Digital Commons Network^™

A Blunt Reality: How § 922(G)(3) Of The Gun Control Act Violates The Second Amendment Rights Of Marijuana Users, Christian Z. Macdonald

SMU Law Review Forum

Over 98% of Americans live in a state that has some form of legal marijuana, with over half of Americans having used the drug at least once. The United States also has a strong historical tradition of individual gun ownership for the purposes of self-defense, with gun ownership currently at its highest level in decades. In this modern era of both rising gun ownership and marijuana usage, could it truly be the case that any American who uses cannabinoids forfeits her presumptively protected constitutional right to firearm possession? The answer depends upon whether 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(3) unconstitutionally infringes on …

The Progression Of Deinstitutionalization And Its Effects On The American South: A Judicial Analysis Of 20th-Century United States Supreme Court Decisions, Eva-Marie V. Jones

Honors College Theses

This thesis explores the effects of four landmark Supreme Court cases on the deinstitutionalization movement in the American south. Previous literature frequently discusses the legislative implications of this era; however, no law is applicable without the interpretation and application of the judiciary, which so often contextualizes the greater public perspective. Rarely has an analysis of judicial decisions involving psychiatric care merged with regional focus, and certainly not in a format accessible to the average individual.

From unmarked graves to abandoned infrastructure, the legacy of historic psychiatric care in the United States has been largely obscured – yet its consequences continue …

Assembly-Line Public Defense, David S. Abrams, Priyanka Goonetilleke

Faculty Scholarship

Each year, millions of Americans rely on public defenders to fulfill their Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Despite being the linchpin of the criminal justice system, public defense remains both underfunded and understudied. This Article provides empirical analysis to contribute to a critical question: How should public defender systems be structured?

Criminal justice advocates, scholars, and the American Bar Association strongly favor vertical representation in public defense. Under this model, a single public defender represents a defendant throughout their case, from their initial appearance through sentencing. The alternative approach—horizontal representation—operates like an assembly line: Different attorneys handle each stage of …

Championing Faculty Scholarship And Community: Writing Across The Curriculum (Wac) Summer Institute 2025, Jonathon Shirland, John Mulrooney, Elizabeth Veisz

Bridgewater Review

For one week in August, participants from academic departments across campus come together at the WAC Summer Institute to advance their own projects in a collegial environment of exchange, community, and mutual accountability. For eighteen years, WAC has played this vital role in supporting BSU faculty in their scholarly and creative endeavors. Small working groups facilitated by a WAC Coordinator commit to alternating focused periods of writing with peer review and discussion, with the aim of significantly advancing projects towards publication.

Revealing Hidden And Concealed Vehicle Compartments. A Survey Of States’ Efforts At Addressing Prohibition Era Tactics, Douglas A. Kash, Diya Rattan

Northern Illinois University Law Review

The transportation of contraband such as controlled substances, illegal firearms, stolen items, and proceeds from criminal activities can take many forms and are subject to the ever-evolving creative efforts by traffickers and criminal organizations to avoid detection by law enforcement. However, one of the simplest and most straightforward mechanisms of transport is in hidden or “trap” compartments in motor vehicles. However, given the legitimate use of discreet compartments (sometimes referred to as “automotive safes” or “traps”) in motor vehicles to secure personal items, important paperwork, and even licensed firearms, a question arises as to whether hidden and false compartments in …

A Schönberg Approach To Devillier V. Texas: Synthesizing Text, Structure, And History Of The Takings Clause, Jordan Fortunati

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Victims’ Rights Mismatch, Lee Kovarsky

Michigan Law Review

A puzzling mismatch lurks inside victims’ rights law. Victims’ rights are most easily justified when held by living victims, but the cultural movement has triumphed largely as a response to crime-caused death. This Article identifies the mismatch between victims’ rights and their justifications in dead-victim cases, analyzes the normative questions involved, and recommends an institutional response. The mismatch persists because American jurisdictions assign a single bundle of rights to all people denominated as “victims.” In dead-victim cases, however, the primary bearers of interpersonal harm are gone. Instead, their rights are assumed by aggrieved family members and legal estates. In those …

Evicted Promises: Grants Pass Leaves Housing First Out In The Cold, Emily Cruz

University of the Pacific Law Review

No abstract provided.

