Digital Commons Network^™

Unequal Access To Justice: Solla V. Berlin And The Unprincipled Evisceration Of New York’S Eaja, Armen H. Merjian

Pace Law Review

Solla is noteworthy not merely in light of the baleful effects of its ruling, but because of its reasoning: it is categorically wrong. The decision wholly elides a cornerstone and settled principle of New York welfare law, namely, that in the administration of public assistance, the municipalities act as the agents of the State, while blatantly violating the most fundamental of agency principles, namely, that a principal is vicariously liable for the actions of its agent acting within the scope of its authority. Indeed, this principal/agent relationship is established both by statute and by decades of uniform state and federal …

The Admissibility Of Hearsay Evidence In New York State Sex Offender Civil Commitment Hearings After State V. Floyd Y.: Finding A Balance Between Promoting The General Welfare Of Sexual Assault Victims And Providing Due Process Of Law, Brittany K. Dryer

Fordham Law Review

    In twenty states throughout the country, the government may petition for the civil commitment of detained sex offenders after they are released from prison. Although processes differ among the states, the government must generally show at a court proceeding that a detained sex offender both suffers from a mental abnormality and is dangerous and that this combination makes a detained sex offender likely to reoffend. At such court proceedings, both the government and the respondent will present evidence to either the court or the jury on these issues. As in most court proceedings, hearsay evidence is inadmissible at sex offender …

Federalism, Federal Courts, And Victims' Rights, Michael E. Solimine, Kathryn Elvey

Catholic University Law Review

One of the most striking developments in American criminal law and procedure in the past four decades has been the widespread establishment of victims’ rights at both the federal and state levels. A conspicuous exception to the success of the victims’ rights movement has been the failure of Congress to pass a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would uniformly establish such rights in all federal and state courts. Advanced by both private organizations and state officials, and with bipartisan support in Congress, bills establishing a Victims’ Rights Amendment (VRA) have been introduced several times in the past three …

The Grand Jury: A Critical Evaluation, Ovio C. Lewis

Akron Law Review

It seems in retrospect that our grand jury was a microcosm of grand juries generally in that many of the problems noted in the literature were manifest throughout our term. This supports the proposition that the weaknesses and defects of grand juries are not reflective of lack of zeal or devotion to duty on the part of individual members of the juries, but rather are indicative of systemic and institutional dysfunctionalities that are inherent in the grand jury system as it is presently constituted and organized. Thus, the critical comments that appear herein ought not to be taken as an …

The Writ-Writers: Jailhouse Lawyers Right Of Meaningful Access To The Courts, John F. Myers

Akron Law Review

This comment will focus on the evolution of jailhouse lawyers, the rights they possess and the problems they face in a system that continually seeks to limit their activities

The Ohio Supreme Court's Move Toward Quality Control Of Court-Appointed Counsel For Indigent Defendants Charged With Capital Offense Crimes, George J. Ticoras

Akron Law Review

This comment outlines the law in Ohio concerning court-appointed representation of indigent defendants in capital offense cases. A brief look at Ohio's "pre-C.P.Sup.R. 65" period provides the proper backdrop in which to examine C.P.Sup.R. 65's relation to the Ohio Public Defender's Regulations and the impact this rule may have throughout the State.

Representation By Counsel Or Access To Defense Resources: Utah’S Single Source Approach To Indigent Defense, John P. Gross

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The State of Utah has a unique way of providing representation in criminal cases to defendants who are too poor to hire an attorney. In Utah, there is no statewide funding or supervision of indigent defense. Each county, city, or town is responsible for creating and funding their own indigent defense delivery system. Utah is one of only two states in the United States—Pennsylvania is the other—that fails to provide state funding or oversight of indigent defense. But what makes Utah truly unique is the way in which counties and municipalities are required to structure their indigent defense delivery systems. …

I Did My Time: The Transformation Of Indiana’S Expungement Law, Joseph C. Dugan

Indiana Law Journal

This Note evaluates the transformation of Indiana’s expungement law. Part I addresses the socioeconomic impacts of a criminal record. Part II presents normative arguments both for and against expungement, concluding that the balance tips in favor of forgiveness. Parts III–IV discuss Indiana’s original expungement provisions, the 2013 statute, and the 2014 amendments. Part V explores the reaction to the new law. Finally, Part VI offers recommendations to improve the statute so that its second-chance promise is equitable, accessible, and robust.

