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The Modern Day Scarlet Letter, Ifeoma Ajunwa

Fordham Law Review

    American society has come to presuppose the efficacy of the collateral legal consequences of criminal conviction. But little attention has been paid to their effects on the reintegration efforts of the formerly incarcerated and, in particular, formerly incarcerated women. An 1848 case, Sutton v. McIlhany, affirmed collateral legal consequences as constituting an important part of criminal punishment. More recent cases, such as Turner v. Glickman, in which a class of people convicted of drug crimes were subsequently denied food stamps and other government benefits, have upheld the constitutionality of imposing these legal penalties on an individual even after …

A Criminal Justice System Without Justice: The News Media, Sports Media, & Rap‘S Influence On Racial Crime Disparities, "Jake" James Cullen Evans

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Public Defender Crisis In America: Gideon, The War On Drugs And The Fight For Equality, William Lawrence

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

The role of the public defender in the United States is one that is often disparaged and widely misunderstood. This note will first attempt to illuminate the evolution of the public defender movement in the United States, detailing its rather quiet ascent to the forefront of the criminal justice system: from the early work of Clara Foltz, to the trial of Clarence Earl Gideon, and beyond. The note will also broach just a few of the many systemic issues faced by the modern day public defender, including the unfortunate perception of inferiority from both the general public and indigent defendants …

Justice Sotomayor‟S Undemocratic Dissent In Schuette V. Coalition To Defend Affirmative Action, Adam Lamparello

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

"I Do For My Kids": Negotiating Race And Racial Inequality In Family Court, Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong

Fordham Law Review

    Socio-legal scholarship examining issues of access to justice is currently experiencing a renaissance. Renewed inquiry into this field is urgently needed. Studies confirm that only 20 percent of the legal needs of low- income communities are met and that the vast majority of unrepresented litigants are low income, creating what some call a “justice gap” that has become even more urgent in recent years. State tribunals that deal with high-stakes issues particularly relevant to low-income residents, such as family courts and housing courts, are seeing an increasing number of litigants, the majority of whom are unrepresented.

The Surveillance State: Do License Plate Readers Impinge Upon Americans' Civil Liberties?, Jourdin Hermann

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

The boundaries that delineate public from private sphere have challenged our political system’s foundations since its origination. License plate readers (LPRs), a tool used by law enforcement and private businesses, cause citizens and their government to question the criteria separating public and private information. While police and repossession agencies contend that license plate readers aid their work, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) argues that surveillance equipment interferes with an individual’s right to privacy. Addressing such privacy concerns requires the public to hold its government accountable by petitioning for limits on LPR use and data retention. LPRs also pose unique …

Police Racial Violence: Lessons From Social Psychology, L. Song Richardson

Fordham Law Review

    The recent rash of police killing unarmed black men has brought national attention to the persistent problem of policing and racial violence. These cases include the well-known and highly controversial death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the deaths of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York; John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio; Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, California; Dante Parker in San Bernardino County, California; and Vonderrit D. Myers Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri. Data reported to the FBI indicate that white police officers killed black citizens almost twice a …

Critical Race Science And Critical Race Philosophy Of Science, Paul Gowder

Fordham Law Review

    Over several decades, feminist philosophy of science has revealed the ways in which much of science has proceeded from “mainstream” assumptions that privilege men and other hierarchically superordinate groups and existing socially constructed conceptions of gender. In doing so, it has produced a research program that, while rooted in the post- Kuhnian philosophy and sociology of science that has been taken up by many students of scientific method more generally, has been used to critique great swathes of modern science and to reveal both the biases of the mainstream, and the transformative potential of a science that proceeds from the …

Taking A Stand?: An Initial Assessment Of The Social And Racial Effects Of Recent Innovation In Self-Defense Laws, Mario L. Barnes

Fordham Law Review

    Perhaps, not surprisingly, the controversy over the rise of self-defense reforms in the United States that have come to be known as ―Stand Your Ground‖ (SYG) laws, began with a story about colors. This Article principally applies an empirical method and critical race theory (eCRT) lens to explore whether these reformed statutes, which generally have authorized greater use of force within the context of self-defense, deter crime and differentially affect Whites, Blacks, and other racial groups.

When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber

Fordham Law Review

    Focusing on criminal law and procedure in particular, this Article seeks to expose various tensions in critical race theorizing and progressive theorizing more broadly, offer some suggestions for a unifying methodology of critical criminal law analysis, and discuss where empirical study might fit into this new program. Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law is not only subject to the competing frames of critique and formalism, it also exists within an overarching American criminal law culture that can eclipse both concerns over rights violations and structural injustice. The U.S. penal system has become a “peculiar institution” and a …

Justice Shortchanged--Assigned Counsel Compensation In Wisconsin, Sixth Amendment Center, The Defender Initiative, Robert C. Boruchowitz, Fred T. Korematsu Center For Law And Equality

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

Justice Shortchanged--Assigned Counsel Compensation in Wisconsin

Do Irish Courts And The European Court Of Human Rights Have Achieved The Correct Balance Between Protection Of The Rights Of Individual Prisoners And Pragmatic Concerns Regarding The Proper Functioning Of The Prison System., Adrian Berski

Reports

Nowadays it is very hard to find the relevant balance between decisions of the Irish Courts and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), regarding the rights of individual prisoners and the proper functioning of the prison system. On one side, the main function of the courts is resolution dispute, apply the relative law and most importantly: protecting the law and human rights. On the other hand, court decisions have to be based on the relevant prison and justice systems that applies to each particular country.

