Digital Commons Network^™

Court-Appointment Compensation And Rural Access To Justice, Hannah Haksgaard

Faculty Publications

Hourly rates paid to court-appointed lawyers impact access to justice. Court appointed lawyers provide necessary counsel in civil and criminal cases, yet hourly rates in many jurisdictions are so low that many lawyers cannot afford to take court-appointed cases. This article argues that low hourly rates cause problems: namely, appointed lawyers will be insufficient in number, inaccessible to their clients, and sometimes even ineffective. These problems are heightened in rural America where they are compounded by geographical distance and the rural lawyer shortage. This article concludes by suggesting a number of policy solutions.

Punishing Pill Mill Doctors: Sentencing Disparities In The Opioid Epidemic, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Consider two pill mill doctors who flooded the streets with oxycodone and other dangerous opioids. The evidence against both doctors was overwhelming. They each sold millions of opioid pills. Both doctors charged addicted patients hundreds of dollars in cash for office visits that involved no physical examinations and no diagnostic tests. Instead, the doctors simply handed the patients opioids in exchange for cash. To maximize their income, both doctors conspired with street dealers to import fake patients — many of them homeless — so that the doctors could write even more prescriptions. Both doctors made millions of dollars profiting off …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

Evaluation Of An Immunomodulatory Probiotic Intervention For Veterans With Co-Occurring Mild Traumatic Brain Injury And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A Pilot Study, Lisa A. Brenner, Jeri E. Forster, Kelly A. Stearns-Yoder, Christopher E. Stamper, Andrew J. Hoisington, Diana P. Brostow, Merideth Mealer, Hal S. Wortzel, Teodor T. Postolache, Christopher A. Lowry

Faculty Publications

Background: US military Veterans returned from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation New Dawn (OEF/OIF/OND) with symptoms associated with mild traumatic brain injury [mTBI; i.e., persistent post-concussive (PPC) symptoms] and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Interventions aimed at addressing symptoms associated with both physical and psychological stressors (e.g., PPC and PTSD symptoms) are needed. This study was conducted to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and safety of a probiotic intervention, as well as to begin the process of evaluating potential biological outcomes.

The State Of Research In Veterans Studies: A Systematic Literature Review, Leonard Lira, Janani Chandrasekar

Faculty Publications

New areas of research on veterans are emerging as the field of veterans studies develops and grows. Yet gaps remain in interdisciplinary research efforts on veterans. The research available across disciplines is still too fragmented to coalesce into a full-fledged field of veteran studies, as other categorical, area, and identity fields of study have done so. By surveying research literature of multiple disciplines used in the curricula of higher education-level veteran study programs, this article presents a thematic and integrative review of the state of research contributing to the growing field of veterans studies. Discussion follows about research emerging from …

Measuring The Resilience Of Criminogenic Ecosystems To Global Disruption: A Case-Study Of Covid-19 In China, Hervé Borrion, Justin Kurland, Nick Tilley, Peng Chen

Faculty Publications

Copyright: © 2020 Borrion et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This paper uses resilience as a lens through which to analyse disasters and other major threats to patterns of criminal behaviour. A set of indicators and mathematical models are introduced that aim to quantitatively describe changes in crime levels in comparison to what could otherwise be expected, and what might be expected by way of adaptation and subsequent resumption of …

Expanding The Reach Of Progressive Prosecution, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Changing Role Of The American Prosecutor, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Preventing Wrongful Conviction Caused By Eyewitness (Mis)Identification: Establishing A Presumption Of Unreliability, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

Wrongful convictions are inherently antithetical to a key tenant of the system of criminal justice in the United States, which former Supreme Court Justice George Sutherland shrewdly articulated as to ensure that "guilt shall not escape or innocence suffer." Reaching even further into the foundations of the common law, the great legal commentator William Blackstone stated of wrongful convictions that "the law holds it better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent party suffer." This core principle of American justice was bolstered by the statements of two key Founding Fathers, John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Adams stated of …

Urban Crime Mapping And Analysis Using Gis, Alina Ristea, Michael Leitner

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Consent, Rape And The Criminal Law, Michelle Oberman, Katharine K. Baker

Faculty Publications

he story of US criminal rape law reform tends to be told as one of remarkable feminist success (between 1970–1990, feminist-led coalitions changed state laws so that rape ceased to be a crime requiring force and resistance and became instead a crime that only required sex without consent) followed by widespread stagnation. Despite comprehensive changes in the law, reporting rates, prosecution rates and conviction rates for rape increased only slightly. This essay resists that binary account of success and failure by offering a more nuanced assessment. First, it explores the full range of factors hindering the reporting, prosecution and conviction …

Theories Of Prosecution, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

For decades, legal commentators sounded the alarm about the tremendous power wielded by prosecutors. Scholars went so far as to identify uncurbed prosecutorial discretion as the primary source of the criminal justice system’s many flaws. Over the past two years, however, the conversation shifted. With the emergence of a new wave of “progressive prosecutors,” scholars increasingly hail broad prosecutorial discretion as a promising mechanism for criminal justice reform.