"His Brain Has Been Mismanaged With Great Skill": How Will Jurors Respond To Neuromimaging Testimony In Insanity Defense Cases?, Michael L. Perlin

Akron Law Review

A review of the literature on neuroimaging, predictably, reveals a broad array of positions, promises and prophecies. Carter Snead argues that the ambition of cognitive neuroscientists is “to use the claims of their discipline and the new powers conferred by neuroimaging to overthrow retributive justice as a legitimate justification for criminal sanctions.” In this paper, I do not take sides on this debate. Rather, I discuss a related, but distinctly separate issue: which of these positions will jurors think is right, especially in the context of deciding insanity defense cases. The primary and robust debate that has taken place so …

Inmates’ E-Mails With Their Attorneys: Off-Limits For The Government?, Amelia H. Barry

Catholic University Law Review

The attorney-client privilege is vital to inmates who otherwise have limited opportunities for private communications in prison. Traditionally, inmates have only been able to communicate with their attorneys via in-person visits, phone calls, and mailed letters. As federal inmates have begun using e-mail to converse with their attorneys, courts have had to determine if these conversations are protected by the attorney-client privilege. This Comment discusses courts’ approaches to this question, many of which have found that inmates’ e-mail communications with their attorneys are not privileged because by using the federal prison e-mail system, which warns users that conversations can be …

Criminal Responsibility For Arbitrators In Chinese Law: Perversion Of Law In Commercial Arbitration, Duan Xiaosong

Pace International Law Review

This article is prompted by a recent Chinese criminal provision governing the impartiality of arbitration. The goals of the article fare to critically examine the new criminal statute created by the provision and to put forward some proposals for reform, which could be employed to resolve the tension that exists between arbitrator impartiality and deference to arbitration. Although the new provision appears to eliminate the abuse of arbitral power, it may raise more questions than it resolves. This article explores the problems and undertakes a comparative analysis of the corresponding U.S. provision, as well as an analysis of some cultural …

When Is Fear For One's Life Race-Gendered? An Intersectional Analysis Of The Bureau Of Immigration Appeals's In Re A-R-C-G- Decision, Ange-Marie Hancock

Fordham Law Review

    In August 2014, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) handed down a breakthrough decision, In re A-R-C-G-, permitting courts to consider domestic violence as a gendered form of persecution in a home country and thus grounds for asylum in the United States. Along with two other 2014 decisions, In re W-G-R- and In re M-E-V-G-, this case represented a marked shift from prior BIA decisions, which for fifteen years had interpreted sections 208(a) and 241(b)(3) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act more narrowly, thus excluding claims of home country abuse as reasonable grounds to grant asylum. Specifically, …

Newsroom: A New Voice For Access To Justice, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Indemnification As An Alternative To Nullification, Robert A. Mikos

Montana Law Review

No abstract provided.

Probing The Law On Probation: Suggestions For Reform, Darius Chan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

To any criminal law practitioner, the Court’s power to grant probation as a sentencing option is of significant importance. Probation represents, to their clients, the key out of incarceration.Section 5 of the Probation of Offenders Act (Cap 252, 1985 Rev Ed) (“POA”) sets out the power of the Singapore Courts to grant probation. Section 5 uses three peculiar terms to create three categories of offences, namely:1. Sentences which are “fixed by law”; 2. Sentences carrying “specified minimum sentences”; and 3. Sentences carrying “mandatory minimum sentences”.For the latter two categories of offences, the Court can only grant probation if the offender:1. …

Rights For Child Victims Of Prostitution: A Significant Step In The Right Direction Under The Florida Safe Harbor Act, Banesa Arenciba

Children's Legal Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Three Dichotomies In Lawyers’ Ethics (With Particular Attention To The Corporation As Client), Stephen Pepper

