Digital Commons Network^™

How Safe Is Safe Enough? Analyzing The Incentive Structure Of The Products Liability Scheme On Commercial Aviation Manufacturers, Ethan Schwab

University of Miami Law Review

How do aviation manufacturers work to prevent tragedy? After tragedy strikes, how does the legal system’s imposition of a remedy change the operations and decision-making of these manufacturers, if at all? This Note explores whether the current products liability framework effectively achieves the goals of tort law—including whether it deters unsafe innovation in the high-risk commercial aviation manufacturing industry. The Note explores these topics through the lens of the recent Boeing 737 Max disasters of 2018 and 2019, using such disasters to exemplify the skewed incentive structure that manufacturers face in the modern products liability tort system. This Note argues …

Congressional Tribal Trust Responsibility And The Opioid Mdl: A Call To Finish The Work The Judiciary Was Forced To Undertake, Curtis E. Osceola Esq.

University of Miami Law Review

Congressional inaction has forced Native American Tribes to utilize the judiciary as a last resort to obtain relief from the crippling effects of the opioid epidemic. Tribes have received inadequate funding from settlements to abate the widespread use of prescription opiates on and around their lands of concern. Hundreds of mass tort lawyers have been navigating the In re National Prescription Opiate Litigation (MDL 2804)—one of the largest and most valuable litigation pools in the history of the Republic—in an effort to provide relief for cities and counties, individuals, consumers, hospitals, third-party payors, and federally recognized Tribes. Based on …

Two Piecemeal Treatments For A System Addicted To Punishment, Myles Crandall

University of Miami Law Review

For decades, the American criminal legal system has failed to curtail illicit drug use and overdose deaths through punitive and selective enforcement. The federal government has prosecuted people and succeeded in securing many long prison sentences based on drug crimes. In the past two years, two amendments by the United States Sentencing Commission offered a measured reprieve through sentence reductions. Amendment 821 offered the possibility for sentence reductions based on recalculating the guidelines associated with certain prior offenses. Amendment 814 updated policy statements for assessing “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a sentence reduction. These changes are not revolutionary; however, the …

From Cypherpunks To Decentralized Finance: How Crypto-Anarchy Is Redefining Legal And Economic Systems, Alesia Zhuk

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This article explores the evolution of crypto-anarchy, tracing its origins from the cypherpunk movement to the rise of decentralized finance (DeFi) and its transformative effects on legal and economic systems. Central to crypto-anarchy is the belief in individual empowerment through privacy, financial autonomy, and decentralization, which allows users to bypass traditional intermediaries like banks. While these technologies offer increased freedom and financial inclusion, they also introduce significant risks such as money laundering, tax evasion, and the facilitation of illegal activities, posing challenges to current regulatory frameworks. The article examines the socio-economic implications of decentralization, including both the democratization of finance …

The Case For Prison Education Reform, Natasha Yousefi

DePaul Journal for Social Justice

No abstract provided.

(D)Evolution Of International Commercial Arbitration In Mexico, Edwin N. Á. Román

Arbitration Brief

The 1990s were a time of vibrant international rulemaking in the field of international economic law, during which Mexico transformed from a closed to an open economy. In 1993, Mexico adopted the 1985 UNICITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration. In 2011, Mexico amended its commercial code by introducing a specific proceeding to enforce and set aside arbitration awards titled “Juicio Especial sobre Transacciones Comerciales y Arbitraje.” Alongside these amendments, Mexico became an internationally relevant jurisdiction for the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. This article analyzes the evolution of the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice’s jurisprudence concerning international …

Substituting One Judge For Another: The Lax Standard Of Review In Involuntary Commitment, Caitlin Riordan

Marquette Law Review

Wisconsin involuntarily commits individuals at a rate nearly five times the national average, stripping them of core constitutional rights—including liberty, the ability to refuse treatment, and firearm possession. Yet, when these life-altering orders are appealed, they are almost always reviewed by a single appellate judge. This Comment argues that such a limited review undermines the constitutional weight of involuntary commitments, which closely mirror criminal convictions in the scope of rights deprived. Tracing the historical development of Wisconsin’s civil commitment statutes, this Comment demonstrates how commitments implicate both substantive and procedural due process concerns. It then compares Wisconsin’s one-judge review framework …

