Digital Commons Network^™

Out Of Ferguson: Misdemeanors, Municipal Courts, Tax Distribution And Constitutional Limitations, Henry Ordower, J. Onésimo Sandoval, Kenneth Warren

All Faculty Scholarship

The matter of police and municipal courts as revenue producers became increasingly prominent following Michael Brown’s death from a police shooting. This article considers the use of misdemeanors, especially traffic violations, for the purpose of collecting substantial portions of the annual operating budgets in municipalities in St. Louis County, Missouri. The article argues that the revenue raising function of traffic offenses has displaced their public safety and traffic regulation functions. The change in function from public safety to revenue suggests that the governing laws are no longer valid as exercise of policing power but must be reenacted under the taxing …

To Repeal Or Not Repeal: The Johnson Amendment, Mark Goldfeder, Michelle K. Terry

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Enduring Integration School Desegregation Helped To Produce, Kevin D. Brown

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Public Restrooms And The Distorting Of Transgender Identity, Terry S. Kogan

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

The sex-separated public restroom, a ubiquitous feature of our built environment, has been at the vortex of litigation filed by state officials across the country challenging the Obama administration’s attempt to assure that transgender people have access to safe restrooms. Tracing the ongoing federal litigation in North Carolina surrounding the passage of House Bill 2, this Article argues that this seemingly mundane architectural space has in fact driven the litigation strategies of all parties to these cases. In insisting that access to public restrooms be based on biological sex, state officials rely on an outmoded nineteenth century cultural vision of …

Immigration Adjudication: The Missing Rule Of Law, Lenni B. Benson

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Brief For The Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality And The Phillips Black Project As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

Williams v. Steele

The First Amendment And The Police In The Digital Age, Kermit V. Lipez

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

What’S Wrong With Sentencing Equality?, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas

Articles

Equality in criminal sentencing often translates into equalizing outcomes and stamping out variations, whether race-based, geographic, or random. This approach conflates the concept of equality with one contestable conception focused on outputs and numbers, not inputs and processes. Racial equality is crucial, but a concern with eliminating racism has hypertrophied well beyond race. Equalizing outcomes seems appealing as a neutral way to dodge contentious substantive policy debates about the purposes of punishment. But it actually privileges deterrence and incapacitation over rehabilitation, subjective elements of retribution, and procedural justice, and it provides little normative guidance for punishment. It also has unintended …

“Lord Forgive Me, But He Tried To Kill Me”*: Proposing Solutions To The United States’ Most Vexing Racial Challenges, André Douglas Pond Cummings

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

When More Is Less—Swat And Procedural Justice, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Since the “war on drugs” began in the early 1970s the use of Special Weapons and Tactics units has increased exponentially. These units, originally designed to address unique policing situations like riots or a barricaded gun man, are now deploying approximately 60,000 times a year. Over half of those deployments are for search warrants. Because SWAT units deploy assuming that they are going to a situation with a high likelihood of violence, their tactics reflect that assumption. SWAT means and methods emphasize the decisive use of force to resolve conflicts. These means and methods do not encourage communication between police …

Ending The Internal Affairs Farce, Rachel Moran

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Begging For Due Process: Defending The Rights Of Urban Outcasts In An Italian Town, Giacomo Pailli, Alessandro Simoni

Seattle University Law Review

Adult begging in Italy has been decriminalized since a Constitutional Court decision in 1995 and an ensuing law, no. 205, in 1999. Nonetheless, beggars, particularly Roma ones, are still perceived by the public as a nuisance, like an issue that should be dealt with. Sensible to the pressure of its constituency, even Florence—a city with a tradition of openness and inclusion—has taken measures against begging and other similar street-level economic activities. Between 2007 and 2008, the first wave of city action in Florence was directed at windshield cleaners at traffic lights. Even though the policy was challenged, it produced the …

Going Against The Grain Of The Status Quo: Hopeful Reformations To Sex Offender Civil Commitment In Minnesota—Karsjens V. Jesson, Joanna Woolman, Jennifer K. Anderson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Michigan's Stawberry Fields To South Texas's Rio Grande Valley: The Saga Of A Legal Career And The Texas Civil Rights Project, James C. Harrington

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Criminal Records” - A Comparative Approach, Sigmund A. Cohn

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

The Freedom Of Speech In Public Forums On College Campuses: A Single-Site Case Study On Pushing The Boundaries Of The Freedom Of Speech, Alexander Davidson

