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Hastings (Fall 2010), Hastings College Of The Law Alumni Association

Hastings Alumni Publications

No abstract provided.

Imposes Additional Tax On Alcoholic Beverages. Initiative Statute

Initiatives

Imposes an additional excise tax on alcoholic beverages, increasing the excise tax on each six-pack of beer from 11¢ to $6.08, on each 750 ml bottle of wine from 4¢ to $5.11, and on each 750 ml bottle of distilled spirits from 65¢ to $17.57. Requires additional excise tax revenues to be deposited into a special fund appropriated to the Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs to finance programs to address alcohol-related harms as specified. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local government: Additional state revenues of between $7 billion …

The Agony Of War And A World Without Law, Josh Zetlin

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This note analyzes Lewis Milestone's classic film A//.Quiet on the Western Front in order to illustrate the importance of law in society. Philosophers and legal theorists have pondered endlessly on the importance of law and the roles it serves. Building upon the concepts such as the "social contract," the creators of our legal system carved out particular areas of laws to satisfy specific societal wants and needs. Milestone's war epic reveals how war destroys these legal institutions. The chaos of war and unaccountability for immoral acts shatters the foundation of law, bringing great suffering to the characters in the film. …

Humonetarianism: The New Correctional Discourse Of Scarcity, Hadar Aviram

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Criminological accounts of penological discourse in the United States often focus on the transition to more punitive policies beginning in the late 1970s, which led the U.S. to top international charts of incarceration rates per capita. However, recent developments in punitive policies and practices suggest a reversal of the punitive pendulum. This article maps these developments, arguing that they represent the emergence of a new correctional discourse, called humonetarianism, which focuses on scarcity of resources and on cost-benefit analysis as its main raison d'être.

This article begins by tracing the history of humonetarianism, offering two complementary genealogies for this discourse. …

Masculinity, Health, And Human Rights: A Sociocultural Framework, Shari L. Dworkin

UC Law SF International Law Review

This paper draws upon a sociocultural framework from masculinity studies and applies it to the case of men's health with the goal of providing the legal field with critical considerations that might shape a stronger future research agenda in the area of masculinity, rights, and health.

It is well recognized that gender inequality affects women, and that men enjoy numerous cultural and institutional privileges that negatively shape women's health outcome. These commonly understood drivers of women's poor health have led to crucial and much needed linkages between women's rights and health. However, men do not exclusively enjoy cultural and institutional …

The Law At War: Counterinsurgency Operations And The Use Of Indigenous Legal Institutions, Richard Morgan

UC Law SF International Law Review

Success in counterinsurgency campaigns requires the U.S. military to train, equip, and ultimately turn over responsibility for public safety to indigenous legal institutions. Doing so presents many challenges, as pragmatic concerns for operational security and use of intelligence as legal evidence must be reconciled with cultural differences and the weakness of indigenous legal institutions. This article argues, however, that such participation may be required under international law. Further, participation may help to legitimize counterinsurgency goals in the eyes of the local populace, and bring additional resources to military efforts. In order to realize such benefits, this article argues that military …

Concerns Associated With Expanding Dna Databases, Candice Roman-Santos

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The establishment of DNA databases has been and continues to be a source of controversy. Proponents of DNA databases argue that it supports a discipline that does not rely on subjective judgments and interpretations, and expanding DNA databases will not only help to solve more crimes but also exonerate innocent people who have been wrongly convicted, ultimately reducing the need to reverse previous miscarriages of justice. Opponents of DNA databases, on the other hand, argue that there is a risk of DNA being used to the exclusion of material that might prove the innocence of the suspect. Also, the fact …

The New Digital Dating Behavior - Sexting: Teens' Explicit Love Letters: Criminal Justice Or Civil Liability, Terri Day

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This paper proposes a unique response to the explosive combination of teens, sex and technology. It discusses why most teen sexting does not meet the Ferber definition of child pornography; therefore, a civil remedy for the dignitary and emotional harm caused by the public dissemination of private sexual pictures is far superior to imposing criminal sanctions. The proposed statutory civil cause of action would hold parents vicariously liable for the harms caused by their children's sexting when done with actual malice. Recognizing that common law tort liability is legally unsustainable, this approach strikes a balance between protecting First Amendment rights …

Alma Mater: Clara Floltz And Hastings College Of Law, Barbara Babcock

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

No abstract provided.

