Digital Commons Network^™

Religious Police Forces With Public Powers, Jonathon J. Booth

Publications

No abstract provided.

To Free A Predator: The Flawed Rationale For Overturning Bill Cosby’S Conviction, Michael C. Kovac

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Breaking Free From The Invisible Chains: How New Jersey’S Recognition Of Coercive Control Is A Crucial Step In Combatting Psychological Abuse, Andrew Patrick Gault

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Machine Gun History And Bibliography, David B. Kopel

Wyoming Law Review

This Article provides an introductory history of machine guns and books about them. First, the Article describes federal machine gun laws and regulations, and related legal resources. Then the Article presents the historical development of machine guns from 1862 to the present, covering the various types of machine guns: heavy, medium, light, general purpose, submachine gun, machine pistol, and assault rifle. The first machine gun to achieve broad commercial success was the Gatling gun, invented during the American Civil War. Although the Gatling had little effect on that war, shortly thereafter the Gatling gun and other manual machine guns started …

The Lasting Impact Of Ring V. Arizona On Capital Jury Trials, Kevin M. Morrow

Wyoming Law Review

The final decision on the imposition of the death penalty in the United States is made by either judges or juries. A wealth of empirical study has gone into comparing these two methods. Arizona, with its change to a jury-based system immediately after the landmark Supreme Court decision Ring v. Arizona, is divided into discrete eras of capital sentencing. For the first time, this article catalogs, and examines, the post-Ring capital trials that reached the question of life or death to explore systemic differences between jury and judge sentencings. The study revealed that while Arizona’s rate of death sentences increased …

How To Count To 180—It Depends: Tolling Of Time For Pretrial Detention In Massachusetts, Mitchell Fallon

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law—What Do You “Value”? Second Circuit Broadens Federal Bank Bribery Statute To Include Intangibles—United States V. Calk, 87 F.4th 164 (2d Cir. 2023), Trevor Pilkington

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Predators With Power: Applying An Objective Standard To Address Sexual Assault And Rape Of Females In Pretrial Detention, Sara Pompeo

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

In Brief, Case Western Reserve University School Of Law

In Brief

Table of Contents

• Message from the Dean
• Specialty Programs Ranked Among the Best
• AI Certification Requirement
• Curricular Enhancements
• New Faculty Members
• Scholarly Impact
• Conferences and Lectures
• A New Era for Business Law at CWRU
• Meet the New Class
• News from the Kramer Law Clinic
• Impactful Student Initiatives
• Mock Trial and Moot Court Success
• Alumni Spotlight
• Society of Benchers
• Alumni Committees
• Class Notes
• In Memoriam
• Honor Roll of Donors

Informative Jury Disagreement, Roy Baharad

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

The article introduces a counterintuitive argument, contending that jury disagreement on the defendant’s guilt—a nonunanimous conviction—may well provide a more informative signal, compared to consensus. Because stronger consensus implies higher likelihood of herding, it is shown that beyond some threshold, further accumulation of votes to convict would carry negligible epistemic contribution, barely enhancing the posterior probability of guilt. On the other hand, while dissenting votes provide a direct signal of innocence, they indicate that herding has not been involved in the decision-making process, hence increase the epistemic contribution of any vote generated by said process— including votes to convict—and may …

Agonistic Federalism, Aziz Z. Huq, Zachary D. Clopton

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

It’s been called the “oldest question” of American constitutional law: How does the national government deal with its sovereign subnational states? Judges and scholars have tried to capture this dynamic via theories of “dual federalism,” “process federalism,” “cooperative federalism,” or “federalism by integration.” But all these models suddenly seem to have superseded, and even perhaps rendered obsolete, by an unexpected step-change in the intensity of federal-state conflicts. In the place of longstanding federalism models, this article demonstrates, an underappreciated form of intergovernmental relations has emerged. We call this model “agonistic federalism.” The article’s aim is to introduce and theorize this …

Tech Addiction: The Legal Limits Of A Growing Concept, Haneen Abu Ghanem

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

None.

Virtual Court Proceedings And Their Effect On Criminal Defendants’ Rights, Hunter J. Phillips

Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review

This Comment examines whether implementing virtual evidentiary proceedings diminishes a criminal defendant’s Constitutional rights. Part One introduces the Confrontation Clause and judicial interpretations that shape its modern legal view.

