Digital Commons Network^™

Police Officers’ Perception Of The Anti-Police Movement And How That Affects Officer Retention In Minnesota, Kimberly Wood

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The research aims to investigate the perceived mass exodus of police officer departures alongside police officer retention rates throughout Minnesota. The study investigates whether high-profile police officer prosecutions together with national news incidents directly cause police officers to leave their jobs along with the Ferguson Effect taking place. The profession of policing has become more challenging and dangerous for its practitioners. The combination of recruitment challenges and increased assaults on police officers without punishment for perpetrators and elevated arrest resistance from suspects has led to the perceived mass exodus of police officers. The number of officer shootings and assaults combined …

Impact Of Trauma-Informed Care On The Restorative Justice Ecosystem, Amy Kight

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

Created and titled as the ARTIC Project (Activating Restoration through Trauma-Informed Courts), this research addresses the gap between industrial/structural realities and relationship/nurturing realities within Substance Use Disorder (SUD) recovery and restorative justice paradigms. Grounded in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI), the project emphasized that sustainable behavioral change requires balancing connection with correction (KPICD, 2022). Through a biblical lens, the researcher posits complete healing only comes from our Heavenly Father and occurs on an individual level. With this in mind, TBRI research affirms that organizations do not change people - people change people (KPICD, 2022). This intentional relationship between God, Creation, Others, …

Arbitrary Detention Powers And Section 1 Of The Charter: Two Critical Blind Spots In Luamba, François Tanguay-Renaud

All Papers

In the 2022 case of Luamba c Procureur général du Québec, the Superior Court of Quebec held that a police power to conduct roving random stop of motorists for the purpose of checking for traffic offences infringed ss 9 and 15 of the Canadian Charter in ways that were not saved under s 1. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal (“QCCA”) and the Supreme Court (“SCC”) has now granted leave to appeal to the AG Quebec.

In this comment, I seek expose two blind spots in the s 1 analysis carried out by lower courts: (1) …

Doing Away With Racial Profiling In Policing Without Doing Away With The Rule Of Law, François Tanguay-Renaud

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Since the turn of the millennium, Canadian appellate courts have been investing increasingly systematic efforts in demystifying and curtailing racial profiling in policing. These judicial efforts have so far been focused on the application of the legal criteria for arrest and detention as well as their regulation under section 9 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In this article, I contend that this unidimensional approach is unsound and outline a corrective path forward. First, I argue that the prevailing judicial understanding of what racial profiling is and how it affects the lawfulness of arrests and detentions has the …

The Law Of Racial Profiling, Terry Skolnik, Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert, Fernando Belton

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Racial profiling is one of the most enduring problems in policing. Yet it remains largely under-theorized, which generates important theoretical and practical implications. Racial profiling tends to be construed as an arbitrary detention rather than a form of unconstitutional discrimination. For this reason, the section 15 Charter right to equality plays little to no role in most leading cases on racial profiling. The legal framework that governs racial profiling lacks clarity and can be applied inconsistently. And the remedial landscape associated with racial profiling claims has evolved minimally. This article advances a novel approach to racial profiling that addresses these …

Crim-Eviction: Eviction And Social Control At A Residential Tenancies Tribunal, Sarah Buhler

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Because eviction from rental housing can lead to highly negative outcomes, including homelessness, trauma, neighbourhood instability, and deepening inequities, it is important to understand the reasoning processes employed by tribunals when they wield the power of eviction. This article conducts a critical reading of decisions of the Office of Residential Tenancies, Saskatchewan’s residential tenancies tribunal, that deal specifically with urgent landlord applications for immediate eviction based on tenant behaviours that are alleged to be criminal, illegal, frightening, or dangerous. Coining the term “crim-eviction” to help describe this category of decisions, the article identifies that residential tenancies tribunals like the Office …

Racial Profiling And The Rule Of Law: A Reply, Terry Skolnik, Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert, Fernando Belton

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

THIS VOLUME OF THE OSGOODE HALL LAW JOURNAL (OHLJ) contains two articles—and two replies—that explore racial profiling and the law. This academic exchange comes at a crucial moment. In Attorney General of Québec v Luamba (“Luamba”), the Court of Appeal of Quebec affirmed that the statutory police power to conduct roving traffic stops is unconstitutional because it results in arbitrary detentions and unconstitutional discrimination, neither of which were justifiable in a free and democratic society.

