Digital Commons Network^™

Subordinate Prosecutors’ Independence, Bruce A. Green, Jessica A. Roth

Faculty Scholarship

This essay is about subordinate prosecutors’ independence to do what they think constitutes “seeking justice” when they perceive that their boss, or their boss’s boss, wants them to do something that is unjust—not illegal, but unjust. Of course, if subordinate prosecutors want to do either what they are told to do or what they infer that a higher-up wants them to do, they can do so, as long as the conduct is legal. Subordinate prosecutors might choose to disregard their own professional judgment of what justice requires because they share their boss’s objectives, because they see conforming as a route …

Fares On Fairness: Using A Total Error Framework To Examine The Role Of Measurement And Representation In Training Data On Model Fairness And Bias, Patrick Oliver Schenk, Christoph Kern, Trent D. Buskirk

Data Science Faculty Publications

Data-driven decisions, often based on predictions from machine learning (ML) models are becoming ubiquitous. For these decisions to be just, the underlying ML models must be fair, i.e., work equally well for all parts of the population such as groups defined by gender or age. What are the logical next steps if, however, a trained model is accurate but not fair? How can we guide the whole data pipeline such that we avoid training unfair models based on inadequate data, recognizing possible sources of unfairness early on? How can the concepts of data-based sources of unfairness that exist in the …

Countries As Laboratories: Reflections On Sierra Leone’S Amended Anti-Human Trafficking Law, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Sierra Leone’s improved anti-trafficking laws align with global norms, but enforcement remains weak due to socio-economic realities and Western deterrence mismatches, limiting effective prosecution despite recent legislative reforms.

Plea Tracking In The Durham County District Attorney’S Office: Second Report On Superior Court Cases Pled From April 2021 To November 2023, Kelly Evans, Elizabeth Gifford, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Technologies Of Violence: Law, Markets, And Innovation For Gun Safety, Joseph Blocher, Christopher Buccafusco

Faculty Scholarship

Violence in the United States is distinctive in many ways, perhaps none more visceral and fundamental than the technologies with which it is practiced. American violence disproportionately involves guns, and because guns are such an effective tool of violence, confrontations involving them are disproportionately deadly. Decades of research confirm this "instrumentality effect, " and it is reflected in the broad, bipartisan agreement that the nation has a gun violence problem. The deep disagreement, of course, remains about how to address it, with most of the debate focused on regulating who can carry which guns, where, and how.

But fully understanding, …

The Judicial Administrative Power, Jonathan Petkun, Joseph Schottenfeld

Faculty Scholarship

Article III of the Constitution confines the “judicial Power of the United States” to the adjudication of “cases” and “controversies.” In practice, however, federal judges exercise control over, and spend their scarce time on, a wide range of activities that traverse far beyond any individual adjudication. Typically classified as a form of “judicial administration,” these activities span everything from promulgating the rules of the various federal courts to overseeing federal pretrial detention services or choosing federal public defenders.

This Article describes how judges became involved in these nonadjudicatory Article III activities, clarifies the activities’ relationship to Article III adjudication, and …

Trade Secrecy's Information Paradox, Christopher Buccafusco, Jonathan S. Masur, Deepa Varadarajan

Faculty Scholarship

Trade secret law is meant to encourage socially beneficial behaviors by permitting firms to protect their investments in the creation of valuable information. In theory, the ability to protect valuable information will make firms more likely to create that information in the first instance. But the law can also be used to shield socially harmful behaviors from public oversight. Firms can assert trade secret protection to prevent journalists, watchdogs, and criminal defendants from learning whether they are engaged in dangerous, wrongful, or biased activity. Ideally, trade secret law should sort socially beneficial uses from socially harmful ones, permitting only the …

Risk Factors And Fraud Loss Magnitude: Informing Anti-Fraud Strategies, Robert Elias

