Digital Commons Network^™

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 …

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. …

Monopolizing The Harvest: Corporate Influence And Regulatory Gaps In Global Seed Governance, Mia Mahmudur Rahim

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Age, Law, And Political Economy, Alexander Boni-Saenz

Articles

This Article examines the intersection of age, class, and the law. Its central claim is that age is an essential dimension for the analysis of law and political economy. There are two primary reasons why. First, age is embedded in a large body of legal rules that structure the labor market and address vulnerabilities associated with particular life stages. Child labor laws set minimum ages for entry into the workforce, while social welfare laws use age eligibility criteria to shape the material conditions for older adults. Second, age and its sibling concept, generation, indirectly shape economic and political relations by …

The Devil Is In The Det[Ai]Ls: Ai Agents, Ghost Students, And The Crisis Of Verified Presence In An Agentic Ai World, Aras Bozkurt, Helen Crompton, Caroline Fell Kurban

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The transition from reactive Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to agentic AI systems marks a categorical shift in digital education, moving beyond simple content generation to goal-oriented, autonomous execution. This paper explores the emergence of the “ghost student”: a digital surrogate created by the coupling of Large Language Models (the “mind”) and agentic AI browsers (the “body”). These entities are capable of navigating Learning Management Systems (LMS), engaging with content, and completing assessments with human-like mimicry, often rendering the actual learner’s presence optional. We argue that this phenomenon creates a verification gap that traditional proctoring and detection tools are structurally unable …

The Impact Of Substance Abuse Problems And Serious Mental Illness/Serious Emotional Distress On Post-Discharge Residential Status Among Clients With Behavioral And Cognitive Disorders: Evidence From Samhsa Mh-Cld Data, Eden Moges, Norma Rochez, William Peycha, Aditya Chakraborty

Epidemiology, Biostatistics, & Environmental Health Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: Behavioral and cognitive disorders can undermine housing stability, a key determinant of mental health recovery, with persistent disparities across demographic and socioeconomic groups. This study examined the associations of substance abuse problems (SAP) and serious mental illness/serious emotional distress (SMISED) with residential status at discharge from mental health facilities.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study used the utilized data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Descriptive statistics were used to summarize demographic characteristics, whereas univariate and multivariable logistic regression models were employed to assess associations between the covariates and the residential outcome, adjusting for a variety of …

The Weight Of Stigma, Rebekah A. King, Michael S. Sinha

All Faculty Scholarship

Many health care providers, both implicitly and explicitly, perpetuate stigma in their treatment of patients classified as obese. While medical professionals understand that a one-size-fits-all approach to treatment is ineffective, patients classified as obese are frequently offered limited treatment options that fail to account for their unique needs. Access to a range of effective treatment options has historically been limited, but new GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines like Wegovy (semaglutide) and Zepbound (tirzepatide), have shown incredible promise in addressing the obesity crisis. Unfortunately, these transformative drugs are costly, in high demand, and not widely covered by insurance, rendering them inaccessible for …

Policy Recommendations To Reduce False Confessions By Juveniles In Wrongful Conviction Cases, Rohit R. Iyer

CMC Senior Theses

This research focuses on false confessions by juveniles in the United States justice system. False confessions are statements made by suspects during investigations in which individuals provide statements to investigators admitting to a crime in which they had no part. In these cases, individuals often spend years, if not the entirety, of their lives behind bars for crimes they did not commit. False confessions are the result of a number of systemic factors that will be discussed in this paper. While relatively rare, they are one of the largest blemishes in the U.S. justice system. Juveniles – individuals below the …

Goods, Practices, Excellence, And The Law: Steps To An Internal Theory Of Value, Rowan Gray

CMC Senior Theses

Practices are the coherent and complex social activities we spend much of our lives engaging in. This category encompasses everything from figure skating to wine-tasting to friend relationships. We gain immense value from participating in practices, and philosophers have articulated a number of accounts for where the value emerges from and how we can best experience it. Many of these theories are ‘externalist’, because they posit that value is incidental to practices and emerges from outside of them.

In contrast, this thesis will argue that the value in practices is internal to each practice. The value comes from each practice’s …

J Mich Dent Assoc January 2026

The Journal of the Michigan Dental Association

Each month, the Journal of the Michigan Dental Association delivers news, information, and features about Michigan dentistry to our state's oral health community and the MDA's 6,200+ members. It remains the main publication reaching Michigan dentists and is available worldwide through ADA Commons. The January 2026 (Volume 108, No. 1) issue of the Journal is published in a print format to provide updates and insights for Michigan's oral health community and MDA members. Print editions occur every other month beginning with January.

This issue includes feature articles on Pediatric Dentistry and 2025 Life Membership recipients.

