Digital Commons Network^™

#Metoo & The Courts: The Impact Of Social Movements On Federal Judicial Decisionmaking, Carol T. Li, Matthew E.K. Hall, Veronica Root Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

In late 2017, the #MeToo movement swept through the United States as individuals from all backgrounds and walks of life revealed their experiences with sexual abuse and sexual harassment. After the #MeToo movement, many scholars, advocates, and policymakers posited that the watershed moment would prompt changes in the ways in which sexual harassment cases were handled. This Article examines the impact the #MeToo movement has had on judicial decisionmaking. Our hypothesis is that the #MeToo movement’s increase in public awareness and political attention to experiences of sexual misconduct should lead to more pro-claimant voting in federal courts at the district …

Flexible Institution Building In The International Anti-Corruption Regime: Proposing A Transnational Asset Recovery Mechanism, Laurence R. Helfer, Cecily Rose, Rachel Brewster

Faculty Scholarship

Asset recovery is a fundamental principle of anti-corruption law, without which the financial damage from corruption cannot be repaired. Yet recovering assets is notoriously difficult and time-consuming, and the United Nations Convention Against Corruption provides little technical or institutional support to facilitate such returns. To remedy this, we propose the creation of a transnational asset recovery mechanism that could provide myriad services to states upon request, including gathering and publishing information, providing technical assistance and capacity building, helping to conclude agreements on asset return, and monitoring returned funds. Theoretically, we introduce the concepts of customizability and selectability to explain why …

No Peace Without Punishment? Reintegrating Islamic State “Collaborators” In Iraq, Mara R. Revkin, Kristen Kao

Faculty Scholarship

How does variation in the severity of punishment affect public opinion toward the reintegration of former enemy “collaborators” after war? We study this question in the context of Iraq where the Islamic State, an armed rebel group, captured and governed a population of more than five million Iraqi citizens between 2014 and 2017. Building upon extensive fieldwork and interviews in Iraq, we designed a survey experiment that randomly varied the severity of sentences in hypothetical scenarios of civilians who supported the Islamic State in non-violent roles (e.g., cleaners, cooks, and wives of fighters). The experiment allows us to estimate the …

The Laws That Regulate Police: The Wilson Center’S Policing Legislation Database, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

To better understand lawmaking in response to calls for reform, the Wilson Center for Science and Justice began tracking the introduction of policing-related legislation. This report covers our database tracking policing legislation and our initial findings.

Forced Justice: The Kosovo Specialist Chambers, Sara L. Ochs, Kirbi Walters

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC), the court created to adjudicate war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Kosovo at the turn of the century, is the world’s newest hybrid tribunal. The KSC is classified as a hybrid tribunal because it ostensibly blends aspects of international and domestic law and resources. Upon examination, however, the KSC departs in critical ways from the traditional concept of a hybrid tribunal, representing an internationally dominated court with minimal local involvement. By detailing the history of judicial mechanisms employed to prosecute crimes committed during and in the aftermath of the Kosovo War from 1998-1999, …

Tribal Sovereignty And The Right To Life, Clare Holtzman

Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law

On August 26, 2020, the only Native American on federal death row, Lezmond Mitchell was executed by the federal government for the murder of two Navajo citizens on Navajo Nation land. Federal law typically gives Tribal Nations the right to determine whether the death penalty is used against their citizens for crimes committed between Tribal citizens on Tribal land. Yet here, the federal government utilized a loophole to seek the death penalty against the Navajo Nation's wishes. Lezmond Mitchell was not a sympathetic man by any means; indeed, he brutally killed a grandmother and her young granddaughter to steal their …

A Way Forward After Dobbs: Human Rights Advocacy And Self-Managed Abortion In The United States, Kelly Keglovits

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Even in the era before Dobbs, wherein the Supreme Court repeatedly classified abortion as a "fundamental right," the ability to have an abortion was inaccessible in many parts of the United States. The irony that a "fundamental right" was so difficult to exercise results from how Constitutional rights are understood, which left many open-ended avenues for states to bring restrictions. International Human Rights law, however, offers a more optimistic and accountable approach to steps forward in increasing abortion access—illustrating a need to bring a human rights-based approach home. Dobbs has eviscerated any concept of federal protections for abortion, severely worsening …

