Digital Commons Network^™

Rethinking The Plra: The Resiliency Of Injunctive Practice And Why It’S Not Enough, Allison Freedman

Faculty Scholarship

During the latter part of the twentieth century, prison populations in the United States increased exponentially and the nation became notorious for mass incarceration. Despite what many viewed as a broken prison system, in 1996 Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), with the avowed purpose of hindering prisoners and their advocates from bringing civil rights actions to challenge prison conditions, laws, and policies. To accomplish this, Congress curbed courts’ most powerful remedial tool—injunctive relief. As a result, early scholarship predicted that injunctive practice would become a useless tool in prison reform litigation.

Instead, twenty-five years after Congress passed …

Better Balance: Why The Second Judicial District In New Mexico Should Prioritize Use Of Preliminary Hearings, Kathryn Sears

New Mexico Law Review

The New Mexico Constitution guarantees that felony charges shall not be brought against a person prior to either a grand jury indictment or a preliminary hearing finding of probable cause. But in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, New Mexico courts were forced to halt the use of grand jury proceedings. As a result, all felony charges brought for the remainder of the year 2020 were vetted through preliminary hearings. Moreover, New Mexico is a unique jurisdiction because it applies the Rules of Evidence in full strength at preliminary hearings. This Comment makes a case for the continued expansion …

Anomalous Anatomies: How The Tsa Should Screen For Transgender People, Karissa J. Kang, John M. Kang

Faculty Scholarship

A transgender person faces obstacles trying to negotiate a gender-binary world. Going through a TSA checkpoint is no different. A substantial number of transgender persons have reported that they were detained and examined because they were transgender.1 Why this situation persists and what policy reforms should be implemented to alleviate it are the subjects of this Essay. This Essay is devoted mainly to the theme of transgender rights, rather than race, a central theme of the symposium in which this Essay appears. Given the relatively small pool of transgender individuals for whom data is available, this Essay is unable to …

Developing The Minimum Dataset For The New Mexico Decedent Image Database, Shamsi Daneshvari Berry, Philip J. Kroth, Heather J H Edgar, Teddy D. Warner

Pathology Research and Scholarship

BACKGROUND: A minimum dataset (MDS) can be determined ad hoc by an investigator or small team; by a metadata expert; or by using a consensus method to take advantage of the global knowledge and expertise of a large group of experts. The first method is the most commonly applied.

OBJECTIVE: Here, we describe a use of the third approach using a modified Delphi method to determine the optimal MDS for a dataset of full body computed tomography scans. The scans are of decedents whose deaths were investigated at the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and constitute the New …

Technological Tethereds: Potential Impact Of Untrustworthy Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice Risk Assessment Instruments, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Faculty Scholarship

Issues of racial inequality and violence are front and center in today’s society, as are issues surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). This Article, written by a law professor who is also a computer scientist, takes a deep dive into understanding how and why hacked and rogue AI creates unlawful and unfair outcomes, particularly for persons of color.

Black Americans are disproportionally featured in criminal justice, and their stories are obfuscated. The seemingly endless back-to-back murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, and heartbreakingly countless others have finally shaken the United States from its slumbering journey towards intentional criminal justice …

Design And Construction Of A Biosafety Level 3 Autopsy Laboratory, Kurt B. Nolte, Timothy B. Muller, Adam M. Denmark, Ron Burstein, Yvonne A. Villalobos

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Context.—: Autopsy pathologists, including medical examiners, provide valuable public health support for infectious disease deaths through surveillance for deaths of public health concern including emerging infections, identifying causative organisms for unexplained deaths, and providing insights into the pathology and pathogenesis of novel or unusual infections. However, autopsy poses biosafety risks to workers within and outside the laboratory. The highest rates of laboratory-acquired infections occur in autopsy workers.

Objective.—: To design and construct an appropriately biosafe autopsy laboratory.