It is worth taking into consideration that decisions made by the European Court of Human …

Cross-Racial Misidentification: A Call To Action In Washington State And Beyond, Taki V, Flevaris, Ellie F. Chapman

Seattle University Law Review

Research indicates eyewitness identifications are incorrect approximately one-third of the time in criminal investigations. For years, this phenomenon has significantly contributed to wrongful convictions all over the country, including in Washington State. But jurors, attorneys, and police remain unaware of the nature and extent of the problem and continue to give undue weight to eyewitness evidence. Experts have estimated that approximately 5,000–10,000 felony convictions in the United States each year are wrongful, and research suggests that approximately 75% of wrongful convictions involve eyewitness misidentification. The phenomenon of eyewitness misidentification is also amplified and most troublesome in the context of cross-racial …

Backsliding: The United States Supreme Court, Shelby County V. Holder And The Dismantling Of Voting Rights Act Of 1965, Bridgette Baldwin

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward: How The Supreme Court’S Decision In Shelby County V. Holder Eviscerated The Voting Rights Act And What Civil Rights Advocates Should Do About It, Pamela Edwards

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Unseen Exclusions In Voting And Immigration Law, César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Post Oppression, Christian B. Sundquist

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Elimination Dance, Sarah Jane Forman

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Exhibits To Accompany Testimony & Statement Of Dean Hill Rivkin Before The Senate Judiciary Committee (21 April 2015), Dean H. Rivkin

College of Law Faculty Scholarship

Exhibits to accompany testimony and statement-of-record of Professor Dean Hill Rivkin (The University of Tennessee College of Law), as submitted on April 21, 2015, before a hearing convened by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary: “Improving Accountability and Oversight of Juvenile Justice Grants.”

Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor: A Legacy Of Judicial Independence, Pierce J. Reed

Akron Law Review

An introduction to a special edition of the Akron Law Review, which celebrates the work of Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor during her first decade as a member of the Supreme Court of Ohio.

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Look At The Disproportionate Effects Of Federal Mandatory Minimum Drug Sentences On Racial Minorities And How They Have Contributed To The Degradation Of The Underprivileged African–American Family, Danielle Snyder

Journal of Public Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

On The Occasion Of The 50th Anniversary Of The Civil Rights Act Of 1964: Persistent White Supremacy, Relentless Anti-Blackness, And The Limits Of The Law, Nancy A. Heitzeg Ph.D.

Journal of Public Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Evolving Standards Of Domination: Abandoning A Flawed Legal Standard And Approaching A New Era In Penal Reform, Spearit

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article critiques the evolving standards of decency doctrine as a form of Social Darwinism. It argues that evolving standards of decency provided a system of review that was tailor-made for Civil Rights opponents to scale back racial progress. Although as a doctrinal matter, evolving standards sought to tie punishment practices to social mores, prison sentencing became subject to political agendas that determined the course of punishment more than the benevolence of a matur-ing society. Indeed, rather than the fierce competition that is supposed to guide social development, the criminal justice system was consciously deployed as a means of social …

The Ghosts Of White Supremacy: Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, And The Spectors Of Black Criminality, Nick J. Sciullo

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Analysis Of The Legal And Practical Implications Of The Potential Increased Participation In Jury Service By Racial Minorities In The U.S. Criminal Justice System, Brian Keith Leonard

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prisoners' Rights Lawyers' Strategies For Preserving The Role Of The Courts, Margo Schlanger

Articles

This Article is part of the University of Miami Law Review’s Leading from Below Symposium. It canvasses prisoners’ lawyers’ strategies prompted by the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”). The strategies comply with the statute’s limits yet also allow U.S. district courts to remain a forum for the vindication of the constitutional rights of at least some of the nation’s millions of prisoners. After Part I’s introduction, Part II summarizes in several charts the PLRA’s sharp impact on the prevalence and outcomes of prison litigation, but demonstrates that there are still many cases and situations in which courts continue to …

Griggs At Midlife, Deborah A. Widiss

Michigan Law Review

Not all Supreme Court cases have a midlife crisis. But it is fair to say that Griggs v. Duke Power Co., which recently turned forty, has some serious symptoms. Griggs established a foundational proposition of employment discrimination law known as disparate impact liability: policies that significantly disadvantage racial minority or female employees can violate federal employment discrimination law, even if there is no evidence that the employer “intended” to discriminate. Griggs is frequently described as one of the most important decisions of the civil rights era, compared to Brown v. Board of Education for its “momentous social consequences.” In 1989, …

Doj Clears Wilson But Excoriates Ferguson Police, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

A Failure To Rehabilitate: Leaving Disability Insurance Out Of The Mental Health Parity Debate, Christopher R. Wilson

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Centralized Prosecution: Cross-Designated Prosecutors And An Unconstitutional Concentration Of Power, Haley White

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.