Part One also introduces the importance of face-to-face testimony and how the Confrontation Clause is founded upon that principle. Part One concludes by offering psychological research that highlights the im-portance of face-to-face proceedings that allow for effective criminal proceedings. Part Two introduces legislation that hinders defendants’ Confrontation rights and critically analyzes that legislation. Part Three argues for the abandonment of virtual criminal proceedings and highlights other factors that should be considered …

Court Forms And Court Reforms: Pro Se Litigants And The Limited Success Of Standardized Family Court Forms, Caroline Rogus

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The first step in any civil lawsuit, long before a court will contemplate awarding relief, is initiating the court matter: a plaintiff must always start by effectively pleading their case. The court system rests upon the presumption that an attorney will create and file the requisite court documents—including complaints, answers, and motions—on behalf of their client. The reality, however, is that an extraordinarily high number of litigants do not have legal representation and must therefore proceed pro se and submit these documents on their own. Most jurisdictions offer pro se litigants standardized, fillable court forms. These forms are intended to …

Family Court Orders Of Ostensible "Protection": Silencing Survivors And Criminalizing Conduct In Civil Courtrooms, Talia Gallo

City University of New York Law Review

Survivors of intimate partner violence should not face further abuse at the hands of the state, let alone by a tool that is meant to protect them. This Note examines how orders of protections issued by family courts during child abuse and neglect proceedings fail survivors of violence and criminalize individuals in civil courtrooms. This research examines how orders of protection do not always afford individuals due process, despite depriving many of their individual autonomy and the right to parent. Orders of protection are just one example of how family courts punitively surveil marginalized communities, creating irreparable harm under the …

Stubhub For Courts? Technology, Markets, And New Solutions To Court Congestion, Ronen Avraham, William H. J. Hubbard

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

Rescheduling of court hearings is ubiquitous but virtually ignored by academic scholarship. This is so, despite its contributions to court congestion, a perennial problem for courts that has been the subject of repeated, and repeatedly unsuccessful, efforts at reform. In this Article, we aim to show that rescheduling merits scholarly attention, and by diagnosing why and how it contributes to court congestion and delay, we both explain why most efforts at reducing delay fail and identify new possibilities for speeding up dockets. We draw inspiration from online platforms such as StubHub and SpareFare, technologies that have facilitated rescheduling through easy-to-use …

The Evolution Of Experiential Legal Education, Adam Chilton, Peter Joy, Kyle Rozema

Coase-Sandor Institute for Law & Economics Research Paper Series

To help bridge the gap between legal education and legal practice, in 2014 the American Bar Association adopted a requirement that law students take at least six credits of “experiential” courses. Despite limited research on the effects of this reform, the ABA is currently considering a new re- form that would require law students to take twice as many experiential credits to graduate. We provide new evidence for this debate by studying the evolution of experiential legal education and the impacts of the 2014 reform. We compile data reported by law schools to the ABA to document a dramatic rise …

Contested Criminalization, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

How does the U.S. government decide to deploy criminal justice abroad? From the Syrian civil war to the Israel-Gaza conflict, Russia-Ukraine War, and U.S.-China relations, criminal law sits at the heart of contemporary U.S. foreign relations. And yet legal scholarship has never precisely explained how the U.S. government deploys or supports criminal prosecutions abroad, often defaulting to simplistic labels of the United States as exceptionalist, carceral, or isolationist. This Article rectifies this by introducing a theory of contested criminalization, piercing the veil of U.S. government decisionmaking in its use of criminal law in foreign policy. According to this process, …

How Not To Democratize Algorithms, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

A growing set of jurisdictions has embraced “consultative algorithmic governance,” the idea that community members, particularly racially and otherwise politically marginalized ones, should be involved in the processes by which state institutions procure, construct, implement, and oversee artificially intelligent algorithms employed in public sector decision-making. Consultative processes range from public hearings that provide communities with an opportunity to comment about anticipated algorithmic use to community advisory boards that help public officials evaluate the impact of current or future algorithmic use.

This Article argues that consultative algorithmic governance is critically flawed and then builds upon this critique to point toward a …

Artificial Intelligence & Criminal Justice: Cases And Commentary, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

When I was given the chance to develop a seminar this year at UBC’s Peter A. Allard School of Law, I jumped at the opportunity to develop something new and engaging. After brainstorming ideas with students, it quickly became evident that there was substantial interest and enthusiasm for a seminar on the growing integration of artificial intelligence and the criminal justice system.

