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A Tale Of Prosecutorial Indiscretion: Ramsey Clark And The Selective Non-Prosecution Of Stokely Carmichael, Lonnie T. Brown

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During the height of the Vietnam War and one of the most volatile periods of the civil rights movement, then-Attorney General Ramsey Clark controversially resisted intense political pressure to prosecute Black Power originator and antiwar activist Stokely Carmichael. Taken in isolation, this decision may seem courageous and praiseworthy, but when considered against the backdrop of Clark’s contemporaneous prosecution of an all-white group of similarly situated anti-draft leaders (the so-called Boston Five), his exercise of prosecutorial discretion becomes suspect. Specifically, the Boston Five were prosecuted in 1968 for conspiracy to aid and abet draft evasion, a charge for which the evidence …

"You Crossed The Fog Line!" - Kansas, Pretext, And The Fourth Amendment, Melanie Wilson

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This article examines orders recently decided in the District of Kansas to show, circumstantially, that Kansas police are using "fog-line" traffic infractions as an excuse to stop out-of-state cars driven by people of Hispanic ethnicity and to investigate for drug trafficking. If a stop uncovers contraband, the defendant is charged with a crime, sometimes in federal court. At a subsequent hearing to evaluate a defendant’s motion to suppress the contraband, the officer testifies to his reason for the stop – “You crossed the fog line,” “drifted from your lane of travel,” or “failed to maintain a single lane.” The officer …

Resurrecting Autonomy: The Criminal Defendant's Right To Control The Case, Erica J. Hashimoto

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In Faretta v. California, the Supreme Court exalted the value of autonomy – the criminal defendant’s interest in presenting and controlling the defense. Over the course of the past thirty-five years, however, the Court’s enthusiasm has dissipated, and commentators have criticized courts that have given defendants any measure of control over their cases. As a result, lower courts increasingly have shifted control from defendants to their lawyers. In light of that retrenchment, this Article reevaluates the autonomy interest on its merits. This reexamination confirms that Faretta got it right, and the Supreme Court should revitalize the constitutional interest of criminal …

Once Upon A Time In Law: Myth, Metaphor, And Authority, Linda H. Edwards

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We have long accepted the role of narrative in fact statements and jury arguments, but in the inner sanctum of analyzing legal authority? Surely not. Yet cases, statutes, rules, and doctrines all have stories of their own. When we talk about legal authority, using our best formal logic, we are actually swimming in a sea of narrative, oblivious to the water around us. As the old Buddhist saying goes, "We don’t know who discovered the ocean, but it probably wasn’t a fish."

This article teases out several familiar archetypes hidden in discussions of cases and statutes. In the midst of …

John Paul Stevens And Equally Impartial Government, Diane Marie Amann

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This article is the second publication arising out of the author's ongoing research respecting Justice John Paul Stevens. It is one of several published by former law clerks and other legal experts in the UC Davis Law Review symposium edition, Volume 43, No. 3, February 2010, "The Honorable John Paul Stevens."

The article posits that Justice Stevens's embrace of race-conscious measures to ensure continued diversity stands in tension with his early rejections of affirmative action programs. The contrast suggests a linear movement toward a progressive interpretation of the Constitution’s equality guarantee; however, examination of Stevens's writings in biographical context reveal …

Against Civil Gideon (And For Pro Se Court Reform), Benjamin H. Barton

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This Article argues that the pursuit of a civil Gideon (a civil guarantee of counsel to match Gideon v. Wainright’s guarantee of appointed criminal counsel) is an error logistically and jurisprudentially and advocates an alternate route for ameliorating the execrable state of pro se litigation for the poor in this country: pro se court reform.

Gideon itself has largely proven a disappointment. Between overworked and underfunded lawyers and a loose standard for ineffective assistance of counsel the system has been degraded. As each player becomes anesthetized to cutting corners a system designed as a square becomes a circle.

There is …

When A Monopolist Deceives, Maurice Stucke

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This essay uses one context - a monopolist’s deceptive advertising or product disparagement - to illustrate how competition authorities and courts should evaluate a monopolist’s deception under the federal antitrust laws. Competition authorities should target a monopolist’s anticompetitive deception, which courts should treat as a prima facie violation of the Sherman Act without requiring a full-blown rule of reason analysis or an arbitrary, multi-factor standard.

