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The Nebraska Minority Justice Committee Progress Report 2010

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

The Nebraska Minority Justice Committee (MJC) is a unique statewide collaboration that works to develop and implement just and sustainable policy reforms that will not only improve the system of justice but will also strengthen public trust and confidence in our laws and court system. The Committee is a joint effort of the Nebraska State Bar Association and the Nebraska Supreme Court, appointed by the Supreme Court in May of 2003 in response to a Task Force’s two-year investigation of racial and ethnic fairness in Nebraska’s court system.

The mission of the Committee is to achieve three primary aims:

• …

2010 Nebraska State Suicide Prevention Summit Final Report

University of Nebraska Public Policy Center: Publications

The Nebraska State Suicide Prevention Coalition convened the Suicide Prevention Summit on Friday, January 29th, 2010. The event was hosted by BryanLGH West in Lincoln, and 24 sites across the state participated via videocast through the Nebraska Statewide Telehealth Network. The goal of the event was to provide an overview of suicide as a public health concern in Nebraska, present opportunities to discuss local needs related to suicide prevention, and featured an introduction to best practices in suicide prevention.

The audience of the Summit was comprised of 270 community members, professionals, suicide survivors, and youth and adults interested in promoting …

Immigration, Ethnicity, And Marginalization: The Maya K’Iche Of New Bedford, Jorge Capetillo-Ponce, Gissell Abreu-Rodriguez

Trotter Review

On Tuesday, March 6, 2007, more than 300 armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested 361 presumed undocumented immigrant workers at the Michael Bianco Inc. factory in New Bedford, Massachusetts. More than half of the workers detained were from Guatemala, the majority belonging to the Maya K’iche (we will use K’iche) community, an ethnic group originally from the mountains of western Guatemala whose members began arriving in the New Bedford area from Providence, Rhode Island, where there is an older K’iche community, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the height of a violent confrontation in Guatemala between …

Parties' Perceptions Of Apologies In Resolving Equal Opportunity Complaints, Alfred Allan, Dianne Mckillop, Robyn Carroll

Research outputs pre 2011

Apologies are known to play an important role in the resolution of discrimination and harassment complaints brought under equal opportunity legislation. Sometimes parties agree on an apology as a term on the basis of which a complaint is settled. Occasionally, where a complaint is not settled, a respondent will be ordered to apologize. The ability to order an apology is a distinctive feature of equal opportunity law in Australia. The aim of the researchers was to gather information on the role of apologies in the equal opportunity jurisdiction in Western Australia. Twenty-four complainants and respondents took part in semi-structured interviews. …

Reflections And Perspectives On Reentry And Collateral Consequences, Michael Pinard

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Domestic Violence Or Elder Abuse? Why It Matters For Older Women, Teresa Kilbane, Marcia K. Spira

Social Work: School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Other Works

Law enforcement and legal services are 2 systems that respond to reports of abuse against women through programs such as adult protective services (APS) and domestic violence (DV). APS and DV systems operate independently and define the cause of the abuse differently. The designation of a woman as having suffered domestic violence or having been abused often depends on which system she enters. This designation can lead to different options for women to obtain services. Aging may further complicate access and usability of these systems to respond to the needs of abused elderly. Using vignettes, this article explores the definitions …

When The Law Preserves Injustice: Issues Raised By A Wrongful Incarceration Exception To Attorney-Client Confidentiality, Inbal Hasbani

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

The Cost Of Legal Aid, Elizabeth Lyons

Global Tides

I first became aware of the British’s struggle with their Legal Aid system while interning with a nonprofit organization in London that conducted research on Legal Aid with the goal of improving individuals’ access to justice. The British have supported Legal Aid for over sixty years; however, during this time it has reached an unsustainable level its current budget being two billion pounds. Since the government simply cannot afford a program this large, it has fallen prey to periodic budget cuts within the past few decades. Many British individuals are concerned that the quality of the services will diminish as …

Long-Term Care Ombudsman Training, Texas Silver Haired Legislature Foundation, Texas Silver-Haired Legislature

Texas Silver-Haired Legislature

Training agendas, manuals, and other information on long-term care ombudsman training, 2010.

