Digital Commons Network^™

An Empirical Assessment Of Homicide And Suicide Outcomes With Red Flag Laws, Rachel Delafave

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Article empirically illustrates that red flag laws—laws which permit removal of firearms from a person who presents a risk to themselves or others—contribute to a statistically significant decrease in suicide rates, but do not influence homicide rates. I exploit state-level variation across time in the existence of red flag laws between 1990 and 2018 and find that the existence of a risk-based law reduces firearm-related suicides by 6.4% and overall suicides by 3.7%, with no substitution to non-firearm suicides. Red flag laws are not associated with a statistically significant change in homicides rates. Policymakers should consider red flag laws …

The Ball Is In Whose Court? Rhode Island’S Need For An Integrated Domestic Violence Court, Brendan Horan

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Deflowering Flowers V. Mississippi, Sonya Dickson

MC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Validation Of The Substance Abuse Scale Of The Personal And Relationships Profile, Kerry Lee, R Anna Hayward, Paul Sacco

Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Faculty Research and Scholarship

There have been limited measurement studies of the substance abuse scale of the Personal and Relationships Profile (PRP) and the impact of social desirability on alcohol and drug use reporting. This study aimed to (a) model the factor structure of the eight-item substance abuse scale of the PRP and (b) examine the relationship of substance use factors with sociodemographic variables—race, income, age, marital status—and social desirability on substance use reporting among a sample of low-income fathers. The study included secondary data analysis of 665 fathers, who participated in a fatherhood program between 2011 and 2015. The two-factor model with the …

An Exploratory Study Of The Prosecution Of Fatal Child Maltreatment: Criminal Charges Filed Against Presumed Perpetrators In The United States In 2017, Kerry Lee, Emily M. Douglas

Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research Faculty Research and Scholarship

In the United States child maltreatment fatalities (CMFs) do not usually meet the standard for manslaughter or murder, resulting in convictions of lesser crimes and little jail time. This exploratory study examined the charges brought against suspected CMF perpetrators in 2017. Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted using data obtained from the Nexis Uni newspaper database, that has over 40,000 high quality media sources, for the year 2017. We found that the most frequently used charges were endangering the welfare of a child and murder, the former of which was more related to neglect-deaths and the latter to physical abuse-deaths. …

The "Innocence" Of Bias, Osamudia James

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Nondelegation And Criminal Law, Carissa Byrne Hessick, F. Andrew Hessick

Faculty Publications

Although the Constitution confers the legislative power on Congress, Congress does not make most laws. Instead, Congress delegates the power to make laws to administrative agencies. The Supreme Court has adopted a permissive stance towards these delegations, placing essentially no limits on Congress’s ability to delegate lawmaking power to agencies.

In its recent decision, Gundy v. United States, the Court relied on this unrestrictive doctrine to uphold a statute delegating the power to write criminal laws. In doing so, the Court did not address whether greater restrictions should apply to delegations involving criminal law. Instead, it applied the same …

Jailhouse Immigration Screening, Eisha Jain

Faculty Publications

Within the past decade, U.S. interior immigration enforcement has shifted away from the street and into the jailhouse. The rationale behind jailhouse screening is to target enforcement efforts on those who fall within federal removal priorities. This Article shows how a program undertaken with the stated aim of targeting immigration enforcement has had precisely the opposite effect: it has massively expanded the reach of immigration enforcement and created extended carceral treatment within the criminal justice system based on suspected immigration status. This approach, in turn, leads to removals that lack adequate process, are inaccurate, or that reflect underlying racial biases …

Politics, Power, And Purpose: An Orientation To Political Science, Jay Steinmetz

All Open Educational Resources

This textbook provides an overview of the political science discipline and is suitable for introductory courses at the undergraduate level. In Part I, the book covers important themes for political science undergraduate majors, such as defining politics, ideologies, institutions of governance, concepts in democracy, and public law. Part II provides an overview of the major subdisciplines in political science: political theory, international relations, comparative politics, American politics, public policy and public administration, and methods. This textbook serves as an excellent resource in courses such as Introduction to Political Science or Orientation to Political Science

Énouement, Miko Yoshida

Mighty Pen Project Anthology & Archive

The first thing you did when you woke up was touch your weapon.

Articles, stories, and other compositions in this archive were written by participants in the Mighty Pen Project. The program, developed by author David L. Robbins, and in partnership with Virginia Commonwealth University and the Virginia War Memorial in Richmond, Virginia, offers veterans and their family members a customized twelve-week writing class, free of charge. The program encourages, supports, and assists participants in sharing their stories and experiences of military experience so both writer and audience may benefit.

