Digital Commons Network^™

Indemnification As An Alternative To Nullification, Robert A. Mikos

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The federalization of criminal law arguably threatens the states’ traditional police powers. Congress has criminalized myriad activities the states condone (or at least tolerate); it has denied federal criminal defendants rights they would enjoy in state proceedings; and it has imposed harsher punishments for crimes proscribed by both levels of government. In many instances, Congress’s decision to supplant the policy choices made by the states appears unjustified by any legitimate federal interest. The conventional wisdom suggests there is very little the states themselves can do to stop the federalization of criminal law and the resultant diminution of state prerogatives. The …

Leniency In Chinese Criminal Law? Everyday Justice In Henan, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines one year of publicly available criminal judgments from a basic-level rural county court and an intermediate court in Henan Province in order to better understand trends in routine criminal adjudication in China. I present an account of ordinary criminal justice in China that is both familiar and striking: a system that treats serious crimes, in particular those affecting State interests, harshly, while at the same time acting leniently in routine cases. Most significantly, examination of more than five hundred court decisions shows the vital role that settlement plays in criminal cases in China today. Defendants who agree …

Legal Aid And The Indigent Accused In South Africa: A Proposal For Reform, Lynn Berat

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Lost In The Weeds Of Pot Law: The Role Of Ethics In The Movement To Legalize Marijuana, Helia Garrido Hull

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

An End To Silence: Inmate's Handbook On Identifying And Addressing Sexual Abuse, 3rd Edition, Brenda V. Smith

Research Reports & White Papers

"Though many correctional agencies have taken steps to comply with PREA standards and create safer environments for individuals in their care, inmates in custody still face sexual abuse and harassment by staff or other inmates. Staff and inmates still report problems identifying those at risk of sexual abuse, reporting sexual abuse, and holding those responsible for sexual abuse accountable. This publication is a tool for educating inmates about legal and other mechanisms, including the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), that can provide protection and redress from sexual abuse in custodial settings" (p. 5). Sections of this handbook are: introduction; what …

"Stand Your Ground" In Context: Race, Gender, And Politics, Donna Coker

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Two Faces Of Bribery: International Corruption Pathways Meet Conflicting Legislative Regimes, Jeffrey R. Boles

Michigan Journal of International Law

Suppose a government agency tasks its purchasing agent with buying a set of computer servers for the agency’s use, and the agent contacts a technology company to make the purchase. After selecting the needed servers, the agent learns of the servers’ fair market value but does not negotiate with the technology company to obtain the lowest possible price. Instead, unbeknownst to the government, the agent agrees with the technology company’s sales manager to purchase the servers on behalf of the government for an amount significantly above their fair market value, and, in return, the company agrees to give the agent …

Court Of Appeals Of New York - New York Ex Rel. Harkavy V. Consilvio, Sardar Asadullah

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sexual Violence By Educators In South African Schools: Gaps In Accountability, University Of The Witwatersrand. Centre For Applied Legal Studies, Cornell Law School. Avon Global Center For Women And Justice, Cornell Law School. International Human Rights Clinic

Avon Global Center for Women and Justice and Dorothea S. Clarke Program in Feminist Jurisprudence

In many South African schools, educators have sexually harassed and abused the learners in their care. This serious human rights violation is widespread and well known. However, its actual incidence is difficult to determine as many cases of educator-learner abuse are never reported. Such harassment and abuse – which occurs with frequency not only in South Africa but also worldwide – has devastating consequences for the health and education of the learners, mainly girls, who experience it. Over the past decade, South Africa has adopted important laws and policies to address this grave human rights problem, yet sexual violence persists …

Officious Intermeddling Or Protected First Amendment Activity? The Constitutionality Of Prohibitory Champerty Law After Citizens United, Bradley C. Tobias

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

"To Corral And Control The Ghetto": Stop, Frisk, And The Geography Of Freedom, Anders Walker