Temporary/Forever: The Fissured Economy, Obstacles To Employment, And Regulating The Future Of Exploitation In Temp Work, Kevin Herrera

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Among workers in United States, contingent and temporary work arrangements have grown to represent a substantial segment of available jobs, with spikes in their predominance corresponding to major economic shake ups like the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. These arrangements are part of a larger trend of the “fissuring” of United States employment, wherein applicants are hired by one company and then sent to do their job at another, obscuring who actually employs the worker. Jobs through temp staffing agencies are a particularly dominant form of fissuring among low-wage workers and create conditions under which accountability for workplace abuses …

Keynote Address For The 2025 University Of The Pacific Law Review Symposium: The Crime Victims' Rights Movement: Historical Foundations, Modern Ascendancy, And Future Aspirations, Paul Cassell

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

This article, which serves as the keynote address for the 2025 University of Pacific Law Review Symposium, explores the past, present, and future of America's crime victims' rights movement-one of the most successful social movements in modern history.

Historically, crime victims played a central role in criminal justice processes through private prosecutions-i.e., the ability of victims to initiate or participate in criminal prosecutions. Today, while private prosecutions have been largely supplanted by public prosecutions, the victims' rights movement has successfully restored the victims' voice in criminal processes. The movement has reformed contemporary American criminal justice so that criminal processes now …

An Eye For An Eye Makes A Vigilant Society, Liam C. Preyer

Capstone Showcase

Vigilantism is one of the oldest practices of mankind; for as long as there have been moral and legal laws to govern us and live by, there have been individuals who have sought justice outside these systems. Vigilantism is the response to failures in the justice system, and in the United States in particular, we have seen examples from the Western Frontier to the modern-day digital landscape. This paper will explore the nature of vigilante justice through historical, psychological, media-driven, legal, and digital lenses. We will explore how cultural narratives, media influences, government actions, and psychological motivations have shaped the …

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

Private Wrongs, Public Impact: The Case For A Tort Of Family Violence, Pahul Gupta

Canadian Journal of Family Law

This research paper investigates the adequacy of current civil actions available against a particular form of family violence: intimate partner violence (“IPV”). The paper identifies the torts which are most commonly applicable in the IPV context and argues that they fail to capture the cumulative harm associated with such conduct. It identifies the shortcomings of such causes of actions and analyzes the multifaceted factors contributing to the limitations and challenges IPV victims face when pursuing such claims.

The paper provides a brief background on the historical and legal context of family violence before moving on to identifying the various causes …

Front Matter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

No abstract provided.

Intersecting Abuse Of People And Animals In Practice: Implications Of The Connection Between Intimate Partner Violence And Animal Abuse For Family Justice Professionals, Amy Fitzgerald, Valerie Monckton, Kerri Thomson, Kendra Coulter

Canadian Journal of Family Law

According to recent estimates, 60% of Canadian homes have at least one cat or dog, and the number continues to climb. Often considered family members, these animals are vulnerable to family violence. Their presence can also render human victims of violence more vulnerable: research indicates many victims delay leaving their abuser out of concern for their animals or consider returning to the abusive relationship because their abuser has the animal companions. Despite a substantial body of literature documenting the link between intimate partner violence (IPV) and animal abuse, research has not examined how family law professionals encounter and deal with …

Using Big Data To Dismantle Systemic Barriers: How Tracking Official Misconduct Can Foster Justice And Increase Accountability In The Criminal Legal System, Meagan R. Hurley

Articles

The U.S. criminal legal system is a vast and complex machine, long subject to public and scholarly scrutiny. The U.S. incarcerates more people than any other nation, holding an astonishing 1.9 million individuals behind bars. Of them, approximately eighty percent are indigent, and over sixty percent are racial minorities, despite these groups comprising a relatively small portion of the overall population. In this expansive system, which disproportionately targets minorities and the poor, it is unsurprising that justice is not always served: Human error and bias are nearly guaranteed to occur at some juncture. Experts estimate that about four percent of …

Do Federal Circuit Courts Of Appeal Provide Adequate Assistance To Self-Represented Litigants? A Review Of The Circuits’ Websites Resources, Jona Goldschmidt

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Criminal Background Checks: Implications For Discrimination And Crime, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal background checks have recently attracted the attention of academics and policy makers alike. Recent laws and policies, like “ban the box” and expungements, focus on the availability of criminal background information as well as the permissibility of using this type of information. Quite surprisingly, policies about the content of the information –whose permissibility and availability are questioned by recent work– is not scrutinized as much.

