Digital Commons Network^™

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.

U.S. Administrative Law: A Casebook (6th Ed.), Jud Mathews

Faculty Scholarship

The number of administrative law texts is vast. The approach of this one, now in its fifth edition, is simple. It is: (1) to focus on the richest and most canonical cases; (2) to provide more extensive extracts of them than most casebooks; and (3) to keep the notes to a bare minimum. Updated through October 2025, the book contains a number of significant decisions from recent Supreme Court terms, as well as foundational classics that many contemporary casebooks cut, and much in between.

The Surveillance Of System-Adjacent Individuals, Mariam A. Hinds

Faculty Scholarship

Although the Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” this right is not enjoyed by all people equally. Supreme Court jurisprudence has curtailed the Fourth Amendment privacy rights of individuals under probation or parole supervision. In this line of cases, the Court concluded that the government’s interest in monitoring supervisees, reducing recidivism, and promoting public safety outweighed their reasonable expectation of privacy.

However, surveillance mechanisms like probation and parole extend the criminal legal system’s carceral gaze beyond the supervisees and peer into the bedrooms and digital lives of their families, roommates, and communities, or who this Article calls system-adjacent …

An Empirical Study Of Malingering In Insanity Cases Across Twelve Decades, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

The last 120 years have seen a surge in the use of neuroscientific evidence in American criminal law cases, fueled by discoveries in brain science that have challenged the legal system’s assumptions about human thinking and culpability. One key assumption is that many defendants “malinger,” that is, feign or fake insanity or mental illness, to garner an acquittal or mitigated punishment. Likewise, when potential evidence that a defendant is malingering is introduced in court, it can have a pronounced and powerful negative effect on the defendant’s insanity claim, especially when juries and criminal justice actors are already skeptical of insanity …

Private Canvas, Government Expression: Protest Art & The Government Speech Doctrine, Melanie P. Rigden

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

The note argues that protest art is fundamentally incompatible with the government speech doctrine and should not be subject to its principles. It contends that applying this doctrine to political expression allows the government to suppress dissenting viewpoints and engage in censorship under the pretext of exercising its own speech rights.

Risk And Releasability: Rethinking “Suitable” Support Networks For Former Foster Youth In Ontario Bail Courts, Marsha Rampersaud

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Contemporary societal trends indicate many young adults rely on their families for financial and other support for longer than in the past, often well into their 20s. Youth leaving the child welfare system, however, do not have similar supports to rely on when they reach the age of majority (eighteen in Ontario). In bail court, the experiences of those who have familial support differ markedly from those who do not. Qualitative interviews with youth, lawyers, and social workers illuminate the experiences of young adults (ages eighteen to twenty-four) who have exited the child welfare system and come into conflict with …

The Closed Door At 301 Wellington Street, Tom Nichini, Kim Brooks

Journal of Law and Social Policy

Although women and racialized lawyers comprise significant proportions of the Canadian bar, they and other equity-deserving lawyers remain markedly underrepresented among counsel making oral submissions before the Supreme Court of Canada. This article presents findings from a five-year empirical study (2017–2021) examining who appears before the Court through an observational analysis of 273 cases and a survey of 279 counsel. The research reveals that presenting counsel are predominantly white, cis-male, and have extensive experience at the bar: e.g., women account for only 26.9% of appearing counsel, while racialized lawyers comprise 12.8%. After evaluating whether this gap can be attributed to …

The Military Discharge Review Boards’ Irregular Presumption Of Regularity, Jessica Lynn Wherry

Chapman Law Review

“There is a presumption of regularity in the conduct of governmental affairs.” With these twelve words in the Department of Defense’s Code of Federal Regulations, the military discharge review boards (DRBs) have denied relief to thousands of veteran-applicants seeking a discharge upgrade. While seemingly innocuous, this administrative principle has become a nearly insurmountable barrier to relief for veterans with a less-than-honorable discharge. Veterans with a less-than-honorable discharge are generally ineligible for a range of veterans benefits, including health care and education benefits, and they have higher suicide rates compared to honorably discharged veterans.

For most veteran-applicants, the administrative path to …

Death By Discretion: Executive Power And The Arbitrary Machinery Of Federal Capital Punishment, Reem Haikal

Chapman Law Review

This Article argues that the federal death penalty is not merely at risk of being cruel; it is increasingly at risk of becoming arbitrary and lawless. Despite the procedural safeguards embedded in the Federal Death Penalty Act (FDPA), executive practices have reintroduced many of the same constitutional flaws that the Supreme Court identified in Furman v. Georgia. Through detailed analysis of the FDPA’s structure, this Article shows that the statute fails to meaningfully constrain the Attorney General’s charging discretion, allowing life-and-death decisions to hinge on opaque and often politicized processes. The Trump administration’s revival of federal executions, culminating in sweeping …

Developing Your Research Project: Writing An Annotated Bibliography, Fabiola Ceballos-Durham

Open Educational Resources

Students build the foundation for a criminal justice research project by evaluating and summarizing scholarly articles and websites in an APA-style annotated bibliography.

