Digital Commons Network^™

Cultural Culprits, Michelle Mckinley

Studio for Law and Culture

This paper draws from a longer Article that examines questions of agency, victimization, and cultural essentialism in U.S. asylum adjudication and cultural defense cases specifically, and in international human rights law more broadly. I explore the adjudication of FGC asylum claims based on cultural persecution” that encode a racialized view of culture. I describe the historical trajectory of contemporary FGC claims through a detailed analysis of colonial anti-excision campaigns. I compare early 19th century anti-excision campaigns with contemporary maternal imperialism, as international law, UN agencies, and international financial institutions became more responsive to feminist concerns about eradicating FGC. Throughout the …

Protecting Pregnant Women: A Guide To Successfully Challenging Criminal Child Abuse Prosecutions Of Pregnant Drug Addicts, Krista Stone-Manista

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

Scholarly Works

The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

A Call To Action: Concrete Proposals For Reducing Widespread Animal Suffering In The United States, Dana M. Campbell

Animal Law Review

No abstract provided.

2009 Survey Of Books Related To Women And The Law: Review: Locked Up, Overlooked: Women Behind Bars: The Crisis Of Women In The U.S. Prison System, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

The Author reviews journalist Silja Talvi’s Women Behind Bars: The Growing Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System (“Women Behind Bars”) which presents an engaging overview of issues affecting incarcerated women. It succinctly illustrates some of the important connections involving the War on Drugs, racial disparity, and the high rate of substance abuse and physical and sexual abuse among incarcerated women. Each of the chapters could be assigned on its own to a class or reading group. While Talvi states that she is not trying to write a scholarly book, as a contribution to public discourse, Women Behind Bars …

Locked Up, Overlooked: Women Behind Bars: The Crisis Of Women In The U.S. Prison System, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

Journalist Silja Talvi’s Women Behind Bars: The Growing Crisis of Women in the U.S. Prison System (“Women Behind Bars”) is an engaging overview of issues affecting incarcerated women. It succinctly illustrates some of the important connections involving the War on Drugs, racial disparity, and the high rate of substance abuse and physical and sexual abuse among incarcerated women. Each of the chapters could be assigned on its own to a class or reading group. While Talvi states that she is not trying to write a scholarly book, as a contribution to public discourse, Women Behind Bars furthers the goal of …

A Shift Toward Gender Equality In Prosecutions: Realizing Legitimate Enforcement Of Crimes Committed Against Women In Municipal And International Criminal Law, Tamara F. Lawson

Articles

A new era of law enforcement has emerged recognizing the importance of punishing gender-specific violence. This first wave of "gender-sensitive prosecutors" has changed the way crimes against women are handled in the criminal justice system. The enactment of gender neutralizing laws and policies has dramatically improved the enforcement of crimes against women and attempts to end the era of impunity. This Article addresses the changes in prosecutions and further considers international human rights treaties that require gender equality in law enforcement.

In criminal law, it is the willingness of a prosecutor to exercise his or her discretionary authority to file …

Failure To Arrest: A Pilot Study Of Police Response To Domestic Violence In Rural Illinois , Sara R. Benson

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Out Of Jail... But Still Not Free To Litigate - Using Congressional Intent To Interpret 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(B)'S Application To Released Prisoners, Julia Colarusso

American University Law Review

This Comment argues that, based on the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)’s purpose and legislative history, prisoners who fulfilled the statute’s payment obligations while incarcerated should be entitled to apply for traditional in forma pauperis (IFP) status under § 1915(a)(1) upon release. Part I traces the historical development of prisoners’ right of access to the courts and its ties to the IFP doctrine. It then examines the PLRA’s many amendments to the federal IFP statute. Part II explains the divergent readings that circuit courts currently apply to § 1915(b). After analyzing the statute’s plain language and legislative history, Part III …

Civil Liability For Aiding And Abetting: Should Lawyers Be "Privileged" To Assist Their Clients' Wrongdoing?, Eugene J. Schiltz

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Francis D. Morrissey: A Life In The Law, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxiii (2008), Michael A. Pollard, Ann Lousin

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Adequacy Of Uganda’S War Crimes Court, Gadeir Abbas

War Crimes Memoranda

No abstract provided.

The Adversary System Is Dead: Long Live The Adversary System: The Trial Judge As The Great Equalizer In Criminal Trials, Mary Sue Backus

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Scholarship

The Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court will soon have its first opportunity to revise the Rome Statute and activate the latent crime of aggression, which awaits a definition of its elements and conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The working group charged with drafting a provision is scheduled to complete its task by 2008 or 2009, one year before the International Criminal Court’s first review conference. Beginning with a history of the crime meant to put the current negotiations in the context of past initiatives, this article sets out the status of the negotiations and begins …

"The Public Gaze And The Prying Eye:" The South And The Privacy Doctrine In Nineteenth-Century Wife Abuse Cases, Jerome Nadelhaft

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Giuliani Years: Corporation Counsel 1994–1997, Paul A. Crotty

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

The Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court will soon have its first opportunity to revise the Rome Statute and activate the latent crime of aggression, which awaits a definition of its elements and conditions for the exercise of jurisdiction. The working group charged with drafting a provision is scheduled to complete its task by 2008 or 2009, one year before the International Criminal Court’s first review conference.

