Digital Commons Network^™

Engaging In Equity-Centered Policymaking: State-Level Racial Equity Impact Assessment Trends, Lessons Learned, And Future Directions, Daina Strub Kabitz

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Vision Of The Anti-Racist Public Corporation, Steven A. Ramirez

Faculty Publications & Other Works

The publicly traded corporation rightly exemplifies the great potential of legal infrastructure to advance macroeconomic growth and human development. Left to its current legal and regulatory frameworks, however, it will fuel inequality and the replication of racial hierarchy indefinitely. Taking affirmative action to broaden participation of our population at all levels of the public firm will open its ability to fund human ingenuity to all. This would vindicate the essential public purpose of the legal infrastructure governing the public corporation. It would also place capitalism itself on a firmer social foundation through the creation of a more cohesive and productive …

Sheriffs, Shills, Or Just Paying The Bills?: Rethinking The Merits Of Compelling Merchant Cooperation With Third-Party Policing In The Aftermath Of George Floyd’S Death, Stephen Wilks

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Article frames the killing of George Floyd as the result of flawed business regulation. More specifically, it captures the expansion of third-party policing paradigms throughout local nuisance abatement regulations over a period of time that coincided with the militarization of policing culture across the United States. Premised on the notion that law enforcement alone cannot succeed in reducing crime and disorder, such regulations transform grocery stores, pharmacies, bars, and other retail spaces into surveillance hubs by prescribing situations that obligate businesses to contact the police. This regulatory framework, however, sustains the larger historical project of rationalizing enhanced scrutiny of …

Taking The Knee No More: Police Accountability And The Structure Of Racism, David Dante Troutt

Washington and Lee Law Review

From before the birth of the republic to the present day, police brutality has represented a signature injustice of state authority, especially against African Americans. Defining that injustice is the lack of accountability for official misconduct. The rule of law has systematically failed to deter lawbreaking by its law enforcement departments. This Article explores the various legal and institutional means by which accountability should be imposed and demonstrates the design elements of structured immunity. Using Critical Race Theory and traditional civil rights law notions of how structural racism operates, this Article argues that transformative change can only come about through …

Silencio: The Hispanic/Latino Reticent Approach To Racism

Florida A & M University Law Review

Many Latinos dream of coming to America in search for a better way of life but instead are faced with discrimination based on where they come from, the language they speak, and the pigmentation of their skin. Racial discrimination is one of the most ever-present issues in the United States of America today. Some look at discrimination and believe that it has been “fixed” through our political and judicial processes. However, others know that discrimination is still alive and prominent today. Today, discrimination has manifested itself differently –it is discreet and indirect but still prominent in the daily lives of …

Advancing Racial Justice Through Civil And Criminal Academic Medical-Legal Partnerships, Yael Cannon, Vida Johnson

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The medical-legal partnership (MLP) model, which brings attorneys and healthcare partners together to remove legal barriers to health, is a growing approach to addressing unmet civil legal needs. But MLPs are less prevalent in criminal defense settings, where they also have the potential to advance both health and legal justice. In fact, grave racial health inequities are deeply intertwined with both civil and criminal injustice. In both spheres, health justice is racial justice. Building on the experiences of the authors in their respective civil and criminal law school clinics at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., this Article argues that academic …

Disrupting Carceral Logic In Family Policing, Cynthia Godsoe

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, By Dorothy Roberts.

The Geography Of Unfreedom, Ann M. Eisenberg

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Coal, Cages, Crisis: The Rise of the Prison Economy in Central Appalachia. By Judah Schept.

To Protect And Serve California's Children: Mitigating Police Coercion Of Minors Through California's New Attorney Consultation Mandate, Lila Garlinghouse

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Capital Punishment For Latine Populations, Morgan Zamora

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Judge Frankel’S Fifty-Year-Old Invitation To Reconstruct Sentencing, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

America was a different place at the time Judge Marvin Frankel penned his now-famous text Criminal Sentences: Law without Order in 1973. Richard Nixon was the U.S. president. The Vietnam War was ending. The Watergate scandal was unfolding. There was much to grab the public’s attention, and criminal sentencing was not a national or international headline. Just two years earlier, President Nixon had declared a war on drugs and targeted drug abuse as “public enemy number one,” but it would be over a decade before punitive mandatory minimum drug sentences would become our sentencing norm. At the time of …

