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Punishing Thought: A Narrative Deconstructing The Interpretive Dance Of Hate Crime Legislation, 35 J. Marshall L. Rev. 123 (2001), Anne B. Ryan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Self-Determination And The American Indian: A Case Study, Milo Colton

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The United States has repeatedly victimized indigenous populations by stripping away tribal sovereignty and self-determination. One such example is Indian tribal reservations historical absence of jurisdictional autonomy. Prior to 1953, Indian tribal reservations shared jurisdiction with the federal government, allowing some semblance of autonomy. However, passage of Congress’s Public Law 280 erased this form of self-determination. This law enabled states to assume all civil and criminal jurisdiction over Indian tribal reservations. More recently, however, reservations have slowly begun to regain jurisdictional autonomy through the process of retrocession: the act of returning something taken. The achievements of the Winnebago Tribe of …

Reinforcing The Myth Of The Crazed Rapist: A Feminist Critique Of Recent Rape Legislation, Christina E. Wells, Erin Elliott

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article reviews these new legislative provisions, discussing their requirements as well as the general impetus behind their enactment. Part II discusses both the history of rape prosecution and feminist efforts in the 1970s and 1980s to eliminate barriers to successful rape prosecutions. This part also elaborates upon the myth of the crazed rapist and its relationship to feminist reform efforts. Part III explains how the current legislation is rooted in and reinforces that myth by encouraging unsupportable distinctions among rape defendants. Finally, Part IV discusses the feminist response to such laws and argues for a more …

"Suitable Targets"? Parallels And Connections Between "Hate" Crimes And "Driving While Black", Lu-In Wang

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Essay seeks to show that there is less to some of these apparent differences than meets the eye. While hate crimes may tend to be less routine and more violent than discriminatory traffic stops, closer examination of each shows the need to complicate our understanding of both. The work of social scientists who have studied bias-motivated violence and of legal scholars who have studied racial profiling- prominent among them my fellow panelist, Professor David A. Harris- reveals striking similarities and connections between the two practices. In particular, both hate crimes and racial profiling tend to be condemned only at …

Setting The Record Straight: A Proposal For Handling Prosecutorial Appeals To Racial, Ethnic Or Gender Prejudice During Trial, Andrea D. Lyon

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This article proposes that direct or indirect references to the protected classes of race and/or gender should always be subject to the Chapman v. California "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt" standard. Once the defendant has shown appeals to racial or gender bias in prosecutorial argument or other conduct during his trial, the burden must shift to the prosecution to show at an immediate hearing outside the presence of the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that this impermissible appeal to bias did not affect the fairness of the defendant's trial. Furthermore, courts must take the examination of the prosecution's proof seriously, …

Racial Profiling In Health Care: An Institutional Analysis Of Medical Treatment Disparities, René Bowser

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article links unscientific, race-based medical research to a broader, institutionalized pattern of racial profiling of Blacks in clinical decision-making. Far from providing a solution to the problem of racial health disparities, this Article shows that race-based health research fuels a collection of dubious background assumptions, creates a negative profile of Black patients, and reinforces taken-for-granted knowledge that leads to inferior medical treatment. This form of racial profiling is unjust, and also causes countless unnecessary deaths in the Black population.

When Success Breeds Attack: The Coming Backlash Against Racial Profiling Studies, David A. Harris

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

The author proposes that in an ongoing debate on questions concerning the possibility of racial or other types of invidious discrimination by public institutions, we should apply a prima facie standard to these claims in the public arena. In other words, if African Americans or Latinos say that they have been the victims of racial profiling, we should not ask for conclusive proof in the strictest statistical sense; rather, if they can present some credible evidence beyond anecdotes, some statistics that indicate that we may, indeed, have a problem, the burden should then shift to the public institution-here, law enforcement …

Constitutional Law—Commerce Clause—Violence Against Women Act's Civil Rights Remedy Exceeds Congress's Powers To Regulate Interstate Commerce. United States V. Morrison, 120 S. Ct. 1740 (2000)., Jennifer L. Wethington

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Racial Profiling: A Status Report Of The Legal, Legislative, And Empirical Literature, Katheryn Russell-Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