Reckoning With Queer History: The Canadian “Lgbt Purge” Case And The Limits Of Forgiveness, Daniel Del Gobbo

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Canadian government has a long history of regulation, exploitation, and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and two-spirit (LGBTQ2S+) people. One of the most painful chapters in this history is the “LGBT Purge,” a term that refers to the expulsion of LGBTQ2S+ service members and employees from the Canadian Armed Forces, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Federal Public Service between 1955 and 1992. The LGBT Purge was the subject of a class action lawsuit filed in 2017 that resulted in a settlement agreement in 2018. On a parallel track to the settlement, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a …

Rape Myth Acceptance, Pretrial Publicity, And Decision-Making: An Examination Of Perceptions Of Victim Credibility And Perpetrator Guilt In A Real-World Sexual Assault Case, Lindsey Strouse

Student Theses

This study explores how the media narratives and political perspective of pretrial publicity (PTP) can influence jurors’ perceptions in sexual assault cases, raising significant concerns about justice in courtrooms. Specifically, it examines whether media framing of a real-life sexual assault case — through varying media narratives, with media that either challenges or endorses rape myths, and media source (liberal vs. conservative) — affects mock jurors’ rape myth acceptance (RMA), views of victim credibility, and judgements of perpetrator guilt. Participants first completed a RMA scale, then read mock news articles varying in media narrative and political affiliations (media source), followed by …

W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration 2025, Andrew Christensen, Michelle Cosby, Brandon Hasbrouck, Jennifer Mitchell, Melanie D. Wilson

Library Events

On October 9, 2025, the Washington and Lee Law Library hosted the fifth W&L Law Fall Scholarship Celebration. The event was co-sponsored by the Frances Lewis Law Center and took place in the Law Library's main reading room from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.

On display were dozens of scholarly articles, books, chapters, and court briefs authored by the W&L Law faculty and student body between October 2022 and October 2025. Additional works were accessible online via QR codes to W&L Law Scholarly Commons institutional repository. A selection of vintage scholarship by former W&L Law professors was also on display, courtesy …

Rogue Prosecutor Panic, Michael L. Smith

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Discussions of criminal law, enforcement, and reform are frequently messy and misleading. Anecdotes distract from systematic abuse, and perceptions of crime frequently win out over existing trends. This essay identifies Zack Smith and Charles Stimson’s book, Rogue Prosecutors: How Radical Soros Lawyers are Destroying America’s Communities, as an example of this shoddy discourse. Smith and Stimson’s claim that “Radical Soros Lawyers” are being mobilized to destructive ends crumbles under minimal scrutiny, and I identify several core defects throughout their narrative, including a failure to demonstrate a truly unified scheme of ideology and funding amongst the prosecutors they identify, baseless assumptions …

Tinkering With The Machinery Of Death: Execution Through Nitrogen Hypoxia, Emiliano Villarreal

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The modern era of the death penalty in the United States began in 1976 when the Supreme Court reinstituted the death penalty just four years after having found it to be unconstitutional. Since then, various states, as well as the federal government, have experimented with different methods of execution to find the most “humane” way of carrying out an execution. In 2018, Alabama legalized the use of nitrogen hypoxia as a method of execution, and in 2024, became the first state to execute a person with this new, previously untested method. However, the use of nitrogen hypoxia has been the …

Indigent Defense: How The Attorney Shortage Crisis Raises The Continued Need For Public Defense In Rural Areas Of The Lone Star State, Cody Jess Huffman

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract: The Sixth Amendment provides numerous rights, one of the most important being the right to counsel. The right to an attorney is crucial because it attaches at adversarial hearings such as interrogations, arraignments, and other serious matters as an individual weaves throughout the obstacles of the criminal justice system. An important distinction in that right to counsel as the admonishments are delivered is that not only does an individual have the right to counsel, often meaning one can be retained, but if an individual cannot afford to hire a private attorney, one will be appointed to them. As times …

Misapplying Pinkerton And Accomplice Liability In The United States Federal Sentencing Guidelines: How Courts Have Wrongly Imprisoned Criminal Defendants For Decades, Jessica Huang