Toward Recognizing An International Human Right To Claim Innocence, Brandon Garrett, Laurence R. Helfer, Jayne C. Huckerby, Mark Godsey, Luca Lupària

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

The Lost Right To Jury Trials In "All" Criminal Prosecutions, Andrea Roth

Duke Law Journal

The Sixth Amendment states that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” Similarly, Article III mandates that the trial of “all crimes, other than impeachment, shall be by jury.” Nonetheless, tens of thousands of federal defendants each year are denied a jury in “petty” cases with a potential sentence of six months or less. These cases can carry significant consequences and involve not only regulatory crimes but traditional crimes like theft, assault, and sexual abuse. This apparently blatant contradiction of the U.S. Constitution’s text is justified by …

Collective Memory, Criminal Law, And The Trial Of Derek Chauvin, Sean A. Berman

Duke Law Journal

This Note describes how criminal trials for prominent criminal acts contribute to the collective memory of the underlying offense. Hannah Arendt once argued that the purpose of criminal trials is to “render justice, and nothing else.” Unlike criminal trials, political trials strive to produce collective memory. This Note utilizes political trials as a foil to criminal trials to identify the ways that criminal trials succeed (and fail) to produce collective memory. Several features of the criminal trial— namely, the trial’s unique narrative form, constituent storytellers, capacity to capture the gravity of the offense, and jury—add to society’s shared narrative of …

Foreword: Two Americas, Doriane Lambelet Coleman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Unified Criminal Justice Reform, Brandon L. Garrett

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Artificial Justice: The Quandary Of Ai In The Courtroom, Paul W. Grimm, Maura R. Grossman, Sabine Gless, Mireille Hildebrandt

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

Alaska's Lengthy Sentences Are Not The Answer To Sex Offenses, Margot Graham

Alaska Law Review

Individuals convicted of sex offenses in Alaska are serving extremely long sentences in prison. The Alaska legislature restricted the ability of those convicted of sex offenses to have their cases referred to three-judge panels for sentencing outside the presumptive sentencing range set by the legislature. The Alaska Supreme Court then held that different forms of sexual penetration are distinct and separate offenses, meaning that the associated charges cannot be merged and the sentences must run consecutively. Thus, Alaska has embraced lengthy sentences for sex offenses. Unfortunately, this punitive practice is doing little to protect Alaskan communities or rehabilitate the people …

Done The Time, Still Being Punished For The Crime: The Irrationality Of Collateral Consequences In Occupational Licensing And Fourteenth Amendment Challenges, Mccarley Maddock

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

Traditionally, retributive models of criminal justice rely on incarceration as punishment for a crime. Under this theory, punishment should end when the offender is released from prison. Yet, a decentralized web of statutes across the United States undermines this commonsense notion and continues to punish formerly incarcerated persons by denying them access to basic services for re-entry into society such as housing, government benefits, and employment. Specifically, thousands of the formerly incarcerated individuals are barred from working in or pursuing a career of their choice based on state statutes that prohibit entry into a given profession based on criminal history. …

Universalizing Fraud, Parmida Enkeshafi

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy Sidebar

The criminal trial of Elizabeth Holmes has reanimated public interest in fraud. Holmes, once a Silicon Valley prodigy, was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and eleven counts of wire fraud. A jury found Holmes guilty on four counts, potentially subjecting her to 80 years in prison. This Note uses the example of Elizabeth Holmes's case to examine more broadly the role of morality in fraud and argues for a new framework by which to articulate and prosecute fraud.

Criminal jurisprudence has struggled to construct a satisfactory definition of "white-collar crime" since sociologist Edwin H. Sutherland …

Reparations For Racial Wealth Disparities As Remedy For Social Contract Breach, Martha M. Ertman

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Reason And Rhetoric In Edwards V. Vannoy, Richard M. Re

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

Judicial reasoning and rhetoric should be mutually reinforcing, but often they end up at odds. Edwards v. Vannoy offers an unusually rich opportunity to explore this tension. First, the watershed exception, though declared "moribund," may actually have survived. Second, Justice Gorsuch’s ostensibly strict judgment-based approach arguably called for providing relief in Edwards. Third, majority coalitions have a counterintuitive incentive, rooted in rhetoric, to overrule relatively insignificant precedents. Fourth, Edwards featured charges of personal inconsistency that both reflect and facilitate the erosion of conventional legal argument. Finally, the legal system may benefit from the superficial and even fallacious reasoning often …

