Digital Commons Network^™

Criminalization And Normalization: Some Thoughts About Offenders With Serious Mental Illness, Richard C. Boldt

Faculty Scholarship

Response to Professor E. Lea Johnston, Reconceptualizing Criminal Justice Reform for Offenders with Serious Mental Illness

Abstract

While Professor Johnston is persuasive that clinical factors such as diagnosis and treatment history are not, in most cases, predictive by themselves of criminal behavior, her concession that those clinical factors are associated with a constellation of risks and needs that are predictive of criminal system involvement complicates her efforts to maintain a clear boundary between the criminalization theory and the normalization thesis. Indeed, Professor Johnston’s article contains a brief section in which she identifies “possible justifications” for the specialized programs that are …

The Unconstitutional Police, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

Most Fourth Amendment cases arise under a basic fact pattern. Police decide to do something--say, stop and frisk a suspect. They find some crime--say, a gun or drugs--they arrest the suspect, and the suspect is subsequently charged with a crime. The suspect--who is all too often Black--becomes a defendant and challenges the police officers' initial decision as unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment. The defendant seeks to suppress the evidence against them or perhaps to recover damages for serious injuries under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The courts subsequently constitutionalize the police officers' initial decision with little or no scrutiny. Effectively, the …

The Just Prosecutor, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

As the most powerful actors in our criminal legal system, prosecutors have been and remain one of the principal drivers of mass incarceration. This was and is by design. Prosecutorial power derives from our constitutional structure--prosecutors are given almost unfettered discretion to determine who to charge, what to charge, and, often, what the sentence will be. Within that structure, the prosecutor's duty is to ensure that justice is done. Yet, in exercising their outsized power, some prosecutors have fully embraced a secondary, adversarial role as a partisan advocate at the significant cost of seeking justice.

The necessary reforms of our …

Releasing Older Prisoners Convicted Of Violent Crimes: The Unger Story, Michael Millemann, Jennifer Elisa Chapman, Samuel P. Feder

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

No abstract provided.

Sex Offenders And The Free Exercise Of Religion, Christopher C. Lund

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Evisceration Of The Right To Appeal: Denial Of Individual Responsibility As Actionable Genocide Denial, Jennifer E. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

Tensions arise during litigation in the international criminal justice system between the practice of the international criminal tribunals, domestic laws, and policy decisions of United Nation (“UN”) Member States. One such tension arises between domestic genocide denial laws, which typically criminalize denial of genocide as a strict liability offense, and the preservation of due process for persons convicted of genocide seeking appeal. In theory, denying individual responsibility during the appeal of a conviction by an international tribunal could constitute punishable genocide denial under some domestic laws. This criminalization of the appeal process would violate the due process rights of international …

Invoking Criminal Equity's Roots, Cortney Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Equitable remedies have begun to play a critical role in addressing

some of the systemic issues in criminal cases. Invoked when other

solutions are inadequate to the fair and just resolution of the case,

equitable remedies, such as injunctions and specific performance,

operate as an unappreciated and underutilized safety valve that

protects against the procedural strictures and dehumanization that are

hallmarks of our criminal legal system. Less familiar equitable-like

legal remedies, such as writs of mandamus, writs of coram nobis, and

writs of audita querela, likewise serve to alleviate fundamental errors

in the criminal process. Several barriers contribute to the …

The Power Of The Dissent And Writing The Future Of Justice: Maat, Aristotle's Rhetoric, And Justice Ginsburg's Dissent In Kentucky V. King, Livan Davidson

Intercultural Human Rights Law Review

This article explains why Ginsburg's dissent in King is rhetorically superior to the majority opinion. It evaluates, by way of comparing and contrasting, the persuasiveness of the dissent and majority opinions in King. This article examines the opinion through the lens of Aristotle's rhetorical model and the ancient tenet of Maat. It analyzes Ginsburg and Justice Alito's (Alito) use of rhetorical devices that appeal to persuasion, including logos (appeal to logic), ethos (appeal to credibility), pathos (appeal to emotions), and Maat (rightness in the world). This article concludes that Ginsburg's use of rhetoric has a superior appeal to fairness and …

Anything They Say: Will Be Used Against Them, Amanda Bruchhauser

Hofstra Law Student Works

No abstract provided.