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fraud research posits risk factors may be utilized to identify individuals who are predisposed to perpetrate fraud (ACFE 2024). I find perpetrators who exhibit the following risk factors result in statistically higher fraud losses: living beyond their means, excessive pressure to perform within the organization, having excessive control issues regarding their job, are reluctant to take vacations, have a “wheeler-dealer” attitude, or addiction problems. I further find perpetrators who exhibit risk factors which are likely to be observed in a work setting are more likely to result in higher fraud losses. However, perpetrators who exhibit risk factors which are more …

Assessing The Role Of Leadership In Shaping Digital Transformation Capabilities In Uae Governance, Arif Alshamsi, Maytha Al Ali, Noura Metawa

All Works

The present study aims to investigate the impact of leadership on digital transformation in the UAE government, using a Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) analytical framework. This study examines the effect of leaders’ familiarity with digital technologies, their attitudes towards innovation, and their practical tactics for execution on the process of digitalizing government services. Employing a mixed-methods methodology, this research uses surveys and interviews to gather data from influential policymakers while also conducting a comprehensive examination of case studies on digital projects. The findings suggest that considerable knowledge and favorable attitudes towards digital transformation exist. However, implementing digital transformation methods …

Feminine Felons: Violent Offenders' Intersectional Experiences In Twentieth-Century Montana, Cassidy Ann Vander Voort

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

This paper explores the treatment of violent female offenders in Montana in both the media and prison system from 1900-1960. Women of all races faced gender discrimination from both the carceral system and popular media. Local newspapers sensationalized crimes committed by female offenders, portraying them as women who lived outside of the expectations of womanhood in the twentieth century. Newspapers and courts placed women into two categories: “mad/sad” female offenders, who received forgiveness for their crimes; or unforgivable, “bad” offenders. Crime did not determine these categorizations; instead, gender expectations of the white middle class shaped female criminals’ treatment. If these …

Counselor Educators’ Understanding Of Ableism: A Mixed Methods Study, Cynthia Renee Boyle

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Ableism, defined as beliefs and practices that prioritize able-bodiedness and lead to disability discrimination, is a prevalent but often overlooked form of oppression rooted in the historical American legacy of other forms of prejudice, discrimination, and is foundationally rooted in higher education through eugenics. Despite the counseling profession's mandate for multicultural competence, disability issues and ableism are often excluded from mainstream curriculum, contributing to a knowledge gap among counselor educators. This convergent mixed methods study explored and analyzed counselor educators’ understanding of ableism using a cross-sectional questionnaire administered to 48 participants. Quantitative results indicated a positive correlation between more formal …

John C. West Papers - Accession 1400, John Carl West Sr.

Manuscript Collection

This collection consists of photographs, scrapbooks, framed items, awards and certificates, videotapes, audiotapes, and other memorabilia pertaining to former governor of South Carolina (1971-1975) and ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1977-1981) John C. West. John Carl West, Sr. (1922-2004) married 1943 Winthrop Alumna Lois Rhame West (1921-2014) and the Lois Rhame West Health, Physical Education, and Wellness Center was named in her honor. John West, as South Carolina Governor, played a prominent role in Winthrop’s move to coeducation and signed the bill confirming Winthrop’s transition in 1974.

Understanding Brady Violations, Jennifer Mason Mcaward

Journal Articles

This largest-ever study of adjudicated violations of Brady v. Maryland provides a detailed and nuanced understanding of who suppresses material evidence in criminal cases, as well as why, how, where, and how often. Its findings complicate the conventional wisdom that Brady violations are the work of nefarious prosecutors who intentionally withhold material evidence from criminal defendants. While it is true that “bad faith” permeates this area of constitutional noncompliance, a substantial minority of Brady cases stem from “good faith” errors by prosecutors and suppression by law enforcement officers. Most Brady violations occur in a small number of states, and most …