Design.—: We conducted a biosafety risk assessment for autopsy workers using the process developed by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …

Krwg Interviews Maryam Ahranjani, Doña Ana County Mandatory Vaccination Policy Contested, Maryam Ahranjani, Madison Staten

Faculty Scholarship

Maryam Ahranjani, an associate professor of law at the University of New Mexico, says government officials can mandate vaccination for their employees.

“The law is pretty clear that in using the state's police power to regulate for the health, safety and welfare of its citizens, an employer can require vaccinations,” Ahranjani said.

Ahranjani pointed to Jacobson v. Massachusetts, a 1905 Supreme Court Case that ruled mandatory vaccinations constitutional. But she says that just because she believes employers can require vaccinations doesn’t mean it’s the best solution.

“There's some strong arguments for why it's probably not the best approach,” Ahranjani said. …

Why Get A Warrant When You Can Fly Over The Wall? The Constitutionality Of Aerial Surveillance Without A Warrant, Royce A. Deller

New Mexico Law Review

Individuals in and around their home have a reasonable expectation of privacy from warrantless, ground-level surveillance because the curtilage of the home, like the home itself, is protected from searches and seizures. This is settled Fourth Amendment law. The curtilage of a home is “the area to which extends the intimate activity associated with the ‘sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.’” Less clear, however, is whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy from aerial surveillance. One would be forgiven for assuming one enjoys an expectation of privacy from surveillance in the curtilage of one’s own …

“Preservative Of All Other Rights”: Voting And Social Justice In The Post-Trump Era, Vinay Harpalani

Faculty Scholarship

As social justice advocates rejoice over Donald Trump’s defeat and look for paths forward, the biggest lesson comes from the 2020 presidential election itself. The right to vote is “preservative of all other rights[,]” and this past year underscored its importance more than ever. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, high voter turnout—and especially high Black voter turnout—propelled Joe Biden to victory. Even as the Electoral College and partisan gerrymandering continue to undermine the popular will, America’s changing demographics favor people of color and progressives. Moreover, the elected branches of government have become more significant because Trump packed the …

Acoma Pueblo Tribal Court Handbook (2021), Tribal Law Journal Staff

Tribal Law Journal

This handbook helps take some of the mystery out of practicing in tribal courts. Without the necessary information to learn new rules and protocols many attorneys are understandably reluctant to practice in a new jurisdiction. As a result, tribal courts are underused or misused. This handbook is intended to help attorneys and advocates become more aware of the various individual tribal court systems and to learn their rules and protocol.

Visualization Of Real-Time Displacement Time History Superimposed With Dynamic Experiments Using Wireless Smart Sensors And Augmented Reality, Marlon Frank Agüero Injante

Civil Engineering ETDs

Wireless Smart Sensor (WSS) process field data and inform structural field engineers and owners about the infrastructure health, condition, and safety. Engineers acquire the data and investigate changes on displacements under loads to make informed choices and prioritize decisions concerning maintenance, required repairs, and infrastructure replacements. However, reliable data collection and access to displacement information in the field in real-time under loads remains a challenge. The displacement data provided by the WSS in the field undergoes additional processing, and it is seen at a different location, at the decision-making headquarters. If inspectors were able to observe structural displacements in real-time …

Climate Change: Increased Potential For Fire Disaster In Taos, New Mexico, Matthew F. Vigil

Climate Change and Public Health Preparedness

No abstract provided.

Incentivization In Mobile Edge Computing Using A Full Bayesian Approach, Sean Lebien

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The advances of multi-access edge computing (MEC) have paved the way for the integration of the MEC servers, as intelligent entities into the Internet of Things (IoT) environment as well as into the 5G radio access networks. In this thesis, a novel artificial intelligence-based MEC servers’ activation mechanism is proposed, by adopting the principles of Reinforcement Learning (RL) and Bayesian Reasoning. The considered problem enables the MEC servers’ activation decision-making, aiming at enhancing the reputation of the overall MEC system, as well as considering the total computing costs to serve efficiently the users’ computing demands, guaranteeing at the same time …

Artificial Intelligence Enabled Distributed Edge Computing For Internet Of Things Applications, Georgios Fragkos