Ua12/8 Annual Campus Safety & Security Report, Wku Police

WKU Administration Documents

A statement of current campus policies regarding procedures for students and others to report criminal actions or other emergencies occurring on campus and policies concerning the institution's response to such reports.

Masthead

Hastings Journal of Crime and Punishment

No abstract provided.

Parole In Virginia, 2021: The Final Report Of The Washington And Lee Law Parole Representation Project, David I. Bruck, Bernadette M. Donovan, Matthew L. Engle

Scholarly Articles

The Virginia Capital Case Clearinghouse (“VC3”) was a yearlong ten-credit legal clinic at Washington and Lee University School of Law. Professor William Geimer created VC3 to assist in the defense of Virginia defendants who were facing the death penalty in the state’s trial courts. In 2017, recognizing both the waning need for capital defense support in Virginia and the almost total lack of legal representation for parole-eligible Virginia prisoners, VC3’s then-director, David Bruck, added the Parole Representation Project to VC3’s mission. Each year since then, VC3 students have represented at least sixteen prisoners in proceedings before the Virginia Parole Board …

Life Without Parole Sentencing In North Carolina, Brandon L. Garrett, Travis M. Seale-Carlisle, Karima Modjadidi, Kristen M. Renberg

Faculty Scholarship

What explains the puzzle of life without parole (LWOP) sentencing in the United States? In the past two decades, LWOP sentences have reached record highs, with over 50,000 prisoners serving LWOP. Yet during this same period, homicide rates have steadily declined. The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the use of juvenile LWOP in Eighth Amendment rulings. Further, death sentences have steeply declined, reaching record lows. Although research has examined drivers of incarceration patterns for certain sentences, there has been little research on LWOP imposition. To shed light on what might explain the sudden rise of LWOP, we examine characteristics of …

Are There Stories Prosecutors Shouldn't Tell? The Duty To Avoid Racialized Trial Narratives, Olwyn Conway

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The purportedly race-neutral actions of courts and prosecutors protect and perpetuate the myth of colorblindness and the legacy of white supremacy that define the American criminal system. This insulates the criminal system's racially disparate outcomes from scrutiny, thereby precluding reform. Yet prosecutors remain accountable to the electorate. In recent years, activists and community organizers have mobilized communities to support and elect prosecutors who have pledged to address the racial inequities of the criminal system. After a summer of protests for racial justice and growing acceptance for the demands of the Movement for Black Lives, we find ourselves in a moment …

Fraud Law And Misinfodemics, Wes Henricksen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Submission To The Toronto Police Services Board’S Use Of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy- Leaf And The Citizen Lab, Suzie Dunn, Kristen Mj Thomasen, Kate Robertson, Pam Hrick, Cynthia Khoo, Rosel Kim, Ngozi Okidegbe, Christopher Parsons

Reports & Public Policy Documents

We write as a group of experts in the legal regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), technology-facilitated violence, equality, and the use of AI systems by law enforcement in Canada. We have experience working within academia and legal practice, and are affiliated with LEAF and the Citizen Lab who support this letter.

We reviewed the Toronto Police Services Board Use of New Artificial Intelligence Technologies Policy and provide comments and recommendations focused on the following key observations:

1. Police use of AI technologies must not be seen as inevitable
2. A commitment to protecting equality and human rights must be integrated …

Breonna Taylor: Transforming A Hashtag Into Defunding The Police, Jordan Martin

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

How can modern policing be reformed to address police violence against Black women when it can occur at no fault of their own and end with a shower of bullets in the middle of the night while within the sanctity of their own home? What is accomplished when her name is said but justice is never achieved? What good does it do when her story is subsequently overshadowed or overlooked by the reform movements that intend to correct racism and sexism respectively? This Comment analyzes both Black women’s vulnerability to police violence and their invisibility in reform movements. First, police …

Revenge Of The Sixth: The Constitutional Reckoning Of Pandemic Justice, Brandon Marc Draper

Marquette Law Review

The Sixth Amendment’s criminal jury right is integral to the United States

criminal justice system. While this right is also implicated by the Due Process

Clause, Equal Protection Clause, and several federal and state statutes,

criminal jury trial rates have been declining for decades, down from

approximately 20% to 2% between 1988 to 2018. This dramatic drop in the

rate of criminal jury trials is an effective measure of the decreased access to

fair and constitutional criminal jury trials.

