Digital Commons Network^™

Crashworthy Code, Bryan H. Choi

Publications

Code crashes. Yet for decades, software failures have escaped scrutiny for tort liability. Those halcyon days are numbered: self-driving cars, delivery drones, networked medical devices, and other cyber-physical systems have rekindled interest in understanding how tort law will apply when software errors lead to loss of life or limb.

Even after all this time, however, no consensus has emerged. Many feel strongly that victims should not bear financial responsibility for decisions that are entirely automated, while others fear that cyber-physical manufacturers must be shielded from crushing legal costs if we want such companies to exist at all. Some insist the …

Concerning Establishing Alternative Programs In The Criminal Justice System To Divert Individuals With A Mental Health Condition To Community Treatment, And, In Connection Therewith, Making An Appropriation., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Rethinking The Boundaries Of "Criminal Justice", Benjamin Levin

Publications

This review of The New Criminal Justice Thinking (Sharon Dolovich & Alexandra Natapoff, eds.) tracks the shifting and uncertain contours of “criminal justice” as an object of study and critique.

Specifically, I trace two themes in the book:

(1) the uncertain boundaries of the “criminal justice system” as a web of laws, actors, and institutions; and

(2) the uncertain boundaries of “criminal justice thinking” as a universe of interdisciplinary scholarship, policy discourse, and public engagement.

I argue that these two themes speak to critically important questions about the nature of criminal justice scholarship and reform efforts. Without a firm understanding …

Subject Index:, Colorado General Assembly

Colorado House and Senate Journals

No abstract provided.

Status Of All Senate Bills As Of 8:00 A.M. June 20, 2018 - Final:, Colorado General Assembly

Colorado House and Senate Journals

No abstract provided.

House Journal: Seventy-First General Assembly State Of Colorado Second Regular Session, Colorado General Assembly

Colorado House and Senate Journals

No abstract provided.

Concerning Measures To Facilitate Voter Registration Of Individuals In The Criminal Justice System, And, In Connection Therewith, Making An Appropriation., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Limitless Discretion In The Wars On Drugs And Terror, Wadie E. Said

University of Colorado Law Review

The wars on terror and drugs have been defined, largely, by what they lack: a readily identifiable opponent, a clear end goal, a timeline, and geographical boundaries. Based on that understanding, this Article discusses the increasingly expansive discretion of American authorities to prosecute individuals where the wars on terror and drugs intersect. Through laws such as the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act, the ban on providing material support to foreign terrorist organizations, and the narco-terrorism statute, the United States exercises a kind of universal jurisdiction to pursue anyone, anywhere it believes its laws are being violated. Wielding the power of …

Truth, Lies, And The Confrontation Clause, Emily Spottswood

University of Colorado Law Review

This Article examines and critiques the recent revival of the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause as a means of improving the quality of criminal trials. The Clause is best interpreted as a tool that aims to reduce the likelihood of wrongful convictions by limiting the ability of prosecutors and witnesses to concoct believable but false stories without fear of their deception being uncovered through crossexamination. Unfortunately, modern doctrine has come unmoored from this foundation. Requiring confrontation of available prosecution fact witnesses serves a useful (if narrow) evidentiary function in that it provides a check against an unethical prosecutor who might otherwise …

Leveraging Social Science Expertise In Immigration Policymaking, Ming H. Chen

Publications

The longstanding uncertainty about how policymakers should grapple with social science demonstrating racism persists in the modern administrative state. This Essay examines the uses and misuses of social science and expertise in immigration policymaking. More specifically, it highlights three immigration policies that dismiss social scientific findings and expertise as part of presidential and agency decision-making: border control, crime control, and extreme vetting of refugees to prevent terrorism. The Essay claims that these rejections of expertise undermine both substantive and procedural protections for immigrants and undermine important functions of the administrative state as a curb on irrationality in policymaking. It concludes …

