Digital Commons Network^™

Moonlighting: The Private Employment Of Off-Duty Officers, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

Every day, law enforcement officers across the country don their uniforms, strap on their gun belts, and head to work. They carry the equipment and weapons that they have been issued, and they bear the badges that symbolize their authority, but they are not all reporting to the government agency that employs them. Instead, many are “moonlighting.” From directing traffic at a busy church parking lot to making arrests at a packed nightclub to using deadly force, uniformed off-duty officers exercise the full panoply of police powers while working for private employers.

The private employment of off-duty officers blurs the …

Separating Amicus Wheat From Chaff, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl, Adam Feldman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Police Misconduct, Video Recording, And Procedural Barriers To Rights Enforcement, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

The story of police reform and of "policing the police" has become the story of video and video evidence, and "record everything to know the truth" has become the singular mantra. Video, both police-created and citizen-created, has become the singular tool for ensuring police accountability, reforming law enforcement, and enforcing the rights of victims of police misconduct. This Article explores procedural problems surrounding the use of video recording and video evidence to counter police misconduct, hold individual officers and governments accountable, and reform departmental policies, regulations, and practices. It considers four issues: 1) the mistaken belief that video can "speak …

The Right To Remain In Safety: The Impact Of Community Leadership On Philadelphia's Ice Holds Policy, Caitlin A. Barry

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Court Fines And Fees: Criminalizing Poverty In North Carolina, Heather Hunt, Gene R. Nichol Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Economic Impact Of Changing Water Levels: A Regional Economic Analysis Of Lake Thurmond, Rob Carey, Lori A. Dickes, Elizabeth L. Crouch

Faculty Publications

This article examines the economic impact of declining lake levels on the local economy in six counties near the publically managed Thurmond Reservoir, located along the border of Georgia and South Carolina. A regression analysis of the relationship between lake level elevations and lake front real estate transactions is used in conjunction with an input-output model to estimate the median monthly economic impact of a one-foot increase in lake level in terms of employment, output, disposable income, and net local government revenue on the six counties bordering the lake. Thurmond Lake elevations have a statistically significant impact on regional economic …

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

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pay-For-Performance In Prison: Using Healthcare Economics To Improve Criminal Justice, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

For much of the last seventy-plus years, healthcare providers in the United States have been paid under the fee-for-service system, where providers are reimbursed for procedures performed, not outcomes obtained. Providers, insurers, and consumers are motivated by different individual and organizational incentives; costs and burdens of patient care are shifted from one part of the system to another. The result has been a system that combines exploding costs without concomitant increases in quality. Healthcare economists and policymakers have reacted by proposing a number of policies designed to reign in costs without sacrificing quality. One approach is to focus on the …

In Praise Of All Or Nothing Dichotomous Categories: Why Antitrust Law Should Reject The Quick Look, Alan J. Meese

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

“A False Idea Of Economy”: Costs, Counties, And The Origins Of The California Correctional System, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

Realignment in California comes at a time when the state’s prison system is expensive and overcrowded; the response has been to reevaluate and reconfigure the way counties use state prisons. Based on an original historical analysis of state archival records from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as a well as a review of secondary historical accounts of California’s prison system, I show that similar problems and policies were present at the state’s founding: issues of expense, overcrowding, and the county-state relationship help to explain the origins, size, and shape of the California prison system. California’s lack of money …

Salvaging "Safe Spaces": Toward Model Standards For Lgbtq Youth-Serving Professionals Encountering Law Enforcement, Brendan M. Conner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Assessing Probation Officers’ Knowledge Of Offenders With Intellectual Disabilities: A Pilot Study, Paige Dunlap

Faculty Publications

The prevalence of offenders with intellectual disabilities (ID) is increasing. Studies have shown that although most probation officers will have offenders with ID on their caseload, these officers have received minimal training to effectively interact with this population. Additionally, no studies have assessed probation officers' knowledge of people with ID. This study has two aims: to pilot test the Probation Officer Knowledge of Intellectual Disabilities Assessment, and to evaluate the instrument's reliability and validity. Test-retest, internal consistency, item-total correlation, Cronbach's alpha, item difficulty, and construct validity were assessed for the instrument. Descriptive statistics and reliability coefficients analysis were conducted. The …

