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The Pacific Sentinel, June 2023, Portland State University. Student Publications Board

The Pacific Sentinel

Editor: Dan Chilton

Articles in this issue include:

• Letter From the Editor
• Android Flowers of the Future
• Gary Numan Tours North America
• Emily King, the Queen of Hearts
• Who Protects Us?
• The Landing to Close Its Doors
• The First (& Forgotten) 'R'
• Celebrate the Legacy, Ignore the History
• Donuts & Dao's
• About Town
• What We're Enjoying

Impeachment Vs. Indictment: How To Handle Criminality In The Executive Branch, Tiffany R. Murphy

Denver Law Review

Whether a sitting president can be prosecuted while in office has been a debated question with no clear answer. During Watergate and the Whitewater investigations, special and independent counsels struggled to decide whether to indict a sitting president. On one side, the Department of Justice (DOJ) guidelines prohibited indictment, on the other, prosecutors were concerned with potential harm to the rule of law if there was no indictment. In most circumstances, a president who engaged in criminal activities should face impeachment, as the Constitution mandates, rather than be subject to criminal proceedings while in office. The only exception is if …

Standing Back And Standing Down: Citizen Non-Cooperation And Police Non-Intervention As Causes Of Justice Failures And Crime, Paul H. Robinson, Jeffrey Seaman, Muhammad Sarahne

Hofstra Law Review

The article discusses the failures of the American justice system to find and punish offenders for the majority of serious crimes. It highlight the low clearance and conviction rates for crimes such as murder, rape, and assault. It further argues that these failures of justice have practical consequences on crime rates and also disproportionately affect racial minorities and low-income communities.

Table Of Contents

Missouri Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Invisible Danger In Plain Site: Ending The Practice Of Building Housing In Exposure Zones, Adam J. Mikell

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Phantom Shootings, Allan Ambris

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone is a website designed to critique NYC Open Data reporting with respect to shootings through a series of visualizations and discoveries. The NYPD Shooting Incidents datasets (Historic and Year to Date) introduce themselves to the user by claiming to be a “list of every shooting incident that occurred in NYC.” The supplied documentation reveals that this is not the case.

After understanding the supporting materials, there are still undisclosed truths. My exploration of the data revealed that a single victim may be represented across multiple entries. Additionally, multiple victims may be represented by a single entry. It is …

The Fourth Amendment Without Police, Shawn E. Fields

University of Chicago Law Review

What role will the Fourth Amendment play in a world without police? As academics, activists, and lawmakers explore alternatives to traditional law enforcement, it bears asking whether the amendment primarily tasked with regulating police investigations would also regulate postpolice public safety agencies. Surprisingly, the answer is often no. Courts are reluctant to recognize protections from government searches or seizures outside criminal investigations, and they are even more reluctant to require probable cause or a warrant for such conduct. Thus, by removing most public safety functions outside the criminal sphere, abolitionists also move intrusive government conduct outside these traditional strictures and …

Black And Blue Police Arbitration Reforms, Michael Z. Green

Faculty Scholarship

The racial justice protests that engulfed the country after seeing a video of the appalling killing of a Black male, George Floyd, by a Minnesota police officer in 2020 has led to a tremendous number of questions about dealing with racial issues in policing. Similar concerns arose a little more than fifty years ago when police unions gained power to respond to the civil rights protests occurring during those times by establishing strong protections for their officers in light of brutality claims. This rhythmic progression of protests and union responses is destined to continue without any lasting reforms focused on …

Risky Routes: Modified Personal Vehicles, Public Safety, And Postal Services Under The Federal Tort Claims Act, Mary J. Smith

Missouri Law Review

Who says the holiday spirit ever goes out of season? It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas year-round on many doorsteps as packages from online retailers pile up, and postal carriers share an element of Santa’s stress: timely delivery. In 2021, the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) delivered roughly 128.9 billion pieces of mail across 233,171 mail routes. Demand for e-goods is at an all-time high, and the pressure to manage the demand might lead to a prioritization of success over safety. Unlike their urban counterparts, rural USPS offices are often unequipped to handle high volumes of delivery …

Threat Assessment Team Cohesion, Joel Elson, Erin M. Kearns

Reports, Projects, and Research

NCITE researchers conducted focus groups with threat assessment teams to explore strengths and weaknesses in current tips reporting and identify potential areas for improvement. Focus groups were conducted in Sarpy County, Nebraska, across the state of Nebraska, and elsewhere in the country including Alabama, Connecticut, Oklahoma, and Oregon.

The Grand Entrance: A Faculty And Staff Housing Development, Emily M. Ladue, Susana T. Toner

City and Regional Planning

The team chose this project because it is one of many upcoming projects detailed for California Polytechnic State University (University) in the 2035 Master plan. The University has a capacity of over 21,000 students and 3,000 employees, including 1,400 faculty. Many students and faculty from the University live within city limits, with students making up a majority of the rental market in the city. In a typical four-bedroom house, four students with four separate incomes can rent out a house together and pay a much higher rent than a faculty member with one to two incomes could. Additionally, The City …

Racializing Algorithms, Jessica M. Eaglin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

There is widespread recognition that algorithms in criminal law’s administration can impose negative racial and social effects. Scholars tend to offer two ways to address this concern through law—tinkering around the tools or abolishing the tools through law and policy. This Article contends that these paradigmatic interventions, though they may center racial disparities, legitimate the way race functions to structure society through the intersection of technology and law. In adopting a theoretical lens centered on racism and the law, it reveals deeply embedded social assumptions about race that propel algorithms as criminal legal reform in response to mass incarceration. It …

Together With Tosha Newsletter, June 2023, Tennessee. Department Of Labor & Workforce Development.