أثر الحكم الصادر عن المحكمة الاتحادية العليا بعدم الدستورية, Mariam Saeed Al Ketbi

Theses

The Effect of The Judgment Rendered by the Federal Supreme Court Declaring Unconstitutionality

Constitutional judiciary represents the primary guarantee for the supremacy of the Constitution and the protection of rights and freedoms, as it exercises subsequent review over legislative texts to ensure their compliance with constitutional provisions. The judgments it issues are objective in nature, directed at the legislative text itself rather than the parties involved, which grants them absolute authority that binds all branches of government—legislative, executive, and judicial—as well as individuals. These judgments are final and cannot be appealed by any means, as confirmed by both the UAE …

The Nuances Of Prosecutorial Nonenforcement, Meighan R. Parsh, Carissa Byrne Hessick

William & Mary Law Review

The academic literature on prosecutors is divided: Some commentors believe that prosecutors should more aggressively use their ability to decline to bring charges, decreasing the overall number of criminal cases and helping to address the problem of mass incarceration. Others believe that broad prosecutorial nonenforcement poses significant risks to our constitutional order and public safety. While the visibility of this debate has increased—spilling over from the pages of law reviews into political campaigns and headlines—the terms of this debate are at times unclear. Prosecutorial nonenforcement is a multifaceted phenomenon, and discussions about its costs and benefits can obscure necessary tradeoffs …

"A Beacon Of Service In A Troubled World": Restoring The United Nations' Human Rights Reputation By Standardizing Extradition Practices For Accused Human Traffickers, Brook Whitley

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

A Fear About Holistic Justice, Farhang Heydari

Vanderbilt Law Review

It is a great irony of our criminal system that the enforcement of our criminal laws has long had aspects of lawlessness. Although criminal statutes define impermissible conduct by members of the public, they generally offer little guidance for state actors enforcing them.' Officers can choose which offenders to cite or arrest and which to let go. Prosecutors can choose which charges to pursue and what pleas to offer. Executives select whom to pardon and how to allocate enforcement resources. Some see the discretion vested in government actors as a virtue-- a safety valve in a system that punishes too …

Youth Attitudes And Perceptions Regarding Police, Courts, And Political Engagement: A Texas Study, Marika Dawkins-Cavazos, Camille Gibson, Yudu Li

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Youth are often perceived as disengaged from civic and political processes, yet their potential to influence elections is receiving increasing attention. This study examined how differences in race, ethnicity, sex, and age shape youth civic engagement, particularly their willingness to vote in the 2024 presidential election. Through surveys of college students in the diverse southern region of the United States, the research explored the relationship between perceptions of law enforcement, trust in the justice system, and civic participation. Specifically, it hypothesized that Black and Hispanic youth would report lower trust in law enforcement, which may influence their willingness to engage …

Killing Through Their Kids, Dyllan Moreno Taxman

William & Mary Law Review

In early 2024, James and Jennifer Crumbley were sentenced to over a decade in prison after their son, Ethan, shot and killed four classmates at Oxford High School in Michigan. The Crumbley parents incurred manslaughter liability by ignoring Ethan’s deteriorating mental state, gifting him the murder weapon, and failing to act on concerns about Ethan’s behavior on the day of the shooting. The Crumbleys were the first parents of a school shooter to be convicted of a homicide in American history. This Article suggests they will be far from the last. Indeed, less than one year after the Crumbley convictions, …

Reforming Abolition, Daniel Fryer

Michigan Law Review

Abolition is an elusive concept, which allows people with various political views to identify with the idea. This Article unpacks some of the conceptual features that lead to its elusiveness. This imprecision has empowered some to point out the diverse—if not inconsistent—positions that self-identified abolitionists take when articulating the contemporary abolition movement’s demands. The question then becomes whether the movement could protect itself from being a rootless position with insufficient tools to guide change. I suggest that it can. Rather than getting caught up in debates about abolition’s ends, I propose that more attention be paid to abolition’s grounds. By …

Child-Taking Justice And The Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

The focus of this article is the 2022–2024 Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative undertaken the U.S. Executive Branch. The article chronicles this three-year process, which included sessions with survivors and their descendants, and which resulted in a two-volume report, in an apology by President Joe Biden, and in designation of a national memorial at one of the most notorious school sites. This article examines the initiative as an example of “child-taking justice”; that is, as a process of what is called “transitional justice”, done in an effort to redress the takings of children from their community, followed by efforts to …