Contract Or Prison, Sadie Blanchard

Journal Articles

Critics of the criminal enforcement system have condemned the expansion and privatization of electronic monitoring, criminal diversion, parole, and probation. But the astonishing perversion of contract involved in these new practices has gone unnoticed. Governments are turning to “offender-funded” programs that empower firms to contract with people who are suspected of or have been convicted of crimes— and whose alternative to agreeing to these contracts is prosecution or incarceration. Though incarceration-alternative (IA) contracting is sometimes framed as humane, historical and current context illuminates its coercive nature. IA contracting must be examined under classical contract theory and in light of the …

The Ole Miss, University Of Mississippi

The Ole Miss (1897-)

The Ole Miss Annual, 2025

Disentangling Safety And Accountability In Criminal Justice Policy, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In this Article, I argue that the U.S. criminal system and debates about criminal justice reform reflect an elision of two largely distinct social functions: ensuring public safety and imposing accountability for harmful conduct. Despite deep disagreement about the specifics, most commentators seem to accept that these are both important social functions. Abolitionists claim that the criminal system doesn’t keep people safe and provide accountability. Instead, it harms—and perhaps is meant to harm—people from marginalized communities and protects the interest of socially dominant groups. Reformers contend that the criminal system can and should serve the safety and/or accountability interests, but …

Abolish What?, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

From leading academic journals to popular press outlets, abolitionist activism and scholarship have earned airtime in national debates about criminal justice reform. But what is "abolition?" When scholars, lawyers, and activists talk about abolition, they seem to mean very different, even conflicting, things. In this Essay, I focus on a core question that might divide different abolitionists-and different critics of abolition: what is to be abolished? Abolitionists argue that it's critically important to abolish something, while critics of abolition insist that something is necessary to a well-functioning society. Yet, it's not always clear what that something is-both for abolitionists and …

Crimes Against Humanity And Customary International Law, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

A draft text of a treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity was finally sent to negotiations by the U.N. General Assembly on December 4, 2024, after six long years of advocacy by States and civil society. Questions remain, however, with regard to how crimes against humanity will be defined in the new treaty. On the one hand, some States have embraced a definition of crimes against humanity that tracks Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”). Other States have rejected Article 7 as the basis for the new treaty, but theirs …

Ten Years And Ten Miles: Reflecting On "Ferguson", Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Essay serves as the introduction to a symposium on the ten-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri and the subsequent protests and uprisings across the country. The authors look back on the past decade—their own experiences and our experiences as a nation—to consider the impacts of the Ferguson uprisings and the landscape of criminal justice and racial justice advocacy, scholarship, and teaching today. In this Essay, I provide a brief introduction to the Volume and essays that follow. In Part I, I situate the Ferguson uprisings in the broader context of activism responsive to racial injustice in …

A Liberty-Balancing Approach To Crime, Sheldon Evans

Scholarship@WashULaw

At its core, the criminal legal system is an ecosystem of institutions that seek to balance liberty interests. The insightful theories and complex practices of crime policy coalesce around questions on how crime impacts the liberties of individuals and communities to be safe, and how this correlates with the deprivation of liberty from offenders through our punishment system. But modern criminal policy, most often associated with the problems of overcriminalization and mass incarceration, has wholly abandoned any such delicate and nuanced balancing. Instead, the system thrives on sacrificing the liberties of offenders in a perverse and ineffective regime that leads …

Auditing Criminal Justice Minimalism, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

If criminal justice minimalism is a shared principle among criminal law scholars, it can help to clarify the quality of our disagreements. Every normative proposal in the criminal legal literature can be held to the minimalist standard—audited, so to speak, to account for the policy author’s minimalist claims. To this end, this Essay proposes a four-step framework by which to evaluate adherence to the minimalist principle, where each step serves as a hub for pointed scholarly debate regarding the path to minimalist criminal justice.