The abrupt shift from decrying to embracing prosecutorial power highlights a curious void at the center of criminal justice thought. There is no widely accepted normative theory of the prosecutorial role. As …

When Is Police Interrogation Really Police Interrogation? A Look At The Application Of The Miranda Mandate, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

It seemed so clear a half-century ago. After years of frustration reviewing the voluntariness of confessions on a case-by-case basis, a Supreme Court majority in Miranda v. Arizona held that incriminating statements resulting from interrogation while in custody would not be admissible at trial to prove guilt unless warnings were given to advise a suspect of rights of silence and an attorney. It is disappointing to report that if anything has been established over the past 50 years, it is that this mandate isn't clear at all. It turns out that police officers do not necessarily give exactly the warnings …

Toolkit Or Tinderbox? When Legal Systems Interface Conflict, Christie S. Warren

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Relationships And Retaliation In The #Metoo Era, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Faculty Publications

In this #MeToo era, so much important work is being done (and so many stories are being told and listened to), but very little of the work focuses on retaliation. And none of the work focuses on situations where the fear of retaliation is not necessarily job loss (although that certainly happens) but rather, it is the fear of harming workplace relationships. This Article will use a real-life story of harassment to demonstrate how much workplace relationships matter-especially to women-and how the fear of harming those relationships often affects an employee's willingness to report harassment. Thus, this Article argues for …

Who Feels Entitled To Assert Legal Rights?, Elizabeth S. Chambliss

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Critical Consciousness In Children And Adolescents: A Systematic Review,Critical Assessment, And Recommendations For Future Research, Amy E. Heberle, Luke J. Rapa, Flora Farago

Faculty Publications

Critical consciousness refers to an individual’s awareness of oppressive systemic forces in society, a sense of efficacy to work against oppression, and engagement in individual or collective action against oppression. In the past few decades, interest in critical consciousness as a resource that may promote thriving in marginalized people has grown tremendously. This article critically examines the results of a systematic review of 67 studies of critical consciousness in children and adolescents, published between 1998 and 2019. Across these studies, major themes included the role of socialization experiences, relationships, and context in the development of critical consciousness. In addition, critical …

Association Of Multisetting Community Programs And Policies With Child Body Mass Index: The Healthy Communities Study, Vicki L. Collie-Akers, Stephen B. Fawcett, Jerry A. Schultz, Kandace K. Fleming, Rebecca E. Swinburne Romine, Lorrene D. Ritchie, Edward A. Frongillo Jr., S Sonia Arteaga

Faculty Publications

INTRODUCTION:

Expert opinion suggests that efforts to address childhood obesity should seek to transform the environments in which children operate. The objective of this study was to describe the extent to which multisetting programs and policies interact with community and child predictors and are associated with child body mass index (BMI) in the 130 US communities participating in the Healthy Communities Study.

METHODS:

For 2 years beginning in fall 2013, we collected data through key informant interviews on community programs and policies related to healthy weight among children that occurred in the 10 years before the interview. We characterized community …

Apology And Restitution: The Psychophysiology Of Forgiveness After Accountable Relational Repair Responses, Charlotte Vanoyen-Witvliet, Lindsey M. Root Luna, Everett L. Worthington Jr., Jo-Ann Tsang

Faculty Publications

Apology and restitution each represents wrongdoers’ accountable repair responses that have promoted victims’ self-reported empathy and forgiveness in crime scenario research. The current study measured emotional and stress-related dependent variables including physiological measures, to illuminate the links between predictors of forgiveness and health-relevant side effects. Specifically, we tested the independent and interactive effects of apology and restitution on forgiveness, emotion self-reports, and facial responses, as well as cardiac measures associated with stress in 32 males and 29 females. Apology and restitution each independently increased empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, and positive emotions, while reducing unforgiveness, negative emotion, and muscle activity above the …

The Impact Of "Strike Hard" On Repeat And Near-Repeat Residential Burglary In Beijing, Peng Chen, Justin Kurland

Faculty Publications

“Strike Hard” is an enhanced law-enforcement strategy in China that aims to suppress crime, but measurement of the crime-reducing effect and potential changes in the spatiotemporal concentration of crime associated with “Strike Hard” remain unknown. This paper seeks to examine the impact, if any, of “Strike Hard” on the spatiotemporal clustering of burglary incidents. Two and half years of residential burglary incidents from Chaoyang, Beijing are used to examine repeat and near-repeat burglary incidents before, during, and after the “Strike Hard” intervention and a new technique that enables the comparison of repeat and near repeat patterns across different temporal periods …

The Inclusion Of The Term ‘Color’ In Any Racial Label Is Racist, Is It Not?, Anita Kalunta-Crumpton