Conflict Of Interest?: Executive-Auditor Relationship And The Likelihood Of A Sec-Prompted Restatement, Henry Lyford

CMC Senior Theses

This study examines the relationship between executives and their independent auditor to see if there is a conflict of interest in their interaction. This study was motivated by the meltdowns, partially caused by fraudulent accounting, of many public companies in the late 1990s and early 2000s and the consequent passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. This study examines the variables of audit fees, fees for other services, and auditor tenure to see if they are connected with the occurrence of an SEC-prompted restatement. The results show no significant correlation between amount of fees and the likelihood of an SEC-prompted restatement but …

Responding To Foreclosures In Cuyahoga County, Interim Evaluation Report January 1, 2009 Through December 31, 2009, Kathryn W. Hexter, Molly Schnoke

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Should Kentucky Tax Professional Services As A Way To Raise Revenue? An Economic Analysis Of Possible Revenue Options, Meghan Mando

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Currently Kentucky is facing a budget deficit of $108 million dollars for the fiscal year 2010. As some lawmakers search for revenue options, one possibility is to consider a sales tax on professional services.

Professional services are considered any kind of service that requires skill, knowledge, reputation, ethics, and creativity. For the purpose of this study, medical services are not included in this category. Many of the services are infrequent, such as the services of an attorney or an accountant. A professional services tax could be used for both businesses and individuals, or could make businesses tax exempt. As of …

Who Generates Hazardous Wastes? Attribution Of Producer And Consumer Responsibility Within The Us, Christa D. Jensen

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

Amid changing attitudes about the environment and increasing sustainability concerns, many countries around the world aim to curb waste generation, especially the generation of hazardous wastes. Beginning in the late 1970’s and occurring increasingly since, governments and international bodies are passing legislation and treaties dealing with the reduction of hazardous waste generation and waste minimization in general. For future waste minimization policies to have an impact on hazardous waste generation, methods for determining where the ultimate responsibility for hazardous waste generation lies need to be explored. This paper examines hazardous waste generation in the United States at the industry level …

National And State Economic Impact Of Netl, Randall Jackson, Amanda Krugh, Brian Lashier, Ronald Munson

Regional Research Institute Working Papers

This report documents the development of state-level input-output models for Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Oregon and the augmentation of the national input-output model that was developed previously for the project Valuing Domestically Produced Natural Gas and Oil . The state IO models were developed to assess the FY08 economic impacts of expenditures, employment, and research and development awards at the NETL sites located in Pittsburgh, PA; Morgantown, WV; and Albany, OR. The national IO model was developed to assess the FY08 economic impacts of NETL site expenditures, awards, and employment at the national level.

Race, Class, And Whiteness In Gifted And Talented Identification: A Case Study, Kathleen Barlow, C. Elaine Dunbar

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

What began fifteen years ago as a volunteer effort to promote desegregation via a gifted and talented magnet school has become a case study analyzing inequalities in the identification of young children for gifted and talented services. We use Cheryl Harris’ (1993) argument that “whiteness” is a form of property that creates and maintains inequalities through the conjoining of race and class. We show how gifted and talented status meets the criteria of white property interests and is defended by recourse to law and policy. Efforts to improve identification of students for gifted services reveal that the implicit operation of …

Comprehensive Responses To Gender-Based Violence In Low-Resource Settings: Lessons Learned From Implementation, Jill Keesbury, Ian Askew

Reproductive Health

The Population Council undertook a program of technical assistance and research to strengthen the evidence base on sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) programming in sub-Saharan Africa. This project created an active network of implementers and researchers across sub-Saharan Africa, all of whom were charged with developing, implementing, and evaluating core elements of a comprehensive, multisectoral model for strengthening responses for survivors of SGBV, especially survivors of sexual violence. Based on the experiences of these partners, this document reviews the findings, lessons learned, and promising practices in the provision of comprehensive SGBV services in sub-Saharan Africa. The findings are intended to …