Black And Latine Youth Thinking About Punitive And Restorative Approaches In Relation To Race/Ethnicity, Gabriel M. Velez, Amelia Kasper

College of Education Faculty Research and Publications

Restorative practices (RPs) are a growing approach to mitigate racial/ethnic disparities in school disciplinary systems. This qualitative study explores the lived experiences of Black and/or Latine students, examining how they perceive and interpret disciplinary approaches in their schools. Using focus groups across seven high schools (N = 93 participants), we explored how students made meaning of the potential of RP. Overall, participants expressed nuanced opinions regarding the purposes and effectiveness of both punitive and restorative approaches. Specifically, participants demonstrated mixed thinking about punitive and restorative responses, connected the efficacy of responses to context, and stressed the importance of incorporating …

Recommendations From Multi-Disciplinary Professionals For Survivor-Informed And Comprehensive Care For Human Trafficking Survivors, Christina Tsoi, Timothy B. Smith, Elizabeth Cutrer-Párraga, Devan Clayton, Joshua M. Marshall, Jamila Mastny

Faculty Publications

Background: Human trafficking affects millions of people worldwide with multiple adverse outcomes including psychopathology. Although research on human trafficking has become abundant in other academic disciplines (e.g., public health, criminology, social work), healthcare research specific to the mental health treatment of survivors remains limited. Objective: The purpose of this study was to gather recommendations from professionals about mental health treatment of trafficking survivors. Method: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 multidisciplinary professionals working with trafficking survivors. Data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis methodology. Results: An overarching theme derived from the data concerned the recommendation to implement trafficking survivor-informed care, …

Enhancing The Acceptability Of Decision-Making System Using Xai Case: Crime Profiling System, Mohamed Saeed Al Shamsi

Theses

In the current world, we need to place more emphasis on how easily interpretable, accurate, and acceptable data analysis results are, given that essential operations in law enforcement, among other sectors, are backed up by the use of complex computing systems. Crime profiling systems that use crime data for profiling encounter major problems because they depend on algorithm-based methods. These methods can be ambiguous and inaccurate, leading to low public acceptability. The study investigates major problems with Complex Crime profiling systems (CPS) because their unexplained algorithms result in system performance issues and public scepticism. XAI provides a solution to handle …

Understanding Behavioral Patterns: A Case Study Of Emirati Ex-Offenders In United Arab Emirates, Salim Ali Al Naqbi

Theses

Research on desistance has helped criminologists to better understand how people change their criminal identity and exercise personal choice. Yet in the UAE, these ideas has not often been applied to prisoners serving one or multiple offenses, even though incarceration and reoffending remain important social concerns. Because of this, desistance theory has not been fully used to study how rehabilitation is managed in UAE prisons, which means that some useful lessons may be missed. This study begins to close that gap by looking at the personal stories of 15 Emirati participants that were formerly incarcerated by adapting a qualitative and …

An Assessment Of The Legal Framework For Prosecuting Iuu Fishing In Nigeria, Lydia Salla Kadiri

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Examining Public Opinion On Endorsed Punishments For Illegal Abortion By Abortion Legality And Abortion-Restrictive States Before Dobbs V. Jackson, Lucretia Mena-Melendez, Kristen N. Jozkowski, Brandon L. Crawford, Ronna C. Turner, Wen-Juo Lo

Counseling, Leadership, and Research Methods Faculty Publications and Presentations

Research SummaryAs a result of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, state lawmakers can and have enacted abortion restrictions, including criminal penalties targeting those who seek, provide, or assist with abortion. Given the current legal landscape, it is imperative to assess public opinion regarding the endorsement of punishments for illegal abortion. We conducted multivariate analyses to assess factors associated with punishment endorsements for an illegal abortion for the pregnant woman and healthcare provider. We also evaluated whether individual beliefs (i.e., abortion legality) and contextual factors (i.e., living in an abortion-restrictive state) may …

Standardization And Routine In Criminal Law, Eric S. Fish

Vanderbilt Law Review

What does it mean to adopt a holistic approach to criminal justice? This symposium treats that question as a foundational inquiry into the theory, practice, and institutional architecture of criminal law. At a time of eroding public trust, a broad recognition that mass incarceration both reflects and entrenches structural inequality, growing pressure on legal actors to account for the human costs of their decisions, and anxiety about the rule of law, revisiting the normative commitments of criminal law feels like an urgent task.

