Digital Commons Network^™

Externships For Millennial Generation Law Students: Bridging The Generation Gap, Susan Mcclellan

Faculty Articles

This article examines the literature about our newest generation of law students, the Millennials, and offers suggestions to help externship faculty work with supervisors and students to avoid potential problems that may arise from generational differences. After reviewing the literature, the article discusses both positive and negative Millennial generation traits and explains how identified generational problems might arise in externship field placements. The article then offers suggestions from psychologists, managerial literature, and the author's experience to help externship directors and faculty work with field supervisors and students to avoid or resolve issues. The article concludes that members of the Millennial …

Supportive Housing: Implications For Its Efficacy As Intervention With Special Needs Low-Income African Americans, Carol S. Collard, Rufus Larkin

Faculty Articles

In this pilot study, the authors examine the efficacy of supportive housing, which combines affordable housing with social services, in helping low-income single mothers in substance abuse recovery with relapse prevention and acquiring life skills to improve their economic conditions. Study subjects were residents of Delowe Village Apartments, a supportive housing development in East Point, Georgia, who participated in Project GROW, an on-site program intended to help residents maintain sobriety and reduce their dependence on welfare. The authors hypothesize that the length of residency in supportive housing correlates to prolonged sobriety, improved functioning, and increased employment. Findings indicate a substantial …

An Integrated Evaluation Method For Module-Based Undergraduate Information Retrieval Education, Yong Shi, Lei Zhu, Jane Wong, Bradley Sturz, Chun Tang

Faculty Articles

In the Information Age, career and life-long learning increasingly depend on information-retrieval (IR) skills to utilize digital and on-line information effectively. Consequently, IR has become a valuable integral element of many disciplines. To address primary problems in the current college-level IR education, we have proposed a module-based curricular model that facilitates the development of an array of IR course modules that enable flexible adoption and integration. In addition, these modules can be designed to meet the specific needs of various disciplines and programs. This paper presents a preliminary integrated evaluation method which combines subjective and objective evaluation in order to …

Revisiting The Rules Of Evidence And Procedure In Adversarial Immigration Proceedings, Won Kidane

Faculty Articles

This article addresses the concern over the state of deportation proceedings in the United States. Professor Kidane argues that a lack of formal rules of procedure and evidence is the main factor contributing to the unpredictability, and inconsistency inherent in our system of immigration law. The argument is placed in context by reviewing the growth of the administrative agencies up through the adoption of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). Kidane notes that the APA embodies one approach as a compromise between those advocating strict formal rules of procedure and evidence and those supporting a more relaxed system for administrative proceedings. …

Inferences, Arguments, And Second Generation Forensic Evidence, Erin E. Murphy

Faculty Articles

Advances in scientific and technological evidence have resulted in a new, second generation of forensic proof characterized by its high degree of probativeness, mechanical sophistication, and database-based investigative capacity. Methods such as DNA typing are already in widespread use in the criminal justice system, and law enforcement may soon have commonly available other novel techniques such as advanced biometrics, electronic locators, or even reliable lie detection systems. The promise and allure of such forms of forensic evidence rest in its high degree of accuracy. But the perception that such evidence is effectively infallible has resulted in an increasing number of …

The Ascent Of The Administrative State And The Demise Of Mercy, Rachel E. Barkow

Faculty Articles

It is not news to anyone familiar with criminal law and sentencing that we live in punitive, unforgiving times. Although scholars have sought to explain the rise in punishment and the incarceration boom of the past few decades, very little work has focused on the reasons why forms of mercy have been on the decline. Specifically, scholars have not done much to explore why the unreviewable power to be merciful through pardons and nullification is currently looked upon with such disfavor. While the same political climate that produces greater punishment also depresses mercy, that account is an incomplete one. As …

The Adversary System Is Dead: Long Live The Adversary System: The Trial Judge As The Great Equalizer In Criminal Trials, Mary Sue Backus

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

The Current State Of Residential Segregation And Housing Discrimination: The United States' Obligation Under The International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination, Michael B. De Leeuw, Megan K. Whyte, Dale Ho, Catherine Meza, Alexis Karteron

