Digital Commons Network^™

Racial Captialism And Race Massacres: Tulsa's Black Wall Street And Elaine's Sharecroppers, André Douglas Pond Cummings, Kalvin Graham

Law Faculty Scholarship

United States history is marked and checkered with grievous race massacres dating back to the end of slavery. These race “riots,” as they are benignly referred to in some quarters, occurred infamously in Tulsa, Elaine, Rosewood, Chicago, Detroit, and so many other lesser remembered cities. The starkest period of race massacres in the United States, including each of those just mentioned, occurred in the early 1900s, between 1919 and 1923 when Black Americans, newly empowered by service in a world war and having gained available land grants in territories where indigenous peoples were forced to abandon, began finding economic and …

When The Conditions Are The Confinement: Eighth Amendment Habeas Claims During Covid-19, Michael L. Zuckerman

University of Cincinnati Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic cast into harsher relief much that was already true about mass incarceration in the United States. It also cast into harsher relief much that was already true about the legal barriers confronting people seeking to make its conditions more humane. This Article offers a brief overview of the legal landscape as the COVID-19 crisis arose and then surveys eight prominent federal cases involving Eighth Amendment claims related to COVID-19 outbreaks at carceral facilities, most of which included significant litigation over whether they could secure release through habeas corpus. The Article then distills six key tensions from these …

Overcoming Obstacles To Reentry Panel, Mackenzie Hobbs

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Rose Lecture, Mackenzie Hobbs

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

An Uncomfortable Truth: Indigenous Communities And Law In New England: Roger Williams University Law Review Symposium 10/22/2021, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Redeeming Justice, Terrell Carter, Rachel López, Kempis Songster

Northwestern University Law Review

Approximately three decades ago, two of us, Terrell Carter and Kempis Songster, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that this sentence, effectively an order to die in prison, represented a legal determination that we were irredeemable. In this Article, with insights from our coauthor and friend, human rights scholar Rachel López, we ask: What does it mean for the law to judge some human beings as incapable of redemption? Isn’t the capacity for change core to the human condition, and shouldn’t that be reflected in the law?

This Article …

Lgbtqia+ Public Accomodation Cases: The Battle Between Religious Freedom And Civil Rights, Jamie Reinah

Fordham Law Review

Protections for LGBTQIA+ Americans have greatly expanded since the U.S. Supreme Court recognized marriage equality in Obergefell v. Hodges, but the debate about whether business owners can refuse to serve LGBTQIA+ couples on religious grounds has grown more bitterly divided. The free exercise of religion is a fundamental constitutional right, and it is strongly protected at both the federal and state levels. At the same time, LGBTQIA+ couples are protected from receiving unequal treatment in public places under state antidiscrimination laws. The clash between religion and LGBTQIA+ rights has culminated in a line of cases that present difficult questions …

How The Gun Control Act Disarms Black Firearm Owners, Maya Itah

Washington Law Review

Through 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), the Gun Control Act (GCA) outlaws the possession of a firearm “in furtherance of” a drug trafficking crime. The statute’s language is broad, and federal courts have interpreted it expansively. By giving prosecutors wide discretion in charging individuals with § 924(c) violations, the language enables the disproportionate incarceration of Black firearm owners.

This Comment addresses this issue in three parts. Part I discusses the ways early gun control laws overtly disarmed Black firearm owners. Additionally, Part I provides context for the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1968, which coincided with the backlash to …

Revocation And Retribution, Jacob Schuman

Washington Law Review

Revocation of community supervision is a defining feature of American criminal law. Nearly 4.5 million people in the United States are on parole, probation, or supervised release, and 1/3 eventually have their supervision revoked, sending 350,000 to prison each year. Academics, activists, and attorneys warn that “mass supervision” has become a powerful engine of mass incarceration.

This is the first Article to study theories of punishment in revocation of community supervision, focusing on the federal system of supervised release. Federal courts apply a primarily retributive theory of revocation, aiming to sanction defendants for their “breach of trust.” However, the structure, …

"Send Freedom House!": A Study In Police Abolition, Tiffany Yang

Washington Law Review

Sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the 2020 uprisings accelerated a momentum of abolitionist organizing that demands the defunding and dismantling of policing infrastructures. Although a growing body of legal scholarship recognizes abolitionist frameworks when examining conventional proposals for reform, critics mistakenly continue to disregard police abolition as an unrealistic solution. This Essay helps dispel this myth of “impracticality” and illustrates the pragmatism of abolition by identifying a community-driven effort that achieved a meaningful reduction in policing we now take for granted. I detail the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a Black civilian …

Police Or Pirates? Reforming Washington's Civil Asset Forfeiture System, Jasmin Chigbrow

Washington Law Review

Civil asset forfeiture laws permit police officers to seize property they suspect is connected to criminal activity and sell or retain the property for the police department’s use. In many states, including Washington, civil forfeiture occurs independent of any criminal case—many property owners are never charged with the offense police allege occurred. Because the government is not required to file criminal charges, property owners facing civil forfeiture lack the constitutional safeguards normally guaranteed to defendants in the criminal justice system: the right to an attorney, the presumption of innocence, the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, …