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Three usually unexpressed, and too often unnoticed, conceptual dichotomies underlie our perception and understanding of lawyers’ ethics. First, the existence of a special body of professional ethics and professional regulation presupposes some special need or risk. Criminal and civil law are apparently insufficient. Ordinary day-to-day morality and ordinary ethics, likewise, are not considered to be enough. What is the risk entailed by the notion of a profession that is special; who needs protection, and from what? Two quite different possible answers to this question provide the first of the three dichotomies examined in this article: one can understand the risk …

"A Perfect Storm": Minnesota's Sex Offender Program—More Than Twenty Years Without Successful Reintegration, Lucy Massopust, Raina Borrelli

William Mitchell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remarks On Collateral Consequences Of Mass Incarceration, William C. Hubbard

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

Read, White, And Blue: Prosecutors Reading Inmate Emails And The Attorney-Client Privilege, 48 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1119 (2015), Danielle Burkhardt

UIC Law Review

This Comment addresses whether the attorney-client privilege should extend to emails exchanged between an inmate and his or her attorney over TRULINCS, the prison email system. Section II describes the history of the attorney-client privilege, and compares and contrasts the federal privilege with the New York state privilege in order to directly address Dr. Ahmed’s conflict. Section III juxtaposes other forms of privileged attorney-client contact with inmate emailing, and discusses the confidentiality agreement provided through the prison email system, TRULINCS. Finally, Section IV proposes a fiscally responsible, efficient, and convenient solution to the possible extension of the attorney-client privilege to …

Expunging America's Rap Sheet In The Information Age, Jenny Roberts

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

"Getting a Second Chance After a Criminal Record.", "Want to Expunge Your Record?', "South Carolina Debating If It Should be Easier to Expunge a Brush with the Law." "Making a Fresh Start in Little Village." These are only some of the headlines of newspaper articles and television segments that came up in a Google Alert for "expungement" during one typical week in late 2014. The same week, in Cincinnati, Ohio, city council members backed expungement of low-level marijuana convictions. Expungement news that week was not limited to the United States. In Jamaica, the legislature passed a bill that allows expungement …

Changing Course In The Anti-Domestic Violence Legal Movement: From Safety To Security, Margaret E. Johnson

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The Symposium On Entrepreneurial Lawyering, Anthony J. Luppino, Ellen Suni

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Aba Collateral Consequences Summit: A Focused Dialogue For Improvement, Kelly Lyn Mitchell

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

Let's Reinvent The Wheel: The Internet As A Means Of Interstate Commerce In United States V. Kieffer, Valeria G. Luster

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Examining The Websites Of Canada’S ‘Top Sex Crime Lawyers’: The Ethical Parameters Of Online Commercial Expression By The Criminal Defence Bar, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Online advertising has become a primary source of information about legal services. This trend towards web-based marketing of legal services poses new challenges to the regulation of the legal profession. Challenges which, to date, have not been fully met. It also creates a new source of data for researchers studying aspects of the legal profession such as legal ethics, lawyers’ perspectives and strategies, and legal discourse. The objective of this study is to examine the most prominent websites in Canada that advertise legal representation for individuals accused of sexual offences. The study of these websites yielded two types of observations …

Lawyer Ethics And The Financial Action Task Force: A Call To Action, Jack P. Sahl

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Financial Action Task Force And The Legal Profession, Duncan E. Osborne

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unequal Assistance Of Counsel, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

There is now, and has always been, a double standard when it comes to the criminal justice system in the United States. The system is stacked against you if you are a person of color or are poor, and is doubly unjust if you are both a person of color and poor. The potential counterweight to such a system, a lawyer by one’s side, is unequal as well. In reality, the right to counsel is a right to the unequal assistance of counsel in the United States.

The unequal treatment based on the color of one’s skin is reflected by …

Examining The Websites Of Canada’S ‘Top Sex Crime Lawyers’: The Ethical Parameters Of Online Commercial Expression By The Criminal Defence Bar, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Online advertising has become a primary source of information about legal services. This trend towards web-based marketing of legal services poses new challenges to the regulation of the legal profession. Challenges which, to date, have not been fully met. It also creates a new source of data for researchers studying aspects of the legal profession such as legal ethics, lawyers’ perspectives and strategies, and legal discourse. The objective of this study is to examine the most prominent websites in Canada that advertise legal representation for individuals accused of sexual offences. The study of these websites yielded two types of observations …