Fulton V. City Of Philadelphia And Its Implications For First Amendment Jurisprudence And Lgbtq Civil Rights, Jonathan E. Kohut

Student Works

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Recent Mandamus Decisions Of The Texas Supreme Court, Honorable Douglas S. Lang

SMU Annual Texas Survey

This article is a survey of the relevant developments in Texas’s mandamus jurisprudence from December 1, 2019, through November 30, 2020. The article focuses on law likely to be influential to Texas practitioners.

"Defund The (School) Police"?: Bringing Data To Key School-To-Prison Pipeline Claims, Michael Heise, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

Nationwide calls to “Defund the Police,” largely attributable to the resurgent Black Lives Matter demonstrations, have motivated derivative calls for public school districts to consider “defunding” (or modifying) school resource officer (“SRO/police”) programs. To be sure, a school’s SRO/police presence—and the size of that presence—may influence the school’s student discipline reporting policies and practices. How schools report student discipline and whether it involves referrals to law enforcement agencies matter, particularly as they may fuel a growing “school-to-prison pipeline.” The school-to-prison pipeline research literature features two general claims that frame debates about changes in how public schools approach student discipline and …

To Report Or Not To Report: Data On School Law Enforcement, Student Discipline, Race, And The 'School-To-Prison Pipeline', Michael Heise, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

The “school-to-prison pipeline” wreaks havoc on the lives of thousands of students each year, particularly with respect to students of color. While the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the school-to-prison pipeline remain unclear, the eventual return to full in-person teaching nationwide undoubtedly will renew this long-festering problem. The presence of law enforcement officers in schools is a key component of the school-to-prison pipeline and has generated considerable recent national attention, especially after George Floyd’s tragic death in the spring of 2020. Indeed, several robust empirical studies document that the increased presence of school resource (and/or police) officers in a …

Black Lives Matter In Criminology? Let's Prove It, Katheryn Russell-Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

This essay examines the the academic journey—graduate school to full professor—of an African American professor of criminology and criminal justice. The essay discusses the how criminology and criminologists address race issues and offers a wish list of strategies designed to address problematic practices and racial pitfalls within criminology programs.

On The Broadness Of The Fourth Amendment, Janine Kim

SMU Law Review

This Article considers the role of property rights in defining Fourth Amendment searches. Since United States v. Jones in 2012, the Supreme Court has relied on both privacy and property to determine whether a Fourth Amendment search has occurred. But recently, many of the Justices have expressed increasing skepticism about not only the effectiveness but also the appropriateness of safeguarding privacy. The 2018 case of Carpenter v. United States, which ruled that an individual’s cell site location information is protected under the Fourth Amendment, saw all four dissenters urging a larger role for property rights in the analysis of a …

Roy Ryden Anderson: A Tribute To An Smu Legend, C. Paul Rogers Iii

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

SMU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Racial Architecture Of Criminal Justice, Bennett Capers

SMU Law Review

One of the pleasures of contributing to symposia—especially symposia where each contribution is brief—is the ability to engage in new explorations, test new ideas, and offer new provocations. I do that now in this essay about race, architecture, and criminal justice. I begin by discussing how race is imbricated in the architecture of courthouses, the quintessential place of supposed justice. I then take race and architecture a step further. If we think of architecture expansively—Lawrence Lessig’s definition of architecture as “the physical world as we find it” comes to mind—then it becomes clear that race is also imbricated in the …

Beyond Transparency: Police Union Collective Bargaining And Participatory Democracy, Walter Katz

SMU Law Review

Police unions rose in power partially in response to the civil unrest in urban neighborhoods in the 1960s. As unions gained political power, critics argue that they have frequently stood as obstacles to accountability-related reforms. One vehicle of the exercise of such power is through

collective bargaining agreements negotiated between unions and public bodies representing cities and counties. Contracts that civilian policymakers negotiate with police unions shield officers from accountability for misconduct and excessive force. Through a lack of political will, expediency, and a lack of public transparency during negotiations, civilian leaders agree to contracts that, for example, erect obstacles …

Reforming State Bail Reform, Shima Baughman, Lauren Boone, Nathan Jackson

SMU Law Review

We are waist-deep in the third wave of bail reform. Scholars, policy makers, and the public have realized that the short period of detention before trial creates ripple effects on a defendant’s judicial fate and has lasting impacts on our system of mass incarceration. Over 200 proposed bail bills are pending throughout the states. This is not the first period of bail reform in America—two previous waves of bail reform in the 1960s and 1980s have both ended in increased pretrial detention for defendants. Some of the recent efforts in the third wave of bail reform have also increased detention …

Test-Retest Reliabilities Of Four Tactic-First Sexual Violence History Questionnaires, Raeann E. Anderson, Monica A. Garcia, Douglas L. Delahanty

Psychology Faculty Publications

Objective: The present study documented, compared, and contrasted the test-retest reliabilities of the victimization and perpetration forms of a Tactic-first Sexual Experiences Survey (T-SESs) and the PostRefusal Sexual Persistence Scale (PRSPSs).

