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Leaning Into Absence: Lessons From Kony, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This article begins with the confirmation of charges decisions undertaken by the International Criminal Court in the Kony case. These proceedings struggled with the reality of in absentia. This article addresses the high absentee rate among individuals against whom the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants and notes the stark presence of absence in the ICC’s work as well as within the enforcement of international criminal law at large. This article suggests that international criminal lawyers lean into the prevalence of absence and reboot predominant collective thinking. One path forward is to truly and warmly embrace transitional …

The Role Of Legal Uncertainty, Risk, Institutional Size, And Mission In Presidential Selection: Is The Trend To Lawyer-Presidents An Unmitigated Good?, Nora V. Demleitner

Touro Law Review

This Article builds on Patricia Salkin’s May It Please the Campus which documents the extent to which legally trained persons have led U.S. institutions of higher education since colonial times. It explains the perennial attraction of lawyer-presidents despite substantial changes in legal training, in the professional formation of attorneys, and the transformation of higher education, especially with the rise of the modern research university, governmental investment, and heightened regulation of colleges and universities. Governing boards are increasingly attracted to the skills ascribed to lawyers and their personal characteristics, including the common law appreciation for slow change. This Article highlights how …

Access Denied: The Injustice Of Plra Exhaustion, Rachel Kincaid

Marquette Law Review

Law students learn to “think like a lawyer” by studying appellate decisions that contain extensive reasoning and result from vigorous advocacy by lawyers on both sides. These well-reasoned decisions allow students to learn how to distill legal rules from judicial opinions: to focus on the rationale behind a court’s decision so that they might be able to predict how the court would deal with a different factual scenario. But this focus on extensively reasoned and argued appellate court opinions obscures the access-to-justice crisis plaguing our legal systems; most people cannot even afford to pay a lawyer to represent them, let …

The American Dream And The Politics Of Promise: Presidential Rhetoric Against Reality On Inequality, Education, And Assistance Since 2000, Abigail Demonte

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

S.F. 2200 (2025) - Permission To Change: Minnesota's Illusory Privilege Reform In A Post-Notorious Rbg Era, A.G. Summers

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Implementing Young Adult Court In Minnesota, Sarah Dohm

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Decoding The Path Of Constitutional Exclusion In Wisconsin Digital Evidence Cases, Amelia Boruch

Marquette Law Review

Criminal cases involving novel digital evidence warrants often raise constitutional and suppression issues. As these constitutional issues become harder to resolve, resolution of the suppression issues becomes easier to predict. Where officers obtain warrants to use cutting-edge investigative techniques in the absence of any legal authority, it is unlikely that evidence obtained pursuant to those warrants will be suppressed under the exclusionary rule. Even if the exclusionary rule were “triggered,” the good faith exception would likely apply to preclude suppression. Either way, the outcome is clear: suppression is unlikely.

Confidence in the outcome of these suppression issues has seemingly taken …

Leadership In The Law: Perspectives From The Nyc Law Department's Family Court Division, Jennifer Gilroy Ruiz

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

False Confessions And Post-Conviction Relief: Integrating Social Science Into C.P.L. Section 440.10(1)(G) Proceedings, Emma K. Brammer

NYLS Law Review

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Abstract: False confessions are a primary cause of wrongful convictions, contributing to almost one-third of all known convictions …

A First Amendment Right To Know, David S. Ardia

Faculty Publications

This Article tackles an increasingly important question: Can police round up people on American streets and keep secret the names of those they detain without violating the First Amendment? Alarmingly, the government made this very argument in the summer of 2020 when it sought to break up Black Lives Matter protests occurring in cities across the country. Based in part on a Supreme Court decision from the 1970s involving access to prisons, the government argued that the First Amendment imposes no constraints on government secrecy. If it is true that the government can shield its exercise of police power from …

Legal Stories Without Villains, Alison Peck

Law Faculty Scholarship

Lawyers have always been storytellers, and cognitive science is increasingly demonstrating that human beings are wired to learn through story. But legal stories may have a dark side if, as theorists have recently suggested, stories motivate pro-social action by reinforcing in-group identification and out-group hatred. In an increasingly divided polity, are we doomed to stories that drive us toward social disintegration? A solution to the legal storyteller’s dilemma may be found in an ancient source: Aristotle’s Poetics. By crafting legal stories that track the elements of the Tragedy as described by Aristotle and adapted by modern storytellers from Broadway …

Lost, Never Found: Syria's National Commission For The Missing, Sara Jordan

Loyola University Chicago International Law Review

This article discusses the enactment of Presidential Decree No. 19, enacted by interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, which established the National Commission for the Missing. This body was created in May 2025 and is tasked with researching missing and forcibly disappeared persons, including creating a national database, providing legal and humanitarian support to victims’ families, and documenting cases. The Commission’s findings, however, cannot be used in criminal trials, and the international community, including groups such as Amnesty International, has voiced concerns about its potential ineffectiveness. Following a brief history of conflict under the Assad regime, this article offers an analysis …