Collaterally Attacking The Prison Litigation Reform Act's Application To Meritorious Prisoner Civil Litigation, Melissa Benerofe

Fordham Law Review

Earlier this year, the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) reached its twenty-fifth birthday, reinvigorating discussion on its effects on people in prison and the U.S. criminal justice system more broadly. This Note examines how the PLRA deters and obstructs prisoners’ ability to file meritorious civil rights lawsuits regarding the conditions of their confinement. The PLRA does so primarily through four of its provisions, which this Note refers to as the “access provisions.” The access provisions include: (1) the exhaustion of administrative remedies; (2) the filing fee provision; (3) the three-strikes rule; and (4) limitations on attorney’s fees. This Note argues …

Introduction: Assuming A Critical Lens In Legal Studies: Reconciling Laws And Reality, Tanya Monique Washington Hicks, Courtney Anderson

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Immigration And Racial Justice: Enforcing The Borders Of Blackness, Karla Mckanders

Georgia State University Law Review

Black immigrants are invisible at the intersection of their race and immigration status. Until recently, conversations on border security, unlawful immigration, and national security obscured racially motivated laws seeking to halt the blackening and browning of America. This Article engages with the impact of immigration enforcement at the intersection of anti-Black racism and interrogates how foundational immigration laws that exist outside constitutional norms have rendered Black immigrants invisible. At this intersection, Black immigrants experience a double bind where enforcement of immigration laws and the criminal legal system have a disparate impact resulting in disproportionate incarceration and deportation.

First, the Article …

Pandemic Policing, Christian Sundquist

Georgia State University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Against Discourse: Why Eliminating Racial Disparities Requires Radical Politics, Not More Discussion, Robert Weber

Georgia State University Law Review

Racial disparity discourse is one of the main modalities through which we discuss and experience race and racism in the United States today—in discussions with colleagues and friends, in scholarly work, on cable news, on social media, and in lecture halls. Despite its ubiquity, racial disparity discourse is under-theorized: what, exactly, is its intended purpose? This Essay argues that most discussion about racial disparities is predicated on the faulty premise—grounded in the Habermasian concepts of discourse and communicative rationality—that antiracists will convince their interlocutors by engaging in a practice of rationalistic discourse among participants who share the objective and expectation …

Social Distancing As A Privilege: Assessing The Impact Of Structural Disparities On The Covid-19 Crisis In The Black Community, Olympia Duhart

Georgia State University Law Review

There is a harsh reality for people living with the COVID-19 restrictions in the same city. Though the virus has been called an equal opportunity threat, the truth is that it has had a deadly, disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people. The COVID-19 pandemic has crushed communities of color. Among Black Americans, who make up around 13% of the U.S. population, the COVID-19 infection and death rate are disproportionally high.

To curb the spread of this infectious disease, the CDC has advanced simple advice: apply social distancing guidelines. Social distancing (physical distancing) requires people to keep at least six …

Less Prison Time Matters: A Roadmap To Reducing The Discriminatory Impact Of The Sentencing System Against African Americans And Indigenous Australians, Mirko Bagaric

Georgia State University Law Review

The criminal justice system discriminates against African Americans. There are a number of stages of the criminal justice process. Sentencing is the sharp end of the system because this is where the community acts in its most coercive manner by intentionally inflecting hardships on offenders. African Americans comprise approximately 40% of the incarcerated population yet only about 13% of the total population. The overrepresentation of African Americans in prisons is repugnant. Despite this, lawmakers for decades have been unable or unwilling to implement reforms which ameliorate the problem. This is no longer politically or socially tolerable in light of the …

Deficit Frame Dangers, Jonathan P. Feingold

Georgia State University Law Review

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as an essential, if insufficient, catalyst of social change. In part, it is. But in critical respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, civil rights litigation can hinder short- and long-term projects of racial justice. Specifically, certain civil rights doctrines reward plaintiffs for emphasizing community deficits—or what I term a “deficit frame.” Legal doctrine, in other words, invites legal narratives that track, activate, and reinforce pernicious racial stereotypes. This dynamic, even in the context of well-intended litigation, risks entrenching conditions that drive racial inequality—including the conditions that litigation is often intended to address. …

Caste Discrimination And Federal Employment Law In The United States, Brian Elzweig

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blue Racing: The Racialization Of Police In Hate Crime Statutes, Christopher Williams

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Content warning: this Article discusses police brutality.

The relationship between race, law, and policing is one that has been analyzed by many scholars throughout U.S. history. The vast majority of research about police has highlighted policing in relation to groups they police, focusing on areas such as policing practices, policies, or involvement in the racialization of minority groups. This scholarship has far outpaced research on actions taken by law enforcement on behalf of law enforcement— specifically, how law enforcement engages in racialization out of self-interest. A better understanding of the ways in which law enforcement engages in racialization that is …

Commercial Sex And Exploitation, Judge Barbara Mack, Dana Raigrodski

Chapters in Books

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), including sex trafficking, mainly targets women, children, young adults (up to age 24), and individuals identifying as LGBTQ+, primarily in communities in poverty, Indigenous communities, and communities of color. Economic and social marginalization drives people into the commercial sex industry and exploitation, which in turn perpetuates that economic and social marginalization. The most targeted and marginalized populations have been doubly harmed by exploitation and by poor treatment within the legal system.