Probable Cause From Probable Bonds: A Genetic Tattle Tale Based On Familial Dna, Jessica D. Gabel

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

DNA represents the "gold standard" of evidence that solves crimes and obtains convictions. Law enforcement agencies increasingly turn to national and local DNA databanks to generate possible suspects. These searches may "hit" upon databank samples that only partially match the DNA left at a crime scene. The value in a partial match is that it might identify a relative of the perpetrator. Some states have embraced this technique - called familial DNA testing - as a harmless additive to traditional or routine investigatory methods, but at least one state has explicitly banned its use. This Article examines the scientific, legal, …

Crimes Without Punishment: Violence Against Women In Guatemala, Karen Musalo, Elisabeth Pellegrin, S. Shawn Roberts

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

In Guatemala, impunity for the battering and killing of women is at such levels that perpetrators rightly feel confident that there is no price to pay for their unrestrained violence. Each year the number of women murdered rises precipitously, and there is general consensus that the impunity enjoyed by those responsible is a significant factor in the escalating numbers of killings in Guatemala. As a result, victims are fleeing persecution to the United States, seeking, with little success, asylum. One of the main factors contributing to the delay in deciding asylum cases is the government's fear of "opening the floodgates," …

Use Of Female Interrogators: The Analysis Of Sexualized Interrogations The Detainee Interrogation Working Group Did Not Conduct, Celia Rumann

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

In the years following the Abu Ghraib scandal, it has become apparent that Lynndie England was punished for the crime of providing the world with photographic evidence of a government policy of using sexuality as a weapon of war. Ms. England's actions were not, as has been asserted, borne of whole cloth out of the sexually deviant minds of young soldiers bent on exploiting prisoners for their own amusement. Rather, they embodied the arguably extreme end of the systematic work of the United States government to engage in sexually deviant exploitation of prisoners purportedly for the collective safety and well-being …

Approaching Visible Justice: Procedural Safeguards For Mental Examinations In China's Capital Cases, Zhiyuan Guo

UC Law SF International Law Review

In 2008, the Yang Jia cop-killing case became both a national sensation and received worldwide attention. The ensuing vehement debate over Yang Jia's mental fitness and the legitimacy of mental examinations in the case served as the inspiration for this Article. Part I examines procedural flaws in the handling of Yang Jia's case, particularly problems with the mental examinations. Part II addresses the background issue: What led to the tragic disposition of Yang Jia's case? By providing a general overview of the existing legal provisions relating to mental examinations in criminal cases in China, the author concludes that it is …

Conspirators, "Conventurers", And The Exception Swallowing The Hearsay Rule, Ben Trachtenberg

UC Law Journal

In recent years, prosecutors-sometimes with the blessing of courts-have argued that when proving the existence of a "conspiracy" to justify admission of evidence under the Coconspirator Exception to the Hearsay Rule, they need show only that the declarant and the defendant were "coventurers" with a common purpose, not coconspirators with an illegal purpose. Indeed, government briefs and court decisions specifically disclaim the need to show any wrongful goal whatsoever. This Article contends that such a reading of the Exception is mistaken and undesirable. Conducted for this Article, a survey of thousands of court decisions, including the earliest English and American …

Between Safety And Transparency: Prior Restraints, Foia, And The Power Of The Executive, Devin S. Schindler

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The Freedom of Information Act, and, to a lesser extent, the Constitution, embody a democratic commitment to transparent and open government. Roughly balanced against this commitment is the need in selected circumstances to prevent the release of information that could lead directly or indirectly to tangible harm to America and its interests. Most recently, the debate between safety and transparency came to the forefront in the case American Civil Liberties Union v Department of Defense, where the Second Circuit ordered the President to release a series of nonconfidential but potentially inflammatory pictures showing prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison. …

A Deadly Response: Unconscious Racism And California's Provocative Act Doctrine, Katherine N. Hallinan

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

In rural Northern California, two young black men are shot multiple times from behind. Their friend, who is also black, is charged with their murders, while the gunman, who is white, walks free. During an alleged gang brawl between teenagers, a young Latino man is stabbed and killed. His friends, and not the actual perpetrator, are charged and convicted of the crime. The defendants are Latino, the gunman is white. California's little-known provocative act doctrine, which holds felons liable for killings that are provoked by a felon's provocative act, is the vehicle prosecutors used to charge each of these young …

