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Arresting Development: A Call For North Carolina To Expand Its Forensic Database By Collecting Dna From Felony Arrestees, John Maddux

Campbell Law Review

For nearly twenty years, state and federal law enforcement agencies have turned to DNA databases as a means of identifying offenders, generating leads in cold cases, and on occasion, exonerating the innocent. Naturally, the larger the database, the more likely it is that a new DNA profile entered into the system will generate a match. Currently, fifty states maintain DNA databases, and of those, forty-seven-including North Carolina-collect and store DNA profiles from all persons convicted of any felony offense. Statutes requiring the collection of DNA profiles from convicts are a positive step toward improving the database tools; however, by only …

The C.A.P. Effect: Racial Profiling In The Ice Criminal Alien Program, Trevor George Gardner, Aarti Kohli

Scholarship@WashULaw

The goal of the Criminal Alien Program (CAP) is to improve safety by promoting federal-local partnerships to target serious criminal offenders for deportation. Indeed, the U.S. Congress has made clear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “should have no greater immigration enforcement priority than to remove deportable aliens with serious criminal histories from the United States…” The Warren Institute’s analysis of arrest data pursuant to an ICE-local partnership in Irving, Texas demonstrates that ICE is not following Congress’ mandate to focus resources on the deportation of immigrants with serious criminal histories.

This study also shows that immediately after Irving, Texas …

Introduction: Challenging The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Deborah N. Archer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Proportional Mens Rea, Stephen F. Smith

Journal Articles

This Essay makes the case for "proportional mens rea," a proportionality-based approach to mens rea selection. Proportional mens rea would provide proportionality safeguards that are otherwise entirely lacking in substantive criminal law and,as a practical matter, unavailable in constitutional law. Creating implied mens rea requirements, where necessary to ensure proportional punishment, is not a judicial usurpation of a legislative function. Rather, it is to take seriously the role that courts play, under both constitutional and substantive criminal law, to ensure that punishment "fits" the crime. Moreover, proportional mens rea would represent a needed counterweight to prosecutorial behavior whereas current doctrine …

Trawling Dna Databases For Partial Matches: What Is The Fbi Afraid Of?, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

DNA evidence is often presented as the “gold standard” for forensic science. But this was not always the case. For years, eminent scientists complained that the estimates of the tiny frequencies of DNA types were unfounded. It took scores of research papers, dozens of judicial opinions, and two committees of the National Academy of Sciences to resolve the dispute by the mid-1990s. Since 2000, however, reports have surfaced of shocking numbers of “partial matches” among samples within large DNA databases, and some scientists have complained that the infinitesimal figures used in court to estimate the probability of a random match …

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project: A Quasi-Experimental Test Of A Collaborative Model For Cases Of Intimate Partner Violence, Lauren Bennett Cattaneo, Lisa A. Goodman, Deborah Epstein, Laurie S. Kohn, Holly A. Zanville

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Victim-Informed Prosecution Project (VIP) was designed to amplify the voice of the victim in the prosecution of a battering current or ex-partner through collaboration between the prosecution and victim-centered agencies. This article describes the rationale for and design and implementation of VIP and then explores whether it increased perceived voice. While some VIP services (advocacy and civil protection order representation) were associated with increased perceived voice, the program as a whole was associated with it only in the context of greater contact with prosecutors, when cases were more likely to be felonies. The authors make specific recommendations for applying …

What’S Wrong With Victims’ Rights In Juvenile Court?: Retributive V. Rehabilitative Systems Of Justice, Kristin N. Henning

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While scholars have written extensively about the victims’ rights movement in capital and criminal cases, there has been very little discussion about the intersection of victims’ rights and the juvenile justice system. Statutes that allow victims to attend juvenile hearings and present oral and written impact statements have shifted the juvenile court’s priorities and altered the way judges think about young offenders. While judges were once primarily concerned with the best interests of the delinquent child, victims’ rights legislation now requires juvenile courts to balance the rehabilitative needs of the child with other competing interests such as accountability to the …

The Harmful Side Effects Of Drug Prohibition, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Some drugs make people feel good. That is why some people use them. Some of these drugs are alleged to have side effects so destructive that many advise against their use. The same may be said about statutes that attempt to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and use of drugs. Advocating drug prohibition makes some people feel good because they think they are “doing something” about what they believe to be a serious social problem. Others who support these laws are not so altruistically motivated. Employees of law enforcement bureaus and academics who receive government grants to study drug use, for …

A Fair Trial, Not A Perfect One: The Early Twentieth-Century Campaign For The Harmless Error Rule, Roger Fairfax

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

From just after the turn of the twentieth century through World War II, there was a great deal of activity around criminal justice reform. Much like today, many commentators in the early twentieth century considered the American criminal justice system to be broken. With regard to all of its phases-substance, sentencing, and procedure-the criminal justice system was thought to be inefficient and ineffective, and it failed to inspire the confidence of the bench, bar, or public.