Faculty Articles

The United States government accepted a number of obligations related to housing when it ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ("CERD"). For example, the United States government must ensure that all people enjoy the rights to housing and to own property, without distinction as to race; cease discriminatory actions, including those that are discriminatory in effect regardless of intent; and take affirmative steps to remedy past discrimination and eradicate segregation. This Article discusses the United States government's compliance with those obligations, as well as the importance of meaningful compliance in maintaining the United …

Federal Rules Update: How Rules Are Made: A Brief Review, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

In January 2008 and June 2008, the Standing Committee on the Rules of Procedure and Evidence authorized publication for comment on a number of rules of criminal procedure. The amendment to Criminal Rule 5 would include a requirement that, in deciding whether to release or detain a defendant, the court must consider the “right of any victim to be reasonably protected from the defendant.” The change to Criminal Rule 12.3 states that the name and address of the victim should not be automatically disclosed to the defense. Criminal Rule 15 would permit an unavailable witness to be deposed outside of …

All For One: A Review Of Victim-Centric Justifications For Criminal Punishment, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Disparate understandings of the primary justification for criminal punishment have in recent years divided along new lines. Retributivists and consequentialists have long debated whether a community ought to punish violators of legal norms primarily because the violator has usurped communal standards (the retributivist view), or rather merely as a means toward some end such as rehabilitation or deterrence (the consequentialist view). The competing answers to this question have demarcated for some time the primary boundary in criminal jurisprudential thought.

A new fault line appears to have opened between those who maintain the historical view that criminal punishment promotes the common …

Religious Freedom In The Face Of Harsh State And Local Immigration Laws, Michael A. Scaperlanda

Faculty Articles

No abstract provided.

What Does Documentary Filmmaking Have To Do With Practicing Law?, Peggy C. Davis

Faculty Articles

The University of Maryland's 2008 Symposium on Documentary Film and the Law featured a screening and discussion of Omar and Pete, Tod Lending's compelling 2005 documentary of two men's efforts to return to their communities after serving substantial prison terms. In this essay, I compare narrative and cognitive strategies at work in Omar and Pete and those a lawyer might use in representing a person like Omar or Pete in a sentencing proceeding.

Rethinking Drug Inadmissibility, Nancy Morawetz

Faculty Articles

Changes in federal statutory policy, state criminal justice laws, and federal enforcement initiatives have led to an inflexible and zero-tolerance immigration policy with respect to minor drug use. This Article traces the evolution of the statutory scheme and how various provisions in state and federal law interact to create the current policy. It proceeds to investigate the broad reach of these rules if they are fully enforced, in light of the widespread lifetime experience with minor drug use both in the United States and abroad. Drawing on the experience of law enforcement agencies that have abandoned similarly rigid rules, the …

Paradigms Of Restraint, Erin E. Murphy

Faculty Articles

Incapacitation of dangerous individuals has conventionally entailed the exercise of physical control over an actual body: the state confines the person in jail. But advances in technology have changed that convention. A variety of new technologies—such as GPS tracking bracelets, biometric scanners, online offender indexes, and DNA databases—give the government power to control dangerous persons without relying on any exertion of physical control. The government can track the location of a person in real time, receive remote notification that an individual has ingested alcohol, or electronically zone someone into a home or out of a public park. It can prove …

Acknowledging Guilt: Forcing Self-Identification In Post-Conviction Dna Testing, Tonja Jacobi, Gwendolyn Carroll

Faculty Articles

This Essay formally illustrates how it is possible to force prisoners to self-identify as innocent or guilty by deciding whether to seek post­conviction DNA testing. Additionally, it shows why other systems that aim to reduce the number of guilty petitioners seeking post-conviction DNA testing create perverse incentives, and why only additional incarceration can effectively encourage innocent and guilty prisoners alike to self-identify. This will reduce costs on the judicial system by discouraging guilty prison­ers from seeking post-conviction DNA tests. It will also make it faster and easier for actually innocent prisoners to seek the tests they need for timely exoneration. …

Corporations, Veils, And International Criminal Liability, Ronald Slye

Faculty Articles

This article investigates the issue of corporations and their criminal liability. Specifically, it outlines general arguments surrounding the issue. It provides more of a broad overview, identifying the key arguments that are typically made for applying criminal liability to corporations.

