Digital Commons Network^™

Machine Learning With Multi-Class Regression And Neural Networks: Analysis And Visualization Of Crime Data In Seattle, Erkin David George

Honors Projects

This article examines the implications of machine learning algorithms and models, and the significance of their construction when investigating criminal data. It uses machine learning models and tools to store, clean and analyze data that is fed into a machine learning model. This model is then compared to another model to test for accuracy, biases and patterns that are detected in between the experiments. The data was collected from data.seattle.gov and was published by the City of Seattle Data Portal and was accessed on September 17, 2018. This research will be looking into how machine learning models can be used …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae 290 Criminal Law And Mental Health Law Professors In Support Of Petitioner's Request For Reversal And Remand, Kahler V. Kansas, 18-6135 (U.S. June 6, 2019), Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Amici curiae are a group of philosophically and politically diverse law school professors and scholars in the fields of criminal law and mental health from a variety of disciplines who have been teaching and writing about the insanity defense and related issues throughout their careers. They include the authors of leading criminal law and mental health law treatises and casebooks and numerous important scholarly books and articles.

Amici believe this case raises important questions about principles of criminal responsibility, the integral role of the insanity defense in Anglo-American law, and the inadequacy of the “mens rea alternative” to the traditional …

Circuit Split On The Application Of The "Safety Valve" Provision As Applied To The Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act - Alexander And Mosquera-Murillo, Alexander D. Andruzzi

Ocean and Coastal Law Journal

When the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia decided the case of United States v. Mosquera-Murillo, it created a circuit-split on whether individuals charged under the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (codified as 46 U.S.C. § 705) are entitled to relief under the "Safety Valve" provision of 18 U.S.C. § 3553(f). The "Safety Valve" allows individuals who meet certain criteria to be sentenced according to the sentencing guidelines, regardless of any mandatory minimum sentences. This case note compares the holding of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to the Eleventh Circuit's holding in United States …

The Elusive Object Of Punishment, Gabriel S. Mendlow

Articles

All observers of our legal system recognize that criminal statutes can be complex and obscure. But statutory obscurity often takes a particular form that most observers have overlooked: uncertainty about the identity of the wrong a statute aims to punish. It is not uncommon for parties to disagree about the identity of the underlying wrong even as they agree on the statute’s elements. Hidden in plain sight, these unexamined disagreements underlie or exacerbate an assortment of familiar disputes—about venue, vagueness, and mens rea; about DUI and statutory rape; about hate crimes, child pornography, and counterterrorism laws; about proportionality in punishment; …

Guilt By Alt-Association: A Review Of Enhanced Punishment For Suspected Gang Members, Rebecca J. Marston

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This essay, written in reaction to the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform’s 2018 Symposium entitled “Alt-Association: The Role of Law in Combating Extremism” (the Symposium), does not dispute the seriousness of gang-related violence. Rather, it examines ways in which current strategies for combating gang-related crimes are ineffective or problematic and suggests possible reforms. Part One of this essay will describe current methods used in labeling, tracking, and prosecuting gang members, which result in a cycle of enhanced punishment. Part Two will evaluate these practices and reflect on whether enhanced punishment is the best way to reduce gang-related violence, …

Reforming Recidivism: Making Prison Practical Through Help, Katelyn Copperud

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

While Texas has long been recognized as “Tough Texas” when it comes to crime, recent efforts have been made to combat that reputation. Efforts such as offering “good time” credit and more liberal parole standards are used to reduce the Texas prison populations. Although effective in reducing prison populations, do these incentives truly reduce a larger issue of prison overpopulation: recidivism?

In both state and federal prison systems, inmate education is proven to reduce recidivism. Texas’s own, Windham School District, provides a broad spectrum of education to Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmates; from General Education Development (GED) classes to …

Racial States Of Municipal Governance: Policing Bodies And Space For Revenue In North St. Louis County, Mo, Jodi Rios

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Social Media, Venue And The Right To A Fair Trial, Leslie Y. Garfield Tenzer

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Judicial failure to recognize social media's influence on juror decision making has identifiable constitutional implications. The Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial demands that courts grant a defendant's change of venue motion when media-generated pretrial publicity invades the unbiased sensibility of those who are asked to sit in judgment. Courts limit publicity suitable for granting a defendant's motion to information culled from newspapers, radio, and television reports. Since about 2014, however, a handful of defendants have introduced social media posts to support their claims of unconstitutional bias in the community. Despite defendants' introduction of negative social media in support …

Skinning The Cat: How Mandatory Psychiatric Evaluations For Animal Cruelty Offenders Can Prevent Future Violence, Ashley Kunz

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

In 2017, the Texas legislature amended Texas Penal Code § 42.092, which governs acts of cruelty against non-livestock animals. The statute in its current form makes torturing, killing, or seriously injuring a non-livestock animal a third degree felony, while less serious offenses carry either a state jail felony or a Class A misdemeanor charge.

