Digital Commons Network^™

The European Union V. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Estonia's Conflicting Interests As A Party To The International Criminal Court, Barbi Appelquist

UC Law SF International Law Review

The United States has requested that states party to the ICC sign agreements-referred to as Article 98 treatiesexempting U.S. citizens from ICC jurisdiction. The EU has opposed Article 98 treaties on the grounds that they threaten the legitimacy of the ICC. This note evaluates the conflicting political pressure exerted on Estonia to either sign or refrain from signing an Article 98 treaty. Part One summarizes the theory of transplantation and how Estonia's relationships with the EU, NATO and the ICC have affected Estonia's international legal obligations and diplomatic options. Part Two analyzes Estonia's relations with the United States, NATO and …

The Predicament Of The Immigrant Victim/Defendant: "Vawa Diversion" And Other Considerations In Support Of Battered Women, Zelda B. Harris

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

While the struggle to combat domestic violence has made many gains over the last thirty years, some low-income women of color have been left behind. Mandatory misdemeanor domestic violence prosecution policies are periodically used against the victims of domestic violence. Particularly in the case of immigrant victim/defendants, arrest, prosecution, or conviction for a domestic violence misdemeanor at the command of rigid mandatory arrest and prosecution laws can result in significant unintended consequences, including increasing a batterer's power and control over the victim. This article examines those consequences in the context of southern Arizona. Discretionary prosecution policies, referral to immigration and …

Fear And Loathing In America: Application Of Treason Law In Times Of National Crisis And The Case Of John Walker Lindh, Suzanne Kelly Babb

UC Law Journal

Treason is the only crime defined in the Constitution. It occupies this notable position neither because the framers were particularly fearful of the effects of traitorous activities nor because they believed it to be far more heinous than all other crimes. Rather, the available historical notes, and the language of the provision itself, make clear that the reason the constitution's authors included a definition for the crime of treason was because they were concerned with what might happen to those accused of the crime if it were not carefully circumscribed. Treason is a loaded concept, carrying with it notions of …

Foreword: Expanding The Debate On Race, Poverty, Social Justice, And The Law, Margaret M. Russell

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

No abstract provided.

Beyond Reparations: Accommodating Wrongs Or Honoring Resistance, Natsu Taylor Saito

UC Law Journal of Race and Economic Justice

Reparations for historic wrongs, particularly those done to large groups of people on the basis of their racially constructed identity, is a topic of much current debate. Because the harm caused by such injustices can never really be repaired, the question becomes one of what kind of acknowledgement and direct compensation to victims is appropriate and, more fundamentally, whether the institutional structures that perpetuate such wrongs have been changed to ensure that the injuries are not perpetuated or repeated. Applying some lessons learned from redress to Japanese Americans interned during World War I, this essay suggests that movements for reparations …

Homicide On Holiday: Prosecutorial Discretion, Popular Culture, And The Boundaries Of The Criminal Law, Carolyn B. Ramsey

UC Law Journal

As tort reforms have decreased plaintiffs' opportunities to recover for injuries and deaths arising from popular "extreme" sports, prosecutors have become more willing to bring criminal charges against participants in these inherently dangerous sports. This Article explores the emerging tensions between the popularity of these sports and the prosecutorial decisions resulting in the charging and conviction of "extreme" sport athletes deemed responsible for recreational injuries and fatalities.

Demonstrating the increasing popularity of "extreme" sports and examples of injury and death resulting from them, this Article shows that tort reform and the economic influence of service providers, such as ski areas, …

Where Involuntary Commitment, Civil Liberties, And The Right To Mental Health Care Collide: An Overview Of California's Mental Illness System, Meredith Karasch

UC Law Journal

This Note provides an overview of California's mental health care system. It discusses the history of the civil liberty movement as it pertains to mental health care and its impact on the current system. The Note argues that the present system is inadequate because of the obstacles to obtaining treatment and, when it is available, the poor quality of mental health care. This Note also explores the societal consequences of the current system and offers some alternatives.

This Note does not argue for confinement without cause or without safeguards. Rather, in an effort to throw some light on a very …

Eighth Place, Erin Gordon, Blair Schlecter

David E. Snodgrass Moot Court Competition

No abstract provided.