Beginning with a history of the crime meant to put the current negotiations in the context of past initiatives, this article sets out the status of the negotiations and begins …

Symposium: Cruel And Unusual Punishment: Litigating Under The Eighth Amendment: Preserving The Rule Of Law In America's Jails And Prisons: The Case For Amending The Prison Litigation Reform Act, Margo Schlanger, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

Prisons and jails pose a significant challenge to the rule of law within American boundaries. As a nation, we are committed to constitutional regulation of governmental treatment of even those who have broken society’s rules. And accordingly, most of our prisons and jails are run by committed professionals who care about prisoner welfare and constitutional compliance. At the same time, for prisons—closed institutions holding an ever-growing disempowered population—most of the methods by which we, as a polity, foster government accountability and equality among citizens are unavailable or at least not currently practiced. In the absence of other levers by which …

Domestic Violence And The Workplace: The Explosion Of State Legislation And The Need For A Comprehensive Strategy, Deborah A. Widiss

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In recent years, domestic violence legislation has migrated out of its traditional locus in family law and criminal law to include a rapidly growing body of employment law. The new laws respond to a relatively simple problem: Economic security is one of the most important factors in whether a victim of domestic violence will be able to separate from an abusive partner, but domestic violence often interferes with victims' ability to maintain jobs, thus causing job loss that further traps victims in abusive relationships. By providing supports to victims and empowering employers to take direct legal action against perpetrators of …

Has A New Day Dawned For Indigent Defense In Virginia?, Robert E. Shepherd Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pro Se Litigation: Best Practices From A Judge's Perspective, Hon. Beverly W. Snukals, Glen H. Sturtevant Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Decency, Dignity, And Desert: Restoring Ideals Of Humane Punishment To Constitutional Discourse, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

American punishment today is degrading, indecent, and harsher than deserved despite a Constitution designed to protect people from cruel and unusual punishment. Unfortunately, the U.S. Supreme Court’s response to the increasing inhumanity of contemporary punishment has been to reduce its Eighth Amendment jurisprudence to tidy categories, legal fictions, and hollow phrases. Absent from the discourse is any acknowledgement of the actual day-to-day experience facing the convicted person, or any suggestion that, although punishments can be degrading, they need not be. The case for treating a convicted person with respect for his human dignity, and for constitutional scrutiny of punishment as …

More Stories Of Jurisdiction-Stripping And Executive Power: Interpreting The Prison Litigation Reform Act (Plra), Giovanna Shay, Johanna Kalb

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

"It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again": Williams V. Taylor, Wiggins V. Smith, Rompilla V. Beard And A (Partial) Return To The Guidelines Approach To The Effective Assistance Of Counsel, John H. Blume, Stacey D. Neumann

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Shoddy lawyering in capital cases is well documented. Many defendants facing the death penalty end up on death row not because of the heinousness of the crime they committed but rather because of the poor quality of trial counsel's performance. Despite the acknowledgment of sometimes shockingly poor representation by academics, litigators and even judges, most post-conviction claims of ineffective assistance of counsel are unsuccessful. Why? The legal standard for adjudicating these allegations which the Court adopted in Strickland v. Washington, which requires a defendant to demonstrate that his lawyer's performance was outside the "wide range of competent assistance" and that …

The Court's Failure To Re-Enfranchise Felons Requires Congressional Remediation, Otis H. King, Jonathan A. Weiss

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Solving The Lawyer Problem In Criminal Cases, George C. Thomas Iii

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

We are learning that the vaunted American adversarial system too often fails to protect innocent defendants. Part of the problem is that indigent criminal defenders, in many parts of the country, are overburdened to the point that they cannot always provide an adequate adversarial testing of the State’s case. Part of the problem is the emotional burn out that many defenders experience. A less well known part of the problem is that the very nature of the adversarial mentality too often causes prosecutors to cut corners and thus threaten innocent defendants. “Solving the Lawyer Problem in Criminal Cases,” a 9,000 …

Immigration Relief For Survivors Of Domestic Absue, Sexual Assault, Human Trafficking, And Other Crimes: A Violence Against Women Act 2005 Update, Leslye Orloff, Joanne Lin, Ericka Echavarria

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005 (VAWA 2005), which President Against and Department Women Bush signed into law on January 5, 2006, built on the 1994 Violence Against Women Act (Title IV of the Violence Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) and the 2000 Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act (part of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act) by expanding immigration relief to new categories of crime victims.' In this article we discuss the eligibility requirements for VAWA self-petitioning, VAWA cancellation of removal, "U" interim relief for certain immigrant crime victims, …

Have We Abandoned The Innocent?Society’S Debt To The Wrongly Convicted, Meggan Smith

American University Criminal Law Brief

No abstract provided.

Who Is Entitled To Survivor Benefits From Erisa Plans?, 40 J. Marshall L. Rev. 919 (2007), Albert Feuer

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Rsvp To Professor Wexler's Warm Therapeutic Jurisprudence Invitation To The Criminal Defense Bar: Unable To Join You, Already (Somewhat Similarly) Engaged, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

This Article responds to Professor David 13. Wexler's recent suggestion that adopting Therapeutic Jurisprudence ("V) principles to create a new type of "rehabilitative" defense lawyer could improve the criminal defense bar. Contrary to the empirical foundation of the therapeutic justice movement, many of his proposed changes seem unsubstantiated. Others, such as calls for creative plea bargaining, are already part of the practice of quality defense attorneys. The "rehabilitative," -Pi defense lawyer may be overly paternalistic, imposing his interpretation of the facts and his standards of appropriate behavior on the accused; such a lawyer also may not comport with express ethical …