Digital Commons Network^™

Making Sense Of Making Parole In New York, Alexandra Mcglinchy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For many individuals incarcerated in New York, the initial step toward freedom begins with an interview with the Board of Parole. This process, however, is frequently a complex and challenging one, characterized by repeated denials and extended incarcerations. The disparity in outcomes – where one individual may receive over 20 denials and another is granted parole on their first attempt – highlights the ambiguity and inconsistency in the parole decision-making process. This project aims to clarify the factors that influence parole decisions by concentrating on measurable variables. These include age, race, duration of sentence served, proportion of sentence served, type …

The Fallacy Of Systemic Racism In The American Criminal Justice System, Paul J. Larkin, Giancarlo Canaparo

Liberty University Law Review

Critics of the criminal justice system have repeatedly charged it with systemic racism. It is a tenet of the “war” on the “War on Drugs,” it is a justification used by the so-called “progressive prosecutors” to reject the “Broken Windows” theory of law enforcement, and it is an article of faith of the “Defund the Police!” movement. Even President Joe Biden and his chief lieutenants leveled the same allegation early in this administration. Although the President has eschewed the belief that Americans are a racist people, others have not, proclaiming that virtually anyone who is white is a racist.

Yet, …

Table Of Contents

Liberty University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Doctrine Of Qualified Immunity And Why It Needs To Be Reformed In Situations Of Jail Suicide, Sasha Glickfield

University of Dayton Law Review

No abstract provided.

Energy Justice And Renewable Rikers, Rebecca Bratspies

University of Miami Law Review

Unsustainable energy practices generate the lion’s share of global carbon emissions as well as staggering levels of deadly particulate pollution. Replacing the current dirty, fossil fuel-based system with affordable, clean energy is both a human rights imperative and a climate change necessity. This transition, which has already begun, creates the opportunity to do things differently. By confronting the structural racism embedded in existing energy structures, we can build a just transition rather than just a transition. This Article uses New York City’s Renewable Rikers project as a case study to explore how we might take advantage of the intersections between …

Garrity Immunity And The U.S. Armed Forces, Bretton H. Laudeman, Gabriel J. Chin

BYU Law Review

The U.S. military is one of the nation’s largest and most important public employers. Given the unique nature of military service, the service branches have a strong interest in ensuring the integrity of their ranks. Yet the military lacks a critical force-management tool used by every other public employer to investigate workplace misconduct: the ability to demand answers to potentially incriminating questions under Garrity v. New Jersey, 385 U.S. 493 (1967). The Garrity solution, known as “Garrity immunity,” strikes a critical balance between the government’s interests in workplace oversight and accountability with the employee’s Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by …

Ukraine, Urban Warfare, And Obstacles To Humanitarian Access: A Predicament Of Public International Law, Harriet Norcross Eppel

BYU Law Review

Humanitarian assistance is not carried out in a vacuum. As urban warfare historically complicates humanitarian aid’s access to civilians in war zones, Ukraine, having suffered and still facing highly publicized violence in civilian-dense areas, has encountered dire obstacles in acquiring necessary resources for civilians’ survival, including both direct and incidental attacks on humanitarian access. Thus, it is vital the international legal community take measures to mitigate current and future dangers of urban warfare, as well as design new solutions, such as strengthening current international law under which obstructing humanitarian access constitutes a violation of jus cogens principles, attempting to induce …

Long History Of Leniency? A Call For A Georgia Statutory Mitigation Factor For Veterans With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Jonathan Fagundes

Georgia Law Review

In Georgia, criminal sentencing marks a critical period for convicted defendants. As the final moment before the superior court fashions a punishment, the defendant faces a pivotal opportunity to introduce mitigating evidence, including evidence of mental health challenges, life circumstances, and other facts. Where such evidence is offered, the superior court can properly issue a sentence that aligns with the purposes of punishment or other state policies. But some populations, especially veterans convicted of nonviolent offenses, are exposed to unique stressors that likely affect their culpability. The existing sentencing regime, however, does not guarantee that this mitigating evidence will even …

Balancing Discretion And Fairness: The Potential Pitfalls Of Allowing Judges Too Much Discretion In Sentencing, Kelly A. Mclaughlin

Missouri Law Review

Nearly eighty percent of individuals in federal prison for drug offenses are Black or Latino. The War on Drugs, a global campaign started by President Nixon, had an objectively moral goal: reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. However, in reality, the results of the campaign sparked inequalities in sentencing regimes, which has led to a disproportionate incarceration of minority groups. Most notably, there was a 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crimes involving crack cocaine (crack) and crimes involving powder cocaine. While this distinction historically claimed to address the theory that powder cocaine has more dangerous health effects; it …