The Intertemporal Law Doctrine’S Application To The Acquisition Of Colonies In The Americas, Kent Mcneil

All Papers

The intertemporal doctrine provides that international disputes have to be resolved in accordance with the international law that existed at the time the events giving rise to the dispute took place, not at the time the matter is adjudicated.1 It is thought to be impermissible to apply current standards to events that occurred in the past when different legal principles and rules were the norm. This doctrine applies as much to acquisition of colonies as to other international issues.2 So in order to determine whether a European nation acquired sovereignty over an overseas territory, it is necessary to determine and …

Neurobiological Determinants Of Psychopathy And Their Ethical Implications In Capital Punishment Cases, Brooklyn Lewis

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This literature review examines the relationship between the neurobiological determinants of psychopathy and the ethical implications of applying capital punishment to violent offenders. Drawing on research from neuroscience, psychology, and criminal justice, the paper explores how structural and functional differences in brain regions associated with emotional processing, impulse control, and moral reasoning are linked to psychopathic traits. The review synthesizes findings on how these neurobiological factors may contribute to an increased risk of violent behavior while emphasizing that such influences are not deterministic. The paper further analyzes how neuroscientific evidence is interpreted within legal contexts, particularly in relation to assessments …

The Regulation Of Technological Innovation In Financial Services: A Comparative Approach With Respect To Digital Assets And Artificial Intelligence, Howell E. Jackson, Katja Langenbucher

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Activist Judicial Restraints, Michael Gentithes

Akron Law Faculty Publications

For decades, jurists and scholars have touted the virtues of judicial restraint—a characteristic of judges who only adjudicate issues they are competent to resolve, thereby avoiding political thickets and preserving their authority. Judicial restraint is ingrained in justiciability doctrines that emanate from Article III of the Constitution. When applied evenhandedly, standing requirements, the political question doctrine, and prudential manageability prerequisites to litigation help the Court maintain an appropriately restrained docket.

The Roberts Court falls well short of this restrained ideal in potentially dangerous and destructive ways. The Court has changed justiciability doctrines into “activist judicial restraints” that, rather than avoiding …

Reclaiming Constitutional Authority Of Algorithmic Power, Yiyang Mei, Michael J. Broyde

Faculty Articles

Whether and how to govern AI is no longer a question of technical regulation. It is a question of constitutional authority. Across jurisdictions, algorithmic systems now perform functions once reserved to public institutions: allocating welfare, determining legal status, mediating access to housing, employment, and healthcare. These are not merely administrative operations. They are acts of rule. Yet the dominant models of AI governance fail to confront this reality. The European approach centers on rights-based oversight, presenting its regulatory framework as a principled defense of human dignity. The American model relies on decentralized experimentation, treating fragmentation as a proxy for democratic …

Managing Deportation: How Docket Control Replaced Substantive Relief In Immigration Courts, R. Linus Chan

SMU Law Review

In the modern deportation era, immigration courts saw their ability to grant relief from deportation undergo significant restrictions, constraining individualized discretion in favor of "categorical" denials. Congress dramatically curtailed the discretionary tools available to immigration judges, with the latest being the pair of immigration reforms from 1996, shifting the locus of individualized decision-making away from the courts and toward enforcement officers and prosecutors. Immigration courts lost discretion in being able to decide who could formally be granted status and stay in the United States when facing deportation through various restrictive eligibility requirements written into the law.

This Article argues that …

Undermining Discretion: The Selective Attacks On Progressive Prosecutors, Angela J. Davis

Cardozo Law Review

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal legal system. They decide whether to bring criminal charges and what those criminal charges should be. These decisions are totally within their discretion. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected the power and discretion of prosecutors in making these decisions, and legal challenges to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion have been largely unsuccessful.

In recent years, a growing number of individuals have successfully run for chief prosecutor on platforms of reducing the prison and jail populations, consistent with public safety. They pledged to use their power and discretion to implement policies …

The Limits Of "Punishment", Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

“Punishment” is an all-important category in criminal legal thought. Conventional scholarship adopts a narrow definition and focuses on justifying penal sanctions. Much critical work, in contrast, seeks to expand the category—defining more practices and institutions as “punishment.” In this Article, I argue that the focus on purposes of punishment and on what constitutes punishment distracts from a larger theoretical and practical issue—much of what the criminal system does probably isn’t punishment as such. Certainly, a carceral sentence is punishment. But what about a curfew requirement for a defendant awaiting trial? What about a restriction on gun ownership post conviction? What …

Justifying The Fourth Amendment, Daniel Epps

Scholarship@WashULaw

Why does the Fourth Amendment belong in the Constitution? This question is not whether society should impose some legal restraints on government searches and seizures. Rather, why should such protections reside in our national charter, superior to other forms of law and insulated from change via ordinary majoritarian political processes? Despite major disputes about the Fourth Amendment’s content, Fourth Amendment theorists rarely ask this question. Almost all agree that the Fourth Amendment’s constitutional protections are critically important—even if no one can agree exactly what those protections are.