Holistic criminal justice is not a single method or intervention. It is a reorientation-a conceptual framework and …

Anti-Holistic Algorithms, Itay Ravid

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article presents a critical tension in modern criminal justice between holistic criminal justice aspirations and algorithmic governance: whether the holistic rehabilitation and reintegration project can survive technological determinism. As criminal legal systems embrace algorithmic risk assessment tools as solutions to address recidivism, this Article reveals a profound epistemological concern: the fundamental incompatibility between viewing offenders as whole persons capable of transformation and reducing them to statistical probabilities within computational matrices. By doing so, it demonstrates how algorithmic mediation fundamentally alters and potentially destroys the holistic message itself.

In establishing this argument, the Article advances in two stages. It first …

Beyond Autonomy: Rethinking Deception In Sexual Assault Law, Marie Manikis

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article focuses on recent developments in Britain in which courts have recognised gender deception as a sexual assault by using an autonomy based argument to define deception/fraud that vitiates consent in sexual offences. This Article argues against the defensibility of a framework that criminalizes deception on the basis of an ill defined autonomist based understanding as opposed to a more restrictive standard. It proposes that any adopted standard should incorporate social context and be reflexive of the ways that the state has contributed to these contexts, namely the social conditions under which the deceit takes place as well as …

Justice Through Proximity: Theoretical Foundations And Practical Applications Of Collaborative Justice, Federica Coppola, Jarrell E. Daniels

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article introduces a collaborative justice framework as a model for addressing crime and reimagining approaches to policymaking and legal education. The framework emphasizes the prevention and resolution of criminal matters through holistic strategies that confront the structural and social determinants of crime and victimization including poverty, systemic inequality, trauma, unjust policies, and institutional neglect while also promoting broader systemic change. At its core is the active engagement between legal system actors especially decisionmakers such as judges, prosecutors, and policymakers and legal system impacted individuals and communities, fostering a more equitable distribution of decisionmaking power between justice providers and justice …

“Justice Of Our Own”: Defining Success At The Red Hook Community Justice Center, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg, Peter Dixon

Vanderbilt Law Review

This study examines how success is defined at the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, NYC, through a participatory, community centered lens. Moving beyond standard metrics, it articulates a locally grounded vision of success centered on empowerment, support, systemic accountability, and community trust. Drawing on the Everyday Peace Indicators approach, we convened nine focus groups and two public voting sessions with neighborhood residents, justice professionals, youth, former defendants, and family members. Participants generated and ranked 72 indicators, which we thematically clustered into six key categories reflecting the diverse contexts in which participants perceived the Center's impact: (1) rehabilitation and …

Waiting For Godot: Thinking About Criminal Law After Mass Incarceration, Jonathan Simon Professor Of Law,

Vanderbilt Law Review

This brilliant set of close observations and careful analyses on some of the most cutting-edge issues arising in criminal law and reform of the criminal-justice system arrives at a time of great uncertainty as to the direction of change in criminal justice in the United States. After roughly a decade of reform and a significant surge in social movements criticizing the excesses of policing and punishment, the national conversation around crime has shifted back toward fear and a preference for "tough" law-and-order policies. Each one of these essays is packed with a great deal of insight and detail about very …

Anti-Holistic Algorithms, Itay Ravid

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a critical tension in modern criminal justice between holistic criminal-justice aspirations and algorithmic governance: whether the holistic rehabilitation and reintegration project can survive technological determinism. As criminal legal systems embrace algorithmic risk- assessment tools as solutions to address recidivism, this Article reveals a profound epistemological concern: the fundamental incompatibility between viewing offenders as “whole persons” capable of transformation and reducing them to statistical probabilities within computational matrices. By doing so, it demonstrates how algorithmic mediation fundamentally alters—and potentially destroys—the holistic message itself.

In establishing this argument, the Article advances in two stages. It first identifies the development …

Holistic Criminal Justice, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

What does it mean to adopt a holistic approach to criminal justice? This symposium treats that question as a foundational inquiry into the theory, practice, and institutional architecture of criminal law. At a time of eroding public trust, a broad recognition that mass incarceration both reflects and entrenches structural inequality, growing pressure on legal actors to account for the human costs of their decisions, and anxiety about the rule of law, revisiting the normative commitments of criminal law feels like an urgent task. Holistic criminal justice is not a single method or intervention. It is a reorientation—a conceptual framework and …