In this article, I investigate the informational quality of existing background checks. For this purpose, I review the history and evolution of traditional criminal background checks. These checks rely on ‘rap sheets’ –documents containing …

Discord And The Pentagon's Watchdog: Countering Extremism In The U.S. Military, Amy Gaudion

Faculty Scholarship

In his 2022 book, Ward Farnsworth crafts a metaphor from the lead-pipe theory for the fall of Rome to consider how rage and misinformation traveling through today’s technology-enabled pipes are poisoning our civic engagement and threatening our governmental structures: “We have built networks for the delivery of information––the internet, and especially social media. These networks too, are a marvel. But they also carry a kind of poison with them. The mind fed from those sources learns to subsist happily on quick reactions, easy certainties, one-liners, and rage.”1 This Article carries the metaphor into a new context and considers what should …

“I’M Not Really Sure Of What Exists Here”: Frontline Perspectives On Services For Technology-Facilitated Sexual Violence, Jennifer L. Mcarthur, Kayla J. Goruk, Julie Blais, Alexa Dodge, Suzie Dunn

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Technology-facilitated sexual violence (TFSV) is a pervasive issue, yet research on the availability, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for TFSV victimsurvivors remains limited, particularly in Canada. This qualitative study examines the state of service provision for TFSV in Nova Scotia, drawing on insights from 12 interviews with service providers specializing in sexual violence prevention and response. The study explores the availability and nature of services offered to TFSV victim-survivors and the key challenges faced by professionals in providing support. Thematic analysis highlights significant gaps in service provision, including a reliance on generalized approaches, restrictive eligibility criteria that exclude certain victimsurvivors, …

De/Reconstructing Delinquency, Eduardo R. Ferrer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Hundreds of thousands of children are brought under the jurisdiction of delinquency courts every year in the United States. Despite the reality that most children engage in delinquent behavior during their adolescence, poor children, children of color, children with disabilities, and children who identify as LGBTQIA+ comprise a disproportionate number of those who become delinquency system-involved. These disparities exist by design. Their origins can be traced back to the flawed first principles upon which the juvenile court was built and, specifically, to the unduly expansive legal definition of delinquency that has undergirded the jurisdiction and power of the juvenile court …

The Role And Impact Of Forensic Evidence In The Prosecution Of Homicide Cases In The U.S., Afrah Dakhilallah A. Altubait

Theses and Dissertations

The role of forensic evidence in the criminal justice process is an important topic that is significant from both theoretical and practical perspectives. The present study is dedicated to a critical analysis of the role of this evidence in the U.S. criminal justice process with a focus on its significance in homicide cases. Specifically, this dissertation examines the implications of using DNA and fingerprint evidence for convictions in U.S. homicide cases by analyzing the role of DNA and fingerprint evidence in the prosecution of “hot” and “cold” homicide cases, discussing the main ways in which forensic evidence assists with prosecuting …

I Hate Self-Care: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’S Lament, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Don’t get me wrong—I think people should take care of themselves. They should eat well, exercise regularly, and get a good night’s sleep. They should spend time with friends and family. They should have hobbies and interests. With any luck, they should find true love. But in the past decade or two, and especially since the COVID pandemic, there has been a disturbing turn inward. I’m talking about the “self-care” craze, which has become its own pandemic, or at least epidemic.

…

In this Essay, I share my concerns about what I regard to be an excessive focus on self-care …

Promoting Public Health And Public Safety By Ending The Exclusion Of Incarcerated Children From Access To Medicaid, Eduardo R. Ferrer

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a response to Professor Den Houter's article entitled Children are Not Inmates in which she effectively calls eliminating the exclusion of indigent incarcerated children from Medicaid coverage pursuant to the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (MIEP). This essay affirms and builds upon Professor Den Houter's recommendation. Part I of this response provides additional support for why ensuring system-involved youth receive timely, uninterrupted, high-quality behavioral health services is critical to improving both public health and public safety. Part II analyzes the benefits and risks attendant to excluding indigent incarcerated children from the MIEP. Part III proposes the implementation of …