While data is limited, CSE is widespread in the sex industry in Washington State and nationally. State and national data show significant disparities based on …

School Police Reform: A Public Health Imperative, Thalia González, Emma Kaeser

SMU Law Review Forum

Out of the twin pandemics currently gripping the United States­—deaths of unarmed Black victims at the hands of police and racialized health inequities resulting from COVID-19—an antiracist health equity agenda has emerged that identifies racism as a public health crisis. Likewise, calls for reform of school policing by those advocating for civil rights, racial justice, and Black Lives Matter have simultaneously intensified. Yet each remains siloed, despite the natural connection and implicit overlap between these separate movements and debates. Indeed, there are documented negative health effects of school policing for Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) youth. But these have …

Antiracist Remedial Approaches In Judge Gregory’S Jurisprudence, Leah M. Litman

Washington and Lee Law Review

This piece uses the idea of antiracism to highlight parallels between school desegregation cases and cases concerning errors in the criminal justice system. There remain stark, pervasive disparities in both school composition and the criminal justice system. Yet even though judicial remedies are an integral part of rooting out systemic inequality and the vestiges of discrimination, courts have been reticent to use the tools at their disposal to adopt proactive remedial approaches to address these disparities. This piece uses two examples from Judge Roger Gregory’s jurisprudence to illustrate how an antiracist approach to judicial remedies might work.

The Other Ordinary Persons, Fred O. Smith, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

If originalism aims to center the original public meaning of text, who constitutes “the public”? Are we doing enough to capture historically excluded voices: impoverished white planters; dispossessed Natives; silenced women; and the enslaved? If not, what more is required? And for those who are not originalists, how do we ensure that, as American law consults the wisdom of the ages, we do not sever entire sources of wisdom?

This brief symposium Article engages these themes, offering two modest, interrelated claims. The first is that important informational, ethical, and democratic benefits accrue when American legal doctrine includes the voices and …

Antiracism In Action, Daniel Harawa, Brandon Hasbrouck

Washington and Lee Law Review

Racism pervades the criminal legal system, influencing everything from who police stop and search, to who prosecutors charge, to what punishments courts apply. The Supreme Court’s fixation on colorblind application of the Constitution gives judges license to disregard the role race plays in the criminal legal system, and all too often, they do. Yet Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory challenges the facially race-neutral reasoning of criminal justice actors, often applying ostensibly colorblind scrutiny to achieve a color-conscious jurisprudence. Nor is he afraid of engaging directly in a frank discussion of the racial realities of America, rebuking those within the system …

Antiracist Remedial Approaches In Judge Gregory’S Jurisprudence, Leah M. Litman

Articles

This piece uses the idea of antiracism to highlight parallels between school desegregation cases and cases concerning errors in the criminal justice system. There remain stark, pervasive disparities in both school composition and the criminal justice system. Yet even though judicial remedies are an integral part of rooting out systemic inequality and the vestiges of discrimination, courts have been reticent to use the tools at their disposal to adopt proactive remedial approaches to address these disparities. This piece uses two examples from Judge Roger Gregory’s jurisprudence to illustrate how an antiracist approach to judicial remedies might work.

A Government Of Laws That Is A Government Of Men And Women, Mark Tushnet

Arkansas Law Review

I take Mark Killenbeck’s “provocative” article as an occasion for some informal comments about what Korematsu and Trump v. Hawaii tell us about the saying, “a government of laws, not a government of men and women.” My basic thought is that the “not” in the saying has to be replaced “but also.” And, in some sense we have always had to have known that the saying was wrong as stated. Whatever the laws are, they don’t make themselves. Nor do they administer themselves, nor interpret themselves. Men and women appear at the stages of enactment, application, and adjudication. So, for …

Petitions From The Grave: Why Federal Executions Are A Violation Of The Suspension Clause, Taran Wessells

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Note will address the intersection of wrongful convictions, the federal death penalty, and habeas corpus to conclude that the federal death penalty is an unconstitutional violation of the Suspension Clause of the United States Constitution. Part I of this Note will establish that Congress may not suspend the writ of habeas corpus outside of wartime. Then, Part II will show that wrongfully convicted prisoners therefore have a constitutional right to a habeas petition if they discover new, exonerating evidence. Part III will argue that because executed prisoners cannot file a habeas petition for release, executing wrongfully convicted prisoners is …

When I Was A Young Girl: Gender And Race In The Life Archives Of Criminal Transportation, Nick Townsend

University Honors Theses

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the carceral system in England shifted away from corporal punishment and moved towards containing and policing those deemed criminal in different ways. One notable way was transportation, the practice of moving convicts out of the imperial core into a colony. This practice became a way to remove "lesser" populations from England and regulate social behavior while also expanding the British Empire and allowed convicts a new purpose in expanding the carceral state. This developed alongside the broader trends of racialization and colonization in the British Empire, which drew a global color line separating "white" …