Getting It Right: Whether To Overturn Qualified Immunity, David D. Coyle

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

Qualified immunity, the defense available to police officers and other government officials facing civil rights lawsuits, has increasingly come under attack. In recent opinions, Justice Clarence Thomas has noted his growing concern that the Court's current qualified immunity jurisprudence, which deals with whether a right is "clearly established", strays from Congress's intent in enacting the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (the statute giving rise to civil rights claims). Other jurists and legal scholars similarly criticize the doctrine, with many calling for the Court to revisit its qualified immunity jurisprudence and abolish or significantly alter the doctrine.

Given that the Court's …

Paving The Way For Mindreading: Re-Interpreting "Coercion" In Article 17 Of The Third Geneva Convention, John Zarrilli

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Gary Myers, Gerald B. Tjoflat

Special Collections

A discussion with Judge Tjoflat regarding jurisprudence, overall judicial philosophy, and approach to being a judge.

Long Over-Due Process: Proposing A New Standard For Pretrial Detainees' Length Of Confinement Claims, Kendall Huennekens

Duke Law Journal

Prolonged pretrial detention poses one of the greatest unchecked threats to due process in the United States. The Supreme Court has never announced the proper analysis to adjudicate detainees’ allegations of prolonged detention pending trial (for criminal detainees) or removal (for noncitizens in immigration detention centers). Because the Court has continually ducked this constitutional question, detainees and courts alike lack guidance regarding how to vindicate this fundamental liberty interest.

This Note identifies the inconsistencies in the Court’s due process jurisprudence generally, as well as the dangers intrinsic to collapsing the standards used to evaluate pretrial detainees’ claims under the Due …

Algorithm V. Algorithm, Cary Coglianese, Alicia Lai

Duke Law Journal

Critics raise alarm bells about governmental use of digital algorithms, charging that they are too complex, inscrutable, and prone to bias. A realistic assessment of digital algorithms, though, must acknowledge that government is already driven by algorithms of arguably greater complexity and potential for abuse: the algorithms implicit in human decision-making. The human brain operates algorithmically through complex neural networks. And when humans make collective decisions, they operate via algorithms too—those reflected in legislative, judicial, and administrative processes. Yet these human algorithms undeniably fail and are far from transparent. On an individual level, human decision-making suffers from memory limitations, fatigue, …

Defining Sex, Edward Schiappa

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

Robert Parrish, Gerald B. Tjoflat

Special Collections

A discussion with Judge Tjoflat regarding his work with the North Florida Council of the Boy Scouts of America

Cliff Brinson, Gerald B. Tjoflat

Special Collections

A discussion with Judge Tjoflat regarding testimony at the Clinton impeachment hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Dec. 1, 1998.

Jus Cogens Before International Courts: The Mega-Political Side Of The Story, Hélène Ruiz Fabri, Edoardo Stoppioni

Law and Contemporary Problems

No abstract provided.

On “The Alt-Right Movement And Us National Security”, Charles J. Dunlap Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Race And Guns, Courts And Democracy, Joseph Blocher, Reva B. Siegel

Faculty Scholarship

Is racism in gun regulation reason to look to the Supreme Court to expand Second Amendment rights? While discussion of race and guns recurs across the briefs in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, it is especially prominent in the brief of legal aid attorneys and public defenders who employed their Second Amendment arguments to showcase stories of racial bias in the enforcement of New York’s licensing and gun possession laws. Because this Second Amendment claim came from a coalition on the left, it was widely celebrated by gun rights advocates.

In this Essay we address issues …

A Restatement Of Corporate Criminal Liability’S Theory And Research Agenda, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

This Article, for a collection in which authors were asked to “imagine a world without corporate criminal liability,” specifies the material questions that should be addressed if debate about the doctrine is to progress past longstanding and oft-repeated assertions. The strongest case for corporate criminal liability is based on the potential for its unique reputational effects to contribute to the prevention and deterrence of crime within corporations. Further research should take up a variety of unanswered questions about those effects having to do with mechanisms and audiences. The relevant inquiries are both theoretical and empirical. Answers will lie in further …