Reentry Realities: Examining The Role Of Aftercare Programs In Supporting Justice-Involved Youth, Lynda Girven

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The current study examined if aftercare and reentry programs helped to reduce recidivism among youth who have been involved in the juvenile system, and specifically, youth released from residential placement facilities. Different components of aftercare programs were also examined, such as the inclusion of mentoring or family support, how many services were offered, and if the program followed the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) model. Through completing a systematic review of studies published since 2008, five studies met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All five studies found that the youth who received services through aftercare programs were less likely to reoffend than youth …

Why Domestic Violence Offenders Don't Give Up Their Guns, Natalie Nanasi

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Perpetrators of intimate partner violence are barred by federal law and many states' laws from possessing firearms. While such prohibitions enjoy popular support, they are sporadically and inconsistently enforced, placing the lives of survivors at risk when offenders do not voluntarily comply. Many experts, including this author, have offered legal and policy solutions to increase the likelihood that perpetrators of domestic violence will either willingly relinquish their guns or otherwise be dispossessed of them. But these proposals may have been premature.

This Article is the first to take a step back and inquire why offenders do not surrender their firearms …

Perceptions And Treatment Decisions For A Drug Offender Based On Social Class, Cocaine Type, Personal Characteristics, And Compassionate Love: A Vignette Study, Yasmin A. Odeh

Theses and Dissertations

Problem: The shift from a focus on rehabilitation to the more punitive, “tough on crime” approach to illegal behavior in the U.S. has been enacted in no small way by policies connected to the use and abuse of drugs. The disparities between crack and powder cocaine—two chemically similar substances—have headlined this shift (Vagins and McCurdy 2006). However, research is scarce on laypeople’s approval of deterrence approaches for drug offenses, including as a function of types (e.g., powder vs. cocaine possession). This study examined people’s perceptions of prosecutorial decisions for drug offenders—whether they are punished, rehabilitated, or both—and whether people perceived …

Breaking The Chain: How An Alternate Dispute Resolution Process Can Be Used In The Criminal Justice System For First-Time Non-Violent Criminal Offenders, Leora Perlstein

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

The criminal justice system is deeply rooted in our history. There are traditional views on how it should be run and conducted. “Founded on the concept that crimes against an individual are crimes against the state, our justice system prosecutes individuals as though they victimized all of society.” Traditionally, when individuals commit a crime, they go through the process of receiving a ticket—or if they commit a particular violent crime they will be immediately arrested—and then they go through the process of appearing in court for an arraignment in which they are “read the charges against [them]” and are either …

Subordinate Prosecutors’ Independence, Bruce A. Green, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

This essay is about subordinate prosecutors’ independence to do what they think constitutes “seeking justice” when they perceive that their boss, or their boss’s boss, wants them to do something that is unjust—not illegal, but unjust. Of course, if subordinate prosecutors want to do either what they are told to do or what they infer that a higher-up wants them to do, they can do so, as long as the conduct is legal. Subordinate prosecutors might choose to disregard their own professional judgment of what justice requires because they share their boss’s objectives, because they see conforming as a route …

Disentangling Safety And Accountability In Criminal Justice Policy, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this Article, I argue that the U.S. criminal system and debates about criminal justice reform reflect an elision of two largely distinct social functions: ensuring public safety and imposing accountability for harmful conduct. Despite deep disagreement about the specifics, most commentators seem to accept that these are both important social functions. Abolitionists claim that the criminal system doesn’t keep people safe and provide accountability. Instead, it harms—and perhaps is meant to harm—people from marginalized communities and protects the interest of socially dominant groups. Reformers contend that the criminal system can and should serve the safety and/or accountability interests, but …

Abolish What?, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

From leading academic journals to popular press outlets, abolitionist activism and scholarship have earned airtime in national debates about criminal justice reform. But what is "abolition?" When scholars, lawyers, and activists talk about abolition, they seem to mean very different, even conflicting, things. In this Essay, I focus on a core question that might divide different abolitionists-and different critics of abolition: what is to be abolished? Abolitionists argue that it's critically important to abolish something, while critics of abolition insist that something is necessary to a well-functioning society. Yet, it's not always clear what that something is-both for abolitionists and …