Regular monthly contributions include:

• Editorial …

The New Neccesity, Ezra Rosser

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, cities are free to criminalize homelessness. The 2024 case City of Grants Pass v. Johnson is the most important homelessness case in decades and was a significant blow to advocates for the unhoused. The conservative majority rejected the idea that city ordinances criminalizing sleeping in public amounted to cruel and unusual punishment insofar as they penalized status. There is no sidestepping the loss. But within the faint glow of the embers of the oral argument and of the decision itself, there is the possibility that a new understanding of necessity, supported by the same …

Trump's War On Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion, Nancy C. Marcus

Faculty Scholarship

Among the many head-spinning developments that have occurred from the first days of President Trump’s second presidency are his attacks on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), including anti-DEI edicts targeting educational institutions. This article provides a chronology and analysis of the early 2025 Trump administration’s attacks on DEI targeting schools nationwide, the resulting harms, and responses thereto, including litigation. A discernible refrain in the early litigation challenging President Trump’s anti-DEI attacks targeting educational institutions across the country has been how those attacks cross a clear constitutional line: the prohibition of unconstitutionally obscure governmental mandates. At its core, the void-for-vagueness doctrine …

Fencing In A Technological Age: Utilizing Federal Regulatory Frameworks To Implement Virtual Fencing On Federal Public Land, Sam Johnson

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A Précis Of Pfas Legislation In The Southwestern United States, Brenden Catt

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Statistical Analysis Of Evidence In Criminal Cases, Giuliana Leon Carrillo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ideally, the evaluation of relevant forensic evidence must corroborate the hypotheses that the prosecution and/or the defense holds regarding the commitment of a crime. Therefore, optimal forensic evidence would be the one that can be found all the time under the same circumstances, and cannot be found otherwise, making the forensic scientist able to evaluate this evidence given the hypotheses provided. Nevertheless, this is hard to find, as ideal evidence being only a concept.

In this project, the probabilistic interpretation of relevant forensic evidence investigated in criminal cases with the aid of Wigmore charts and Bayesian networks was proposed. Using …

Health Truth To Power: Professional Collaboration To Bolster Trust Against Misinformation, William M. Sage, Keegan D. Warren

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about health, leaving aside more general challenges to shared civic information today. The Article begins by surveying the principal challenges for health information in post-pandemic, arguably post-truth America, and then describes briefly the sources and limits of medical professional authority. Noting the double-edged sword of free speech guarantees under the U.S. Constitution, the Article continues by commenting on speaking truth to government, to industry, and to the crowd. Next, the Article considers the physicians’ role in speaking truth to power from the perspective of standard medical professional ethics and identity, comparing it to that of lawyers. Finally, …

International Human Rights Intervention: Collective Self-Defense Of Humanity, Anthony J. Colangelo

Emory International Law Review

No abstract provided.

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.

The Idea Of Air, Jonathan Skinner-Thompson

Publications

How we view air, especially clean air, has meaningful normative and practical implications. Today, it is commonly recognized as an exhaustible natural resource. But air was not always thought of as something to be conserved, developed, and used. This Article is the first to explore and interrogate that view.

The shift to seeing air as a resource started in the first part of the twentieth century. Previously, air was characterized by its limitless supply of oxygen: a pure public good. Over time, the quality of that good changed, and a precious resource emerged. That resource—especially its chemical and physical characteristics—inspired …

Finite Ventures, Andrew A. Schwartz

Publications

The law endows corporations and other business organizations with the awesome power of perpetual life—unless the charter expressly provides for a certain duration, such as ten years. But does anyone ever actually choose limited life? Why would they?

This article reveals that limited-life business entities—finite ventures—play a significant and underappreciated role in modern commerce. Private equity and venture capital funds, SPACs, and insurance syndicates are all organized with a limited lifespan.

Their motivation? This article claims that limited life is a valuable, but often overlooked, tool for ameliorating agency costs: the managers of a finite venture know they must produce …

Gender Therapy False Equivalency, Scott Skinner-Thompson

Publications

One critical dispute surrounding the rights of LGBTQ people and societal recognition of their existence is the legal debate regarding very different types of gender therapy. On the one hand, several states have banned the provision of gender-affirming medical care to transgender youth, positing that it is a dangerous form of mutilation. A separate set of states has banned the practice of so-called gay or gender conversion therapy that seeks to transform youth away from their queer identities, concluding that it is a form of abuse. Both sets of laws have been challenged in courts with the Supreme Court recently …

The Internet And The Lost Law Of Transit, Vivek Krishnamurthy

Publications

For centuries, the law of transit has specified when states must permit foreign persons and goods to traverse their territory on journeys beginning and ending beyond their borders. Transit is a right — not a privilege — that tempers territorial sovereignty. Though largely forgotten today, the right to transit springs from states’ responsibilities to the international community when their territory hosts infrastructure of global utility.

