Digital Commons Network^™

Remote Court: Principles For Virtual Proceedings During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Beyond, Alicia L. Bannon, Douglas Keith

Northwestern University Law Review

Across the country, courts at every level have relied on remote technology to adapt the justice system to a once-a-century global pandemic. This Essay describes and assesses this unprecedented journey into virtual justice, paying particular attention to eviction proceedings. While many judges have touted remote court as a revolutionary innovation, the reality is more complex. Remote court has brought substantial time savings and convenience to those who are able to access and use the required technology, but it has also posed hurdles to individuals on the other side of the digital divide, particularly self-represented litigants. The remote court experience has …

The Insights, Uses, And Ethics Of Social Neuroscience In Anti-Discrimination Law, Susan Carle

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The article explores the uses in anti-discrimination law of social neuroscience—a broad interdisciplinary field that draws on the insights of brain science, medicine, epidemiology, social psychology, behavioral economics, moral cognitive neuroscience and many other experimentally based disciplines. It discusses the promising uses of social neuroscience findings from all these subfields on such matters as the irrational biases of “fast” thinking processes in general, and implicit biases against “out” groups more specifically, as well as group conformity, the black sheep effect, and more. The article traces a few of the ways these insights can help inform anti-discrimination law in both particular …

A Comparison Of Public Defenders Vs. Private Attorneys, Tiffany Costello

Honors Senior Capstone Projects

This study seeks to determine whether there are any differences in conviction rates or client satisfaction between public defenders and private attorneys in state or federal courts. Although researchers have spent time examining differences between attorney type and client satisfaction or conviction rates, little information exists on the assessment of attorney type in the federal system. The study will consist of a two-part survey with approximately twenty-seven closed-ended questions about client satisfaction, conviction, court, and attorney type. The target population will be any criminal defendant in federal or state court with an attorney. In this study, the sampling method will …

“We” The Jury: The Problem Of Peremptory Strikes As Illustrated By Flowers V. Mississippi, Kayley A. Viteo

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Treating Runaway Youth As Criminals: Wrongfully Silencing Their Voices And Issuing Arrest Warrants, Tziona Breitbart

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that criminalizing runaway youth through the use of arrest warrants and court involvement is harmful and counterproductive. It advocates for a shift in approach, emphasizing the need to prioritize the voices and well-being of runaway youth, eliminate punitive measures, and provide supportive services to address the root causes of their behavior.

Courts Beyond Judging, Michael C. Pollack

BYU Law Review

Across all fifty states, a woefully understudied institution of government is responsible for a broad range of administrative, legislative, law enforcement, and judicial functions. That important institution is the state courts. While the literature has examined the federal courts and federal judges from innumerable angles, study of the state courts as institutions of state government — and not merely as sources of doctrine and resolvers of disputes — has languished. This Article remedies that oversight by drawing attention for the first time to the wide array of roles state courts serve, and by evaluating the suitability of both the allocation …

Reformulasi Delik Makar Dalam Rancangan Kitab Undang-Undang Hukum Pidana Nasional Tahun 2019 (Sebuah Telaah Leksikal Terhadap Terminologi Aanslag), Yaris Adhial Fajrin

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

The use of the term Makar as a translation of the word Aanslag in Indonesias CRIMINAL code currently triggers a variety of polemic because it has a lot of meaning, resulting in an ambiguity that causes no legal certainty to be guaranteed. Indonesias CRIMINAL code is currently in its case that it does not provide define and the limitations of Macar deeds so that the multitasking is still prone to occur. Addressing such a thing, it is necessary to reformulation the draft proceeding in the Penal Code in order to ensure the future legal certainty. The limitation of the performance …

The Race To The Top To Reduce Prosecutorial Misconduct, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

This Essay offers an unconventional approach to deterring prosecutorial misconduct. Trial judges should use their inherent authority to forbid prosecutors from appearing and handling cases in their courtrooms until the prosecutors have completed training on Brady v. Maryland, Batson v. Kentucky, and other types of prosecutorial misconduct. If a single trial judge in a medium-sized or large jurisdiction imposes training prerequisites on prosecutors, it could set off a race to the top that encourages other judges to adopt similar (or perhaps even more rigorous) training requirements. A mandate that prosecutors receive ethics training before handling any cases is …

The Liar’S Mark: Character And Forfeiture In Federal Rule Of Evidence 609(A)(2), Jesse Schupack

Michigan Law Review

Rule 609(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Evidence is an outlier. The Rule mandates admission of impeaching evidence of a witness’s past convictions for crimes of dishonesty. It is the only place in the Rules where judges are denied their usual discretion to exclude evidence on the grounds that its admission would be more prejudicial than probative. This Note analyzes three assumptions underlying this unusual Rule: (1) that there is a coherently definable category of crimes of dishonesty, (2) that convictions for crimes of dishonesty are uniquely probative of a person’s character, and (3) that an assessment of moral character …