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 …

American Edibles: How Cannabis Regulatory Policy Rehashes Prohibitionist Fears And What To Do About It, Connor Burns, Jay Wexler

Seattle University Law Review

Why can’t we buy a cannabis muffin with our morning coffee? For much of the past century, the answer was simple: cannabis was illegal. Now, however, with more and more states legalizing cannabis for adult use, the answer is far less clear. Even in those states that have legalized cannabis, the simple action of buying and eating edibles at the same location has somehow remained a pipe dream despite consumer demand. Digging a little deeper, we can see how contemporary alarmism—by rehashing the same prohibitionist rhetoric demonizing cannabis for over eighty years—has once again arisen with a new target: cannabis-infused …

False Confession In Wrongful Convictions And The Effect Of Recording Custodial Interrogations Through Exoneration, Nana F. Owusu

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

To reduce false confessions and guilty pleas, twenty-seven states have passed a law to have all custodial interrogations electronically recorded. According to the Innocence Project briefing book (2017) on the electronic recording of interrogations, electronic recording is audio and audiovisual (Innocent Project, 2017). This study explores the factors that lead to false confessions and guilty pleas in wrongful convictions. The literature explains how deprivation, coercion, violence, and evidence fabrication can lead to false confessions and guilty pleas. Using the comparative/experimental research approach to study two groups (27 states with recording laws and 27 states (including territories) with no recording laws), …

A Fresh Start: The Evolving Use Of Juvenile Records In College Admissions, Eve Rips

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Questions about criminal and juvenile records in the college application process are common and frequently fail to account for the unique characteristics of juvenile justice systems. The ways in which colleges and universities ask about juvenile records often encourage applicants to disclose information in spite of statutory protections. These questions fly in the face of the public policy underlying a range of legal safeguards that are intended to help individuals with records from juvenile systems in moving forward and receiving a second chance.

In recent years, a series of legislative and institutional changes have begun to restrict how colleges and …

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 …

Victims’ Rights In Canada In The 21st Century, Alan N. Young, Kanchan Dhanjal

Commissioned Reports, Studies and Public Policy Documents

No abstract provided.

Talking Back In Court, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Incarcerated Activism During Covid-19, M. Eve Hanan

Scholarly Works

Incarcerated people have a notoriously difficult time advocating for themselves. Like other authoritarian institutions, prisons severely curtail and often punish speech, organizing, and self-advocacy. Also, like other authoritarian institutions, prison administrators are inclined to suppress protest rather than respond to the grounds for protest. Yet, despite impediments to their participation, incarcerated people have organized during the pandemic, advocating for themselves through media channels, public forums, and the courts. Indeed, a dramatic increase in incarcerated activism correlates with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic highlights injustice in other areas of criminal legal practices, it reveals both …

Sex, Crime, And Serostatus, Courtney Cross

Scholarly Works

The HIV crisis in the United States is far from over. The confluence of widespread opioid usage, high rates of HIV infection, and rapidly shrinking rural medical infrastructure has created a public health powder keg across the American South. Yet few states have responded to this grim reality by expanding social and medical services. Instead, criminalizing the behavior of people with HIV remains an overused and counterproductive tool for addressing this crisis-especially in the South, where HIV-specific criminal laws are enforced with the most frequency.

People living with HIV are subject to arrest, prosecution, and lengthy prison sentences if they …

Affirmative Action And The Criminal Law, Paul Butler

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

School “Safety” Measures Jump Constitutional Guardrails, Maryam Ahranjani

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and efforts to achieve racial justice through systemic reform, this Article argues that widespread “security” measures in public schools, including embedded law enforcement officers, jump constitutional guardrails. These measures must be rethought in light of their negative impact on all children and in favor of more effective—and constitutionally compliant—alternatives to promote school safety. The Black Lives Matter, #DefundthePolice, #abolishthepolice, and #DefundSchoolPolice movements shine a timely and bright spotlight on how the prisonization of public schools leads to the mistreatment of children, particularly children with disabilities, boys, Black and brown children, and low-income children. …