In recent years, there have been several widely-publicized cases in which racial profiling became police brutality. As well, there have been scores of famous Black men who have offered their personal accounts as victims of racial profiling. All of these have helped to propel the issue onto the nation's front burner. The varied responses to racial profiling indicate the range of groups affected by and concerned about the practice. Notably, this includes former President Bill Clinton, who shared his belief that racial profiling is a national problem. The issue of racial profiling has evoked a wide range of policy responses, …

'Appropriate' Means-Ends Constraints On Section 5 Powers, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

With the narrowing of Congress' Article I power to regulate interstate commerce and to authorize private suits against states, Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment provides Congress with an increasingly important alternative source of power to regulate and police state conduct. However, in City of Boerne v. Flores and subsequent cases, the Supreme Court has tightened the doctrinal test for prophylactic legislation based on Section Five. The Court has clarified Section Five's legitimate ends by holding that Congress may enforce Fourteenth Amendment rights only as they are defined by the federal judiciary, and the Court has constrained Section Five's permissible …

Lawyers, Jails, And The Law’S Fake Bargains, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Shattered Mirror: Identity, Authority, And Law, Lawrence M. Friedman

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Civil Rights In The New Decade: The Geography Of Opportunity, Sheryll Cashin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

It is truly an honor and a privilege to have been invited to return to my home state of Alabama to talk about the civil rights agenda in the new decade. Lest you think that I lack the appropriate credentials to speak on this issue, I will tell you that I did go to jail for the cause. At the age of four months, I was taken by my mother, Joan Carpenter Cashin, to a sit-in at a lunch counter in Huntsville, Alabama. When my mother was arrested, she insisted on taking me with her to jail. I am very …

The Inadequacies Of Civil Society: Law's Complementary Role In Regulating Harmful Speech, Andrew E. Taslitz

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Racial Profiling And Whren: Searching For Objective Evidence Of The Fourth Amendment On The Nation's Roads, Alberto B. Lopez

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Striking A Sincere Balance: A Reasonable Black Person Standard For "Location Plus Evasion" Terry Stops, Mia Carpiniello

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Randall Susskind originally proposed the "reasonable African American standard” for Terry stops as a way to minimize racial disparities in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. This paper will expand upon Susskind's suggested standard within the specific context of "location plus evasion" stops, in which suspects are stopped upon flight in a high-crime neighborhood. Part one will present the reasonable Black person standard in the context of Illinois v. Wardlow, a recent "location plus evasion case." Part one will then show how this alternative standard better accounts for Wardlow's "raced" decision to flee, the police officers' "raced" decision to stop him, and …

Race, Peremptories, And Capital Jury Deliberations, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

In Lonnie Weeks's capital murder trial in Virginia in 1993, the jury was instructed: If you find from the evidence that the Commonwealth has proved beyond a reasonable doubt, either of the two alternative aggravating factors], and as to that alternative you are unanimous, then you may fix the punishment of the defendant at death or if you believe from all the evidence that the death penalty is not justified, then you shall fix the punishment of the defendant at life imprisonment ... This instruction is plainly ambiguous, at least to a lay audience. Does it mean that if the …

Congressional Power To Require Dna Testing, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

Many states fail to conduct, or even to permit, DNA testing of biological materials in circumstances in which the results might exonerate convicts under sentence of death. Senator Patrick Leahy thinks that Congress should enact a statute requiring states to provide for testing when it promises to reveal the truth. Leahy's idea is sensible as a matter of policy. I mean in this Article to argue that it is also constitutionally feasible.

Supreme Court Of Pennsylvania Committee On Racial And Gender Bias In The Justice System: Testimony Of Professor Michelle J. Anderson, Michelle J. Anderson

Women’s Law Forum (2000-2006)

In testimony given before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Committee on Racial and Gender Bias in the Justice System in December 2000, Professor Anderson addressed the present state of rape law in Pennsylvania. Professor Anderson discussed the leading Pennsylvania criminal cases addressing rape. Professor Anderson's testimony concludes that the substantive law of rape in Pennsylvania continues to evince a profound gender bias and that the processing of rape complaints by police in Pennsylvania can also be gender biased.