Improbable Cause: A Case For Judging Police By A More Majestic Standard, Melanie Wilson

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This article presents findings from an empirical study of judicial orders in one Midwestern federal district court over a twenty-four month period. The study analyzes trial court decisions to determine whether, as scholars often contend, judges consistently side with the prosecution when a defendant claims that the police lied during the criminal investigation of her case. The study also looks at the frequency with which defendants make such arguments, the types of case in which defendants claim police lies, and the strength or weakness of the evidence in cases that do and do not persuade trial judges that the police …

Private Oppression: How Laws That Protect Privacy Can Lead To Oppression, Teri Dobbins Baxter

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This article explores the problems that can arise when laws protect the privacy of some individuals at the expense of others. These issues will be viewed through the lens of the controversial case of the children taken into state custody from the Yearning for Zion Ranch in Texas. Specifically, the article examines the allegations that led government authorities to intervene and remove the children from the Ranch and the difficulties that the government faces when such allegations are made against residents of isolated communities who have little interaction with the larger American society. The article will further demonstrate how privacy …

An Exclusionary Rule For Police Lies, Melanie Wilson

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Although the Supreme Court has often said that truth is an imperative to justice, we now know that police officers, the key investigative component in our criminal justice system, lie. How often do the police lie? No one knows for sure. But credible reports of police lies are common.

Because our legal system treats the police as if they were impartial fact gatherers, trained and motivated to gather facts both for and against guilt, rather than biased advocates attempting to disprove innocence, which is the reality, the criminal justice system lacks the appropriate structure to expose and effectively deal with …

Paying Women For Their Eggs For Use In Stem Cell Research, Pamela Foohey

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On June 11, 2009, the Empire State Stem Cell Board (“Board”), which administers the $600 million in New York State funds allotted to stem cell research, voted to allocate a portion of those funds to compensate women up to $10,000 for “donating” their eggs for use in stem cell research. The Board's decision makes New York the first state to affirmatively allow state funds to be used to compensate women for providing their eggs for use in stem cell research beyond mere reimbursement of associated medical and other expenses, and, similarly, distinguishes it from most international countries, which either prohibit …

What I Talk About When I Talk About Health Law, Elizabeth Weeks

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Invited contribution celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Beazley Institute for Health Law & Policy.

A Common Lawyer’S Perspective On The European Perspective On Punitive Damages, Michael Wells

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Punitive damages are generally available in common law jurisdictions, but are disfavored in civil law systems. This paper argues that the main reasons for the difference are historical and cultural. Roman law and the French Revolution heavily influenced the civil law. Civilians were taught that legal development comes from the top down. They learned to treat law as a system of general principles and to resist anomalies. They found it relatively easy to reject the intrusion of criminal themes into private law. The common law developed one case at a time, with no particular emphasis on systematic coherence. It was …

Empirical Desert And The Moral Economy Of Punishment, Zachary R. Calo

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This paper considers Paul Robinson's theory of empirical desert as an argument for moving beyond the debate between utilitarian and retributivist accounts of punishment. It is argued that empirical desert, in its attempt to replace philosophy with the insights of the social and biological sciences, fails to ground the foundational act of punishment in an adequate theoretical warrant. A particular problem confronting empirical desert is that while Robinson shifts the locus of punishment from theory to the intuitions of the relevant community, he does not adequately account for the dynamic process by which communities shape and structure their internal moral …

Ricci V. Destefano: A Masculinities Theory Analysis, Ann C. Mcginley

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This Article applies masculinity theory to explore the aspects Ricci v. Destefano and its political reverberations. Empirical evidence showed that virtually all written tests have a disparate impact on minorities, that a neighboring city had reached less discriminatory results using a different weighting system, and that other fire departments used assessment centers to judge firefighters' qualifications for promotions. While the black male and all female firefighters were made invisible by the case and the testimony, the fact that Ricci's and Vargas' testimony lionized a particularly traditional form of heterosexual masculinity was also invisible. While the command presence required of a …

Supreme Court Criminal Law Jurisprudence - October 2008 Term, Richard Klein

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No abstract provided.

The Weiner-Rogers Law Library: An Invaluable Legal Resource, Jeanne Price

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No abstract provided.

Race And The Doctrine Of Self Defense: The Role Of Race In Determining The Proper Use Of Force To Protect Oneself, Richard Klein

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No abstract provided.

Collateral Damage? Juvenile Snitches In America’S 'Wars' On Drugs, Crime And Gangs, Andrea L. Dennis

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The government’s use of children as informants in America’s 'wars' on drugs, crime, and gangs is little recognized and rarely discussed by scholars, policymakers, and the public. As with many governmental practices, only notorious instances make headlines, such as when a child is killed in retaliation for informing. Because public attention rarely is focused on the practice, it has not generated consistent documentation of, regulation of, or accountability for such use of child informants. As a starting point for discussion, this article illuminates the experiences of child informants, describing a facet of the snitching institution that generally operates under the …

Treated Differently In Life But Not In Death: The Execution Of The Intellectually Disabled After Atkins V. Virginia, Penny White

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No abstract provided.