TOSHA Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Proportionality V. Categorization: The Issue Of Judicial Balancing Of Rights, Akram Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

The fact that there is a constant conflict between individual rights and state or social interests has historically provoked the question of how to balance or harmonize such conflicting interests? On what basis shall the legislator or the judge decide in favor of this or that right in his legislation or judgement? Where shall we, for example, draw the line between the right to freedom of expression and the right to protect one’s honor and reputation? How could the legislator find the compromise between the state duty to protect fetus life and its obligation not to interfere with woman’s right …

The Role Of United States V. Cooley And Mcgirt V. Oklahoma In Determining Criminal Jurisdiction In Indian Country, Prof. Dustin Jansen

Tribal Law Journal

Understanding jurisdiction is paramount to deciding whether federal, state, or tribal courts can exercise jurisdiction for crimes committed in Indian country. The evolution of federal Indian law has created a legal landscape that is far from consistent. For the Indian law practitioner, it is important to stay abreast of the latest case law available to understand where proper jurisdiction lies. The latest cases of McGirt v. Oklahoma and United States v. Cooley are the newest case law available that demonstrate the Supreme Court’s reasoning and analysis in determining proper jurisdiction.

Repurposing Retail To Bring Downtown Back: A Recovery Plan For Portland's South Downtown, Jamie Arnau, Luis Caro, Matthew Flodin, Amy Ly, Thiery Nanetangar, Valeria Tapia

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Workshop Projects

The Revive Collaborative team is creating a plan to revitalize the South Downtown neighborhood and promote economic opportunity for local business owners. PSU’s vacant retail spaces present the opportunity to restructure and reimagine how these spaces might be used to uplift the neighborhood, capitalize on its existing strengths, and increase the district’s livability. Public engagement with business owners, stakeholders, students, and residents combined with current best practices have informed Revive Collaborative’s suite of recommendations for how PSU can help revitalize South Downtown from both a broad policy and granular program perspective.

Municipal Perspectives On Managed Retreat, Kristin Uiterwyk, Kimberly Starbuck

Urban Harbors Institute Publications

As coastal municipalities work to address the impacts of climate change, they need access to a variety of strategies. One under-utilized option is managed retreat. To better understand benefits and barriers to retreat, UHI conducted a survey of staff in coastal municipalities throughout Massachusetts. Responses from 47 municipalities showed that while some have considered retreat as a way to mitigate flooding and sea level rise impacts, few are implementing the strategy. The findings of this research, including open-ended responses in the appendix, can guide development of tools and resources to advance managed retreat.

The End Of Balancing? Text, History & Tradition In First Amendment Speech Cases After Bruen, Clay Calvert, Mary-Rose Papandrea

Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy

This Article examines the potential impact on First Amendment free-speech jurisprudence of the U.S. Supreme Court's increasing reliance on text, history, and tradition in 2022 decisions such as New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. In Bruen, the Court embraced a new test for examining Second Amendment cases. It concentrates on whether there is a historical tradition of regulating the conduct in question, and it eliminates any use of constitutionally common means-end standards of review such as strict and intermediate scrutiny. Those two scrutiny standards often guide the Court's free-speech decisions. The Bruen majority, however, asserted …

Issues In Implementing Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction In Alaska's Tribal Courts, Danika Watson

Alaska Law Review

Until 2022, all but one of the 229 Alaska tribes were barred from special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction (SDVCJ): Congress's jurisdictional tool for tribal courts to address domestic violence and hold perpetrators of violence against Alaska Native women criminally accountable. The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 2022 brought SDVCJ to Alaska's rural Native communities. This landmark achievement was made possible by decades of advocacy from Alaska's tribal, state, and federal leadership. In the wake of VAWA 2022, Alaska tribes and tribal justice systems face several significant legal, political, and cultural challenges. This Article outlines the legal …

The Slow Race: Achieving Equity Through Legislative And Agency Minority Impact Statements, Jancy Nielson

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Keep Your Hands Off My Fingerprints: How State Constitutionalism Can Stop On-Site Fingerprinting Dragnets, Roger Antonio Tejada

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Trans Bodies, Trans Speech, Parker Rose Wingate

Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality

No abstract provided.

