Digital Commons Network^™

My Three Criminal Justice Careers, Brisa Sanchez

Undergraduate Scholarly Works

This undergrad research paper is about the basics of the three components of criminal justice careers and the careers and salaries they do for a living.

Artificial Justice: The Quandary Of Ai In The Courtroom, Paul W. Grimm, Maura R. Grossman, Sabine Gless, Mireille Hildebrandt

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Grading Injustice: Initial Appearance Report Cards, Malia N. Brink, Jiacheng Yu, Pamela R. Metzger

Deason Center Reports

Arrested people across the United States often wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. In November 2021, the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center published Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis, a comprehensive report about this ongoing crisis in pre-trial due process. That report described the devastating consequences of delayed and uncounseled initial appearances.

Now, these Initial Appearance Report Cards offer a closer look at the laws governing post-arrest procedures in each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. While the Deason …

In The Name Of “Justice”: Shiffra-Green Motions And Their Unintended Harms, Katharine A. Adler

Marquette Law Review

Sexual assault victims face many barriers to reporting the violence they have experienced. As few as one-third of sexual assaults are reported to the police and even fewer result in criminal charges. The criminal justice system can be grueling for sexual assault victims and carries with it the possibility of testifying at trial in front of their perpetrators, an experience that is daunting at best and terrifying at worst. Because of how few cases make it into the court system, along with how difficult the process can be for victims, any legal mechanisms that would create an unnecessary barrier to …

Prosecutorial Nonenforcement And Residual Criminalization, Justin Murray

Articles & Chapters

In recent years a small but influential group of locally elected prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform have openly refused to enforce various criminal laws—laws prohibiting marijuana possession, sentence enhancements, laws authorizing the death penalty, and much more—because they see those laws as unjust and incompatible with core reform objectives. Condemned by many on the political right for allegedly usurping the legislature’s lawmaking role and praised by many on the left for bypassing dysfunctional state legislatures in favor of local solutions, these prosecutorial nonenforcement policies are commonly said to have the same effect as nullifying, or even repealing, the laws …

The Imagined Juror: How Hypothetical Juries Influence Federal Prosecutors (Book Review), Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

An Investigation Of The Unintended Consequences Of Florida’S Stand Your Ground Law And Leadership’S Role In Both Implementing The Law And Revising It, Anthony Keel

Dissertations

The State of Florida has become a negative representation of the Stand Your Ground Law due to the three unintended consequences which developed since that law was passed in 2005. They are the disparity of African American incarceration rates when the law is applied, the increase in justifiable homicides, and the exponential increase in concealed carry permits. The intent of this qualitative research study was to inspire the leadership of the state of Florida to actively support and participate in reexamining, reassessing, and revising the Stand Your Ground Law. The literature review suggested that the law is ambiguous because it …

The Myth Of The All-Powerful Federal Prosecutor At Sentencing, Adam M. Gershowitz

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Prosecutors are widely considered to be the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system. And federal prosecutors are particularly feared. While some recent scholarship casts doubt on the power of prosecutors, the prevailing wisdom is that prosecutors run the show, with judges falling in line and doing as prosecutors recommend.

This Article does not challenge the proposition that prosecutors are indeed quite powerful, particularly with respect to sentencing. There are many structural advantages built into the system that combine to give prosecutors enormous influence over sentences. For example, prosecutors have considerable power to bring a slew of charges …

Police Killings As Felony Murder, Guyora Binder, Ekow Yankah

Journal Articles

The widely applauded conviction of officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd employedthe widely criticized felony murder rule. Should we use felony murder as a tool to check discriminatory and violent policing? The authors object that felony murder—although perhaps the only murder charge available for this killing under Minnesota law—understated Chauvin’s culpability and thereby inadequately denounced his crime. They show that further opportunities to prosecute police for felony murder are quite limited. Further, a substantial minority of states impose felony murder liability for any death proximately caused by a felony, even if the actual killer was a police …

Criminal Court System Failures During Covid-19: An Empirical Study, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

How did the criminal legal system respond to the early months of pandemic in 2020? This article reports the results of a unique national survey of judges, defense lawyers, and prosecutors that gives a snapshot of how the criminal legal system responded to the COVID-19 in the first five chaotic months. Criminal courts in the United States rely on in-person proceedings and formal and informal in-person communications to manage caseloads. The survey results detail, in ways not previously fully understood, how crucial these in-person communications are and how ill-prepared the criminal courts and legal professionals were to deal with the …