While a step in the right direction, Texas law is not comprehensive in that it fails to address a significant aspect of animal cruelty offenses: mental illness. For over fifteen years, Texas Family Code § 54.0407 has required psychiatric counseling for juveniles convicted of cruelty to …

Agenda Setting In State Courts Of Last Resort, Philip Marcin, Nancy Marion

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

Little academic research has been carried out on the agenda-setting process for judges, particularly in states. This study examines the rhetoric and agenda setting of judges in 47 state courts of last resort from 2005 to 2015. A content analysis of the end-of-the-year speeches delivered by the justices was performed to determine patterns and trends in rhetoric according to political party affiliation, region, proximity to the border, and method of appointment. It was discovered that the topics discussed by state chief justices did not vary over time; that agenda items differed slightly between Republican and Democratic justices; that there were …

Livable Term Sentences As Alternatives To Juvenile Life Without Parole: A Sentencing Framework Based On United States V. Grant, Brittany Ripper, Robert Johnson

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

In Miller v. Alabama (2012), the United States Supreme Court held that mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles are unconstitutional. In Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016), the Supreme Court made this holding retroactive, leaving the states to fashion new sentencing schemes for juveniles previously sentenced to life without parole. Complicating this task is the debate around “de facto,” or virtual, life sentences, which are term-of-years sentences that extend beyond an individual’s life expectancy. This article proposes a framework to be used for sentencing juvenile lifers in light of the Supreme Court’s opinions and the Third Circuit Court …

Misunderstanding Judy Norman: Theory As Cause And Consequence, Martha R. Mahoney

Articles

Judy Norman shot her abusive husband during a late afternoon nap while he rested before violently trafficking her that night. The sharp contrast between the extreme violence and danger Judy faced and the denial of a self-defense instruction triggered extensive academic debates about justification and the use of deadly force. Norman became one of the most famous cases involving battered women, appearing in many casebooks and hundreds of law review articles. Despite all this work, the facts of the case contradict much of what scholars have said about Norman. Misconceptions about expert evidence, "Battered Woman Syndrome, "and battered women drive …

Cell Phones Are Orwell's Telescreen: The Need For Fourth Amendment Protection In Real-Time Cell Phone Location Information, Matthew Devoy Jones

Cleveland State Law Review

Courts are divided as to whether law enforcement can collect cell phone location information in real-time without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. This Article argues that Carpenter v. United States requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment prior to law enforcement’s collection of real-time cell phone location information. Courts that have required a warrant prior to the government’s collection of real-time cell phone location information have considered the length of surveillance. This should not be a factor. The growing prevalence and usage of cell phones and cell phone technology, the original intent of the Fourth Amendment, and United States …

Physical Match: Uniqueness Of Torn Paper, Marilyn Aguilar

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

In the forensic science field, it is generally accepted that all tears and fractures are unique; however, there is limited scientific evidence to support this. This study tests the claim that all tears are unique, focusing on paper. One-hundred Office Depot brand 3” x 5” blank, white index cards were torn in half by hand. Six halves were randomly removed; the remaining 94 halves were mixed and then matched by a novice using end-match analysis. The removal of the 6 random halves left 44 matching pairs. Of the remaining halves, all 44 pairs were correctly matched. The results show that …

A Change In South Dakota’S Child Sexual Abuse Statute Of Limitations: An Equal Protection Violations?, Peyton Healy

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Justifying Justice: Six Factors Of Wrongful Convictions And Their Solutions, Colby Duncan

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

There have been over 300 post-conviction DNA exonerations in the history of the United States. While this number may initially seem significant, there is still an unfathomable population of wrongfully convicted prisoners who have yet to be considered for retrials. Unaddressed wrongful conviction cases highlight the unacceptable weaknesses in the U.S. justice system, weaknesses that include poor investigative tactics and the acceptance or allowance of inaccurate and unreliable evidence. This paper will dutifully analyze the causes that lead to wrongful convictions and amply discuss potential solutions, all of which includes eyewitness misidentification, improper forensics, false confessions, informants, government misconduct, and …