Methods: 243 Mechanical Turk workers (116 women, 124 men) completed four questionnaires in a randomized order via an anonymous web survey at Time 1 and approximately one week later at Time 2.

Results: There were consistent gender differences in test-retest estimates. When assessing a history of victimization in women, both the T-SES and the PRSPS demonstrated evidence of minimal to good reliability (κ > .61, ICC = …

Victims’ Rights In The Diversion Landscape, Kay L. Levine

SMU Law Review

In this Article, I explore the practical and theoretical conflicts that might surface when the diversion movement and the Victims’ Rights Movement intersect. I focus on two possible sites of tension: victim input into the diversion offer and the victim’s right to receive restitution as a term of diversion. Protocols to give victims greater voice in the justice process have been a mainstay of the burgeoning Victims’ Rights Movement for the past several decades, but I argue that those protocols must be understood within (and thus limited by) the contexts of fiscal responsibility, compassion for the offender, and proportionality in …

Let’S Move Criminal Justice Reforms Upstream: A Perspective From The Bench, Bridget Mccormack

SMU Law Review

“[S]ometimes it feels like this. There I am standing by the shore of a swiftly flowing river and I hear the cry of a drowning man. So I jump into the river, put my arms around him, pull him to shore and apply artificial respiration. Just when he begins to breathe, there is another cry for help. So I jump into the river, reach him, pull him to shore, apply artificial respiration, and then just as he begins to breathe, another cry for help. So back in the river again, reaching, pulling, applying, breathing and then another yell. Again and …

Perceptions Of Help-Seeking Experiences Among Female Veteran Survivors Of Military Sexual Assault, Hiza Jackson-Price

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractThe numerous obstacles that female military sexual assault (MSA) survivors face after discharge from military service are well documented in research. However, there is a need for qualitative studies regarding perceptions of female veterans’ help-seeking experiences in disclosing MSA to understand how to encourage them to seek help and provide it for them when they do seek help. Based on this scarcity of knowledge, this study aimed to provide a voice to this population as well as provide results that can be used to aid this population. A social constructionist perspective, which postulates that knowledge and experience are constructed by …

Design Justice In Municipal Criminal Regulation, Amber Baylor

New Mexico Law Review

This article explores design justice as a framework for deeper inclusion in municipal criminal court reform. Section I provides a brief summary of a typical litigant’s path through modern municipal courts. Then, section I explores the historic role of municipal courts, the insider/outsider dichotomy of municipal criminal regulation, and the limitations of past reform efforts. Section II shifts into an overview of participatory design and discusses the new emergence of design justice. Within the discussion of design justice, the article focuses on three precepts of design justice: excavating the history and impact of the courts, creating tools for participation, and …

Race & Policing In America Symposium Transcript

St. Thomas Law Review

The symposium was moderated by Professor andré douglas pond cummings of University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

The Nil Game Plan: How The Florida Legislature Can Become Student-Athletes' "Ambassador Of Quan", Alexa Rae Martinez

St. Thomas Law Review

The movie Jerry Maguire follows a successful sports agent who questions the morals of his work, which leads to him being stripped of his contribution at his firm and being left with one client. Throughout the movie, Maguire struggles to build his clientele while pursuing the best interests of his only client, Rod Tidwell. Somewhere along the way, Tidwell uses the word “Quan” and leaves Maguire perplexed; “Quan? That’s your word?” Tidwell replies: “Yeah, that’s my word. You know some dudes might have the coin. But they’ll never have the Quan.” “Wha…what is that?” Maguire asks, still clearly confused. Tidwell …

Public Health Policing And The Case Against Vaccine Mandates, Dr. Tryon Woods

St. Thomas Law Review

There can be no simple reading of a text, be it literary, philosophical or scientific, nor of the social text in the most general sense. Rather, the question must turn upon itself, no less than its putative object, as a matter of interpretation and, more important, as a matter of the forces at work in the interpretative activity under way. There is always the ascription of voice to what is otherwise silent, the attribution of a face or the placement of a mask. Le germe n’est rien, c’est le terrain qui est tout. The microbe is nothing, the soil is …

An Opportunity To Study The Impact Of Legal Structures On Public Health: A Review Of Michigan State Juvenile Law On Status Offenders, Lakai Legg

Public Health Theses

Background/Introduction: There is a scarcity of studies in public health that investigate and address structural and political level factors, such as juvenile justice-related legislation and their implementation, and how they contribute to poor health outcomes and health inequities (i.e. by race/ethnicity and gender) in children and adolescents. By reviewing and analyzing the social and political context of juvenile justice and status offenses in the U.S. and Michigan and Michigan state legislation on status offenses, this narrative review aims to identify characteristics of status offense law that may contribute to the inequitable institutionalization of youth and perpetuate public health harms and …