Trust Is Difficult To Gain, Yet Easily Broken: The Impact Of Negative Police Encounters On Police–Community Relations, Brooke J. Pirozek

Honors College Theses

Trust between law enforcement agencies and their respective communities is arguably one of the most contentious issues within contemporary criminal justice research in the United States. This is because, despite the fact that law enforcement institutions rely significantly on the public's assistance and cooperation in fighting crime and enforcing social order, there still exist negative relations between law enforcement and their communities, mainly attributed to feelings of unfair treatment, abuse of power, and a lack of accountability. This study seeks to understand the role of negative police encounters in shaping community trust and perceptions of police legitimacy, with a special …

Crypto Kleptocracy, W. Robert Thomas, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Michigan Law Review Online

Many Americans are worrying about whether they will soon be living in a postdemocracy autocracy. But in the meantime, they may already be living in a crypto-fueled kleptocracy. Less than one year into his second presidential term, Donald Trump has reportedly taken his wealth to new heights by embracing, both as a businessman and a politician, the crypto industry. Trump’s family businesses are involved in minting Trump-themed meme coins, creating America- themed stablecoins, and mining crypto assets—so successfully that most of Trump’s wealth is likely now from crypto, not real estate. All the while, the Trump Administration is rolling back …

Silencing As Blackening, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

We are so accustomed to seeing defendants sit silently at criminal trials while their lawyers speak that we hardly question it. Or we tell ourselves this silence is for their own protection, part of their privilege against self-incrimination and the rules we have created for their own benefit. But what if we've gotten everything wrong? What if encouraging defendants to remain silent does not inure to their benefit at all, but to the State's? And what if this silencing is tied to race? "Silencing as Blackening" tells a fuller story about silent defendants. One, that this silence is rarely voluntary, …

Keynote Speaker Remarks From Ambassador Clint Williamson, Clint Williamson

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building A Web Of Accountability: Learning From Ukraine’S Efforts To Bring Russian State Actors To Justice, Jane Stromseth

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bridging The Gap: Predictors Of Alignment Of Parent And Caseworker Perceptions Of Engagement, Jianchao Lai, Michelle I. Graef

Center on Children, Families, and the Law: Faculty Publications

This study examined predictors of alignment between parents’ and caseworkers’ perceptions of family engagement in child welfare services. Using data from 2,274 Alternative Response (AR)–eligible families randomized to AR or Traditional Response, engagement was assessed across the domains of Receptivity, Buy-in, Worker-family Relationship, and Mistrust using a modified Yatchmenoff (2005) scale. Multinomial logistic regression models identified factors associated with agreement and discrepancy between ratings of family engagement within the parent and worker dyad. While both parents and workers valued engagement, workers were more likely to provide higher overall engagement ratings, although the direction of discrepancy varied across specific subscales. Greater …

Trolling The Rule Of Law: Presidential Lawfare, The Stalingrad Defense, And The Lawyers, David Luban

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This paper, part of a symposium on presidential lawfare, examines the so-called “Stalingrad Defense”—a strategy of total procedural obstruction—within the broader phenomenon of rule-of-law backsliding facilitated by legal professionals. By exhausting judicial resources and weaponizing procedural delays on behalf of political leaders, such lawyers do not merely defend a client; they actively participate in subverting the institutional foundations of democracy. I argue that the standard conception of legal ethics, which emphasizes neutral partisanship and zealous advocacy, is fundamentally inadequate to capture the wrongfulness of lawyers who use legal tools to dismantle the legal system itself. In its place, I propose …

To The Hague And Beyond: The Shifting Terrain Of International Criminal Justice, Leila Nadya Sadat, Valerie Oosterveld, Sharon Weil, Nancy Combs, David Crane

Faculty Publications

Panel of international criminal law experts speak about the areas in which they work.

Against A Medical Exception To Equal Protection, Govind Persad

Publications

Government regulations of medicine sometimes treat patients differently based on their race or sex. Does heightened scrutiny apply to such regulations—as is usual when law treats someone differently based on a protected characteristic? Or is there a medical exception to equal protection?