Against this backdrop, a group of reformers sought to address the shortcomings of early twentieth-century criminal justice-during what I consider the "Golden Age" of …

Ignorance Is Effectively Bliss: Collateral Consequences, Silence, And Misinformation In The Guilty-Plea Process, Jenny Roberts

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In the 2009-2010 term, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if it matters whether a criminal defense lawyer correctly counsels a client about the fact that the client faces deportation as a result of a guilty plea. Under prevailing constitutional norms in almost every jurisdiction, a lawyer does not have a duty to tell her client about many serious but "collateral" consequences of a guilty plea. Yet, in every jurisdiction that has considered the issue, that very same lawyer will run afoul of her duties if she affirmatively misrepresents a collateral consequence-every jurisdiction, that is,except Kentucky. The Supreme Court of …

Street Stops And Broken Windows Revisited: The Demography And Logic Of Proactive Policing In A Safe And Changing City, Jeffrey Fagan, Amanda Geller, Garth Davies, Valerie West

Faculty Scholarship

The contributions of order-maintenance policing and broken windows theory to New York City’s remarkable crime decline have been the subject of contentious debate. The dominant policing tactic in New York since the 1990s has been aggressive interdiction of citizens through street encounters in the search for weapons or drugs. Research showed that minority citizens in the 1990s were disproportionately stopped, frisked and searched at rates significantly higher than would be predicted by their race-specific crime rates, and that this excess enforcement was explained by the social structure of predominantly minority neighborhoods than by either their disorder or their crime rates. …

Rethinking Criminal Law And Family Status , Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib, Jennifer M. Collins

Faculty Scholarship

In our recent book, Privilege or Punish: Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Family Ties (OUP 2009), we examined and critiqued a number of ways in which the criminal justice system uses family status to distribute benefits or burdens to defendants. In their review essays, Professors Alafair Burke, Alice Ristroph & Melissa Murray identify a series of concerns with the framework we offer policymakers to analyze these family ties benefits or burdens. We think it worthwhile not only to clarify where those challenges rest on misunderstandings or confusions about the central features of our views, but also to show the …

A Larger War On Terror?, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Self-Incrimination In European Human Rights Law - A Pregnant Pragmatism?, Andrew Ashworth

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Procedure, Marla G. Decker, Stephen R. Mccullough

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Justice Federalism And National Sex Offender Policy, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

This paper, part of a symposium, examines the federal government's sustained effort to recast state policies regarding sex offender registration and community notification laws. While commentators have typically focused on federal Commerce Clause-based incursions on state criminal justice authority, with registration and notification the U.S. has invoked the Spending Clause, a less controversial yet more invasive strategy, driving outcomes nationwide, not merely within the federal system alone. As a result, borrowing from Justice Harlan, the U.S. has "fasten[ed] on the States federal notions of criminal justice" in a major way.

After providing an overview of the historic reluctance of the …

Involuntary Endogenous Rfid Compliance Monitoring As A Condition Of Federal Supervised Release - Chips Ahoy?, Isaac B. Rosenberg

W&M Law Student Publications

Among the many cutting edge technologies law enforcement agencies increasingly covet is radio frequency identification ("RFID"). Researchers predict RFID will become the most pervasive computer technology in history. Among the more extraordinary and controversial government uses of RFID-and the focus of this Paper-include implantation of subdermal RFID transmitters. Privacy concerns abound. Not surprisingly, critics and privacy advocates are wary of subdermal RFID implants, fearful that only afine line separates relatively innocuous, voluntary implantation from arbitrary government-mandated implantation. But for involuntary implantation of RFID chips to take root, government implantation programs would have to start on the small scale, targeting the …

Section 7: Criminal Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Prosecutions Under The Adam Walsh Act: Is America Keeping Its Promise?, Emily A. White

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Browning V. State Of Nevada, 124 Nev. Adv. Op. Citation 50, Philip Erwin

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

This is an appeal from a sentence of death after remand for a new penalty hearing.