Embarking on this journey has been a steep learning curve for me as my students and I worked together to shape the course along with input from generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, along with open-source …

Sauce For The Gander: The False Symmetry Of Myths And Stereotypes Against The Accused In Sexual Assault Trials, Janine Benedet

All Faculty Publications

As sexual assault laws evolved to be expressed in sex-neutral language, so too have arguments relating to myths and stereotypes in the context of sexual offences. This article evaluates the argument that myths and stereotypes, traditionally a reflection of systemic discrimination against female complainants in rape trials, also operate against male accused. Understood correctly, this trend repackages anti-feminist backlash to early equality reform efforts, ultimately working to revive the belief that women’s accusations of sexual assault are often false. The Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in R v Kruk affirms that this historical context matters when it comes to claims …

"17 Going On 23": Sentencing Young People To Life In Canada, Debra Parkes

All Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes reported Canadian cases from 2008 to 2022 in which young people were sentenced for murder. It shows that, at least in these reported decisions, sentencing young people as adults for murder is not rare. The Crown routinely seeks life sentences for young people and the court orders them in the vast majority of cases in which they are sought. Life sentences for young people have become normalized and expected in murder cases, rather than exceptional. This paper delves into the case law to get a better picture of why and how this is happening.

Old Habits Die Hard: Precedent, Psychology, And The Admissibility Of Forensic Evidence, Sara Gordon

All Faculty Publications

Forensic evidence, long considered a cornerstone of criminal justice, has faced increasing scrutiny as recent studies and reports expose significant flaws in its scientific foundation. Techniques such as latent fingerprint analysis, microscopic hair comparison, and ballistics matching, which had been widely accepted for decades, are now being challenged for their lack of empirical validation. Reports by the National Research Council and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology have highlighted the deficiencies in these forensic methods, calling into question their reliability and the weight they are given in courtrooms. Yet despite the growing acknowledgement of widespread issues affecting …

Targeted And Ticketed: Student Ticketing And The Perpetuation Of The School-To- Prison Pipeline, Jasmine Richardson-Rushin, Angelica Jimenez, Gwendolyn Walker, Hannah Benton Eidsath

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) is a non-profit organization working to end the harms of the juvenile, municipal and criminal legal systems, including by decriminalizing normal adolescent behavior, ending financial consequences, and improving children’s access to adequate developmentally appropriate treatment. Our work prioritizes eradicating the school-to-prison pipeline, and abolishing harmful fines, fees and economic sanctions through the Debt Free Justice Campaign (DFJ).

In school districts across the nation, students receive fees and fines as consequences for school-based behavior. Students are policed and ticketed for age-appropriate behaviors and disciplinary matters such as littering, truancy, and underage drinking and smoking. …

With Dignity For All: Human Dignity Reforms As “Win-Win” In Correctional Settings, Arthur L. Rizer

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Combating The Rising Threat Of Sextortion, Margaret Galles

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Derailing Deportation Through State Legislation, Stacy Caplow

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Dementia And Criminal Behavior, J. Taylor Humphrey

Marquette Law Review

As the number of individuals affected by dementia increases, the criminal justice system continues to face questions about dementia and criminal responsibility. However, gaps in the legal process have left these individuals, incapable of forming intent, vulnerable to wrongful punishment. Courts rely on traditional culpability frameworks that fail to account for the nuance in dementia-related cognitive decline, and, as a result, prisons are forced to function as de facto nursing homes lacking adequate resources to provide proper care. This Comment proposes treating dementia as a sliding scale, arguing for a context-specific response through streamlined crisis response, use of diversion programs, …

Cyber Sexual Misconduct: The Evolution Of Sexual Privacy Laws And Best Practices For Representing Victims, Jolie Bodner Zangari, Lindsay Lieberman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

“Digital Integrity”: Defending The Judicial Integrity In The Digital Age, Guy Alon, Doron Menashe, Guy Itzhak Sender

Touro Law Review

Recent revelations have shown that the protection of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age is inadequate. Despite well-known exclusionary rules regarding evidence obtained by illegal search and seizure, current trends in the digital age and the law of evidence resulted in courts that tend to include such evidence, and by doing so, create significant risk of both substantive and procedural errors and hence increase the potential for wrongful convictions. To address the matter and try to empower and modernize the protection given by the Fourth Amendment, this article suggests performing a revolution in the law of evidence in the …