Digital Commons Network^™

Law Schools And The Public Good, Judith Areen, Paul Marcus

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Judicial Supremacy Revisited: Independent Constitutional Authority In American Constitutional Law And Practice, Mark A. Graber

William & Mary Law Review

The Supreme Court exercises far less constitutional authority in American law and practice than one would gather from reading judicial opinions, presidential speeches, or the standard tomes for and against judicial supremacy. Lower federal court judges, state court justices, federal and state elected officials, persons charged with administering the law, and ordinary citizens often have the final say on particular constitutional controversies or exercise temporary constitutional authority in ways that have more influence on the parties to that controversy than the eventual Supreme Court decision. In many instances, Supreme Court doctrine sanctions or facilitates the exercise of independent constitutional authority …

Amnesty For Even The Worst Offenders, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

In recent years, global policy makers have declared that heads of state must be held accountable through criminal prosecution for internationally wrongful acts. Scholars too have insisted that the international system’s embrace of accountability excludes or renders illegal the granting of amnesty. This Article argues that that position is too narrow and uses the ongoing conflict in Syria, as well as other contemporary examples, to examine some of consequences of the clamor for prosecution.

The Article rejects the binary juxtaposition of amnesty and accountability in current international legal scholarship, and instead seeks to broaden the terms of the conversation by …

Neuroscience Changes More Than You Can Think, Paul S. Davies, Peter A. Alces

Faculty Publications

In this Essay, we consider the contribution of a startling new book, Law & Neuroscience (L&N), by Owen Jones, Jeffrey Schall, and Francis Shen. It is a law school course book (a genre not often the focus of a scholarly review essay) that supports fundamental inquiry into the relationship between emerging neuroscientific insights and doctrinal conceptions in the law. We believe that the book shifts the paradigm and so may profoundly affect the course of normative evaluation of law. In this Essay, we trace and evaluate the “argument” of the book and suggest ways in which its contribution to the …

Reducing The Dangers Of Future Dangerousness Testimony: Applying The Federal Rules Of Evidence To Capital Sentencing, Jaymes Fairfax-Columbo, David Dematteo

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The United States Supreme Court has long held that the death penalty cannot be imposed arbitrarily, and that during sentencing in capital cases, jurors must be provided with guidelines to assist them in narrowing down the class of individuals for whom the death penalty is appropriate. Typically, this is accomplished through the presentation of aggravating and mitigating evidence. One aggravating factor is a capital offender’s future dangerousness, or the likelihood that the individual will engage in violent institutional misconduct while in prison. Future dangerousness may be assessed using a variety of measures; Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), a measure of personality …

Pricing The Fourth Amendment, Miriam H. Baer

William & Mary Law Review

Critics have long decried the Fourth Amendment’s lack of an adequate remedy to secure its compliance. Neither the exclusionary rule nor the threat of civil liability deters police misconduct, leaving scholars to cast about for alternative measures. The emphasis on penalties, however, overlooks a different problem: detection. Because of policing’s fast-paced nature, even so-called “flagrant” Fourth Amendment violations trigger insufficient liability due to low probabilities of detection.

This Article addresses this problem by drawing on the Pigouvian tax literature. The Pigouvian tax—sometimes referred to as a “corrective tax”—is a pricing instrument imposed by regulators in an amount equal to the …

Lessons From Ferguson On Individual Defense Representation As A Tool Of Systemic Reform, Beth A. Colgan

William & Mary Law Review

This Article investigates the relationship between the decisions by lawmakers to use municipal and criminal systems to generate revenue and the lack of access to individual defense representation by using the Ferguson, Missouri, municipal court as a case study. The Article chronicles the myriad constitutional rights that were violated on a systemic basis in Ferguson’s municipal court and how those violations made the city’s reliance on the court for revenue generation possible. The Article also documents how the introduction of individual defense representation, even on a piecemeal basis, played a role in altering Ferguson’s system of governance. Using this case …

The Future Of Police Reform Under The Trump Administration, Kami N. Chavis

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Reliance On Nonenforcement, Zachary S. Price

William & Mary Law Review

Can regulated parties ever rely on official assurances that the law will not apply to them? Recent marijuana and immigration nonenforcement policies have presented this question in acute form. Both policies effectively invited large numbers of legally unsophisticated people to undertake significant legal risks in reliance on formally nonbinding governmental assurances. The same question also arises across a range of civil, criminal, and administrative contexts, and it seems likely to recur in the future so long as partisan polarization and sharp disagreement over the merits of existing law persist.