Designing Legal Experiences, Maximilian A. Bulinski, J.J. Prescott

Book Chapters

Technological advancements are improving how courts operate by changing the way they handle proceedings and interact with litigants. Court Innovations is a socially minded software startup that enables citizens, law enforcement, and courts to resolve legal matters through Matterhorn, an online communication and dispute resolution platform. Matterhorn was conceived at the University of Michigan Law School and successfully piloted in two Michigan district courts beginning in 2014. The platform now operates in over 40 courts and in at least eight states, and it has facilitated the resolution of more than 40,000 cases to date. These numbers will continue to grow …

Deportation Arrest Warrants, Lindsay Nash

Articles

The common conception of a constitutionally sufficient warrant is one reflecting a judicial determination of probable cause, the idea being that the warrant process serves to check law enforcement. But neither the Constitution nor the Supreme Court has fully defined who can issue arrest warrants within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; the constitutional significance of arrest “warrants” that are not; or when (if ever) warrants of any type are constitutionally required for deportation-related arrests. In that void, the largest federal law enforcement agency—the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—is on pace to issue over 150,000 administrative “warrants” annually, authorized by …

Jack Weinstein: Reimagining The Role Of The District Court Judge, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

This essay, for a symposium issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter dedicated to the impact of Judge Jack Weinstein on the occasion of his retirement from the federal bench, highlights how Judge Weinstein has re-imagined the role of the district court judge. Through his judicial opinions, extrajudicial writings and speeches, and his innovative use of the court’s supervisory authority, Judge Weinstein has challenged, and in some cases altered, the status quo in the realm of criminal sentencing. In doing so, he has established a forceful example of how district court judges can use their position to advocate for and effect …

When Mental Health Meets “The One-Armed Man” Defense: How Courts Should Deal With Mccoy Defendants, Farid Seyyedi

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

The Supreme Court’s opinion in McCoy v. Louisiana held that a defendant has a constitutional right to insist their attorney not concede guilt as to any element of an offense, even if doing so is the only reasonable trial strategy to give the defendant a chance at life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Under McCoy’s holding, a defendant can insist on maintaining their innocence—even in the face of overwhelming evidence—and force their attorney to pursue a defense that will land them on death row. The Supreme Court’s holding makes clear that a strategic concession of guilt at trial—over …

Ethics In An Echo Chamber: Legal Ethics & The Peremptory Challenge, Kayley A. Viteo

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

Abstract forthcoming.

The Modest Impact Of The Modern Confrontation Clause, Jeffrey Bellin, Diana Bibb

Tennessee Law Review

The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause grants criminal defendants the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" them. A strict reading of this text would transform the criminal justice landscape by prohibiting the prosecution's use of hearsay at trial. But until recently, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Clause was closer to the opposite. By tying the confrontation right to traditional hearsay exceptions, the Court's longstanding precedents granted prosecutors broad freedom to use out-of-court statements to convict criminal defendants.

The Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington was supposed to change all that. By severing the link between the …

Contents

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redesigning Restorative Justice For Criminal Justice Reform, Matthew D. Kim

Tennessee Law Review

Considering the racial disparities in the criminal justice system and the pressing need for reform, this article presents the optimal design for restorative justice that is capable of drawing the necessary public support to transform the criminal justice system. Restorative justice is a growing alternative to the criminal justice system designed to allow offenders, victims, and members of the community resolve crimes without resorting to the criminal justice system. Public support for restorative justice programs is vital to their success, and many programs fail because of inconsistent public support. As such, proponents of restorative justice emphasize the need to "start …

Reconciling Legal And Technical Approaches To Algorithmic Bias, Alice Xiang

Tennessee Law Review

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of papers in the algorithmic fairness literature proposing various technical definitions of algorithmic bias and methods to mitigate bias. Whether these algorithmic bias mitigation methods would be permissible from a legal perspective is a complex but increasingly pressing question at a time when there are growing concerns about the potential for algorithmic decision-making to exacerbate societal inequities. In particular, there is a tension around the use of protected class variables: most algorithmic bias mitigation techniques utilize these variables or proxies, but anti-discrimination doctrine has a strong preference for decisions that are blind …

Practical Abolition: Universal Representation As An Alternative To Immigration Detention, Matthew Boaz

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Reexamination Of The Parens Patriae Power, Esther K. Hong

Tennessee Law Review

Juvenile law scholars are coalescing around the idea that the originating theory of the juvenile system-the theory of the state's parens patriae power-is a largely obsolete relic of the past. This theory holds that when children commit offenses or crimes, the state as a super-parent should respond in a manner that cares, treats, and advances the best interest of the youth. Rather than live up to its ideals, however, these benevolent aims often masked abuse and limited minors' constitutional rights. The new consensus in current juvenile law scholarship is that juvenile law policy and advocacy ought to rely on a …