Acts Of Justice: Restoring Justice For Immigrants Through State Pardons, Sadie M. Casamenti

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crisis Intervention Team Training And Use Of Force On Persons With Mental Illnesses, Xavier Aguirre

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The criminological literature on the effects of Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) among police in handling of crisis situations involving persons with mental illness (PMI) has emerged as a critical in modern policing. This study seeks to add to the literature on policing persons with mental illness by investigating the effects of CIT training, officer characteristics, and crisis incidences in the Seattle, Washington Police Department. There are two models that is used for this study. The first model focuses on the aforementioned factors in predicting police to use force in such incidents. The second model focus on officer dispositions. The data …

Child Pornography And Criminal Justice Reform, Dawinder S. Sidhu, Kelsey Robinson

Cardozo Law Review

Drug offenses lie at the heart of the movement for criminal justice reform, and for good reason. Drug policy is defined by severe and disproportionate penalties owing to a retributive, factually flawed, and hurried congressional process. These central characteristics apply to the child pornography context as well. Though drug sentencing is problematic enough, child pornography sentencing is arguably worse. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has disavowed the child pornography sentencing guidelines and invited judges to vary from them. Judges have done just that, varying in sixty-three percent of all cases, more than any other offense type.

In this Article, we identify …

The Unchosen: Procedural Fairness In Criminal Specialty Court Selection, Shanda K. Sibley

Cardozo Law Review

Specialized criminal courts were created in an effort to offer nonpunitive responses to the commission of crime. The promise of these courts was that they would remove select populations from the traditional legal system and offer them something different, and perhaps better, than mere punishment and incapacitation.

However, the current selection processes for specialized courts—in which judges and prosecutors have almost completely unfettered discretion to decide both the criteria by which potential participants will be allowed to participate and whether any individual defendant meets such criteria—perverts the notion of providing specialized services to specific populations. Instead of selecting defendants based …

Review Of The Little Book Of Police Youth Dialogue: A Restorative Path Toward Justice, Robert Brenneman

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

"Serving Time And It's No Longer A Crime: An Analysis Of The Proposed Cannabis Administration And Opportunity Act, Its Potential Effects At The Federal And State Level, And A Guide For Practical Application By Local Government", R. Allyce Bailey

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

There has been much recent discussion surrounding cannabis use with some researchers supporting the use of medical marijuana, some investors relishing in the recently booming cannabis and CBD industry, and some states decriminalizing marijuana and even harsh controlled substances. As it appears, at least some public opinion is changing regarding marijuana, but the law has not effectively caught up to that change. Bias in the criminal justice system has led to the over-policing of, higher conviction rates, and harsher sentences for minorities. Thus, the decriminalization of marijuana alone does not remedy the grave disproportionate negative effects on populations of color …

The Role Of Psychological Analysis Of The Suspect's Personality In Unravelling The Crime Mystery, Ali Bin Nayei

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The aim of this study was to determine the role of psychological analysis of the suspect's personality in unraveling the mystery of the crime, as well as to identify methods for uncovering the crime mystery through analyzing the suspect's personality by training the human element in modern techniques to keep up with the continuous developments in this field. This study relied on the analytical and inductive approach, given the interpretation and analysis of the theory of psychological analysis in uncovering the mystery of the crime and identifying the suspect, as well as addressing legal texts and analyzing them, and subsequently …

Categorically Caged: The Case For Extending Early Release Eligibility To Inmates With Violent Offense Convictions, Jenna M. Codignotto

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Susan Farrell faced both physical and sexual abuse from her husband before he was killed in 1989. Although Ms. Farrell maintained her innocence and urged that it was her son who killed her husband, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy charges, resulting in a life sentence without parole. After serving thirty years of her sentence at the Michigan Department of Corrections, Ms. Farrell’s tragic life met a no less tragic end. In April 2020, one month after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Ms. Farrell seized in her cell for forty-five minutes before dying from the virus. She …

Mass Violence, Environmental Harm, And The Limits Of Transitional Justice, Rachel Killean, Lauren Dempster

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

The relationship between the environment and mass violence is complex and multi-faceted. The effects of environmental degradation can destabilize societies and cause conflict. Attacks on the environment can harm targeted groups, and both mass violence and subsequent transitions can have harmful environmental legacies. Given this backdrop, it is notable that the field of transitional justice has paid relatively little attention to the intersections between mass violence and environmental degradation. This article interrogates this inattention and explores the limitations and possibilities of transitional justice as a means of addressing the environmental harms associated with mass violence. The article makes four key …