Equal Protection Under The Carceral State, Aya Gruber

Publications

McCleskey v. Kemp, the case that upheld the death penalty despite undeniable evidence of its racially disparate impact, is indelibly marked by Justice William Brennan’s phrase, “a fear of too much justice.” The popular interpretation of this phrase is that the Supreme Court harbored what I call a “disparity-claim fear,” dreading a future docket of racial discrimination claims and erecting an impossibly high bar for proving an equal protection violation. A related interpretation is that the majority had a “color-consciousness fear” of remedying discrimination through race-remedial policies. In contrast to these conventional views, I argue that the primary anxiety …

Excavating The Forgotten Suspension Clause, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Responsible Resource Development: A Strategic Plan To Consider Social And Cultural Impacts Of Tribal Extractive Industry Development, Carla F. Fredericks, Kate Finn, Erica Gajda, Jesse Heibel

Publications

This paper presents a strategic, solution-based plan as a companion to our recent article, Responsible Resource Development and Prevention of Sex Trafficking: Safeguarding Native Women and Children on the Fort Berthold Reservation, 40 Harv. J.L. Gender 1 (2017). As a second phase of our work to combat the issues of human trafficking and attendant drug abuse on the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (MHA Nation), we developed a strategic plan to better understand the time, scale, and capacity necessary to address the rising social problems accompanying the boom of oil and gas development there. During our process, we discovered, …

Editor's Note, Colorado Technology Law Journal

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Its Own Dubious Battle: The Impossible Defense Of An Effective Right To Strike, Ahmed White

Publications

One of the most important statutes ever enacted, the National Labor Relations Act envisaged the right to strike as the centerpiece of a system of labor law whose central aims included dramatically diminishing the pervasive exploitation and steep inequality that are endemic to modern capitalism. These goals have never been more relevant. But they have proved difficult to realize via the labor law, in large part because an effective right to strike has long been elusive, undermined by courts, Congress, the NLRB, and powerful elements of the business community. Recognizing this, labor scholars have made the restoration of the right …

Criminal Employment Law, Benjamin Levin

Publications

This Article diagnoses a phenomenon, “criminal employment law,” which exists at the nexus of employment law and the criminal justice system. Courts and legislatures discourage employers from hiring workers with criminal records and encourage employers to discipline workers for non-work-related criminal misconduct. In analyzing this phenomenon, my goals are threefold: (1) to examine how criminal employment law works; (2) to hypothesize why criminal employment law has proliferated; and (3) to assess what is wrong with criminal employment law. This Article examines the ways in which the laws that govern the workplace create incentives for employers not to hire individuals with …

The Consensus Myth In Criminal Justice Reform, Benjamin Levin

Publications

It has become popular to identify a “consensus” on criminal justice reform, but how deep is that consensus, actually? This Article argues that the purported consensus is much more limited than it initially appears. Despite shared reformist vocabulary, the consensus rests on distinct critiques that identify different flaws and justify distinct policy solutions. The underlying disagreements transcend traditional left/right political divides and speak to deeper disputes about the state and the role of criminal law in society.

The Article maps two prevailing, but fundamentally distinct, critiques of criminal law: (1) the quantitative approach (what I call the “over” frame); and …

Evaluating The Legality Of Age-Based Criteria In Health Care: From Nondiscrimination And Discretion To Distributive Justice, Govind Persad

Publications

Recent disputes over whether older people should pay more for health insurance, or receive lower priority for transplantable organs, highlight broader disagreements regarding the legality of using age-based criteria in health care. These debates will likely intensify given the changing age structure of the American population and the turmoil surrounding the financing of American health care. This Article provides a comprehensive examination of the legality and normative desirability of age-based criteria. In the Article, I defend a distributive justice approach to age-based criteria. Rather than viewing age as a personal characteristic akin to race or religion, the distributive justice approach …

How To Argue With An Algorithm: Lessons From The Compas-Propublica Debate, Anne L. Washington

Colorado Technology Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Amicus (Fall 2017), University Of Colorado Law School

Amicus

Issue at a glance:

• Welcomes the Class of 2020 and four new faculty members to Colorado Law
• Spotlights alumni who live and work internationally and students who have taken advantage of opportunities to connect globally
• Highlights Dean Anaya's vision and strategic priorities for Colorado Law
• Introduces the inaugural recipients of Colorado Law's Leaders in Law and Community (LILAC) fellowship program, which addresses diversity in legal education
• Features examples of students taking their legal education on the road, including to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, along the Colorado River, and throughout Geneva, Morocco, and Paris
• Celebrates personal and …

What Remains Of The Exclusionary Rule?, Will Hauptman

University of Colorado Law Review Forum

No abstract provided.