Recently, in United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld a law that restricted access to medical treatments for transgender minors. Though its holding did not rely on medical exceptionalism, its discussion reinvigorated interest in a "medical exception" to equal protection: that medical decisions are exempt from the searching review applied when governmental decisions consider protected characteristics.

For …

Adversarial Certification Of Evidentiary Software, Nicholas G. Vincent, Bryan H. Choi, Eli Siems, Clay Halbert, Katherine J. Strandburg

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Specter Of Jury Nullification, Anna Offit

Faculty Publications

Attention to the trial of Luigi Mangione has renewed debate about nullification—the jury’s inviolate power to acquit a defendant contrary to the evidence presented. Jury nullification proponents hold that it is a mechanism of last resort for refusing to apply laws that conflict with the public conscience. Opponents, by contrast, argue that nullification undermines the law by diminishing its legitimacy. To prosecutors and defense attorneys, however, these arguments are immaterial: Jury nullification is part of the institutional landscape of the contemporary jury trial and thus must be treated as a potentiality—a feature of the agnostic, strategic, and ethical terrain of …

The Police Archipelago: Decentralization, Police Violence, Over-Punishment, And Crime, José F. Girón

Faculty Publications

A strong consensus has taken hold in the legal academy. Criminal Justice Localism, espoused by scholars of every stripe, promotes greater local control of every facet of the criminal justice system. But Criminal Justice Localism largely overlooks an institution that plays a critical role in the criminal justice system, and which has been the subject of intense public criticism: the police. That oversight is remarkable for two reasons. First, calls for increased local control of the police seem to ignore that America operates one of the most—if not the most—decentralized policing models in the world, with its thousands of local, …

Legitimacy And Accountability In The Information-Era Administrative State, Nina-Simone Edwards

Library Scholarship

The current assault on administrative institutions and the rapid influx of automated “solutions” have exacerbated the problems of a system that was already buckling under the strains of functional opacity, technical opacity, unequal access and influence, process proliferation and paralysis, and inaction. An overarching reason for the legitimacy and accountability challenges confronting the administrative state is a paradigm for administrative legitimacy and accountability that is court-centered and no longer fit for purpose.

In this concept paper, we describe two core requirements of legitimacy and accountability–which, as we will explain, are interdependent concepts–and then articulate three component requirements–transparency and demystification, care …

Cutting The Gordian Knot Of Civil Liability: Cross-Deputization Agreements As A Remedy To Jurisdiction And Liability Concerns For Indian Country In Oklahoma, K. Mekko Factor

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Bad Man’S Hourglass: Extending The Clock On Justice, Liv G. Cummins

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Tulsa V. O’Brien: A City Adds To The Battle Over Jurisdiction In Indian Country, Fatima D. Jaime

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking Stock Of Comparative Law Teaching In U.S. Legal Education, Francesca Bignami, Irene Calboli

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

For over 25 years, U.S. law schools have sought to globalize their curricula, reflecting the increasing interconnectedness and international scope of legal practice. Although there have been efforts to take stock of the impact of globalization on law schools, the vast majority have focused on international law, not comparative law. This U.S. National Report, written for the International Academy of Comparative Law’s 2026 Congress, fills the knowledge gap. In summer and fall 2024, we conducted a survey that examined course offerings, requirements, and opportunities for JD students. The survey was supplemented by interviews and a literature review of law schools …

Selective Prosecution In The Age Of Trump: The Presumption Of Regularity Problem, Cynthia Lee

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

After taking office for the second time in January 2025, President Donald J. Trump repeatedly and openly called for then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice, which she led, to investigate and prosecute Trump’s perceived enemies. At the same time, several of Trump’s current and former cabinet members, who allegedly had committed similar or worse criminal acts, were not prosecuted, raising concerns that the Department of Justice is not administering justice fairly.

Even though the prosecutor’s charging discretion is broad, it is not supposed to be unfettered. One way that prosecutorial charging discretion can be checked is …

Reversing Progress: The Political And Legal Ramifications Of The 2025 Dei Policy Rollback, Bridgette Baldwin

Faculty Scholarship

The year 2025 will mark a significant turning point in the landscape of American civil rights policy, as federal executive orders the Trump administration initiated seek to dismantle longstanding diversity, equity, and inclusion ("DEI") initiatives. Rooted in a historical context of civil rights progress, these orders aim to curtail affirmative action programs, eliminate DEI mandates within federal agencies and contractors, and challenge the legal foundations of inclusive policies across the country. This Article explores the evolving landscape of civil rights and DEI in the United States, examining its historical roots, recent legal and political developments, and ongoing challenges. From landmark …