Oral Argument And Impression Management: Harnessing The Power Of Nonverbal Persuasion For A Judicial Audience, Michael J. Higdon

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In essence, my article utilizes social science research on the topic of nonverbal communication in order to advance our understanding of what makes for effective oral advocacy. Currently, there are no articles that 1) give a comprehensive summary of the relevant social science research within the area of nonverbal persuasion and 2) apply that research specifically to the area of oral argument. My article attempts to fill both of these needs.

As you will see in the article, nonverbal communication goes well beyond simple hand gestures, but also encompasses how a person speaks, how a person dresses, a person's facial …

Neuroscience And Health Law: An Integrative Approach?, Stacey A. Tovino

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Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing scientific fields in terms of the numbers of scientists and the knowledge being gained. In recent years, both the scope of neuroscience and the methodologies employed by nueroscientists have broadly expanded, from biochemical and genetic analysis of individal nerve cells and their molecular constituents, to the recent neuroscientific achievement in the ability of neuroimaging technoloiges, including funtional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to image brain function. Clinicans and scientists use fMRI not only to map sensory, motor, and cognitive function, but also to study the neural correlates of a range of physical and mental …

Queer Lockdown: Coming To Terms With The Ongoing Criminalization Of Lgbtq Communities, Ann Cammett

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The criminal justice system exacts a toll on some Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) communities. The experience of living in poverty and the concomitant exposure to a variety of governmental systems puts all poor, but especially LGBTQ low-income people of color, at risk of incarceration. What typically goes unexamined are the myriad ways that LGBTQ people are drawn into and experience the carceral system because of sexual identities and expression. This negative effect surfaces at every conceivable level: the marginalization and subsequent criminalization of queer youth; anti-gay bias in the judicial system; the rerouting of domestic violence cases …

Supporting Attorney’S Personal Skills, Marjorie A. Silver

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No abstract provided.

When Reading Between The Lines Is Not Enough: Lessons From Media Coverage Of A Domestic Violence Homicide-Suicide, Elizabeth L. Macdowell

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In October 2008, Karthik Rajaram murdered his wife, mother-in-law, sons and, ultimately, himself, in a wealthy Los Angeles suburb. This Article analyzes media reports about the deaths to illustrate the resilience of patriarchy and significant gaps in research and scholarship about domestic violence, and suggests a strategic approach to building counter-narratives about violence against women.

The Article is composed of five parts. Part I is the Introduction. Part II draws on narrative theory and critical media scholarship to lay the groundwork for analysis, and to show why media coverage of homicide-suicide is implicated in the production of dominant ideology.

Part …

Race And Essentialism In Gloria Steinem, Frank Rudy Cooper

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In this article, Professor Frank Rudy Cooper reflects on Angela Harris's essay Race and Essentialism in Feminist Legal Theory.. Harris is one of the foremost law professors in the country. She has co-written or coedited several important critical race theory and feminist theory casebooks as well as a casebook for a first-year course. This particular essay is one of the most cited critical race theory pieces ever, having been referred to in at least 796 articles. Professor Cooper joins a group of distinguished peers, describing the power Harris' work has on them now and when they were developing scholars.

"Who's The Man?": Masculinities Studies, Terry Stops, And Police Training, Frank Rudy Cooper

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In this article, Professor Frank Rudy Cooper examines how masculinity contests specifically, and masculinities studies generally, affect policing. He reviews the hegemonic masculinities school of thought and identifies the following background principles of the hegemonic pattern of masculinities in the United States: (1) men's concern with the opinions of other men; (2) anxiety over whether one has proved one's manhood; (3) a competitiveness reflected in a need to dominate other men and a general aggressiveness; and (4) a denigration of contrast figures reflected in a repudiation of femininity and homosexuality as well as subordination of racial minorities. Then he identifies …

Toward Ethical Plea Bargaining, Erica J. Hashimoto

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Defendants in criminal cases are overwhelmingly more likely to plead guilty than to go to trial. Presumably, at least a part of the reason that most of them do so is that it is in their interest to plead guilty, i.e., they will receive a more favorable outcome if they plead guilty than if they go to trial. The extent to which pleas reflect fair or rational compromises in practice, however, depends upon a variety of factors, including the amount of information each of the parties has about the case. Some level of informational symmetry therefore is critical to the …

The Return Of Reasonableness: Saving The Fourth Amendment From The Supreme Court, Melanie Wilson

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The Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has been oft criticized. The criticism is not surprising or undeserved. After all, the express language of the Fourth Amendment requires that the government act reasonably whenever it intrudes on a person's privacy, liberty or dignity by conducting a search or seizure. But the Court's Fourth Amendment opinions have authorized conduct that looks anything but reasonable.

This Article contends that the unreasonableness of the Court's Fourth Amendment decisions is advanced by the Court's poor allocation of mixed issues - those asking someone to determine whether the historical facts in the case satisfy the constitutional …

Girls In The Juvenile Justice System, Paula Schaefer

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No abstract provided.