An Anthology Of Interference In Law School Clinics, Peter A. Joy, Robert R. Kuehn

Scholarship@WashULaw

An Anthology of Interference in Law School Clinics explores interference in law school clinics in the United States, addressing its long history and the legal ethics, academic freedom, and First Amendment responses to that interference. Law clinics have faced interference in their representation of clients from elected officials, business groups, alumni and, at times, even their own school administrators. This interference has targeted clinics for providing individuals and nongovernmental organizations with legal representation on important matters, including racial and gender discrimination, environmental issues, prisoner rights litigation, death penalty cases, and immigration and human rights matters. In each instance, the interference …

Legislatively Erased: The Failure Of Privacy Legislation To Protect People Connected To The Criminal Legal System, Kate Weisburd, Chaz Arnett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Policy Brief. Media Framing Of Sexual And Gender-Based Violence And Femicide: An Analysis Of News Stories In Select Kenyan, Ugandan And Tanzanian Media, Nancy Achieng' Booker, Hesbon Owilla, George Nyabuga, Olivia Sayani, Liz Awino, Rose Kimani, David Aduda

Graduate School of Media and Communications

This policy brief presents the findings of a regional study on media coverage of femicide and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. The study analysed coverage of femicide and SGBV between January 2024 and April 2025, from major digital platforms, supported by interviews with editors. It sought to understand how media frames femicide and SGBV, which actors are most visible, and what implications these patterns have for accountability, justice, and deterrence. The findings show that while victims of femicide are given extensive sympathetic coverage, with very high salience, perpetrators are almost entirely absent from media narratives. …

Victim Advocacy For Latina Women: Addressing Barriers Situated In The Scholarly And Public Spheres, Alejandra Aleannie Tavarez

Honors Senior Capstones and Theses

This research will explore how machismo, marianismo, and mental health stigma impact victim advocacy for Latina women. By analyzing existing literature and systemic challenges, this study will advocate for culturally informed solutions that address the legal, social, and psychological barriers Latina survivors face. Through a critical lens, this paper will examine the ways in which existing victim services can be improved and expanded to better serve this underrepresented population.

Video Analytics And Fourth Amendment Vision, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

What does the Fourth Amendment have to say about video analytics running on citywide camera systems? Video analytics (also known as computer vision) involves hardware and software in cameras that turns video surveillance streams into useful data, identifying, categorizing, matching, and alerting police about objects, people, and incidents. Video analytics can identify objects (e.g., hat, backpack, person, car) and track that person or thing back in time and through the streets using video surveillance footage. For police officers conducting virtual patrols or retrospective investigations, video analytics lets police scan thousands of linked cameras for suspicious behavior or a particular suspect, …

Digital Evidence: Facilitating What And For Whom?, Rebecca Hamilton, Adebayo Okeowo

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The emergence of user-generated evidence has revolutionized how atrocities and human rights violations are documented globally. Since 2011, when Syrian human rights defenders began documenting atrocities on their smartphones, a professional field has emerged around the collection, authentication, and preservation of digital evidence. However, this professionalization has created unintended consequences, as expertise and verification power shifted away from frontline communities to Global North institutions. This Article examines this tension through two case studies: the Rohingya Genocide Archive, and Nigeria's #EndSARS movement. These examples demonstrate both the power of locally-informed evidence collection and the challenges when verification skills remain concentrated among …

Research And Graduate Studies Annual Report, Fiscal Year 2025, Office Of Research And Graduate Studies, Illinois State University

Research and Graduate Studies Annual Report

No abstract provided.

Soc 37 Syllabus, Gilbert Marzan

Open Educational Resources

The SOC 37 syllabus contains a course description, learning objectives, course readings divided by week and a link to the course's OER textbook.

The Rule Of Law In Armed Conflict, Hitoshi Nasu

Minnesota Journal of International Law, Vols. 28:2 onward (2019-present)

A fundamental problem in the relationship between war and law has emerged, with two diverging approaches to conceptualizing how law applies to the conduct of hostilities: the operational application for the implementation of legal obligations during combat operations, on the one hand, and the adjudicative application for prosecution and reparation, on the other. Diverging approaches stem from institutional and practical constraints on adjudication, testing the fundamental premise upon which international law operates as a political project to manage international order under the rule of law. This article addresses the doctrinal manifestation of this trend and articulates the parameters in which …