State Intentions And The Law Of Punishment, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The $62 Million Question: Is Virginia's New Center To House Sexually Violent Prisoners Money Well Spent?, Molly T. Geissenhainer

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines Virginia's current civil commitment statute for sexual predators and attempts to identify areas where Virginia should concentrate its limited resources in order to address more adequately the ever-increasing problem of what to do with sex offenders. Part II briefly describes why sex offenders present law enforcement with unique problems in prevention and deterrence. Part III details the history of civil commitment legislation. Part IV examines Supreme Court of the United States jurisprudence regarding the constitutionality of sex offender civil commitment statutes. Part V examines the Virginia Sexually Violent Predator Act. Part VI briefly considers current violent sexual …

Corrections, Margo Schlanger

Book Chapters

Over the past six years, the number of people in custody in the United States has continued to grow. By the middle of 2006, the nation's prison and jail population, including federal prisons, totaled 2,245,189 persons. The number of people under correctional supervision, including those incarcerated and on probation and parole, reached more than 7 million persons in 2006. For several years, corrections has been the fastest growing component of many states' budgets. The growing number of people in prison has begun to affect the apportionment of political power between urban and rural communities.

Rethinking Child Advocacy After Roper V. Simmons: "Kids Are Just Different" And "Kids Are Like Adults" Advocacy Strategies, Elisa Poncz

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article examines the tension between two competing arguments in juvenile law: "kids are just different" and "kids are like adults." It critiques the binary approach often used in child advocacy and proposes a more nuanced, patchwork strategy that combines both perspectives to better serve the diverse needs of juveniles. The analysis focuses on key legal contexts, including the death penalty, life without parole, and minors' rights in medical decision-making, education, and internet access. The author argues that a balanced approach is essential to address the complexities of juvenile rights and responsibilities.

Prosecuting Sexual Violence In Correctional Settings: Examining Prosecutors’ Perceptions, Brenda V. Smith, Jaime Yarussi

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

The Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA) is the first piece of federal legislation that expressly and exclusively addresses sexual abuse of persons in custody. Notwithstanding passage of the Act, there is a clear belief, echoed by correctional leaders, that prosecutors are reluctant at best, and unwilling at worst, to prosecute cases of sexual violence in correctional settings. In order to gather information on the prosecutor interest in and capacity to prosecute these cases, the National Institute of Corrections Project on Addressing Prison Rape at the Washington College of Law (the NIC/WCL Project) collected data from state and federal …

Addressing The Real Problem Of Racial Profiling In Seattle, Washington, Whitney Rivera

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Women, Re-Entry And Everyday Life: Time To Work?, Dina R. Rose, Venezia Michalsen, Dawn R. Wiest, Anupa Fabian

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This study focuses on women at various stages of re-entry into the community after involvement with the criminal justice system. In particular, it takes a close look at how the participants in the study manage their time in the face of the types of competing demands that are all too common to most people.

Presidential Authority And The War On Terror, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

Immediately after the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush claimed, among other powers, the power to launch preemptive wars on his own authority; the power to disregard the laws of war pertaining to occupied lands; the power to define the status and treatment of persons detained as “enemy combatants” in the war on terror; and the power to authorize the National Security Agency to undertake electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. With the exception of the power to launch a preemptive war on his own authority (for which he …

Speech: Latinas And Their Families In Detention: The Growing Intersection Of Immigration Law And Criminal Law, Sandra Guerra Thompson

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

In this article, Professor Sandra Guerra Thompson explores the growing enforcement of immigration law within the interior of the United States and the growing intersection of the criminal justice system and immigration law. Through the use of worksite enforcement sweeps and immigration screening by state and local law enforcement, growing numbers of undocumented persons are being taken into custody by federal immigration officials. She examines the plight of women and families held in detention centers under what are often deplorable conditions. Ironically, immigration detention centers offer fewer resources than those available in most state prisons. The immigration law judicial system …

Limits Of Preventive Detention, The, Rinat Kitai-Sangero

McGeorge Law Review

No abstract provided.