San Diego Law Review

The Pinkerton and accomplice-liability doctrines are two of the most maligned doctrines in criminal law. Anyone deemed an “accomplice” to a crime can be convicted of that crime as if they had perpetrated the wrongdoing themselves; similarly, Pinkerton liability, a form of conspiracy liability, permits the government to hold someone accountable for the substantive crimes of another so long as those crimes were “in furtherance of the conspiracy,” “within the scope of the unlawful project,” and reasonably foreseeable “as a necessary or natural consequence of the unlawful agreement.” Scholars, activists, and reformers have criticized the doctrines on both constitutional and …

Bowers, Lawrence And Obergefell: A Case-By-Case Analysis, Hailey Moran

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

What does Bowers v. Hardwick, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges all have in common? Each of these Supreme Court cases chronicles the passage of time and advancement in LGBTQ+ rights in America. Not only, however, do they chronicle the rights that have been achieved for LGBTQ+ individuals, but they also chronicle the evolution of the Justices on the bench. These cases here help us understand the influences that encourage the Justice’s decision-making, whether it be the state of the law or the Court’s environment. By analyzing each case, we can understand not only how these cases were decided, …

The Trial Of Musammat Kelee: Widowhood, Infanticide, And Colonial Justice In Early Twentieth Century India, Rashmi Banerjee

Socio-Legal Review

This article examines the 1920 trial of Musammat Kelee, a Hindu widow from Ajmer-Merwara, accused of drowning her illegitimate infant son in a lake. Drawing on extensive trial records, police reports, and official correspondence, it reconstructs the procedural history of her case and situates it within broader colonial debates on female sexuality, widowhood, and infanticide. Kelee’s conviction under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code, despite weak evidence, hinged on judicial emphasis on her widowhood and the perceived illegitimacy of her child as proof of motive. Yet her subsequent pardon by the Viceroy’s office reflected a contradictory administrative impulse that …

Generative Suspicion And The Risks Of Ai-Assisted Police Reports, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Northwestern University Law Review

Police reports play a central role in the criminal justice system. Many times, police reports exist as the only official memorialization of what happened during an incident, shaping probable cause determinations, pretrial detention decisions, motions to suppress, plea bargains, and trial strategy. For over a century, human police officers wrote the factual narratives that shaped the trajectory of individual cases and organized the entire legal system.

This practice is about to change with the creation of AI-assisted police reports. Today, with the click of a button, large language models (LLMs), a type of generative AI using predictive text capabilities, can …

Prosecutorial Interviewing Reform: Applying Victim-Centered Practices For Trauma-Informed Justice, Ana J. Prata

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

No abstract provided.

Structurally Harmless: Why Brecht Should Apply On Collateral Review Of Structural Errors, Jaden M. Lessnick

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Even when a prisoner has overcome all of AEDPA’s requirements and the Supreme Court’s equitable bars to relief, the writ of habeas corpus may issue only as “law and justice” require. The Court has recognized in recent Terms that the habeas statute thus confers on courts discretion to deny relief notwithstanding the satisfactions of the statutory and equitable preconditions. This discretion, the Court has said, is not boundless. A judge may grant the writ only after considering the principles of finality and federalism. Whatever else that includes, the Supreme Court has made clear that a judge must apply Brecht’s …

Gold & Blue Law Edition, Fall 2025, St. Mary's University - San Antonio, Texas

Gold & Blue Law Edition

This is the Fall 2025 edition of Gold & Blue Law Edition which is St. Mary's University's official School of Law publication.