Lessons From Batson In A Comparative Criminal Context: How Implicit Racial Biases Remain Unaddressed In Canadian Jury Section, Brittney Adams

American Indian Law Journal

This Article highlights how Batson challenges may be instructive for addressing racial biases in jury selection in Canada and draws on the murder of Colten Boushie as an illustration of how the current system has failed to hold white defendants accountable in criminal cases involving Aboriginal victims. While far from perfect, peremptory Batson challenges in the United States serve as a nod to the ongoing issue of racial bias in jury selection in the United States. Canadian jury selection contains no similar challenges, which has too often resulted in all-white or mostly-white juries failing to hold white defendants accountable for …

Justice Begins Before Trial: How To Nudge Inaccurate Pretrial Rulings Using Behavioral Law And Economic Theory And Uniform Commercial Laws, Michael Gentithes

William & Mary Law Review

Injustice in criminal cases often takes root before trial begins. Overworked criminal judges must resolve difficult pretrial evidentiary issues that determine the charges the State will take to trial and the range of sentences the defendant will face. Wrong decisions on these issues often lead to wrongful convictions. As behavioral law and economic theory suggests, judges who are cognitively busy and receive little feedback on these topics from appellate courts rely upon intuition, rather than deliberative reasoning, to resolve these questions. This leads to inconsistent rulings, which prosecutors exploit to expand the scope of evidentiary exceptions that almost always disfavor …

Reducing Recidivism Or Misclassifying Offenders?: How Implementing Risk And Needs Assessment In The Federal Prison System Will Perpetuate Racial Bias, Rachel Dibenedetto

Journal of Law and Policy

Your Honor, I understand the appeal of using this sentencing software, EVALUATE. I do. It appears to be efficient, precise, immune to emotion and lapses in logic. It seems fair and unbiased, so shouldn’t we attempt to be fair and unbiased in evaluating whether it actually works? 32, 19, 34 . . . 32% is the federal recidivism rate. 19%? 19% is the recidivism rate of defendants tried and sentenced in your court, Judge Barish. It’s one of the lowest in the Southern District. 34%? That’s the recidivism rate of EVALUATE, higher than the national average, 15 points behind you.

Discretionary Life Sentences For Juveniles: Resolving The Split Between The Virginia Supreme Court And The Fourth Circuit, Daniel M. Coble

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

At the age of 17, Donte Lamar Jones shot and killed a store clerk as she laid down on the floor during a robbery. He was spared the death penalty by agreeing instead to die in prison at the end of his life. Two years later in Virginia, 12 individuals were murdered for doing nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those individuals were killed by Lee Malvo and John Muhammad, better known as the “D.C. Snipers.” While John Muhammad was given the death penalty for his heinous crimes, Lee Malvo, who was 17 during …

Sex Offenders, Custody And Habeas, Wendy R. Calaway

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Article focuses on habeas petitioners under a conviction from state court seeking federal habeas review. First, Part I will discuss the historical context of the writ of habeas corpus and the development of its purpose and scope. Part I also examines the current status of habeas corpus law, recent legislative efforts to limit its reach, and, specifically, the idea of custody as a prerequisite to habeas relief. Part II explores the evolution of the custody requirement both at the Supreme Court and in lower federal courts. In particular, this section looks at how the meaning of custody has …

To Bail Or Not To Bail: Protecting The Presumption Of Innocence In Nevada, Ebeth Palafox, Brendan Mcleod

Nevada Law Journal Forum

This white paper aims to discuss the issues associated with bail reform in Nevada, provide an analysis of bail reform efforts across the country, and purpose possible solutions for obstacles to bail reform in Nevada. The white paper’s proposed recommendations for practical bail reform is a three-phase plan to eliminate the injustices that arise from Nevada’s current cash bail model.