Yet the internet stands as a striking exception to this tradition. Despite its importance, no doctrine of transit constrains states’ power to block or disrupt internet traffic that merely passes through their territory. This is …

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 …

The Limits Of Daca: Affordability- And Access-Related Barriers To Health Professions Education, Nicole Perez, Laura Hirshfield

Journal of College Access

The U.S. is currently facing a shortage of health professionals from underrepresented backgrounds. One potential pathway to decrease this shortage is through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, a policy that provides temporary relief from deportation for individuals who migrated to the U.S. before age 16. This study, using 15 life-history narrative interviews, investigates the experiences of Latinx young adults who were pursuing health professions education or working as health professionals. Nine of the participants were DACA recipients, while the remaining six were second-generation (i.e., children of immigrants). An iterative, inductive approach to data analysis was used to …

(Reverse) Piercing The Trust Veil, Eric Kades

Faculty Publications

Emergent doctrine deems trusts legal entities distinct from their trustees and beneficiaries. Venerable doctrine empowers creditors to "pierce the veil" separating entities' and their owners' property to avoid inequitable treatment. This article weaves together the new and old to craft a legal roadmap for reversing the ongoing race to the bottom among the states authorizing indefensible self-settled asset protection trusts (SSAPTs) designed solely for the purpose of swindling creditors. As a matter of both policy and doctrine, piercing (more precisely, reverse piercing) an entity's veil is ideally suited to empower the creditor of a SSAPT beneficiary to get paid from …

Winner, Best Appellate Brief In The 2024 Native American Law Student Association Moot Court Competition, Molly Gunther, Kevin Burdet

American Indian Law Review

No abstract provided.

Algorithmic Medicine And The Duty To Disclose: Informed Consent Through The Lens Of Radiology, Lee Rodriguez

Michigan Law Review

Informed consent is the law’s mechanism for protecting patient autonomy by requiring disclosure of facts that bear on the decision to accept or refuse care. Artificial intelligence now helps decide what is medically true for patients, yet informed consent law still assumes that diagnostic judgment is rendered by a human mind whose reasoning is at least in principle communicable. Radiology has become the leading setting for this tension. AI systems triage worklists, flag suspected abnormalities, and anchor first-pass impressions in ways that guide radiologists’ attention and, in practice, can coauthor diagnostic conclusions while remaining invisible to patients. When patients are …

‘Prov[Ing] What You Already Know’: The Overreliance On Medical Evidence In Adjudicating Ontario Disability Support Program Applications, Alison Imrie

Journal of Law and Social Policy

The Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) relies heavily on medical evidence when adjudicating applications. In doing so, it positions healthcare providers as the undisputed experts on applicants’ disabilities. This poses particular challenges for applicants with under-recognized or misunderstood medical conditions like Myalgic Encelphalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS), who may struggle to obtain adequate medical care and thus adequate medical evidence for the purpose of ODSP applications. Through qualitative interviews with five individuals with ME/CFS who applied for ODSP, this paper illuminates the particular challenges faced by those with ME/CFS and other under-recognized disabilities in the ODSP application process. Drawing on literature …

Teaching Evolution After Kennedy And Mahmoud, Alexander Gouzoules

Faculty Publications

One of the longest running disputes at the intersection of education law and the First Amendment has involved conflict over evolutionary biology in American public schools. Through a century of nearly continuous litigation, creationist legislation and parental demands to exempt students from science instruction have been constrained by longstanding First Amendment doctrines.

That settlement is now unraveling. In Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court abandoned its prior approach to the Establishment Clause in favor of a history-and-tradition analysis that is ill-suited to questions about modern scientific education. And in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court held that students' compulsory …

Expanding Astrobiology: The Case For A Lunar Biorepository, Mary Hagedorn, Lynne R. Parenti, Robert A. Craddock, Pierre Comizzoli, Paula Mabee, Bonnie Meinke, Susan Wolf, John C. Bischof, Rebecca D. Sandlin, Shannon N. Tessier, Mahmet Toner, Baptiste Journaux, Robert Ambrose, Garret Fitzpatrick

Articles

Earth’s resources are essential to support an expanding presence beyond the planet. Yet global conflicts, environmental change, and natural disasters threaten ecosystems and biodiversity, putting the integrity of Earth’s ecosystems and its resources at risk. These converging challenges underscore the urgency to develop innovative strategies to conserve Earth’s biodiversity. Astrobiology—seeking to understand life’s origins, limits, and potential beyond Earth—plays a central role in this effort, helping to preserve Earth’s species while also providing critical assets to explore and work in space. A Lunar Biorepository was proposed to hold cryopreserved samples from among the most critical species on Earth. Here, we …