University of Richmond Law Review

While criminal law scholar Michelle Alexander has shown that stop and frisks often serve as the gateway into the criminal justice system for young men of color, she occludes the complex forces that led to their rise." This article seeks to identify those forces, relating the rise of stop and frisk rules to liberal politics, Cold War concerns, and spatial dynamics. To illustrate, this article will proceed in three parts. Part I will demonstrate how Mapp v. Ohio coincided with judicial frustration at police intrusions into private, intimate space-including private thought-precisely at a time when the United States sought to …

Corrections For Racial Disparities In Law Enforcement, Christopher L. Griffin Jr., Frank A. Sloan, Lindsey M. Eldred

William & Mary Law Review

Much empirical analysis has documented racial disparities at the beginning and end stages of criminal cases. However, our understanding about the perpetuation of—and even corrections for—differential outcomes in the process remains less than complete. This Article provides a comprehensive examination of criminal dispositions using all DWI cases in North Carolina from 2001 to 2011, focusing on several major decision points in the process. Starting with pretrial hearings and culminating in sentencing results, we track differences in outcomes by race and gender. Before sentencing, significant gaps emerge in the severity of pretrial release conditions that disadvantage black and Hispanic defendants. Yet …

Introduction: Angles Of The Right To Counsel In Civil Cases Debate: Formalism, Immigration, Reviewability, And Empiricism, John Pollock

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Given the recent celebrations of Gideon v. Wainwright's 5 0 th anniversary,' it is most appropriate that this Symposium issue focuses on the civil right to counsel. While Gideon was only about the right to counsel in criminal cases, many of the events and articles marking the anniversary discussed the interplay between criminal and civil cases,2 even reaching the front page of the New York Times 3 and various radio shows. 4 Yet historically, criminal and civil cases have rarely been discussed simultaneously.

The Unreviewable Irredeemable Child: Why The District Of Columbia Needs Reverse Waiver, Jamie Stevens

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

In 2005 the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that adult criminal courts prosecuted 23,000 cases involving defendants under the age of eighteen nationwide. 2 This means that those defendants faced conviction and sentencing in adult courts. Transfer of those under eighteen into adult criminal court has become the states' first line of defense in the fight against youth crime. However, recent Supreme Court decisions have cast doubt on the wisdom, and even the constitutionality of that approach. Roper v. Simmons held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for anyone under eighteen years of age. 3 Graham v. Florida …

Cold Comfort Food: A Systematic Examination Of The Rituals And Rights Of The Last Meal, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

Last meals are a resilient ritual accompanying executions in the United States. Yet states vary considerably in the ways they administer last meals. This paper explores the recent decision in Texas to abolish the tradition altogether. It seeks to understand, through consultation of historical and contemporary sources, what the ritual signifies. We then go on to analyze execution procedures in all 35 of the states that allowed executions in 2010, and show that last meal allowances are paradoxically at their most expansive in states traditionally associated with high rates of capital punishment (Texas now being the exception to that rule.) …

Challenging Discrimination Of Lgbt Youth In Juvenile Justice: Encouraging The Legal Strategy Of Selective Prosecution Motions, Alanna Holt

Criminal Law Practitioner

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of The Efficacy Of Criminal Court Mediation As A Tool Of Restorative Justice, Teresa Hoerres

Capstone Collection

This capstone research paper aims to capture the personal narratives of how participants of criminal court mediation in Brooklyn, New York actual experience the program. The program, which is facilitated by New York Peace Institute, is a cornerstone of the organization’s restorative justice program. Restorative justice has been gaining traction over the last few decades, and its application to criminal matters as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) service, is unprecedented.