Investing In Abolition, Sandeep Singh Dhaliwal

Faculty Publications

This Article situates the prison within a broader macro-financial trend, what I call “community capture.” As private equity firms have consolidated the market for carceral services, they have also gained control over other essential social infrastructure, like housing and healthcare. By layering debt, fees, and aggressive profit expectations over companies or assets that provide for basic needs, their strategies intensify the economic pressures communities face. These strategies rely on various forms of coordination and legal protection from contestation. To demonstrate this process in the context of mass incarceration, this Article tells the story of Securus, a dominant carceral service company …

Judicial Ethics And The Eradication Of Racism, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Washington Supreme Court entrusted the legal community with working to eradicate racism from its legal system. Soon after, Washington’s Commission on Judicial Conduct (hereinafter the Commission) received a complaint about a bus ad for North Seattle College featuring King County Superior Court Judge David Keenan. Along with a photo of Judge Keenan’s face, the ad included the following language: “A Superior Court Judge, David Keenan got into law in part to advocate for marginalized communities. David’s changing the world. He started at North.” The Commission admonished Judge Keenan for violating the Code of Judicial Conduct, in part …

40 Acres And A Mule: Accountability For Corporations To Provide Reparations To Historically Black Colleges And Universities For Profits From Slave Labor, Meghan K. Marks

Emory Business Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Politicization Of Criminal Prosecutions, Wadie E. Said

Publications

This Article offers a critical review of how political considerations rooted both in domestic and foreign policy-have distorted the criminal process, thereby offering a complementary analysis of what ails the criminal justice system. This analysis builds on the by-now well-known critiques of the racial and socioeconomic discrimination at the system's heart. The result is a criminal justice system that allows political considerations to dictate results far more than they should. In domestic prosecutions, criminal law is mostly used to target those who seek to question the legitimacy of state policies, state agencies (especially the police), or corporate interests, rendering the …

Allow Me To Transform: A Black Guy’S Guide To A New Constitution, Brandon Hasbrouck

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution. By Elie Mystal.

Sisters Gonna Work It Out: Black Women As Reformers And Radicals In The Criminal Legal System, Paul Butler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. By Derecka Purnell and a review of Progressive Prosecution: Race and Reform in Criminal Justice. Edited by Kim Taylor-Thompson and Anthony C. Thompson.

Beyond More Accurate Algorithms: Takeaways From Mccleskey Revisited, Ngozi Okidegbe

Michigan Law Review

A Review of McCleskey v. Kemp. By Mario Barnes, in Critical Race Judgments: Rewritten U.S. Court Opinions on Race and the Law 557, 581. Edited by Bennett Capers, Devon W. Carbado, R.A. Lenhardt and Angela Onwuachi-Willig.

#Metoo And The Corporation In Popular Culture, Brenda Cossman

Seattle University Law Review

#MeToo’s initial virtual explosion in the fall of 2017 was very much about Hollywood, with famous actresses speaking out against famous producers, media moguls and celebrities, exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual violence in and around the entertainment industry. Since then, #MeToo has made its way into Hollywood representations without much irony. Films and television shows have explicitly taken up the #MeToo themes, exploring issues of sexual harassment and violence and its afterlives. Many television shows, from the relaunched version of Murphy Brown to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Fight have incorporated #MeToo themes into episodes exploring the …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

Making Red Lives Matter: Public Choice Theory And Indian Country Crime, Adam Crepelle

Lewis & Clark Law Review

American Indians are victims of violence at higher rates than members of any other racial group. Nevertheless, Indian victims receive little media attention. Aside from the prevalence of violence against Indians, the violence is unique because of the rules governing Indian country law enforcement. Tribes, absent compliance with federally mandated procedural safeguards, cannot prosecute non-Indian criminals. While state or federal law enforcement have jurisdiction over reservation crimes involving non-Indian perpetrators, they often fail to respond. Hence, non-Indians know they can target Indians with little fear of reprisal. This Article argues the rules governing Indian country crimes were not designed to …

Trauma-Informed (As A Matter Of) Course, Natalie Netzel

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Law students are impacted by trauma and law professors are in a position to help by adopting a trauma-informed approach as a matter of universal precaution. The 2021 Survey of Law Student Well-Being (“SLSWB”) revealed that over twenty percent of responding law students meet criteria that indicate they should be evaluated for post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”). The study also revealed that almost fifty percent of responding students reported an important motivation for attending law school was experiencing a trauma or injustice. Put differently, law schools are full of law students who have experienced trauma, many of whom are actively struggling …

The Conflict Among African American Penal Interests: Rethinking Racial Equity In Criminal Procedure, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that neither the criminal justice reform platform nor the penal abolition platform shows the ambition necessary to advance each of the primary African American interests in penal administration. It contends, first, that abolitionists have rightly called for a more robust conceptualization of racial equity in criminal procedure. Racial equity in criminal procedure should be considered in terms of both process at the level of the individual, and the number of criminal procedures at the level of the racial group—in terms of both the quality and “quantity” of stops, arrests, convictions, and the criminal sentencings that result in …