The Protect America Act Of 2007: A Framework For Improving Intelligence Collection In The War On Terror, Jeffrey F. Addicott, Michael T. Mccaul

Faculty Articles

The most important weapon in the War on Terror is intelligence. The Protect America Act of 2007, a modification of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), was favored by Congress for providing a positive framework for ensuring the proper rule of law kept pace with changes in technology. FISA closed the intelligence gaps that had arisen because of the application of the Act to foreign persons in foreign countries.

FISA codifies in federal law the procedures associated with how electronic surveillance and searches of acquisition of foreign intelligence is conducted. In order to conduct electronic surveillance, a court order must …

Criminal Rules Amendments Effective As Of December 2007, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

A number of amendments to the Federal Rules of Procedure and Evidence became effective on December 1, 2007. Criminal Rule 11 was amended to conform the rule to the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Booker, which held that the sections in the federal sentencing statute that made pleas mandatory violated the fifth and sixth constitutional amendments. Criminal Rule 32 was made to conform to United States v. Booker by making it clear that the court may require the probation office to include in the presentence report information relevant to factors set out in 18 U.S.C § 3553(a). The …

Imaging Body Structure And Mapping Brain Function: A Historical Approach, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Now in its second decade, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) localizes changes in blood oxygenation that occur in the brain when an individual performs a mental task. Physicians and scientists use fMRI not only to map sensory, motor, and cognitive functions, but also to study the neural correlates of a range of sensitive and potentially stigmatizing conditions, behaviors, and characteristics. Poised to move outside the traditional clinical and research contexts, fMRI raises a number of ethical, legal, and social issues that are being explored within a burgeoning neuroethics literature. In this Article, I place these issues in their proper historical …

Categorical Exclusions From Capital Punishment: How Many Wrongs Make A Right?, Dora W. Klein

Faculty Articles

The two categorical exclusions of age and mental capacity will impact not only those offenders who are excluded from the death penalty, but also those offenders who remain subject to this punishment. The Supreme Court’s decisions in Roper v. Simmons and Atkins v. Virginia raise the issue that a capital-punishment-limiting decision possesses wrongs of its own. Both decisions limit the death penalty—Roper excludes from this punishment offenders who committed their crimes before they were eighteen years old and Atkins excludes offenders who are mentally retarded. But in both cases, the Supreme Court overstated the uniformity and universality of traits associated …

Urban Law School Graduates In Large Law Firms, David Wilkins, Ronit Dinovitzer, Rishi Batra

Faculty Articles

Two major trends have dominated the American legal profession in recent years. First, "the legal profession has seen a striking growth in the largest firms during the latter part of the last century." In 1960, Shearman Sterling & Wright (now called Shearman & Sterling) was the largest firm in the country - and therefore the world. It had 125 lawyers. By the close of the century, there were more than 250 firms larger than Shearman & Sterling had been forty years before, with the largest ten topping the scales at 1000 lawyers or more. Today, in order to make the …

Fragile Democracies, Samuel Issacharoff

Faculty Articles

Democratic regimes around the world find themselves besieged by antidemocratic groups that seek to use the electoral arena as a forum to propagandize their causes and rally their supporters. Virtually all democratic countries respond by restricting the participation of groups or political parties deemed to be beyond the range of tolerable conduct or viewpoints. The proscription of certain views raises serious problems for any liberal theory in which legitimacy turns on the democratic consent of the governed. When stripped down to their essentials, all definitions of democracy rest ultimately on the primacy of electoral choice and the presumptive claim of …

The New Forensics: Criminal Justice, False Certainty, And The Second Generation Of Scientific Evidence, Erin E. Murphy

Faculty Articles

Accounts of powerful new forensic technologies such as DNA typing, data mining, biometric scanning, and electronic location tracking fill the daily news. Proponents praise these techniques for helping to exonerate those wrongly accused, and for exposing the failings of a criminal justice system that previously relied too readily upon faulty forensic evidence like handwriting, ballistics, and hair and fiber analysis. Advocates applaud the introduction of a "new paradigm" for forensic evidence, and proclaim that these new techniques will revolutionize how the government investigates and tries criminal cases. While the new forensic sciences undoubtedly offer an unprecedented degree of certainty and …

Letting Katz Out Of The Bag: Cognitive Freedom And Fourth Amendment Fidelity, Christian Halliburton