Dangerousness, Risk, And Release, Hadar Aviram, Valerie Kraml, Nicole Schmidt

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Changing The Topography Of Sentencing, Kate E. Bloch

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

An Overview Of Special Populations In California Prisons, Eumi K. Lee

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

The Centerpiece To Real Reform - Political, Legal, And Social Barriers To Reentry In California, Eumi K. Lee

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Litigation Over Prison Medical Services, Aaron Rappaport

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Reform In California, Aaron Rappaport

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Can These Bones Live - A Look At The Impacts Of The War On Drugs On Poor African-American Children And Families, Nekima Levy-Pounds

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The war on drugs has resulted in sharp increases in prison sentences for many drug-related crimes. Due to the structure of the federal sentencing guidelines and the disparity in sentences relating to power cocaine and crack, the primary burden of these increased sentences has disproportionately affected poor African Americans. The war on drugs legislation has also had a marked impact on another population - the families and children of the incarcerated. This article discusses the rationales behind the war on drugs legislation, addressing both the initial enactments and subsequent statutes and cases that have changed the landscape of drug-related sentencing. …

Harming Vulnerable Children: The Injustice Of California's Kinship Foster Care Policy, Meredith L. Alexander

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

California denies state foster care benefits to nonfederally eligible foster children when they are placed with relative caregivers (a placement known as "kinship foster care"). This note explores the unique benefits and needs of kinship foster care, and analyzes the current legal framework regarding kinship foster care, including the justifications for California's policy. The author argues that this California policy fails to embrace the unique benefits and needs of kinship foster care. Furthermore, the policy is contradictory to the state mandated placement priority with relatives. By not properly supporting kinship foster care, California is harming the state's most vulnerable children …

Beyond The Squabble: Putting The Tenderloin Community Justice Center In Context, Michael Cobden, Ron Albers

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

The Tenderloin Community Justice Center ("CJC") began operation in May 2009 amid a tense political and economic climate. Although it employs an innovative approach to alleviating crime, the CJC is not a novel concept, but rather modeled after successful community courts already in existence. As a product of community efforts, the CJC aims to address the shortcomings of the traditional court system, which has been ineffective in reducing crime and recidivism rates, by offering alternatives to incarceration. By coordinating service providers intimately with the court, the CJC provides a centralized system that allows it to comprehensively examine an offender's problems …

Reconceptualizing Restorative Justice, Kate E. Bloch

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Litigation Over Prison Medical Services, Aaron J. Rappaport

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Police "Science" In The Interrogation Room: Seventy Years Of Psuedo-Psychological Interrogation Methods To Obtain Inadmissible Confessions, Brian R. Gallini

UC Law Journal

Nearly all confessions obtained by interrogators nationwide are inadmissible, but nonetheless admitted. In the process, police arrest the wrong suspect and allow the guilty to go free. An unshakeable addiction to pseudo-scientific interrogation methods-initially created in the 1940s-is to blame. The so-called "Reid technique" of interrogation was initially a welcome and revolutionary change from the violent "third degree" method it replaced. But we no longer live in the 1940s and, not surprisingly, we no longer drive 1940s automobiles, practice early-twentieth-century medicine, or dial rotary phones. Why, then, are police still using 1940s methods of interrogation?

Moreover, the outdated Reid technique …

Benchmark Legislation: A Measured Approach In The Fight Against Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals, Adam Powell

UC Law Journal

Pharmaceutical counterfeiting is unique in the field of counterfeiting because criminals only attempt to copy the appearance of a drug, not its actual effect. Because such counterfeit drugs are cheap to make and ineffective or dangerous, counterfeiters see immense profits without regard for the potential for injury or death. Furthermore, the complexity of distribution channels and lax penalties result in little risk for criminals.

One potential tool to address this problem is an electronic pedigree system that would track shipments of drugs and reduce the opportunity for counterfeiters to infiltrate the supply chain. Unfortunately, such a system is years away …

Humonetarianism: The New Correctional Discourse Of Scarcity, Hadar Aviram

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.