The Racial Origins Of Modern Criminal Procedure, Michael J. Klarman

Michigan Law Review

The constitutional law of state criminal procedure was born between the First and Second World Wars. Prior to 1920, the Supreme Court had upset the results of the state criminal justice system in just a handful of cases, all involving race discrimination in jury selection. By 1940, however, the Court had interpreted the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate state criminal convictions in a wide variety of settings: mob-dominated trials, violation of the right to counsel, coerced confessions, financially-biased judges, and knowingly perjured testimony by prosecution witnesses. In addition, the Court had broadened its earlier decisions forbidding …

Rethinking The History Of American Freedom, Michael J. Klarman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reinventing Structural Reform Litigation: Deputizing Private Citizens In The Enforcement Of Civil Rights, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

The aim of this Article is to explore the possibility of constructing a model that harnesses the power of private citizens to reform unconstitutional practices, particularly in the critical area of police-related rights violations. I seek here to reintegrate private citizens into the enforcement of public laws; to tap the private experiential and financial resources that were a necessary condition of the great structural reform efforts of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The vehicle by which I propose to accomplish these ends is a simple, yet novel, amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 14141, the statute which …

The United Kingdom Bill Of Rights 1998: The Modernisation Of Rights In The Old World, Clive Walker, Russell L. Weaver

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Into a steadfastly conservative constitutional landscape, the United Kingdom Parliament has now introduced a Bill of Rights, the Human Rights Act of 1998, which takes effect in October 2000. The Act provides for a full catalogue of civil and political rights which are enforceable by the courts. This development raises two questions in evaluating the future of English law. First, does this signify the dawn of a new British radicalism? And second, why has it happened now? In answering these questions in relation to England and Wales, Part I of this Article provides an introduction to the traditional treatment of …

Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

Once again, issues of race, ethnicity, and class within our criminal justice system have been thrust into the public spotlight. On both sides of the country, in our nation's two largest cities, police are being called to account for acts of violence directed toward poor people of color. In New York City, a West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers, who fired forty-one bullets at the unarmed man as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in a poor section of the Bronx. Did race influence the officers' decisions to fire the …

Franco's Spain, Queer Nation?, Gema Pérez-Sánchez

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article discusses how, through its juridical apparatus, the Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco sought to define and to contain homosexuality, followed by examples of how underground queer activism contested homophobic laws. The Article concludes by analyzing a literary work to illustrate the social impact of Francoism's homophobic law against homosexuality.

Whether The Constitutionality Of The Violence Against Women Act Will Further Federal Protection From Sexual Orientation Crimes, Alexander Dombrowsky

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

"The Mis-Characterization Of The Negro": A Race Critique Of The Prior Conviction Impeachment Rule, Montrè D. Carodine

Indiana Law Journal

The election of Barack Obama as the nation's first Black President was a watershed moment with respect to race relations in the United States. Obama's election removed what to many seemed a nearly insurmountable racial barrier. Yet as he transitions into his historic role and his family becomes the first Black occupants of the White House, scores of Blacks are housed in jails and prisons across the country. The mass incarceration of Blacks, among other serious issues, demonstrates that race still matters in the United States. As then-presidential candidate Obama acknowledged in the speech that many viewed to be pivotal …

A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.: Who Will Carry The Baton?, F. Michael Higginbotham, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

It was a rainy November day during Thanksgiving weekend of 1997. The scene was the Washington, D.C., childhood home of Dr. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, A. Leon Higginbotham Jr.'s beloved wife. Our assignment was to assist in the removal, packing, and transport of a few prized family heirlooms that were to be taken to their home in Newton, Massachusetts.

On the early morning drive into Washington, D.C., our conversation was mostly idle chit-chat. Little did we know that the circumstances of the day would lead to an amazing set of discussions, the importance of which we could never have imagined at …

Enumerated Limits, Normative Principles, And Congressional Overstepping: Why The Civil Rights Provision Of The Violence Against Women Act Is Unconstitutional, Troy Robert Rackham

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Bill Of Rights And The Constitution: Facing The Challenge Of The Future, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.