Faculty Publications

Through an examination of the term people of color, this conceptual paper illustrates how the use of historical racial labels in the US, supposedly aimed at denouncing racism, seems to reproduce that which the labels purport to condemn. With a primary focus on Blacks or African-Americans, this paper draws purely on a review and analysis of secondary information to argue that any antiracist agenda that utilizes terms that were associated with historical racism may well be reproducing the racist ideologies that justified slavery and Jim Crow laws. This paper calls for the elimination of the term people of color and …

The Washington State Second Chance Expungement Gap, Colleen Chien, Zuyan Huang, Jacob Kuykendall, Katie Rabago

Faculty Publications

Every time a person is convicted of a crime, this event is memorialized in the person’s criminal record in perpetuity, setting off thousands of potential collateral consequences, including being penalized in searches for employment, housing and volunteer opportunities. To remove these harmful consequences, Washington law allows people whose criminal records meet certain conditions to vacate their records. However, the Second Chance Gap in Washington “expungements” - the share of people who aren’t accessing the vacation remedy because of hurdles in the petition process - we suspect is large. To estimate it, we used research and practice expertise to approximately model …

Why The Dea & Not The Fda? Revisiting The Regulation Of Potentially Addictive Substances, Taleed El-Sabawi

Faculty Publications

In addressing the opioid overdose crisis, Congress has explicitly questioned its historic reliance on a criminal justice approach to problem drug use and has instead adopted a more health-oriented approach. Despite Congress' rhetoric, the DEA, a criminal justice agency, continues to retain the power to make key decisions on the classification of potentially-addictive substances, thereby affecting their manufacture, distribution, and overall availability. While the DEA is statutorily required to defer to the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”), a public health agency, at junctions of the decision-making process, the current “split enforcement” scheme laid out in the statutes has not actualized …

Managing The Risk Of Violent Recidivism: Lessons From Legal Responses To Sexual Offenses, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

Over the course of a generation, American legislatures have quietly adopted an intricate web of measures intended to reduce the risk that individuals who have been convicted of violent crimes will commit new violent crimes. These measures include, for instance, sentencing and corrections laws that categorically target “violent offenses” and “violent offenders” for harsher treatment, prohibitions on pretrial diversion opportunities, employment restrictions, and long-term offender registration requirements. Such measures parallel a generally similar, but more closely studied, set of laws that aim to reduce sexual recidivism.

This article provides an overview of the literature on sexual-recidivism measures, especially sexual offender …

Early Release For Prisoners Convicted Of Violent Crimes: Can Anyone Escape The Incapacitation-Retribution Catch-22?, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

Two decades of criminal-justice reform in the United States have achieved only a modest reduction in the nation’s historically high imprisonment rate. Returning to the much lower imprisonment rate of a generation ago will almost certainly require shorter prison terms for individuals who have been convicted of violent crimes. Such a change, however, would draw at least two important objections: (1) people who have been convicted of violent crimes are an especially dangerous offender group who ought to be incapacitated behind bars for as long as possible, and (2) violent crimes are so serious that long prison terms are required …

Why States Must Consider Innocence Claims After Guilty Pleas, Colin Miller

Faculty Publications

The first DNA exoneree in this country was a man with a sub-70 IQ who pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, and a total of 139 out of 315 (44.1%) DNA and non-DNA exonerees in 2015 and 2016 had been convicted after guilty pleas. Nonetheless, a number of states have pleading defendant prohibitions in their postconviction statutes that preclude defendants who pleaded guilty from (1) seeking DNA testing; and/or (2) presenting freestanding claims of actual innocence based on non-DNA evidence. Existing Constitutional challenges to these statutes have been largely foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s opinion in District Attorney’s Office …

Our Federalism On Drugs, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

Over the past decade, voters and legislatures have moved to legalize the possession of marijuana under state law. Some have limited these reforms to the medicinal use of marijuana, while others have not. Despite these reforms marijuana remains illegal under federal law. Although the Justice Department has not sought to preempt or displace state-level reforms, the federal prohibition casts a long shadow across state-level legalization efforts. This federal-state conflict presents multiple important and challenging policy questions that often get overlooked in policy debates over whether to legalize marijuana for medical or recreational purposes. Yet in a “compound republic” like the …

Into The Weeds: Modern Discrimination Law, Sandra F. Sperino

Faculty Publications

Modern discrimination law is the law of minutiae. Judicial energy is not primarily focused on large questions about why workplace inequality exists or how to prevent it. It is not even focused on whether the plaintiff in a particular case was treated differently because of a protected trait. Instead, judicial energy centers on interpreting and applying an ever-growing phalanx of complicated court-created ancillary doctrines.

Since the 1970s, the federal courts have created a number of frameworks to analyze discrimination claims. Each framework provides a roadmap for proving a certain theory of discrimination. Over time, the courts have added bells and …

Lessons From Disaster: Assessing The Covid19 Response In Youth Jails & Prisons, Madalyn K. Wasilczuk

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Trial Of Breaker Morant, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.