Fifth Place, Demian I. Oksenendler, Kevin A. Voth

David E. Snodgrass Moot Court Competition

No abstract provided.

Second Place, Kimberly Owens, Leah Scholer

David E. Snodgrass Moot Court Competition

No abstract provided.

State And County Clemency Boards. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Initiatives

STATE AND COUNTY CLEMENCY BOARDS. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Amends Constitution to repeal Governor's authority to grant clemency. Creates state clemency board and clemency mini-boards in each county composed of five citizens randomly selected from voter rolls. Boards will have final clemency authority including the power to grant clemency or reduce sentences to remedy unjust prison treatment. Boards may also release prisoners for humanitarian reasons or to relieve prison overcrowding. Establishes elected statewide office of Administrator to receive clemency petitions, deliver prisoner requests to the mini-boards, handle financial matters, and rule on fairness of the clemency process. Summary of estimate by …

Death Through Administrative Indifference: The Prison Litigation Reform Act Allows Women To Die In California's Substandard Prison Health Care System, Amy Pétre Hill

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

California's prison system, the nation's largest, developed a health care policy that is deliberately indifferent to the medical needs of women while still spending significantly more per prisoner for health care than other large states. However, the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996 interacts with California's prison administrative law to prevent women inmates from seeking emergency injunctive relief from the federal courts. Legal and legislative tools can be used at the federal and state level for short- and long-term reform of the California Department of Correction's health care system to stop the needless deaths of California's female inmates. Ultimately, courts …

Should I Have Learned To Cook? Interviews With Women Lawyers Juggling Multiple Roles, Jacquelyn H. Slotkin

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

This 1996 empirical study explores the quality of the professional and personal lives of a selected sample of women lawyers practicing in San Diego, California. The sixteen women interviewed are successful and productive attorneys. Their stories show these women lawyer's ability to find solutions to work-family issues. They are super women, managing rewarding careers, marriage, family, and community responsibilities. Women have found workplaces that accommodate conflicting demands, and thus allow for a balanced life. They have realized contentment in their professional and personal lives, but this research suggests a persistence of role conflict, a clash between their ideals and their …

Jails Not Homes: Quality Of Life On The Streets Of San Francisco, Maya Nordberg

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

Quality-of-life ordinances criminalize visible acts associated with the status of homelessness. Quality-of-life enforcement removes perceived "others" from our communities, building on historical precedent that punished homelessness and pauperism with fines, workhouses and imprisonment. San Francisco's recent experiment in increased enforcement of these ordinances involved coercing individuals onto waitlists for social services under the threat of prosecution without legal representation. Through displacement from streets to jails, criminalization may temporarily serve to lessen the visibility of homelessness. But the process of charging police departments and court systems with the responsibility of solving this social policy dilemma leads to burgeoning social and economic …

Local Funds And Revenues For Local Government Services. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Initiatives

LOCAL FUNDS AND REVENUES FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Specifies funds and revenues available to cities, counties and special districts for health, safety and other services. Excludes redevelopment agencies, school or community college districts. Establishes base amount; provides annual adjustments based on cost of living and population. Prohibits Legislature and state agencies from reducing base amount of specified local governments and special districts funds and revenues available for appropriation for public health, safety or other services. Requires local governments to establish and implement financial accountability processes. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal …

Local Public Health And Safety Financing. Local Funds And Revenues. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Initiatives

LOCAL PUBLIC HEALTH AND SAFETY FINANCING. LOCAL FUNDS AND REVENUES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Provides for determination of base amount of funds and revenues available to cities, counties and special districts for appropriation for public health and safety services. Excludes redevelopment agencies, school or community college districts. Provides annual adjustment to base amount based on cost of living and population. Requires each local government to file annual report of base amount with State Controller. Prohibits Legislature and state agencies from reducing base amount of local funds and revenues available for local public health and safety services. Requires public financial accountability processes. …

Local Funds And Revenues. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Initiatives

LOCAL FUNDS AND REVENUES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Specifies local funds and revenues available to cities, counties and special districts for health, safety and other services. Excludes redevelopment agencies, school or community college districts. Establishes base amount; provides annual adjustment based on cost of living and population. Prohibits Legislature and state agencies from reducing specified local funds and revenues available to local government for appropriation for public health, safety or other services. Permits Legislature to suspend prohibition through urgency legislation for one year in ten year period and, with voter approval, for additional two consecutive years. Requires public financial accountability process. …

Local Government Services. Available Local Funds And Revenues. Initiative Constitutional Amendment.