Trust Account Fraud And Effective Information Security Management, Sameera Mubarak

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The integrity of lawyers’ trust accounts has come under scrutiny in the last few years. There are strong possibilities of information technology security breaches happening within the firms, either accidental or deliberate. The damage caused by these security breaches could be extreme. For example, a trust account fund in an Australian law firm was misused in a security breach in which Telstra charged A$50,000 for phone usage, mainly for ISD calls to Hong Kong. Our study involved interviewing principals of ten law companies to find out solicitors’ attitudes to computer security and the possibility of breaches of their trust accounts. …

Brew To Bikes: Portland's Artisan Economy, Charles H. Heying

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

Brew to Bikes: Portland's Artisan Economy explains how post-industrial economic transformations have created a space for artisan enterprises to flourish. Dissatisfied with passive consumption, many residents of Portland, OR take matters into their own hands. Associate Professor of Urban Studies Charles Heying noticed these local artisans prospering all over the city and set out to study their thriving economy. Profiling hundreds of local businesses, and with an eye on Portland's unique penchant for sustainability and urban development, Brew to Bikes is about everything from bike manufacturers to microbreweries, from do-it-yourself to traditional crafts. A treatise to local, ethical business practices, …

Multiple Gatekeepers, Andrew F. Tuch

Scholarship@WashULaw

In the context of business transactions, gatekeepers are lawyers, investment bankers, accountants and other actors with the capacity to monitor and control the disclosure decisions of their clients – and thereby to deter corporate securities fraud. After each wave of corporate upheaval, including the recent financial crisis, the spotlight of responsibility invariably falls on gatekeepers for failing to avert the wrongs of their clients. A rich vein of literature has considered what liability regime would lead gatekeepers to deter securities fraud optimally, but has overlooked the phenomenon that multiple interdependent gatekeepers act on business transactions and thus form an interlocking …

"Kneecapping" Academic Freedom, Robert R. Kuehn, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

As universities increasingly seek to educate students through service learning courses, law school clinics may be the bellwether for determining if faculty’s traditional academic freedom of teaching will transcend the traditional classroom or be left at the classroom door. Recent legislative and corporate efforts to interfere in the operations of law clinics indicate that academic freedom is at risk when hands-on student learning bumps up against “real world” disputes. This article examines why attacks on law school clinics are a harbinger of how academic freedom is treated when it moves out of the classroom.

The authors discuss the role of …

Multidistrict Litigation: A Surprising Bonus For Pro Se Plaintiffs And A Possible Boon For Consumers, Danielle D'Onfro

Scholarship@WashULaw

Conventional wisdom says that pro se plaintiffs almost invariably fare worse than represented plaintiffs. However, there exists in federal court a procedural regime under which pro se plaintiffs effectively receive attorneys and therefore experience success rates similar to their represented peers: multidistrict litigation. Multidistrict litigation is a procedure for consolidating multiple federal civil cases sharing common questions of fact into a single proceeding in one federal district court for coordinated pre-trial proceedings and discovery. This paper takes an empirical look at all federal civil cases terminating between 2006 and 2008 to determine what effect multidistrict litigation has on case outcome …

Ensuring The Ethical Representation Of Clients In The Face Of Excessive Caseloads, Peter A. Joy

Scholarship@WashULaw

The right of one charged with [a] crime to counsel may not be deemed fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impar-tial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with [a] crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.