Development Of Cloud-Based Uav Monitoring And Management System, Mason Itkin, Mihui Kim, Younghee Park

Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an emerging technology with the potential to revolutionize commercial industries and the public domain outside of the military. UAVs would be able to speed up rescue and recovery operations from natural disasters and can be used for autonomous delivery systems (e.g., Amazon Prime Air). An increase in the number of active UAV systems in dense urban areas is attributed to an influx of UAV hobbyists and commercial multi-UAV systems. As airspace for UAV flight becomes more limited, it is important to monitor and manage many UAV systems using modern collision avoidance techniques. In this paper, …

Secret Jurisdiction, Cassandra Burke Robertson, Irina D. Manta

Faculty Publications

So-called “confidentiality creep” after the events of 9/11 has given rise to travel restrictions that lack constitutionality and do nothing to improve airline security. The executive branch’s procedures for imposing such restrictions rely on several layers of secrecy: a secret standard for inclusion on the no-fly list, secret procedures for nominating individuals to the list, and secret evidence to support that decision. This combination results in an overall system we call “secret jurisdiction,” in which individuals wanting to challenge their inclusion on the list are unable to learn the specific evidence against them, the substantive standard for their inclusion on …

Tears In Heaven: Religiously And Culturally Sensitive Laws For Preventing The Next Pandemic, Eloisa Rodriguez-Dod, Aileen M. Marty, Elena Marty-Nelson

Faculty Publications

In February 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a “public health emergency of international concern” due to the increased clusters of microcephaly, Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and other neurological disorders in areas affected by the Zika virus. That declaration came in the wake of the West Africa Ebola crisis. Back to back declarations by WHO of the highest threat level for an international public health emergency underscores how quickly pathogens can now spread and cause devastation across borders. It also highlights the need to implement lessons learned from each pandemic crisis without delay. These crises demonstrate that laws to curtail the …

Imprisonment Inertia And Public Attitudes Toward "Truth In Sentencing", Michael M. O'Hear, Darren Wheelock

Faculty Publications

In the space of a few short years in the 1990s, forty-two states adopted truth in sentencing (“TIS”) laws, which eliminated or greatly curtailed opportunities for criminal defendants to obtain parole release from prison. In the following decade, the pendulum seemingly swung in the opposite direction, with thirty-six states adopting new early release opportunities for prisoners. However, few of these initiatives had much impact, and prison populations continued to rise. The TIS ideal remained strong. In the hope of developing a better understanding of these trends and of the prospects for more robust early release reforms in the future, the …

Justice Reinvestment And The State Of State Sentencing Reform, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

The national Justice Reinvestment Initiative has arguably been the most important development in American sentencing policy in the past decade. This essay introduces an issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter that focuses on the JRI. The essay highlights both strengths and weaknesses of the JRI, particularly from the standpoint of reducing mass incarceration in the United States.

Public Attitudes Toward Punishment, Rehabilitation, And Reform: Lessons From The Marquette Law School Poll, Michael M. O'Hear, Darren Wheelock

Faculty Publications

Since the late 1990s, many opinion surveys have suggested that the American public may be growing somewhat less punitive and more open to reforms that emphasize rehabilitation over incarceration. In order to assess current attitudes toward punishment, rehabilitation, and the criminal justice system, we collected survey data of 804 registered voters in Wisconsin. Among other notable results, we found strong support for rehabilitation and for the early release of prisoners who no longer pose a threat to public safety. However, we also found significant divisions in public opinion. For instance, while black and white respondents largely shared the same priorities …

U.S. Media Law Update, Lyrissa Lidsky, Racheal Jones

Faculty Publications

In June 2015 the United States Supreme Court completed what was hailed as its most ‘liberal term of the ages’, issuing major decisions on controversial issues, such as same-sex marriage, affirmative action and the Affordable Care Act. The Court’s free press jurisprudence, however, remained largely unchanged after its last term. The Court did not decide any significant press cases. Instead, the Court sidestepped the opportunity to resolve important questions about the constitutional limits on the prosecution of threats made via social media in one notable case, and set a new, more speech-protective standard for determining when a law is content-based …