Sentencing Persons Convicted Of Minor Offences In Ghana: Reducing Judicial Over-Reliance On Imprisonment, Nenyo Kwasitsu

LLM Theses

This thesis argues that there is overuse of imprisonment for minor offenders in Ghana. These are offenders whose punishments go up to 3 years of jail time, essentially offending mainly for reasons of material poverty. Statutory sentencing provisions have essentially limited judges to impose jail terms. It is argued that one way to decongest Ghana’s prisons is to consider the institutionalization of a regime of community service orders and probation, the administration of which would equip the offenders with income-earning skills while they also reform. Drawing on Kenya, a country that has achieved reasonable success in this reform effort, this …

The Ever-Changing Scope Of Insider Trading Liability For Tippees In The Second Circuit, Sari Rosenfeld

Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review

Liability under insider trading law continues to change as federal courts attempt to find new ways to hold insiders liable under the law. As recently as two years ago, the Second Circuit—in analyzing past decisions regarding tipper-tippee insider trading violations—blurred the distinction between legal and illegal insider trading when it fundamentally altered the idea of “personal benefit.” These various decisions provide the basis for antifraud provisions of securities law applying to insider trading, the consequences of which can be detrimental. This Note will discuss the standard that the Second Circuit uses to hold tippees liable for insider trading violations under …

Ohio's Targeted Community Alternative To Prison Program: How A Good Idea Is Implemented Through Bad Policy, Samantha Sohl

Cleveland State Law Review

Just because a legislature can make a law doesn’t mean that they should. The Ohio General Assembly enacted the Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP) program to decrease the number of convicted defendants sent to state prison and to increase funding for community control efforts. While the law may be upheld under the Ohio Constitution’s Uniformity Clause, the law should still be repealed because legislative control and financial influence have no place in the judicial branch, specifically the criminal sentencing process. However, the law is rooted in good intentions, and many judges have found the additional funding useful, but the …

The Power Of Prosecutors, Jeffrey Bellin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

One of the predominant themes in the criminal justice literature is that prosecutors dominate the justice system. Over seventy-five years ago, Attorney General Robert Jackson famously proclaimed that the "prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America." In one of the most cited law review articles of all time, Bill Stuntz added that prosecutors-not legislators, judges, or police-"are the criminal justice system's real lawmakers." And an unchallenged modern consensus holds that prosecutors "rule the criminal justice system." This Article applies a critical lens to longstanding claims of prosecutorial preemi- nence. It reveals a …

Equitable Gateways: Toward Expanded Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Court Criminal Convictions, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

State prisoners who file federal habeas corpus petitions face a maze of procedural and substantive restrictions that effectively prevent almost all prisoners from obtaining meaningful review of their convictions. But it is a mistake to think that habeas litigation is just a Kafkaesque nightmare with no constructive potential. Federal courts do sometimes cut through the doctrinal morass to consider state prisoners’ claims, relying on what this Articleterms "equitable gateways" to federal habeas relief. Litigants and courts generally underestimate the potential these gateways offer, with the result that habeas litigation does not focus on them as often as it should. Here …

The Concrete Jungle: Where Dreams Are Made Of . . . And Now Where Children Are Protected, Samantha A. Mumola

Pace Law Review

The tragic and unsettling story of Kalief Browder has notably emerged as a prominent illustration of our criminal justice system’s historical failure to protect our youth. Kalief’s story gained massive media attention with the help of a TIME documentary series featured on Netflix and famous A-listers such as music artist Jay-Z and TV host Rosie O’Donnell. It is hard to ignore the fact that Kalief Browder was cheated by the system; he chose suicide to escape his demons, which developed after undeserved time spent at Riker’s – a place he would have never experienced had he initially been tried as …

Empiricism And The Misdemeanor Courts: Promoting Wider, Deeper, And Interdisciplinary Study, Alisa Smith

Pace Law Review

Since 1956, there have been three waves of scholarly attention on the misdemeanor courts. Despite this attention, misdemeanor courts remain understudied and overlooked. The object of this paper is to summarize the empirical research conducted over the last sixty years and identify the scholarly work that should be undertaken on the processing of misdemeanor offenders in our courts. Buoyed by the current interest in studying the misdemeanor courts, scholars should widen and deepen their study by replicating the work of others in a variety of jurisdictions, observing court proceedings, interviewing defendants and the courtroom workgroup, and assessing whether constitutional ideals …

Comrades Or Foes: Did The Russians Break The Law Or New Ground For The First Amendment?, Artem M. Joukov, Samantha M. Caspar

Pace Law Review

This Article discusses the recent decision by the United States Federal Government to indict more than a dozen Russian nationals for conspiracy to defraud the United States of America. The Government accused the Russians of staging protests, distributing false propaganda, and spreading political messages and ideologies online in an effort to affect the outcome of the 2016 Presidential Election. We argue that while the Defendants violated several other laws, the majority of the acts the Government classifies as a conspiracy to defraud the United States should not be considered criminal. Rather, these acts are protected political speech under the First …