2020 Racial Justice Protests In Portland, Or: An Analysis Of Radical Place-Making And Police Tactics In A Neighborhood Context, Claire Brumbaugh-Smith

Dissertations and Theses

During the George Floyd protests, police used tactics infrequently seen until now, including the use of tear gas and sonic weapons in contested spaces. Police tactics are presumably sanctioned by policing directives, but little is known about how these tactics may vary across space at a granular spatial level, or how they might be normalized over time. To address this knowledge gap, I used the concept of repertoires of protest control to characterize and quantify the tactics of the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) deployed on racial justice protesters during the 2020 racial justice protests and describe the role of these …

Tennessee Journal Of Law And Policy And Center For Advocacy And Dispute Resolution: Summers-Wyatt Symposium - Asking Jurors To Do The Impossible

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Is It Possible To Predict Juror Behavior?, John W. Clark Iii

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Asking Jurors To Do The Impossible, Peter Tiersma

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Contents

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

Racial Discrimination In The Death Penalty In Tennessee: An Empirical Assessment, John M. Scheb Ii, Kristin A. Wagers

Tennessee Journal of Law and Policy

No abstract provided.

P*Law 2024, Center For Public Service Law

2023–2024 Flyers

This document outlines the full schedule for P*LAW Week 2024 at Cardozo School of Law, hosted by the Center for Public Service Law. Held from January 29 to February 1, the week featured panels, workshops, and student-led presentations on critical public interest topics, including immigration, incarceration, housing justice, student debt, reproductive rights, and exoneration. With contributions from legal professionals, alumni, faculty, and students, the events provided education, mentorship, and career development opportunities for those pursuing paths in public interest law.

Veterans Treatment Courts: Broadening Eligibility For Veterans Convicted Of Violent Offenses, Mark Dela Peña

Catholic University Law Review

Veterans treatment courts (VTCs) have been gaining widespread popularity as a tool to divert justice-involved veterans from the criminal justice system. While a step in the right direction, most of these courts categorically exclude violent offenders for eligibility. Many jurisdictions conflate violent offenses with serious offenses, even when many violent offenses lack any physical harm. Additionally, prosecutors wield almost unbridled discretion in determining whether or not someone is charged with an offense considered to be violent, determining VTC eligibility even before a case reaches a sentencing hearing.

This comment argues for admitting veterans convicted of violent offenses into VTCs. This …

“We Do No Such Thing”: 303 Creative V. Elenis And The Future Of First Amendment Challenges To Public Accommodations Laws, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 303 Creative v. Elenis, the Supreme Court ruled that a business had a right to refuse to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple. But properly understood, the decision’s parameters are narrow, and the decision should have minimal effect on public accommodations laws.

If Black Lives Really Matter, We Must End Traffic Stops!, Kenneth Williams

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

This Article will argue that African Americans will continue to be fatally shot and killed by police disproportionately and in many cases unjustifiably as long as police are allowed to stop motorists for minor non-violent traffic infractions. These stops do little to combat crime and are not worth the lives they upend and the continued unconstitutional racial discrimination that motivates many of these stops. Although the standards for police use of force need to be reformed and police culture has to be changed, the other reform that is imperative in order to significantly reduce the disproportionate fatal police shootings of …

The Color Of Money: How Our Broken Campaign Finance System Fuels Racial Inequality, Blair T. Page

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

The laws upholding our campaign finance system are inadequate and under-enforced. These problems are felt disproportionately by African American voters. Election law experts agree that the structure and enforcement authority of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) severely limits the ability of the agency to achieve its goals. Several Supreme Court decisions have also limited the ability of Congress to control campaign contributions and expenditures. Tracking expenditures from corporations, groups, and individuals (to the extent possible), will show the link between favorable outcomes for these groups and their detrimental effects on African Americans. While closing racial disparities in wealth allows for …

The Imperative Of Rejecting "Gender-Critical" Feminism In The Law, Henry F. Fradella

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

Roughly a half-century ago at the height of the second-wave feminist movement, some feminist scholars and activists found themselves arguing with transgender people about who is a woman. While much of contemporary feminist thought has moved past biological essentialism’s outdated embrace of a sex binary to embrace trans-equality, a relatively small but vocal group of self-proclaimed “gender-critical feminists” (who are sometimes called trans-exclusionary radical feminists, or “TERFs” for short) eschew transgender legal rights that they perceive as potentially threatening to the rights of cisgender women. Most gender-critical arguments in that regard are fallacious; they are based on myths and false …

Who’S Afraid Of Being Woke? – Critical Theory As Awakening To Erascism And Other Injustices, Berta E. Hernández-Truyol

Journal of Critical Race and Ethnic Studies

No abstract provided.