Land Shark At The Door? Why And How States Should Regulate Landmen, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Introduction: What We Know And Need To Know About The State Of 'Access To Justice' Research, Elizabeth Chambliss, Renee N. Knake, Robert L. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Ongoing, systematic research on civil legal needs and services is an essential component of improving the quality and availability of such services. Collaboration among researchers, legal services providers, and regulators will only become more important as innovations in the delivery of legal services progress. This volume brings together sixteen white papers by subject matter experts who assess "what we know and need to know" about various aspects of civil legal services delivery. The product of a partnership between the South Carolina Law Review and the ABA Commission on the Future of Legal Services, the collection is intended to serve as …

Principled Policing: Warrior Cops And Guardian Officers, Seth W. Stoughton

Faculty Publications

Policing in the United States is in crisis. Public confidence in policing is at the lowest point since the Rodney King beating. A bare majority of Americans still report confidence in the police, and an unprecedented number of people report no or very little confidence in policing. A long history of poor police/community relations in minority and low-income neighborhoods has been exacerbated by egregious acts of misconduct, some of which have been captured on video and shared on social media. Activists, politicians, and police officials themselves have called for better education and equipment, from de-escalation training to body-worn camera systems. …

The Irrelevance Of Nanotechnology Patents, Emily M. Morris

Faculty Publications

Although scientists have for decades now had the ability to manipulate matter at the atomic level, we have yet to see the nanotechnological revolution that these scientists predicted would follow. Despite the years of effort and billions of dollars that have been invested into research and development thus far, nanotechnology has yielded surprisingly few end-user applications. A number of commentators have blamed this lack of progress on the Bayh-Dole Act and other changes to patent law, arguing that, although these laws are supposed to stimulate technological development, they have in fact had the exact opposite effect when it comes to …

Stolen Profits: Civil Shoplifting Demands And The Misuse Of Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-21,194, Chris Schmidt, Ryan Sullivan, Daniel Gutman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Collective Corporate Knowledge, The Federal False Claims Act, And The Future Of Federal Health Programs, Sam F. Halabi

Faculty Publications

While recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have drawn focus to whether what corporations “say” is protected by the First Amendment or what they “believe” is protected by the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the more relevant inquiry for a wide range of statutory and regulatory regimes is what corporations “know.” At the core of that question is what guides information relevant for legal compliance (including product safety, employee welfare, and material risks considered by investors) from its source to any given point in the firm, including decision-makers. This Article analyzes the federal False Claims Act as an underexploited resource in …

Editorial, Thomas J. Lampoltshammer, Michael Leitner, Noella Edelmann

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Addressing Rural Blight: Lessons From West Virginia And Wv Leap, Ann M. Eisenberg

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Body-Worn Cameras: Exploring The Unintentional Consequences Of Technological Advances And Ensuring A Role For Community Consultation, Kami N. Chavis

Faculty Publications

This Essay will discuss the role police body-worn cameras can play in ensuring police legitimacy by increasing transparency, deterring police and citizen misbehavior, increasing officer professionalism, providing valuable training tools, and improving evidentiary documentation when crimes occur. This Essay will also discuss the need to view body-worn cameras and similar technologies with a healthy bit of skepticism. While body-worn cameras can have a significant impact on police accountability and public safety, local officials must carefully consider camera implementation and draft clear guidelines to balance the concerns for accountability with the privacy concerns articulated below. Therefore, this Essay seeks to identify …

The Rule Of Law, John V. Orth

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Right To Remain Armed, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

The laws governing gun possession are changing rapidly. In the past two years, federal courts have wielded a revitalized Second Amendment to invalidate longstanding gun carrying restrictions in Chicago, the District of Columbia, and throughout California. Invoking similar Second Amendment themes, legislators across the country have steadily deregulated public gun carrying, preempting municipal gun control ordinances in cities like Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Cleveland.

These changes to substantive gun laws reverberate through the constitutional criminal procedure framework. By making it lawful for citizens to carry guns even in crowded urban areas, enhanced Second Amendment rights trigger Fourth Amendment protections that could …