This Article addresses when, if ever, constitutional due process principles may …

Personal Enough For Protection: The Fifth Amendment And Single-Member Llcs, Lila L. Inman

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Presidential Address: "Access To Justice" At The Second Meeting Of The Aals House Of Representatives, 2017 Annual Meeting, Paul Marcus

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Curbing Excessive Force: A Primer On Barriers To Police Accountability, Kami N. Chavis, Conor Degnan

Faculty Publications

This Issue Brief summarizes some of the traditional mechanisms for holding police accountable for misconduct, offers a critique of each, and ends with suggestions for the future of police accountability. Part I focuses on some of the legal and structural impediments to police accountability including the inherent conflicts of interest that frequently prevent local prosecutors from prosecuting police officers accused of using excessive force. Part I also discusses how the doctrine of qualified immunity shields officers from civil liability when a suspect is harmed or dies in police custody. Part II explores how the Department of Justice (DOJ) has failed …

Biometric Cyberintelligence And The Posse Comitatus Act, Margaret Hu

Faculty Publications

This Article addresses the rapid growth of what the military and the intelligence community refer to as “biometric-enabled intelligence.” This newly emerging intelligence tool is reliant upon biometric databases—for example, digitalized storage of scanned fingerprints and irises, digital photographs for facial recognition technology, and DNA. This Article introduces the term “biometric cyberintelligence” to more accurately describe the manner in which this new tool is dependent upon cybersurveillance and big data’s massintegrative systems.

This Article argues that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, designed to limit the deployment of federal military resources in the service of domestic policies, will be difficult …

From Rome To The Military Justice Acts Of 2016 And Beyond: Continuing Civilianization Of The Military Criminal Legal System, Fredric I. Lederer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Grave Crimes And Weak Evidence: Fact-Finding Evolution In International Criminal Law, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

International criminal courts carry out some of the most important work that a legal system can conduct: prosecuting those who have visited death and destruction on millions. Despite the significance of their work--or perhaps because of it--international courts face tremendous challenges. Chief among them is accurate fact-finding. With alarming regularity, international criminal trials feature inconsistent, vague, and sometimes false testimony that renders judges unable to assess with any measure of certainty who did what to whom in the context of a mass atrocity. This Article provides the first-ever empirical study quantifying fact-finding in an international criminal court. The study shines …

Warning: Stop-And-Frisk May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Josephine Ross

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Protecting The Imperfect Victim: Expanding “Safe Harbors” To Adult Victims Of Sex Trafficking, Christine Anchan

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Voting To End Vulnerability: Understanding The Recent Proliferation Of State-Level Child Sex Trafficking Legislation, Kate Price, Keith Gunnar Bentele

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article first focuses on the history of CSEC (commercially sexually exploited children) legislation in the United States by contextualizing the history of state anti-trafficking laws within the larger anti-trafficking policy framework of federal U.S. statutes and United Nations’ (U.N.) protocols. The second and third sections address the variables, statistical model, and results of our data analysis. The fourth section discusses the implications of these findings. The Article concludes with practical considerations for future CSEC legislative efforts on the state level.

When Sex Trafficking Victims Turn Eighteen: The Problematic Focus On Force, Fraud, And Coercion In U.S. Human Trafficking Laws, Julianne Siegfriedt

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Thirteenth Annual Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference (Program), William & Mary Law School, University Of Leiden, Grotius Center Of International Legal Studies

2016 Property Conference

No abstract provided.

Ptsd, Tbi, And Oth Discharges: A Case Study Of A Young Service Member, Patricia E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Consolidating Local Criminal Justice: Should Prosecutors Control The Jails?, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Criminalizing “Private” Torture, Tania Tetlow

William & Mary Law Review

This Article proposes a state crime against torture by private actors as a far better way to capture the harm of serious domestic violence. Current criminal law misses the cumulative terror of domestic violence by fracturing it into individualized, misdemeanor batteries. Instead, a torture statute would punish a pattern crime— the batterer’s use of repeated violence and threats for the purpose of controlling his victim. And, for the first time, a torture statute would ban nonviolent techniques committed with the intent to cause severe pain and suffering, including psychological torture, sexual degradation, and sleep deprivation.

Because serious domestic violence routinely …

Section 4: Criminal, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Section 1: Moot Court: Pena-Rodriguez V. Colorado, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Religious Schooling And Homeschooling Before And After Hobby Lobby, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

The most serious incursions on religious liberty in America today are being inflicted on children by parents and private school operators through power the State has given them. This Article examines the potential effect of the Court’s Hobby Lobby decision on interpreting the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) on both federal and state levels, detailing why the Court’s decision is irrelevant to addressing the incursions on liberty experienced by children subject to religious and home schooling.

Ultimately, the Article finds that home schools and private schools are unfazed by the Hobby Lobby decision in their capacities as employers and educators …

'Serial' Should Release Bergdahl Interviews, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Technology Doesn't Change The Need For Legal Protection, Kami N. Chavis

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

How We Move Beyond Dallas, Spencer Overton, Kami Chavis

Popular Media

Calls for healing and reconciliation in the wake of recent racial violence overlook the substantive, concrete steps that experts say would help forestall the next police tragedy.

Hate Crime Laws To Protect Police Are Misguided, Kami Chavis

Popular Media

JURIST Guest Columnist Kami N. Chavis of Wake Forest University School of Law discusses the recent proposals to add police officers to hate crime statutes.