Journalism

The purpose of this single-site study is to test how far speech can be pushed before it is no longer protected at the California Polytechnic State University. The purpose isn’t merely to push limitations for the sake of testing boundaries, but it is to see what types of speech truly add to the marketplace of ideas and what types simply do not. The main points of the study are to understand what speech is protected and what speech is not protected on California Polytechnic State University’s campus and to understand how the provocation that comes along with “negative speech” can …

Rate Me: Risk Assessment Drones And The Resurrection Of Discriminatory Insurance Practices, Lucas M. Barta

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Is Modern Day Slavery A Private Act Or A Public System Of Oppression?, Maria L. Ontiveros

Seattle University Law Review

The government focuses on trafficking as the definitive form of modern day slavery. In doing so, it portrays modern day slavery as a private act with identifiable wrongdoers and views the Thirteenth Amendment through the lens of forced labor. Workers’ advocates, on the other hand, portray modern day slavery as a systemic form of oppression, supported by governmental policies on immigration and occupational exclusions. These groups focus on the Thirteenth Amendment through the lens of class. A historical analysis suggests that the proper approach views the Thirteenth Amendment through the lens of both class and labor.

A New Peonage?: Pay, Work, Or Go To Jail In Contemporary Child Support Enforcement And Beyond, Noah D. Zatz

Seattle University Law Review

Child support enforcement is one of several contemporary contexts in which the state threatens to incarcerate people if they fail to work. This symposium essay explores whether this practice violates the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on involuntary servitude. At first glance, such threats fall squarely within the ambit of the early 20th century peonage cases. There, the Supreme Court struck down criminal enforcement of legal obligations to work off a debt. Several modern courts have declined to reach a similar conclusion when child support enforcement puts obligors to a choice between paying, working, and going to jail. To do so, these …

Keynote Remarks: How The Criminalization Of Poverty Has Become Normalized In American Culture And Why You Should Care, Sarah Geraghty

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The subject of my talk today is how the criminalization of poverty has become normalized in American culture and why you should care.

Keynote Address, Stephen B. Bright

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Price Of Carceral Citizenship: Punishment, Surveillance, And Social Welfare Policy In An Age Of Carceral Expansion, Reuben Jonathan Miller, Amanda Alexander

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The unprecedented rise in the number of people held in U.S. jails and prisons has garnered considerable attention from policy makers, activists, and academics alike. Signaled in part by Michelle Alexander’s New York Times bestseller, The New Jim Crow, and the unlikely coalition of activists, policy makers, celebrities, and business leaders on both sides of the political aisle who have pledged to end mass incarceration in our lifetime, the prison system has returned to public policy discourse in a way that was unforeseen less than a decade ago. On any given day in 2014, just over 2.3 million people were …

Living Under The Boot: Militarization And Peaceful Protest, Charlotte Guerra

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

An Evolving Workforce, An Adapting Law: Title Vii's Coverage Of Gender Identity And Criminal History, Sandra Pullman

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

In the half-century since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, workplace protections under the statute have expanded in a variety of ways. Legal theories that were once considered novel have increasingly been accepted in federal courts across the country, extending coverage to more employees than ever before. Yet, an analysis of these developing issues also exposes the limitations of federal antidiscrimination law. Below, this Article examines the ways that Title VII has been applied to two particularly vulnerable groups: transgender individuals and individuals with criminal records.

Apples-To-Fish: Public And Private Prison Cost Comparisons, Alex Friedmann

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Crime, Surveillance, And Communities, Bennett Capers

Fordham Urban Law Journal

We have become a surveillance state. Cameras—both those controlled by the state, and those installed by private entities—watch our every move, at least in public. For the most part, courts have deemed this public surveillance to be beyond the purview of the Fourth Amendment, meaning that it goes largely unregulated—a cause for alarm for many civil libertarians. This Article challenges these views and suggests that we must listen to communities in thinking about cameras and other surveillance technologies. For many communities, public surveillance not only has the benefit of deterring crime and aiding in the apprehension of criminals. It can …

Policing, Protestors, And Discretion, Alafair Burke

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Thinking Outside The Bun: How Chicago Can Combat Food Deserts And Obesity Through Public Health Policies And The Law, Calvin Edwards

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Organizing In Detroit Soup Kitchens For Power And Justice, Gregory B. Markus

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Practical Reasoning And The Application Of General Federal Regulatory Laws To Indian Nations, Alex T. Skibine

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.