Faculty Articles

Emerging surveillance technologies now allow operators to collect information located within the brain of an individual, allow the collection of forensic evidence regarding cerebral and cognitive processes, and are even beginning to be able to predict human intentions. While science has not yet produced a mind-reading machine per se, the devices referred to as cognitive camera technologies are substantial steps in the direction of that inevitable result. One such technique, a proprietary method called Brain Fingerprinting, is used as an example of the strong trend towards increasingly invasive and ever more powerful surveillance methods, and provides an entrée to a …

Using Global Law To Teach Domestic Advocacy, John B. Mitchell

Faculty Articles

There is currently a movement to integrate so-called global law into the law school curriculum. This essay, Using Global Law to Teach Domestic Advocacy, briefly explores this movement and its underlying rationales, and then focuses on using foreign procedural law in a traditional American trial advocacy course, principally to improve the students' domestic advocacy skills. Believing that such concepts are best understood in the concrete, Professor MitchellI has created a set of imaginary exercises to a trial advocacy class in which the instructor swaps various features of the Scotch Criminal Justice system (no opening statement, nor voir dire, three verdicts) …

Functional Neuroimaging And The Law: Trends And Directions For Future Scholarship, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Under the umbrella of the burgeoning neurotransdisciplines, scholars are using the principles and research methodologies of their primary and secondary fields to examine developments in neuroimaging, neuromodulation, and psychopharmacology. The path for advanced scholarship at the intersection of law and neuroscience may clear if work across the disciplines is collected and reviewed and outstanding and debated issues are identified and clarified. In this article, I organize, examine and refine a narrow class of burgeoning neurotransdiscipline scholarship; that is, scholarship at the interface of law and functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Representation In Kenya, Its Diaspora, And Academia: Colonial Legacies In Constructions Of Knowledge About Kenya's Coast, Jesse Benjamin

Faculty Articles

This paper explores the construction of knowledge in Kenya in the context and aftermath of colonialism and underdevelopment. Those communities that were politically and economically marginalized in Coast Province over the past century were also displaced in terms of academic opportunities, resulting in fewer social science scholars from Mijikenda and other non-Swahili communities in both Kenyan and diaspora universities. Underdevelopment studies in Africa and Kenya are briefly reviewed, and the colonial history of asymmetric social relations at coastal Kenya is traced. Finally, key debates over identity and history are examined within this context and shown to be exacerbated by diasporic …

Functional Neuroimaging Information: A Case For Neuro Exceptionalism, Stacey A. Tovino

Faculty Articles

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has built on a number of technologies, including electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography, positron emission tomography, and single-photon emission computed tomography, to become one of the decade's most powerful tools for mapping sensory, motor, and cognitive function. Scientists also are using fMRI to study the neural correlates of a range of conditions, characteristics, and social behaviors, including schizophrenia, addiction, racial evaluation, deception, cooperation, and sexual preferences. Now poised to move outside the research context, functional neuroimaging raises a number of confidentiality, privacy, and identity issues. In this Article, I examine whether special, or heightened, confidentiality, privacy, and informed …

Federal Rules Update: How Rules Are Made: A Brief Review, David A. Schlueter

Faculty Articles

In June 2007, the Standing Committee on the Federal Rules of Procedure and Evidence authorized publication for comment on a number amendments to the rules of criminal procedure. The amendment to Criminal Rule 7 would delete subdivision (c)(2) because it is covered in Rule 32.2(a). The change to Criminal Rule 32 would provide that the presentence report should state whether the government is seeking forfeiture of property. Amendments to Criminal Rule 32.2. would change a number of procedures related to criminal forfeiture. Criminal Rule 41 would create a two-step process for seizing and reviewing electronic storage media. Amendments to the …

Reinforcing Refugee Protection In The Wake Of The War On Terror, Edwin Odhiambo Abuya

Faculty Articles

This article examines how the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) can be used as a practical tool to enhance the protection of persons who have fled their home States in search of asylum in the wake of the global "war on terror." It compares and contrasts provisions of CAT to similar provisions contained in international refugee law. This article contends that, in some respects, the protection provisions of CAT are wider than those found in international refugee law, and, in other respects, narrower than those found in international refugee law. It concludes …