Uccja, The Pkpa, And The Hague Convention On Child Abduction, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Interstate and international jurisdictional problems are often vexing. They are worse in matters of child custody. In the past, jurisdiction to obtain custody or to modify a custody decree required only presence or domicile. The United States population is transient and custody decisions are subject to modification. The volatility of child custody disputes and the tendency of parents to move to different and separate jurisdictions traditionally caused and continue to cause difficult problems for children, parents, and the legal system. Before the promulgation of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act (UCCJA) and the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA), it was …

La Preuve Pénale Et Des Tests Génétiques: United States Report, Christopher L. Blakesley

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A major problem for those analyzing U.S. criminal law and procedure is that it does not fit the Continental or British mold. There is no one single system, but parallel federal and 50 state systems each with its own legislature, laws, courts (including trial, appellate, and supreme courts), police, prosecutors and prisons. The authorities who enact and implement these laws are sovereign within their respective jurisdictions. Each state has police power over its people. The 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution controls allocation of federal and state authority. It provides that whatever the Constitution has not designated as being within …

Race, Angst And Capital Punishment: The Burger Court's Existential Struggle, Katherine R. Kruse

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This article chronicles the Burger Court's inability to fashion a suitable remedy for racism in the discretionary system of capital sentencing. The article discusses the Court's initial response, “remedial paralysis,” which is evident, not only in McGautha v. California, where the Court refused to find that the Due Process Clause was violated by standardless death sentencing, but also in Furman v. Georgia, where the Court decided to abolish the death penalty. The article further explores the Court's reinstatement of the death penalty, and two of the Court's forays into “bad faith” denial that sustained the death penalty, particularly the Court's …

Jurisdiction, Definition Of Crimes, And Triggering Mechanisms, Christopher L. Blakesley

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The opportunity to create an international court that provides fair, equitable, and efficient justice is rare and important. It requires expertise in comparative and international law. Problems are serious, however. Failure to address the formidable problems could cause the Court to run a risk of failure that could be disastrous for international law, for the victims of the horrors that have occurred and that will occur, and for the world. Failure could come in at least two forms: (1) the Court could merely be a conduit for retribution after a pro-forma kangaroo court or (2) it will not have sufficient …

Prosecuting And Defending Violations Of Genocide And Humanitarian Law: The International Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, Christopher L. Blakesley

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A symposium discussing the international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, established by the United Nations Security Council’s . Christopher L. Blakesley discussed the procedural aspects of the War Crimes Tribunal.

Obstacles To The Creation Of A Permanent War Crimes Tribunal, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Individual liability for war crimes is difficult to enforce and is unlikely to be accepted uniformly by states.

Individual criminal responsibility is the cornerstone of any international war crimes tribunal. Nuremberg Principle I provides that “[a]ny person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment.” Acts by heads of state or other government officials, even if committed in an official capacity, may not constitute an immunity defense to or mitigate criminality. These officials, therefore, could also be held responsible for offenses committed pursuant to their orders. Additionally, liability for criminal …

Voting Behavior On The Texas Court Of Criminal Appeals, 1991-92, Keith A. Rowley, Michael D. Weiss

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Between early 1991, when Judge Fortunato Benavides was appointed to replace Judge Marvin O. Teague, and July 1, 1992, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals decided 251 cases where the ultimate question at stake was whether or not an accused individual would receive punishment for his or her alleged wrongdoing. While the sitting judges unanimously decided roughly one-half of these cases, 133 cases resulted in one or more dissenting votes. Furthermore, a margin of two votes or less decided thirty-five cases.

The purpose of this Article is to analyze and, if possible, explain the voting behavior of the members of …

State Support Of International Terrorism: Legal, Political And Economic Dimensions, Christopher L. Blakesley

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In this piece, Professor Blakesley reviews “State Support of International Terrorism: Legal, Political, and Economic Dimensions” by John F. Murphy.

International Judicial Assistance, Christopher L. Blakesley

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The general or even specialized practitioner faces serious difficulties as the world shrinks and the practice of law frequently transcends international boundaries. In the civil and commercial arena, issues of discovery and service of documents abroad, others relating to judicial assistance from foreign courts, available to American courts or individual litigants, and assistance available from American courts for foreign governments and individual litigants, can be mindboggling. In an age where transnational litigation (that is, domestic litigation that touches upon one or more foreign jurisdictions) is rapidly increasing, counsel could be guilty of malpractice if counsel takes action abroad that proves …

The Need For An International Criminal Court In The New International World Order, Christopher L. Blakesley

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Any inquiry into the merits of an international criminal court must start with resolving three basic issues:

1. Can the tribunal improve international cooperation in law enforcement, add to the capabilities of the various nations in matters of international criminal law, or contribute in any incremental way to the solution of international and transnational criminal law problems by improving the current practice and enhancing the effectiveness of all concerned?

2. Will the recommended system have a better or equal chance of operating as effectively as the best existing systems of national criminal justice?

3. Will the recommended system improve efficiency …

International Year In Review: Developments In International Criminal Law, Christopher L. Blakesley

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In this piece Professor Blakesley provides remarks on recent developments in International Criminal Law.