“He’S In Jail Now And I Don’T Feel Bad”: Analyzing Sureties’ Decisions To Report Bail Violations, Rachel Schumann, Carolyn Yule

International Journal on Responsibility

The control, supervision, and rehabilitation of criminalized people often falls on the shoulders of non-state agents and organizations. Surety bail releases are a clear embodiment of this trend, as the courts call upon relatives, friends, and employers to supervise the pre-conviction activity of people accused of a crime. According to the law, sureties must report all bail violations to the police; the resulting diffusion of responsibility is said to increase the penal state’s power and control over criminal justice-involved individuals while minimizing reputational risks. Yet how sureties carry out this role in the community remains unexplored. Using data from 36 …

Pro Se Litigants In The U.S. Supreme Court: How Do They Fare?, Kyle Persaud

St. Mary's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Defunding Cities: Reconsidering The Fiscal Sanctioning Measures Of State Punitive Preemption Statutes, Eliza Martin

University of Chicago Legal Forum

In an effort to deter and punish cities for passing ordinances that conflict with state priorities, states are utilizing a new form of legislative power: punitive preemption. It is generally considered a legitimate use of state power to utilize statutes to preempt local measures and ordinances deemed inconsistent with state policy. State legislatures, however, are attaching punitive mechanisms to preemption legislation that, in the event of local noncompliance, create criminal and civil liability for local officials, provide removal mechanisms for elected officials, and allow for the fiscal sanctioning of local governments.

This Comment considers whether local governments are legally protected …

Zero-Option Defendants: United States V. Mclellan And The Judiciary's Role In Protecting The Right To Compulsory Process, Wisdom U. Onwuchekwa-Banogu

JCLC Online

How does one obtain evidence located outside the United States for a criminal trial? For prosecutors, the answer is an exclusive treaty process: Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). Defendants, on the other hand, may only use an unpredictable, ineffective, non-treaty process: letters rogatory. The result is a selective advantage for law enforcement at the expense of the defendant. Though this imbalance necessarily raises Sixth Amendment Compulsory Process Clause concerns, MLATs have remained largely undisturbed because defendants still have some form of process, albeit a lesser one. But what happens when the letters rogatory process is also closed off to the …

Legal Remedies To Collective Trauma In Northern Ireland, Katherine S. Thomas

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

How can a country legally address collective trauma? Northern Ireland faced this daunting question in 1998, when the signing of the Good Friday Agreement heralded the end of decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles. More than two decades later, the social and economic damage of the Troubles lingers. Years of piecemeal reconciliation efforts have proved controversial and yielded inconsistent results. The "truth" of the Troubles remains a divisive issue, and the question of how Northern Ireland can achieve lasting reconciliation still looms. This Note offers an up-to-date review of transitional justice efforts in Northern Ireland and the ongoing …

The Second Founding And Self-Incrimination, William M. Carter Jr.

Northwestern University Law Review

The privilege against self-incrimination is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights. Protection against coerced or involuntary self-incrimination safeguards individual dignity and autonomy, preserves the nature of our adversary system of justice, helps to deter abusive police practices, and enhances the likelihood that confessions will be truthful and reliable. Rooted in the common law, the privilege against self-incrimination is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination and Due Process Clauses. Although the Supreme Court’s self-incrimination cases have examined the privilege’s historical roots in British and early American common law, the Court’s jurisprudence has overlooked an important source of historical evidence: the …

Hung Out To Try: A Rule 29 Revision To Stop Hung Jury Retrials, Elijah N. Gelman

Northwestern University Law Review

How many times can a defendant be retried? For those facing hung jury retrials, it’s as many times as the government pleases. Double jeopardy prohibitions do not apply when juries fail to reach a verdict.

There is, theoretically, a built-in procedural solution to stop the government from endlessly retrying defendants. Rule 29 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure allows judges to acquit defendants when “the evidence is insufficient to sustain a conviction.” Considering that a hung jury indicates the jurors could not agree on the sufficiency of the evidence, defendants facing hung jury retrials are prime candidates for this …

Sentence Served And No Place To Go: An Eighth Amendment Analysis Of "Dead Time" Incarceration, Christopher B. Scheren

Northwestern University Law Review

Although the state typically releases incarcerated people to reintegrate into society after completing their terms, indigent people convicted of sex offenses in Illinois and New York have been forced to remain behind bars for months, or even years, past their scheduled release dates. A wide range of residency restrictions limit the ability of people convicted of sex offenses to live near schools and other public areas. Few addresses are available for them, especially in high-density cities such as Chicago or New York City, where schools and other public locations are especially difficult to avoid. At the intersection of sex offenses …