The New Due Process: Fairness In A Fee-Driven State, Glenn H. Reynolds, Penny J. White

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Annual Index Volume 88

Tennessee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Politics And The Institutional Integrity Of The Icc, In The Past, Present, And Future Of The International Criminal Court (Alexander Heinze & Viviane Dittrich Eds., 2021), Shannon Fyfe

Books and Chapters

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (‘Rome Statute’ and ‘ICC‘) emerged following years of interest from various governments in establishing a permanent court to prosecute perpetrators of international crimes. The treaty that eventually established the ICC was the result of inter-governmental negotiations, which were ultimately successful in large part due to the ‘tribunal fatigue’ of governments concerned by “the financial and political costs of creating ad hoc United Nations (‘UN’) criminal tribunals for the atrocities that burdened so many regions of the world”. A permanent court would “provide greater efficiencies in addressing the investigation and prosecution of atrocity …

Systemic Racism And Immigration Detention, Carrie L. Rosenbaum

Seattle University Law Review

The denouement of the Trump presidency was a white supremacist coup attempt against a backdrop of public reawakening to the persistence of institutionalized racism. Though the United States has entered a new administration with a leader that expresses his commitment to ending institutionalized racism, the United States continues to imprison Central American and Mexican immigrants at the southern border. If the majority of the people in immigration jails at the border are Latinx, does immigration law disparately impact them, and do they have a right to equal protection? If they do, would equal protection protect them? This Article explores whether …

Escaping Death: The Colorado Method Of Capital Jury Selection, 54 Uic J. Marshall L. Rev. 247 (2021), Sophie Honeyman

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Disruption Of Covid-19: How A Virtual World Creates Opportunity For Improvement In The Criminal Justice System’S Treatment Of Complainants Of Sexual Violence, Leah Roberston

Law in a Post-Pandemic World

This paper argues that the COVID-19 pandemic has normalized video conferencing within the legal system such that survivors ought to be able to routinely testify outside of the court environment. Though there have always been high rates of sexualized violence, the onset of the pandemic has led to increased rates of sexualized violence, which could lead to greater numbers of trials prosecuting perpetrators. However, only a small amount of complainants turn to the court as a form of justice. This is likely due to the inhumane conditions inflicted on complainants during the trial process. The pandemic has revealed that the …

Duress In Immigration Law, Elizabeth A. Keyes

Seattle University Law Review

The doctrine of duress is common to other bodies of law, but the application of the duress doctrine is both unclear and highly unstable in immigration law. Outside of immigration law, a person who commits a criminal act out of well-placed fear of terrible consequences is different than a person who willingly commits a crime, but American immigration law does not recognize this difference. The lack of clarity leads to certain absurd results and demands reimagining, redefinition, and an unequivocal statement of the significance of duress in ascertaining culpability. While there are inevitably some difficult lines to be drawn in …

Rock And Hard Place Arguments, Jareb Gleckel, Grace Brosofsky

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores what we coin “rock and hard place” (RHP) arguments in the law, and it aims to motivate mission-driven plaintiffs to seek out such arguments in their cases. The RHP argument structure helps plaintiffs win cases even when the court views that outcome as unfavorable.

We begin by dissecting RHP dilemmas that have long existed in the American legal system. As Part I reveals, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have often taken advantage of RHP dilemmas and used them as a tool to persuade criminal defendants to forfeit their constitutional rights, confess, or give up the chance to …

“Born Under My Heart”: Adoptive Parents’ Use Of Metaphors To Make Sense Of Their Past, Present, And Future, Lucas Hackenburg, Toni Morgan, Eve Brank

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

Metaphors provide the opportunity to make sense of our experiences and share them with others. The current research qualitatively examined interviews with adoptive parents who had adopted through intercountry or private adoptions. Throughout their interviews, each participant used at least one metaphor in describing their experiences of adopting and raising their child. Overarchingly, the metaphor of “Adoption is a journey” encapsulated parents’ experiences. To demonstrate the journey, parents used metaphors to describe the past, present, and future. Metaphors of the past focused on their child’s trauma and the origin of how the child came to join their family. Metaphors used …

Dismantling Policing For Profit: How To Build On Missouri's Post-Ferguson Court Reforms, Samuel Lev Rubinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that legal reforms enacted after the 2014 Ferguson, Missouri uprising are insufficient to address the problem of using courts as revenue generators and the related problem of predatory policing. Reforms to date have merely capped how much money towns can raise from their courts; they have not fixed the perverse incentive problem, which allows towns like Ferguson to extract wealth from vulnerable, low-income residents through the court system. This Note argues that towns should be required to remit the money their courts raise to a state education fund, which puts legal separation between the entity collecting the …