What's My Age Again?: Adolescent Development And The Case For Expanding Original Juvenile Court Jurisdiction And Investing In Alternatives For Emerging Adults Involved In Maine's Justice System, Christopher M. Northrop, Jill M. Ward, Jonathan J. Ruterbories, Jess N. Mizzi

Maine Law Review

While many aspects of Maine’s Juvenile Justice system are ripe for reform, this Article advocates for improving the system’s response to one group of offenders often overlooked by policymakers: emerging adults. The Supreme Court, in Roper v. Simmons, stated that “[t]he qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns 18.” In fact, studies have shown that criminal conduct attributable to the unstable and impulsive nature of the adolescent mind continues well into a person’s mid-twenties. These eighteen to twenty-five-year-old offenders, termed “emerging adults” by researchers, experience much of the same developmental and physiological challenges as …

No-One Receives Psychiatric Treatment In A Squad Car, Judy A. Clausen, Joanmarie Davoli

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? South Carolina's Nonlawyer Judges, Christel Purvis

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Victim/Offender Overlap And Criminal System Reform, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Icc Reform Process And The Failure To Address The African State Concerns On The Sequencing Of Peace With Criminal Justice Under Article 53 Of The Rome Statute, Charles C. Jalloh

Articles

The relationship of African States with the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) is critical to the continued success of the ICC and the development of international criminal law. One of the main criticisms of the ICC, by some African States, has centered on the question of how best to sequence peace with justice, or justice with peace, in situations of ongoing conflict such as in Uganda and Sudan. This paper examines the history of the peace-justice clash on the African continent in the context of the 2019 Assembly of States Parties mandated process of ICC reform, taking into account the …

Sexual Violence, Intangible Harm, And The Promise Of Transformative Remedies, Jill C. Engle

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article describes alternative remedies that survivors of sexual violence can access inside and outside the legal system. It describes the leading restorative justice approaches and recommends one of the newest and most innovative of those—“transformative justice”—to heal the intangible harms of sexual violence. The Article also discusses the intersectional effects of sexual violence on women of color and their communities. It explains the importance of transformative justice’s intersectional approach to redress sexual violence. Transformative justice offers community-based, victim-centric methods that cultivate deep, lasting healing for sexual violence survivors and their communities, with genuine accountability for those who have caused …

Racial Disparities In South Carolina's Juvenile Justice System: Why They Exist And How They Can Be Reduced, Grace E. Driggers

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Defense Counsel's Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Does Public Health Start Within Jails? A New Incentive For Reform Of Wisconsin's Bail System, Mahmood N. Abdellatif

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin’s Milwaukee and Dane Counties are among many jurisdictions in the country employing modern bail reforms, specifically the Public Safety Assessment (PSA). Most of these jurisdictions adopted the PSA before the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, but are increasingly relevant as the virus continues to derail public health measures. Through the intersection of detainees, correctional officers, judicial officials, attorneys, and visitors, millions of Americans filter in and out of correctional facilities on an annual basis. These facilities serve as a microcosm of society and breeding ground for mass infection. The COVID-19 pandemic amplified an existing need …

Supreme Court Jurisprudence And School Shooting Threats: A Legal Review, Benjamin P. Comer

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

This legal review provides a general synopsis of selected school shooting threat cases processed in U.S. Federal courts and specifically emphasizes the interpretive mechanisms employed by judges during the adjudicatory process. Approximately 29 federal cases involving school shooting threats are reviewed, and six different legal tests and rules commonly used by federal courts are discussed in detail. Among other findings, descriptive statistics reveal that a majority of courts employed the Tinker rule when analyzing threats (72.4%) and that the majority of cases involved the application of a single test (72%). Select cases are then discussed which highlight the application of …

Is Public Corruption Still A Crime? The Effect Of Mcdonnell Narrowing Test, Kristine Artello

Journal of Criminal Justice and Law

The Supreme Court has been limiting the types of public corruption crimes since the 1990s. In 2016, the Supreme Court found that the jury instructions defined official acts too broadly and narrowed its definition significantly in McDonnell v. U.S. The Court created a two-part test to differentiate acts to help one’s constituency versus acts to help oneself because the Court was concerned with the criminalization of politics. From the ruling to March 2019, the federal courts have cited the McDonnell ruling in 151 decisions. These cases were collected and examined using context analysis to understand (in)actions of public officials that …