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Artificial Intelligence (AI) based techniques are typically used to model decision-making in terms of strategies and mechanisms that can conclude to optimal payoffs for a number of interacting entities, often presenting competitive behaviors. In this thesis, an AI-enabled multi-access edge computing (MEC) framework is proposed, supported by computing-equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to facilitate Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Initially, the problem of determining the IoT nodes optimal data offloading strategies to the UAV-mounted MEC servers, while accounting for the IoT nodes’ communication and computation overhead, is formulated based on a game-theoretic model. The existence of at least one Pure …

The New York Times Interviews Joshua Kastenberg On Election Day And Deployment Of The National Guard, Joshua Kastenberg, Dave Phillips

Faculty Scholarship

Federal troops have not been used to guard against election violence since the years after the Civil War when the Army was stationed across the South to put down the Ku Klux Klan and protect Black voters, said Joshua Kastenberg, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and military judge who teaches military law at the University of New Mexico School of Law.

“Presidents have historically been very reluctant to call out the Army. They’ve used the authority briefly and responsibly,” he said. But, he cautioned, there are almost no checks on the president’s power to send in troops. Challenges in …

Socio-Physical Human Orchestration In Smart Cities, Nathan Patrizi

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

In this thesis, we present a novel socio-physical human orchestration framework to deal with the increasing complexity of smart city environments, by capitalizing on recent advances in game theory and reinforcement learning, with the goal of solving the efficient management of a smart city while improving the quality of life for the humans living in said smart city. This problem has become more challenging as the smart cities have become more complicated and complex with new technologies. In the proposed framework, each human selects a Point of Interest (PoI) that it wants to visit. This selection is performed by acting …

Covid-19 Pandemic And Nepal: Issues And Perspectives, Basu Sharma, Ambika P. Adhikari

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Asta-Ja USA and Asta-Ja RDC published the book “Issues and Perspective on the Covid-19 and Nepal” in December 2020. Edited by Basu Sharma and Ambika P. Adhikari, the book contains 12 papers by 17 authors. The 173-page book is a part of Asta-Ja’s Occasional Paper Series and addresses some of the key impacts of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic in Nepal, and proposes some policy recommendations to mitigate those impacts. The book covers the areas of how agriculture, food production, employment, urban planning, economy, public health and research activities are impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The authors review the pandemic’s impact …

Case Preview: In Newest Chapter In Long-Running Water Dispute, Court Will Hear First-Ever Challenge To Ruling By Interstate River Master, Reed D. Benson

Faculty Scholarship

Find out more information regarding Texas v. New Mexico at SCOTUSblog.

Read more about Professor Reed Benson's involvement on the UNM Law News Page.

Self-Regulation And Emotional Reactivity In Infants With Prenatal Exposure To Opioids And Alcohol, Kathryn G Beauchamp, Jean Lowe, Ronald M Schrader, Shikhar Shrestha, Crystal Aragón, Natalia Moss, Julia M Stephen, Ludmila N Bakhireva

Pediatrics Research and Scholarship

BACKGROUND: Infants with prenatal substance exposure are at increased risk for developmental problems, with self-regulatory challenges being some of the most pronounced. The current study aimed to investigate the extent to which prenatal substance exposure (alcohol, opioids) impacts infant self-regulation during a relational stressor and the association between self-regulation and infant affect.

METHODS: Participants were 100 mother-child dyads recruited prenatally (Mean = 23.8 gestational weeks) and completed the Still Face Paradigm (SFP) when infants were 5 to 8 months of age (Mean = 6.9 months) as part of an ENRICH prospective birth cohort study. Based on prospective repeated assessment of …

Scooting Under The Influence: Criminal Liability In The Age Of Micro-Transit, Jacques Chouinard

New Mexico Law Review

Over the past two years, dockless electric scooters have become a staple of modern urban transit. Dockless electric scooters and other micro-transit devices present a unique challenge in the realm of criminal liability. Considering that electric scooters are lightweight, low-speed devices with an ambiguous regulatory status, how will driving under the influence statutes be enforced when scooter riders inevitably “scoot” while intoxicated? This question requires rapid and innovative answers; scooter riders in a number of jurisdictions have already been charged under existing driving under the influence statutes with varying levels of success. This comment seeks to provide those answers by …