The research was conducted using a mixed methodology approach, relying on the researcher’s ethnographic observations of the criminal court mediation program from August 2013 through March 2014, as well as …

Creating Constitutional Procedure: Frye, Lafler, And Plea Bargaining Reform, Mike Work

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

20 Years Of Domestic Violence Advocacy, Collaborations, And Challenges: Reflections Of A Clinical Law Professor, Suzanne E. Tomkins

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The War On Drugs Is Over (If You Want It): State Drug Courts As An Alternative To Criminal Courts For Low-Level Nonviolent Drug Offenders, Blake Courlang

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

Part I of this Note describes the social, political, and legal reasons behind the rise of mandatory minimum sentencing in the 1980s and their path towards becoming advisory in the 2000s, as held by the Supreme Court in United States v. Booker. Part II provides a description of drug courts and argues for the use of drug courts as an alternative to the criminal sanctions for all nonviolent, low-level drug offenders. As part of this discussion, this Note examines the use of mandatory minimum sentencing post-Booker and the procedural method of divesting federal jurisdiction of nonviolent, low-level drug offenses …

The Punishment Agenda In The Courts, Debra Parkes

All Faculty Publications

This paper critically examines the potential of prisoner litigation in Canada to shed light on what U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has called “the hidden world of punishment.” It considers whether prisoner’s rights litigation can act as a meaningful legal check on the growing punishment agenda in Canada. The paper begins with a brief description of some aspects of the punishment agenda before moving on to consider case law under the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms which speaks directly to punishment and its limits, the section 12 right to be free from “cruel and unusual …

It's A 'Criming Shame': Moving From Land Use Ethics To Criminalization Of Behavior Leading To Permits And Other Zoning Related Acts, Patricia E. Salkin, Bailey Ince

Scholarly Works

In the past, land use ethics inquiries predominately involved conflicts of interest or an official holding public office while engaging in a previously held business or law practice. Now, prosecutors are looking at the underlying criminality of the unethical acts carried out in the context of land use decisions. With a wide array of criminal statutes in the hands of federal prosecutors, almost all forms of unethical conduct could in some way also violate a federal criminal statute.

Part II of this article reviews the federal statutes most often used by federal prosecutors and provides some examples of recent reported …

Hear Me Now: The Admission Of Expert Testimony On Battered Women's Syndrome—An Evidentiary Approach, Matthew Fine

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

About The Authors

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Gideon At Fifty -- Golden Anniversary Or Mid Life Crisis, Kim Taylor-Thompson

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Improving Access To Justice: Plain Language Family Law Court Forms In Washington State, Charles R. Dyer, Joan E. Fairbanks, M. Lynn Greiner, Kirsten Barron, Janet L. Skreen, Josefina Cerrillo-Ramirez, Andrew Lee, Bill Hinsee

Seattle Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Making Matters Worse: The Safe Streets And Communities Act And The Ongoing Crisis Of Indigenous Over-Incarceration, Ryan Newell

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Safe Streets and Communities Act (SSCA), a recent and wide-reaching piece of the Conservative Party of Canada’s tough-on-crime agenda, will exacerbate the ongoing crisis of Indigenous over-incarceration. In this article, I review the extensive literature that addresses the causes of Indigenous over-representation in the Canadian criminal justice system before assessing the impact of R v Gladue, nearly fifteen years after the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision. I analyze how the SSCA will restrict courts’ resort to Gladue, thus resulting in the incarceration of increasing numbers of Indigenous people. I then develop one avenue of constitutional challenge to the SSCA’s …

Legal Services Assessment For Trafficked Children- Cook County, Illinois Case Study, Katherine Kaufka Walts Jd, Linda Rio Reichmann Jd, Catherine Lee Ma

Center for the Human Rights of Children

Child trafficking is one of the most disturbing human rights abuses of our time, involving cases of boys and girls exploited for labor and/or commercial sexual services. These children may suffer physical, sexual, and emotional violence at the hands of traffickers, who can be pimps, employers, and even family members. Trafficking schemes may involve various forms of force, fraud, and coercion, which can be physical and/or psychological in nature. Current research indicates that legal services are a critical component of a comprehensive service delivery model for victims of human trafficking and a realization of human rights. However, little to no …

Presentence Custody Time Credit Under California Penal Code Section 2900.5, James D. Robinson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Neglected Role Of The Parent In The Juvenile Court , Raymond F. Vincent

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.