Initiatives

LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES. AVAILABLE LOCAL FUNDS AND REVENUES. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Specifies local funds and revenues available to cities, counties and special districts for health, safety and other services. Excludes redevelopment agencies, school or community college districts. Establishes base amount; provides annual adjustment based on cost of living and population. Prohibits Legislature and state agency actions that reduce base amount of specified local funds and revenues available to local government for appropriation for public health, safety or other services. Permits Legislature to suspend prohibition through urgency legislation for two years in a ten year period. Requires public financial accountability process. …

Proposition 52 Election Day Voter Registration. Voter Fraud Penalties.

Propositions

Election Day Voter Registration. Voter Fraud Penalties. Initiative Statute. •Allows persons who are legally eligible to vote and have valid identification to register to vote on election day at their polling place. • Increases criminal penalty for voter and voter registration fraud. •Criminalizes conspiracy to commit voter fraud. • Requires trained staff at polling places to manage election day registration, creates fund to implement measure, including training and providing personnel for election day registration. •Allows persons to register or reregister during 28 days preceding election day at local election offices. • Provides more time to county election officials to prepare …

Extradition And The Conflict In Northern Ireland: The Past, Present And Future Of An Intractable Problem, Margaret I. Branick

UC Law SF International Law Review

British government efforts to extradite members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) from the United States have posed challenges to U.S. extradition policy since the 1970s. Under extradition law, "political offenses" traditionally are treated as non-extraditable offenses. Use of the political offense exception to deny extradition of IRA fugitives from the United States prompted the United Kingdom and the United States to sign a Supplementary Treaty in 1985, which eliminated the political offense exception for broad categories of violent acts.

This Note briefly reviews the background of the conflict in Northern Ireland, and discusses extradition law and the political …

The Digital Divide And Equal Access To Justice, Mark Lloyd

UC Law SF Communications and Entertainment Journal

This article begins by considering the problem of equal access to justice between those with access to communication technology and those without. It then goes on to challenge the current market-centered technology by exploring some of the dangers and limits of new communications technology as a corrective to a problem that has long divided rich and poor, a problem that defines the degree to which we can truly call ourselves a civilization, and the real and important opportunities made possible by new technologies.

The Spectre Of Star Chamber: The Role Of An Ancient English Tribunal In The Supreme Court's Self-Incrimination Jurisprudence, Frank Riebli

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

The author investigates the Supreme Court's allusions to the ancient English Court of Star Chamber. Throughout its history, the Supreme Court has used the spectre of Star Chamber to develop at least three themes in its Self-Incrimination Clause jurisprudence. Star Chamber appears as a symbol of brutality, the end of a slippery slope towards which our criminal justice system would drift but for the Self-Incrimination Clause's protections. Star Chamber is frequently used to describe the boundaries of the "testimonial evidence" doctrine, and thereby the scope and policies underlying the Self-Incrimination Clause. Finally, Star Chamber has appeared as a symbol of …

Increased Demand Resulting In The Flourishing Recruitment And Trafficking Of Women And Girls: Related Child Sexual Abuse And Violence Against Women, Norma Hotaling, Leslie Levitas-Martin

UC Law SF Journal on Gender and Justice

The Standing Against Global Exploitation Project, Inc. ("SAGE") is organized by and for survivors of abuse, prostitution and trauma. Most of the staff have prior criminal histories, are recovering from severe drug addictions, and were formerly homeless. The staff at SAGE includes peer counselors, drug treatment counselors, therapists, acupuncturists, social workers, therapist interns, and volunteers. Within SAGE's programs, over 350 women and girls receive counseling and other services each week. Through advocacy, education programs, and direct services, SAGE raises public awareness concerning the sexual exploitation and trafficking of women and girls, as well as many other related issues for this …

Relative Normativity: Challenging The Sovereignty Norm Through Human Rights Litigation, William J. Aceves