You can't give me too many cases, too many clients, …

Japan's New Clinical Programs: A Study Of Light And Shadow, Peter A. Joy, Shigeo Miyagawa, Takao Suami, Charles D. Weisselberg

Scholarship@WashULaw

Japan instituted a new system of graduate professional law school education when sixty-eight new law schools opened their doors on April 1, 2004. The new law schools are an integral component of far-reaching reforms that seek to improve the administration of justice in Japan by increasing the number of lawyers, especially in grossly underserved rural areas, and better preparing attorneys for the practice of law domestically and internationally. Japan modeled the new graduate professional law schools after schools in the United States. A large number of the schools adopted clinical legal education programs -- also substantially influenced by law school …

Empirical Evidence On Regulatory Burdens And International Income Performance, Enedina Licerio

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This paper analyzes the effects of regulatory burdens on per capita national income (GNI) and the potential increases in GNI that can result from deregulation. Previous research indicates that a rigid regulatory environment hampers income performance. The availability of more recent data and the addition of several new indices by the World Bank now permits a broader analysis of regulatory burdens and income performance to be undertaken. Simulations are conducted to quantify potential impacts of deregulation and greater transparency on income performance. Results show that sizeable income gains can result from deregulation.

Maximum Feasible Participation Of The Poor: New Governance, New Accountability, And A 21st Century War On The Sources Of Poverty, Tara J. Melish

Journal Articles

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for a Nationwide War on the Sources of Poverty to “strike away the barriers to full participation” in our society. Central to that war was an understanding that given poverty’s complex and multi-layered causes, identifying, implementing, and monitoring solutions to it would require the “maximum feasible participation” of affected communities. Equally central, however, was an understanding that such decentralized problem-solving could not be fully effective without national-level orchestration and support. As such, an Office of Economic Opportunity was established – situated in the Executive Office of the President itself – to support, through …

The Experiences Of Incarceration On Indigenous Parents And Primary Care-Givers Of Juvenile Detainees, Simone Reid

Theses : Honours

Incarceration impacts on a number of people, not just the person sentenced. It has been suggested that the family of the prisoner can experience the prison sentence just as much, albeit differently, as the prisoner themself. Families remain important, as those prisoners who return to strong family networks are at less risk of recidivism. National research has been used to inform policy-makers, but every State has unique characteristics. The overrepresentation of Torres Strait Islander and Aboriginal juveniles in juvenile detention, especially in Western Australia, has been well-documented. However, research examining the experiences of incarceration on family members is limited. This …

Charity And Information: Correcting The Failure Of A Disjunctive Social Norm, Brian Broughman, Robert Cooter

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Charitable donations fund social goods that the state and markets undersupply. Despite widespread belief in the importance of private charity, most Americans donate little or nothing. Experiments in behavioral economics show that anonymity, not human nature, causes low contributions. Anonymity poses a particular challenge for charity because of the special character of the obligation. Charity is a disjunctive social norm, meaning the obligation is owed to ‘A or B or C or …’. Disclosure of each individual’s aggregate conduct is necessary for the effectiveness of any disjunctive social norm. To revitalize charity we propose a public registry where each taxpayer …

The Cowl - V. 74 - N. 11 - Dec 3, 2009

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Volume 74 - Number 11 - December 3, 2009. 32 pages.

Working Report #3: Use Of Legal Measures And Formal Authority (Service Provider Perspectives), Lirondel Hazineh, Gary Cameron

Partnerships for Children and Families Project

The focus of this report is, across service delivery models, how front-line protection workers viewed their formal authority role and the extent to which they relied on legal measures in order to achieve protection goals. The analysis is guided by several overarching questions including (1) how does each model view the use of legal measures and formal authority? (2) How does each model impact service providers’ actual use of legal measures? (3) What value do workers place on the authority figure role? And (4) how effective is the use of formal authority in reaching child protection goals?

Type of program …

Parties’ Perceptions Of Apologies In The State Administrative Tribunal And Equal Opportunity Commission Of Western Australia, Alfred Allan, Dianne Mckillop, Robyn Carroll, Deirdre Drake, Maria Allan

Research outputs pre 2011

Complainants' and respondents' experiences of the settlement of equal opportunity complaints of discrimination or harassment were investigated. The aim was to gather information on the nature and value of apologies in the settlement process. One specific aim was to learn about parties' perceptions about the value of ordered apologies...