This Article seeks a justification for the Fourth Amendment—the reason why search-and-seizure protections …

Misinformation And The Law, Gustavo Ribeiro

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This Article bridges critical gaps between the growing body of social science research on misinformation and the persistent challenges jurors face in evaluating potentially unreliable evidence in courtrooms. Misinformation—a pervasive issue undermining decision-making in democratic societies—mirrors the difficulties jurors encounter in distinguishing truth from falsehood amid compelling but unreliable evidence. The consequences of such challenges are dire: wrongful convictions, racial disparities, and the erosion of public trust in the legal system.

This Article is the first piece of legal scholarship to provide a comprehensive discussion of current research on the psychological mechanisms underlying susceptibility to misinformation—such as the illusory truth …

Call For Return: Does The Fourth Amendment Resolve Retentions?, Owen Stickney

Case Western Reserve Law Review

No abstract provided.

Who Makes The Jury? Demographics And Decision-Making In The Jury Process., Ana B. Pons

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Within the American judicial system, juries have played a central role in promoting representation and fairness in the courtroom. However, limited information exists on whether prosecutorial decisions during jury selection, jury composition, or jury behavior differ based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Following PRISMA guidelines, this scoping review synthesizes 48 peer-reviewed articles published between the 1940s and 2026 to examine whether prosecutorial decision-making and jury outcomes vary based on the sex, race/ethnicity, type of case, political ideology, or geographic location of potential jurors. Findings indicated that men are disproportionately selected …

Eroding Protections: The Decline Of Miranda Rights And Its Impact On Due Process In Contemporary America, Autumn G. Pelfrey

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines whether the protections established in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), remain robust within contemporary criminal justice practice or have been weakened through doctrinal and practical developments. Miranda warnings were originally designed to mitigate the risk that coercive custodial interrogation would produce compelled or unreliable self-incrimination. Since 1966, however, both judicial interpretation and evolving law-enforcement practices have created a growing gap between Miranda’s formal legal promise and its practical operation in real-world interrogations.

The study evaluates the erosion of Miranda’s protective force through three primary mechanisms. First, doctrinal developments have narrowed Miranda’s scope by redefining …

The Psychological Effect Of Maternal Separation From A Child During Incarceration: A Survey And Critique Of Risk Needs Assessments, Samantha Yearwood

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study examines whether frequently used correctional assessment instruments adequately capture the psychological impacts of maternal-child separation among incarcerated women. This research was conducted in response to growing criticisms that traditional risk and needs assessments fail to account for gender-specific experiences, specifically those related to caregiving roles and pregnancy. Using a qualitative analysis content analysis to assess four widely used instruments, the Women’s Risk and Needs Assessment (WRNA), Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS), Brief Symptom Inventory-18 (BSI-18), and Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R), the thesis  examines the inclusion of pregnancy-related variables, caregiving responsibilities, and separation-related psychological factors. …

Pretrial Publicity In A Modern World: Exploration Of Defense Attorney Experiences And Perspectives, Giray Uzen

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This research examined how pretrial publicity, like statements made by law enforcement and prosecutors, affects criminal defense strategy. Using a qualitative, phenomenological design, interviews were held with practicing defense attorneys to understand how they deal with media coverage, protect their clients’ rights, and adjust their strategy when a case starts getting attention. The project identifies common themes, including attorney concerns about biased jurors, distorted narratives, and pressure created by public commentary. Findings work towards reforming policy discussions to respect free speech while protecting the constitutional right to an impartial jury in our modern media environment.

The Victimization Of Immigrant Adolescents, Stephanie Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

Immigrant adolescents may experience social and structural challenges that increase their vulnerability to victimization and influence long-term developmental outcomes. However, there is little longitudinal research has examined whether immigration generation is associated with adolescent victimization and adult behavioral outcomes using nationally representative data. This study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to examine the relationships among immigration generation, adolescent victimization, and adult criminal justice, mental health, and substance use outcomes. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine whether first- and second-generation immigrants differed from third-generation respondents after controlling for race/ethnicity, family structure, …

Justice On Trial: Integrating Ethics In Law School Advocacy Courses, Veronica J. Finkelstein

Emory Business Law Review

The rule of law depends not only on legal doctrine and institutional design, but on the daily ethical choices of the lawyers who operate within the adversarial system. Trial lawyers, in particular, wield extraordinary power courtroom outcomes, yet law schools too often train future advocates to perform persuasive techniques without meaningful engagement with the ethical obligations that constrain those techniques and the lawyers who wield them. This article argues that the persistent separation between trial advocacy education and legal ethics instruction leaves law students ill-prepared for the moral complexities of litigation and threatens public confidence in the justice system.

Tracing …

Summoning Firms: Promoting Democratic Stability And Economic Prosperity In Times Of Constitutional Crisis, Jon D. Michaels

Emory Business Law Review

No abstract provided.