UC Law SF International Law Review

Since 1945, two developments in human rights law have challenged the dominion of the sovereignty norm. First, the international community has recognized the existence of competing human rights norms, some of which now compete with the sovereignty norm for primacy. Second, a diverse group of institutions has applied these norms to challenge the sovereignty norm by imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials when they commit human rights violations. This essay examines how the sovereignty norm has been challenged through human rights litigation. Two recent human rights cases. Filartiga v. Pena-Irala and Regina v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, …

Sovereignty, Territoriality, And The Rule Of Law, Joan Fitzpatrick

UC Law SF International Law Review

On November 13, 2001, President George W. Bush issued a Military Order in which he claimed power as Commander in Chief to detain indefinitely and to try, by ad hoc military commissions, persons designated by him as international terrorists. This Order represents a stunning claim to absolutist power and a rejection of any meaningful legal constraints on the treatment of the captives. The Order and the "War on Terrorism" on which it is premised challenge the most commonly accepted principles of post-Westphalian sovereignty: exclusive control over territory, noninterference, and equality among states.

The legal premise for the Order is the …

The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Discrimination Against Women: A Comparison Of Its Implementation And The Role Of Non-Governmental Organisations In The United Kingdom And Hong Kong, Carole J. Petersen, Harriet Samuels

UC Law SF International Law Review

Although the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women ("CEDAW") was implemented in Hong Kong a full ten years after its enactment in the United Kingdom, evidence suggests that it is having a more practical impact in Hong Kong than in the United Kingdom largely because Hong Kong women's organizations are making more use of CEDAW in their current lobbying efforts. This article introduces CEDAW and its enforcement mechanisms, and compares its implementation in the two jurisdictions. The authors analyze the extent to which CEDAW is considered in public policy making, the extent to which the …

Coerced Confessions And The Fourth Amendment, Michael J. Zydney Mannheimer

UC Law Constitutional Quarterly

Coerced confessions in State criminal prosecutions have been thought to implicate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as the Self-Incrimination Clause of the Fifth Amendment. However, pursuant to Graham v. Connor, if an interest is addressed by one of the specific clauses of the Bill of Rights that has been incorporated against the States, only the standards associated with that provision- and not the more generalized notions of Due Process- apply to a claim that the interest has been infringed. Accordingly, one might think that the law of coerced confessions is governed entirely by the Self- …

Once More Unto The Breach: The Inherent Liberalism Of The Criminal Law And Liability For Attempting The Impossible, John Hasnas

UC Law Journal

This Article provides a comprehensive re-analysis of one of the thorniest problems of criminal jurisprudence: when it is proper to convict a defendant who has attempted the impossible. Professor Hasnas begins by demonstrating that, contrary to received academic and judicial opinion, the common law defense of impossibility to a charge of attempt is both well-grounded and perfectly intelligible, being capable of accurate expression in a single sentence. He then accounts for the confusion regarding the defense by showing how the early courts that applied it were saying one thing while doing another, and how commentators and subsequent judges became misled …

Long On Substance, Short On Process: An Appeal For Process Long Overdue In Eyewitness Lineup Procedures, Michael R. Headley

UC Law Journal

Eyewitness identifications play an important role in the criminal justice system. However, the procedures surrounding these identifications are fraught with potential for error, and the Supreme Court has recognized the "vagaries of eyewitness identification." Over the past thirty years, researchers have established a considerable body of evidence demonstrating that simultaneous lineup procedures result in greater error than sequential lineups. Nevertheless, most law enforcement agencies persist in utilizing the simultaneous lineup procedure. This Note argues that the Due Process Clause mandates the implementation of sequential lineups on the basis of both a moral and an historical reading of the phrase "due …

Flawed Foreign Policy: Hypocritical U.S. Attitudes Toward International Criminal Forums, Joshua B. Bevitz

UC Law Journal

International criminal justice is on the verge of making a great leap forward. The 1998 Rome Treaty for an International Criminal Court [ICC], a treaty which creates a permanent international criminal court empowered to prosecute individuals accused of genocide and war crimes, is expected to go into effect by the end of 2002, when many believe the necessary sixty ratifications will be achieved. Unlike the majority of her allies, the United States is adamantly opposed to the ICC. In fact, Congress has passed legislation aimed at reducing the effectiveness of the ICC because the ICC is believed by the United …