The Future Of Nondelegation: Resurrecting The Doctrine Though A Novel Balancing Test, Jarrod Alec Greth

New Mexico Law Review

In Gundy v. United States, the Supreme Court of the United States was split 4 - 4 on the question of nondelegation. With a vacancy on the Bench, half of the Court took no issue with Congress delegating nearly unlimited discretion to the United States Attorney General over the enforcement and applicability of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act to offenders whose crimes preceded the Act’s enactment. The other half of the Court saw this grant of vast power as a violation of the nondelegation doctrine; the idea that Congress may not delegate its Article I lawmaking powers to …

A Social-Ecological Approach To Adolescent Suicide In Rural New Mexico, Deanna Henderson

Theoretical Foundation in Advanced Practice Nursing

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Economic Approach To Public Policy: An Analysis Of Health And Labor Market Outcomes, Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba

Economics ETDs

The approach used to answer many public policy questions is firmly rooted in the empirical and theoretical frameworks developed in the field of economics. The proposition of the economic approach to public policy has provided the foundation in which policy makers and practitioners design policies and investigate outcomes. The purpose and scope of this dissertation is to explore health and labor market outcomes within in the economic framework, while proposing two separate and novel analytical approaches. The theme connecting the sections of this dissertation can be characterized as a development of the economic approach to public policy analysis. In Chapter …

Prioritization Of Non-Functional Requirements In A Mobile Application For Panic Button System Using Neutrosophic Decision Maps, Marco Antonio Checa Cabrera, Byron Javier Ipiales Chasiguano, Ana Lucía Sandoval Pillajo, Rita Díaz Vázquez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Several countries around the world have implemented systems to preserve public safety. Taking advantage of technological advances that are available to all citizens, in Ecuador it has been implemented a system called panic button, which consists of a cell phone network with geo-location, which can assist every citizen who needs to ask for help and the authorities will respond efficiently. This research proposes to improve this system in order to increase its efficiency and effectiveness. This requires the use of prioritization of non-functional requirements. In this paper we use the static analysis of Neutrosophic Cognitive Maps to determine, evaluate, and …

2020-05-21 Daily Unm Global Health Covid-19 Briefing, Christophe G. Lambert, Shawn Stoicu, Ingrid Hendrix, Lori D. Sloane, Mari Anixter, Mala Htun, Anastasiya Nestsiarovich, Praveen Kumar, Susie Pham, Jenny Situ, Ariel Hurwitz, Alexandra Yingling, Gregory Mertz, Kristine Tollestrup, Orrin Myers, Douglas J. Perkins

HSC Covid 19 Briefings

Executive Summary:

NM Highlights: NM case counts. Governor press conference slides. More businesses to open. Roswell early retirement incentives. UNM COVID-19 STEM research. US Highlights: Michigan flooding. Earlier lockdown decreases deaths. Racial divide in nursing homes. Speeding fatalities on open roads. International: UV bot cleaner. Swedish serological study. Economics: N95 respirators supply optimization. Japanese personal protective measures implementation. Ventilator needs prediction algorithm Epidemiology: Additional high-risk occupations. Social distancing strategies effective. Location-based service data useful. Healthcare Policy: Toolkit for opening businesses. Health policy research agenda. Face mask policies vary. Practice: Recommendations are given on brachytherapy, Dental practice, ECT for elderly with …

No Longer Fenced Out: Outlaw Media Discourse And Resistance To Gentrification In Greenwich Village, Joseph Francis Gallegos

American Studies ETDs

Greenwich Village is a so-called “gayborhood” that accepts and welcomes LGBT people. However, Greenwich Village has been undergoing gentrification for the past few decades, and this process exists due to a police-created order of violence that subjugates and displaces queer people and people of color. This order seeks to create a space that is friendly to capital and wealth.