Law School Announcements 2025-2026, Law School Announcements Editors

Announcements

• Officers and Faculty
• The Law School - History
• Programs of Instruction
• Curriculum
• Student Activities and Organizations
• Funds and Endowments

The History And Tradition Of Voir Dire: Why Maryland Should Expand Its Jury Selection Procedures, Dallon Danforth

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Diplomatic Asylum In Latin America, Regina Romero-Garza

The International Law Review Association Student Forum

Latin American Countries (“LAMC”) maintain a distinct set of diplomatic practices that differ from those commonly observed around the world. One observable distinction is the doctrine of diplomatic asylum, which allows political refugees of other countries to seek asylum in foreign embassies. The concept of diplomatic asylum is seldom recognized outside of the Latin American region, leaving LAMC as one of the few that recognize and use this locally recognized right. Various cases have arisen over the years involving disputes between the countries receiving the refugee (receiving state) and the country that wants the refugee in their custody (territorial state). …

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Fall 2025

Nebraska Transcript

Dean’s message

Nebraska Law students achieve outstanding results in competitions

Nebraska Law recognized for excellence in mental health and well-being

Clifton, ’08, honored as 2025 Alumni Master

Uecker, ’25, selected as a 2025 Next Generation Leader

Unexpected path to Nebraska Law leads Haratsis, ’25, to home, calling

Client Counseling program celebrates 50 years

Big Ten law schools present series of panel discussions on rule of law

A reflection of the past six years, College’s strategic plan now complete

A culture of strengths: CliftonStrengths and the College of Law

Celebrating 50 years of Ross McCollum Hall

Johnson studies how election law …

Unveiling Injustice: An Analysis Of Four Prosecutor-Led Conviction Integrity Units, Erin M. Daneker

University of Baltimore Law Review

No abstract provided.

Compassionate Causation In The Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, Zoë Lewis Ewing

University of Chicago Law Review

This Comment evaluates the implementation of the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act (DVSJA), a New York law passed in 2019 to provide shortened sentencing ranges for domestic violence survivors convicted of crimes. It identifies an inconsistency in sentencing courts’ application of the law’s causation standard, which requires that a petitioner’s experience of domestic violence be a “significant contributing factor” to their criminal conduct. Some courts interpret the prong narrowly, while others apply a broad causation standard. This Comment argues that courts should opt for the latter approach and consider causation in the DVSJA satisfied if domestic violence was “sufficiently significant …

Law School Record, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Fall 2025), Law School Record Editors

Law School Record

• Message from the Dean
• How the Law School is Incorporating AI into the Curriculum
• Café D'Angelo Builds Community One Cold Brew at a Time
• Adam Chilton Becomes Dean
• The Corporate Speech Dilemma
• Theory in Practice
• Counselors of Crypto
• Asked & Answered - Richard Robbins, '91 Director of Applied AI
• Seven Alumni Begin Clerkships for Supreme Court Justices
• Professor John Rappaport Discusses his New Criminal Law Casebook
• Two New Faculty Members Join the Law School
• Other Faculty News and Recognition's
• The Law School Launches the Dean's Fellow Program
• Meet the Class of 2028 (by the numbers)
• Development News
• In Memoriam
• Giving …

Res Gestate 2025 Fall Issue, Lindsay Wilcox, Angela Turnbow, Austen Diamond, Lexie Kite, Violet Maw, Henry Randolph, Robert Rice, Dave Titensor, Elizabeth Kronk Warner

Law School Historical Documents

The Alumni Magazine for the S.J. Quinney College of Law, University of Utah

The Future Of Virtual Proceedings In The Federal Courts, Jeremy Fogel, Mary S. Hoopes

Indiana Law Journal

The federal courts are notoriously hesitant to modify their procedures and policies. Much of this “small c” conservatism is driven by a concern that their rules be “trans-substantive” and suited to a wide range of circumstances. For years, they stubbornly resisted allowing remote proceedings and similar uses of technology in the courtroom because of concerns that permitting them could affect the quality of lawyering and decision-making, compromise the safety of jurors and witnesses, and diminish the public’s perception of the courts. The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly changed this, forcing judges to alter radically the way they conducted proceedings.

Nearly five years …

Criminalization Of Landlord/Tenant Law: Arkansas’ “Failure To Vacate” Statute, Anastacia Greene

Law Faculty Scholarship

Arkansas is not a notable state. It is often confused with Kansas or Alabama. It is difficult for most Americans to find on a map. Perhaps Arkansas has few distinctions. However, it is the only place in the country where a tenant can be thrown in jail for missing a rental payment. The legal landscape of Arkansas is unique in many ways, primarily in its old-fashioned, even archaic, view of property law.

First, this article examines the history behind the Failure to Vacate statute. Next, this article reviews the constitutional challenges that the statute has faced, and recent litigation. Then, …