Amicus (Spring 2017), University Of Colorado Law School

Amicus

Issue at a glance:

• Celebrates milestones in Colorado Law's 125-year history
• Highlights the 15th anniversary of the student-led Colorado Technology Law Journal
• Recognizes the achievements of faculty, staff, and students, including Dean Anaya's appointment to a United Nations committee to advise on enhancing representation of indigenous peoples
• Features the winners of the 2016 Reunion Class Challenge
• Celebrates personal and professional successes of Colorado Law alumni

Senate Journal: Seventy-First General Assembly First Regular Session, Colorado General Assembly

Colorado House and Senate Journals

No abstract provided.

Concerning Reentry Services For Persons With Mental Illness In The Criminal Justice System., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Concerning Clarifications To The Criminal Justice Records Sealing Process., Colorado General Assembly

Session Laws 2001-Present

No abstract provided.

Colorado's About Face: Mechanics, Progress, And Challenges Facing Veterans Trauma Courts In Colorado, Karthik A. Venkatraj

University of Colorado Law Review

The nature of asymmetrical warfare-defined by improvised explosive devices, indirect fire attacks, and suicide attackshas significantly altered the patterns of post-service challenges faced by veterans. Dealing with the unseen wounds of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) that result from this type of combat has been one of the most difficult leadership challenges of my career as a young officer.

Although our nation's medical response to PTSD and TBI is well documented, the judicial challenges are not as apparent. Most recently, our nation has responded to this challenge with an alternative court, the Veterans Trauma Court (VTC), …

Table Of Contents (Vol.88, Issue 4)

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fighting Fines & Fees: Borrowing From Consumer Law To Combat Criminal Justice Debt Abuses, Neil L. Sobol

University of Colorado Law Review

Although media and academic sources often describe mass incarceration as the primary challenge facing the American criminal justice system, the imposition of criminal justice debt may be a more pervasive problem. On March 14, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested that state chief justices forward a letter to all judges in their jurisdictions describing the constitutional violations associated with the illegal assessment and enforcement of fines and fees. The DOJ's concerns include the incarceration of indigent individuals without determining whether the failure to pay is willful and the use of bail practices that result in impoverished defendants remaining in …

A Contextual Approach To Harmless Error Review, Justin Murray

Publications

Harmless error review is profoundly important, but arguably broken, in the form that courts currently employ it in criminal cases. One significant reason for this brokenness lies in the dissonance between the reductionism of modern harmless error methodology and the diverse normative ambitions of criminal procedure. Nearly all harmless error rules used by courts today focus exclusively on whether the procedural error under review affected the result of a judicial proceeding. I refer to these rules as “result-based harmless error review.” The singular preoccupation of result-based harmless error review with the outputs of criminal processes stands in marked contrast with …

Responsible Resource Development And Prevention Of Sex Trafficking: Safeguarding Native Women And Children On The Fort Berthold Reservation, Kathleen Finn, Erica Gajda, Thomas Perin, Carla Fredericks

Publications

In 2010, large deposits of oil and natural gas were found in the Bakken shale formation, much of which is encompassed by the Fort Berthold Indian reservation, home to the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (“MHA Nation” or “Three Affiliated Tribes” or “the Tribe”). However, rapid oil and gas development has brought an unprecedented rise of violent crime on and near the Fort Berthold reservation. Specifically, the influx of well-paid male oil and gas workers, living in temporary housing often referred to as “man camps,” has coincided with a disturbing increase in sex trafficking of Native women. The social risks …