Resistance to these strategies requires tactics that do not necessarily hew to mainstream methods of getting a message out, such as using mainstream media to make a case against gentrification. These often fail, as they will fall on deaf ears of …

Factors Contributing To Young Men Of Color Dropping Out Of High School And Experiencing Incarceration: What Influenced Their Decision To Return To School And Graduate?, Justina C. Montoya

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

Dropping out of high school is an issue that disproportionately affects the lives of young men of color in New Mexico and across the country. While there are multiple reasons that impact a student's decision to drop out of school, it is often compounded by other factors that also lead to incarceration.

This study focused on young men of color who dropped out of school, experienced incarceration, and through this process made the decision to return to school and earn a high school diploma. This study was performed at a charter high school in a southwestern state. The mission of …

2020-04-28 Daily Unm Global Health Covid-19 Briefing, Christophe G. Lambert, Shawn Stoicu, Lori D. Sloane, Susan Atlas, Anastasiya Nestsiarovich, Praveen Kumar, Nicolas Lauve, Kathryn Foos, Emma Wolinsky, Melissa Cossé, Jenny Situ, Susie Pham, Jennifer Thompson, Fiona Nguyen, Ryen Ormesher, Avanika Mahajan, Timothy Campbell, Lynnmarie Jarratt, Samantha Paltrow-Krulwich, Alyse Raboff, Stephen Esguerra, Lauren Tagliaferro Epler, Ariel Hurwitz, Alexandra Yingling, Clinton Onyango, Perez Olewe, Cristian Bologa, Jens Langsjoen, Orrin Myers, Douglas J. Perkins

HSC Covid 19 Briefings

Executive Summary:

NM case update. NM antibody testing. Las Cruces essential worker screening. Small business closure inequity. More jobless benefits. Santa Fe furloughs. NM Funeral homes prepared. NM oil sector hit. State-by-state restrictions/reopenings. US testing expansion. JAMA on prisons. NY reopening focus. Farmers euthanizing animals. New Zealand success. Stockholm herd immunity. UK worst-hit in Europe. Japanese island lockdown. Spain multi-phase plan. Economic damage lockdown duration. Oil price impacts. Aerosol intubation box. Family cluster transmission. US contact tracing lacking. Chinese tracing system. Early US deaths undercounted. More poison center calls. Homeless shelter infection. Reduced coronary syndrome admissions. Italian predicted model. GIS …

2020-04-07 Daily Unm Global Health Covid-19 Briefing, Christophe G. Lambert, Shawn Stoicu, Anastasiya Nestsiarovich, Praveen Kumar, Hannah Groves, Danielle Rivera, Estefania Montanez, Tudor I. Opera, Andrew S. Rowland, Douglas J. Perkins

HSC Covid 19 Briefings

Executive Summary:

Today we celebrate World Health Day: JAMA suggests ways to support healthcare workers in the crisis. NM Emergency orders extended. Some NM prisoners freed. Pueblos threatened by outbreaks. CDC to provide $186M in state funding for surveillance programs. Colleges hit hard financially. Nine states refuse to issue stay-at-home order. Wuhan cautiously ends its 76-day lockdown. Lack of cough and fever for children creates special challenges. Fauci JAMA interview tomorrow. WHO guidelines and megatrial of 4 therapies. Numerous CDC guidelines. 23 clinical trials registered today. One negative result on hydroxychloroquine efficacy. In vitro screens suggest promising FDA drugs for …

Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Breath: A Call For Economic Justice, Verónica C. Gonzales

Faculty Scholarship

In Part I of this essay I interpret this unique moment in history through a retelling of the folk story La Llorona in order to identify the monsters and ghosts of the past and the present. Domino Renee Perez describes her own critical reflection of La Llorona as reinforcing 'a valuable lesson about power and authority' because her family’s 'storytelling circle was more than simply an arbitrary setting; it was a safe place for them to create, however problematically, a world of words, where they faced the dangers and challenges of life, embodied by a woman, and survived.' The lore …