The Role Of Suspect Development Practices In Eyewitness Identification Accuracy And Racial Disparities In Wrongful Conviction, Margaret Bull Kovera

Publications and Research

This article reviews the three previously studied categories of variables that are related to eyewitness identification accuracy: estimator (characteristics of the witnessing conditions), system (characteristics of the identification procedure that are under the control of the criminal legal system), and reflector (variables that reflect the likely accuracy of a witness). Although eyewitness scholars frequently turn to these variables and models of memory to explain why eyewitnesses make mistakes, none of these variables provides a reasonable explanation for the large racial disparities in wrongful convictions based on mistaken identifications, yet problematic policing practices might. The policies and practices guiding police efforts …

Critical Race Feminism, Health, And Restorative Practices In Schools: Centering The Experiences Of Black And Latina Girls, Thalia González, Rebecca Epstein

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Restorative practices (RP) in K-12 schools in the United States have grown exponentially since the early 1990s. Developing against a backdrop of systemic racism, RP has become embedded in education practice and policy to counteract the harmful and persistent patterns of disparities in school discipline experienced by students of color. Within this legal, social, and political context, the empirical evidence that has been gathered on school-based restorative justice has framed and named RP as a behavioral intervention aimed at reducing discipline incidents—that is, an “alternative” to punitive and exclusionary practices. While this view of RP is central to dismantling discriminatory …

Debiasing Criminal Justice, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota inspired a summer of protests in 2020, followed by a call for racial reckoning and a professed commitment to reform criminal justice. Many have condemned the “systemic racism” reflected in countless demographic measures. From killings of unarmed men by the police at the front end of the criminal justice system to incarceration rates at the back end, the statistics show stark disparities along racial lines. These disparities are held up as evidence of racial bias in the system.

Statements about racial bias may be intended as an indictment of a …

Understanding Racial Disparate Treatment Of Juvenile Interpersonal Violent Offenders In The Juvenile Justice System Using Focal Concerns Theory., Suzanne Overstreet

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) is a salient issue that has been found at every stage of the decision-making process in the juvenile justice system (Hawkins & Kempf-Leonard, 2005; Kempf-Leonard, 2007; Bishop, 2005; Leiber, Bishop, & Chamlin, 2010; Leiber & Stairs, 1999). Existing research indicates that DMC influences adjudication for drug, property, and personal crimes (Fergusson, Horwood, & Swain-Campbell, 2003; Frazier, Bishop, & Henretta, 1992; Leiber & Jamieson, 1995; Leiber & Mack, 2003; Hawkins & Kempf-Leonard, 2005; Leiber, 2015). Because intimate partner violence (IPV) is a major public health problem and global concern (Djamba & Kimuna, 2008; Goo & Harlow, 2012; …

Abusing Discretion: The Battle For Childhood In Schools, Hannah Dodson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

For too many children the schoolhouse doors become a point of entry into the criminal justice system. Children of color are the most likely to suffer from this phenomenon. The presence of policing in schools is a key contributor to this “school-to-prison pipeline.” This Note argues that broad, discretionary mandates for school resource officers (SROs) promote biased law enforcement that impacts Black girls in different and specific ways. I contend that SRO mandates can be effectively limited by strategically bolstering community organizing efforts with impact litigation.

Africana Legal Studies: A New Theoretical Approach To Law & Protocol, Angi Porter

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

“African people have produced the same general types of institutions for understanding and ordering their worlds as every other group of human beings. Though this should be obvious, the fact that we must go to great lengths to recognize and then demonstrate it speaks to the potent and invisible effect of the enslavement and colonization of African people over the last 500 years.” – Greg Carr

An Examination Of Differences In Race, Gender, And Age In Processing And Outcomes Within The U.S. Criminal Justice System, Teliyah Cobb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Demographic factors can influence criminal justice system outcomes. We examine legal system processing in 12 U.S. states from 1976-1991. Variables included: 1) race, age, and gender; 2) violent, sexual, and drug- and alcohol-related charges; 3) level of charge; 4) charges at arrest, trial, and final disposition; 5) time-lengths between each stage; 6) dismissal, plea bargaining, and conviction; and 7) final sentencing length. Significant differences in arrest, prosecution, plea bargaining, charge severity, and final sanctioning were observed dependent on race, gender, age, and the intersectionality of these characteristics. Implications for research policy to reduce the impact of disparities are discussed.