Examining The Determinants Of Timeliness In Crises Policy Responses: The Case Of Covid-19 In Egypt, Abdelhalim Abdalla

Theses and Dissertations

Timely responses to crises and pandemics play a significant role in navigating and minimizing the adverse impacts of such critical periods on the public and governments worldwide. COVID-19 could show and prove how a single virus originating in a single country can rapidly spread throughout the world, transforming an epidemic in China into a global pandemic. The virus caused more than 6.5 million deaths and around 660 million confirmed cases worldwide, according to the WHO, and sparked the worst economic catastrophe globally in more than a century, as estimated by the World Bank. Evidence suggests that the extent of the …

Making Matters Worse: An Analysis Of Paragraph 22(2)(I) Of The Child And Family Services Act, Sophie Fiddes

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

The 2017 amendments to Nova Scotia’s Child and Family Services Act were made with the purported purpose of better protection of children. This paper assesses the amendments to paragraph 22(2)(i) and the addition of subsection 24(2) to the Act that changed the law in relation to children who are exposed to intimate partner violence. This paper argues that the amendments have had a negative effect on children and their families, resulting in an increase of children in temporary care since 2017. The paper concludes that intimate partner violence would be better addressed by placing domestic violence considerations in the best …

Ticketing Poverty: An Analysis Of The Discriminatory Impacts Of Public Intoxication By-Laws On People Experiencing Homelessness In Montreal, Emily Knox, Jeanne Mayrand-Thibert, Michelle Pucci

Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies

Municipalities like Montreal penalize what they consider public disturbances through by-law infraction citations, or “tickets,” that are issued to people experiencing visible homelessness at a disproportionate rate. This is a pattern we observed over the course of two years during our time at a legal clinic providing legal information to people in precarious housing situations. In this article, we propose that Montreal’s by-laws prohibiting public drinking and public intoxication adversely impact unhoused people and are discriminatory under the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, a quasi-constitutional human rights instrument unique to Quebec. Drawing from research by criminologists and …

The Punitive Laboratory Of Neoliberalism: A Cross-National Examination, Beth A. Fera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A large body of research has been produced to explain global punitive trends in recent decades. Neoliberalism, an economic philosophy expressed by market deregulation, privatization, and the retrenchment of social supports, has been offered as an explanation for increases in cross-national punitiveness. According to neoliberal penality theory, neoliberalism has shifted principles guiding punishment practices and the treatment of offenders, which has resulted in harsher national responses to crime. However, many tenets of this theory have not yet been tested empirically. Drawing heavily on propositions from neoliberal penality, group-threat, and penal populism literature, this dissertation examines the relationship between economic shifts, …

Abnormal Behavior Detection In Video Surveillance Using Inception-V3 Transfer Learning Approaches, Sabah Abdulazeez Jebur, Khalid A., Haider Kadhim Hoomod

Iraqi Journal of Computers, Communications, Control and Systems Engineering

The use of video surveillance systems has increased due to security concerns and their relatively low cost. Researchers are working to create intelligent Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras that can automatically analyze behavior in real-time to detect anomalous behaviors and prevent dangerous accidents. Deep Learning (DL) approaches, particularly ConVolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), have shown outstanding results in video analysis and anomaly detection. This original_study focused on using Inception-v3 transfer learning approaches to improve the accuracy and efficiency of abnormal behavior detection in video surveillance. The Inceptionv3 network is used to classify keyframes of a video as normal or abnormal behaviors …

Exploring Flexibility In Philanthropic Funding For Place-Based Efforts To Improve Community Health: Reflections On A New York State Multisite Initiative, Beth C. Weitzman, Courtney Abrams, Bronwyn Starr, Irfan Hasan, Amy Shire, Brian Elbel, Carolyn Berry

The Foundation Review

Place-based efforts represent a key approach for philanthropies committed to addressing social determinants of health. This article shares insights and reflections from an experience funding and evaluating the Healthy Neighborhoods Initiative, a $22 million, six-year, place-based effort by two grantmaking foundations in nine geographically and demographically diverse communities across New York state. The initiative aimed to facilitate healthy living by fostering environmental and policy changes to enhance access to nourishing, affordable food and effective spaces for physical activity. Strategies to attain the goals were identified by actors most familiar with local community conditions. The funders provided substantial technical assistance, opportunities …

Community Building As A Philosophy, Not An Initiative, Anne C. Kubisch, Kasi Allen, Max Gimbel

The Foundation Review

What happens when a foundation invests in community building for the long haul? The Ford Family Foundation, a rural embedded funder in southern Oregon, has made that transition over the past decade. The result is a transformed organization with a 10-year strategic plan focused on helping rural communities build the futures that they want to see — places where children and families can thrive.

The foundation is pursuing community building not as a stand-alone strategy or “initiative,” but as a philosophy that guides local community development efforts based on capacity building and grantmaking based on partnerships. The shift to a …

Exclusionary Rules And Deterrence After Vega V. Tekoh: The Trend Toward A More Consistent Approach Across The Fourth And Fifth Amendments, Eugene R. Milhizer

Nebraska Law Review

The sound and fury of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions announced in the 2022 term obscured Vega v. Tekoh, in which the Court held that a violation of the Miranda rights warning and waiver requirements does not provide a basis for claiming a denial of rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. While Tekoh’s rejection of Miranda protections for § 1983 claims may ultimately prove to be significant, of far greater potential import is the Court’s rationale in support of its holding, which was premised on its assessment of the inadequacy of deterrent benefits that would be obtained by allowing …