Digital Commons Network^™

An Examination Of Civil Asset Forfeiture In South Carolina, Jeffrey Trowbridge

Theses and Dissertations

Civil asset forfeiture allows the government to seize and forfeit property that is associated with criminal activity without arresting or charging the property owner. Although expansive in its potential application, little is understood about the characteristics of civil asset forfeiture cases, the property owners involved in forfeiture cases, or the characteristics of any criminal cases pursued parallel to the civil cases. Utilizing open-source, public court records, this dissertation provides an exploratory analysis of these gaps in the literature by examining the types of civil asset forfeiture used, the value of asset forfeiture cases, how money from asset forfeiture is divided …

Unlocking The Vote: Hopkins V. Hosemann As A Catalyst For Restoring Voting Rights To Nonviolent Felons, Emily K. Abrams

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Taking The Law Into Their (Virtual) Hands: Facebook And Digital Vigilantism, Christine Anne R. Cox

Department of Communication Faculty Publications

Digital vigilantism is an emerging phenomenon whereby netizens engage in forms of targeted surveillance, naming and shaming through new media, supposedly for social justice ends. The multi-layered case of Christine Dacera, the Filipina flight attendant who was found dead on New Years Day 2021, is one such case that warrants the critical investigation of the role of Facebook in vigilant behaviors of Filipino users. Using netnographic data and an affordances approach, this study asks the following: What are the dominant affordances associated with the use of Facebook for digital vigilantism, and how does surveillance enable the new normal of community …

Gendered Capital Punishment, Sandra L. Babcock

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article, for the first time, grapples with the influence of gender on decision makers in women’s capital trials. Part I provides a brief overview of scholarship examining the experiences of women offenders in the criminal legal system. Part II explains how gender inflects the prosecutions of women charged with capital crimes, drawing on scholarly research as well as a data set comprised of the trial transcripts of every woman currently on death row in the United States. Part III explores how the gender of key decision makers could affect the quality of justice received by women capital defendants. I …

The Link October 1, 2024, Access To Justice Institute

The Link Newsletter

No abstract provided.

A Scoping Review Of Substance Use Brief Interventions In Africa, Florence Jaguga, Sarah Kiburi, Eunice Temet, Matthew Aalsma, Mary Ott, Rachel Maina, Cyprian Mostert, Lukoye Atwoli, Juddy Wachira, Gilliane Kosgei

Internal Medicine, East Africa

Background: The burden of substance use in Africa is substantial. Brief interventions (BIs) are a recommended public health strategy for the prevention and early intervention for substance use problems. The objective of this scoping review was to map the literature on substance use BIs in Africa, identify gaps, and provide directions for future research.

Methods: The scoping review was guided by the Arksey O’Malley Framework and the PRISMA-Scoping review (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A search of five bibliographic databases (PubMed, PsychINFO, Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Professionals (CINAHL) and Cochrane Library) was conducted from inception until 1st November …

U.S. District Judge Orders Indiana Department Of Correction To Provide Gender-Affirming Surgery For Transgender Individual With Severe Gender Dysphoria, Arthur S. Leonard

Other Publications

No abstract provided.

Intimate Partner Violence-Related Brain Injury: Unmasking And Addressing The Gaps, Carrie Esopenko, Divya Jain, Shambhu Prasad Adhikari, Kristen Dams-O'Connor, Michael Ellis, Halina Lin Haag, Elizabeth S Hovenden, Finian Keleher, Inga K Koerte, Hannah M Lindsey, Amy D Marshall, Karen Mason, J Scott Mcnally, Deleene S Menefee, Tricia L Merkley, Emma N Read, Philine Rojcyk, Sandy R Shultz, Mujun Sun, Danielle Toccalino, Eve M Valera, Paul Van Donkelaar, Cheryl Wellington, Elisabeth A Wilde

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a significant, global public health concern. Women, individuals with historically underrepresented identities, and disabilities are at high risk for IPV and tend to experience severe injuries. There has been growing concern about the risk of exposure to IPV-related head trauma, resulting in IPV-related brain injury (IPV-BI), and its health consequences. Past work suggests that a significant proportion of women exposed to IPV experience IPV-BI, likely representing a distinct phenotype compared with BI of other etiologies. An IPV-BI often co-occurs with psychological trauma and mental health complaints, leading to unique issues related to identifying, prognosticating, and …

Child-Taking, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

A ruling group at times takes certain children from their community and then tries to remake them in its image. It tries to rid the child of undesired differences, in ethnicity or nationality, religion or politics, race or ancestry, culture or class. There are too many examples: the colonialist residential schools that forced settler cultures on Indigenous children; the military juntas that kidnapped dissidents’ children; and today’s reports of abductions amid crises like that in Syria. Too often nothing is done and the children are lost. But that may be changing, as the International Criminal Court is seeking to arrest …

Popular Justice Or Populist Justice? Penal Populism And Its Impact On Democracy, Kuan-Wu Chen

Theses and Dissertations

Populism, a pervasive phenomenon in contemporary politics, manifests as an anti-establishment, anti-pluralistic, morally charged framing that advocates for direct rule between leader and populace. Among its variants, penal populism emerges as a particularly concerning manifestation. It is characterized by a leader's deployment of panicking, punitive, and politically targeted rhetoric to enhance social control and accrue political capital rather than address crime prevention. This research argues that penal populism poses the most significant threat to democratic rule, as evidenced by theoretical, framing, and mobilization analyses. A novel categorization of populist variants is proposed based on dimensions of social categorization and exclusivity. …

Winning And Losing At The Federal District Courts, Madison Shanks

Theses and Dissertations

The federal criminal courts are unique compared to the rest of the justice system. Cases in these courts pit a government backed prosecutor with an informational and first-moving advantage, against an often-disadvantaged defendant in an adversarial system that ultimately determines who wins and who loses. This asymmetry in criminal cases at the federal district courts presents a situation in which we can understand how courtroom actors matter for the justice process, and specifically if and how attorneys’ strategies differ and ultimately influence outcomes for their clients. This dissertation project builds on an existing data collection project that captures motion filings …

A Wrong In Search Of A Duty: Public Nuisance, Social Media And The Youth Mental Health Crisis, Charles Bachmann

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that social media companies should be held accountable for their role in the youth mental health crisis through the legal framework of public nuisance law. Drawing parallels to successful cases against tobacco and opioid companies, the author contends that social media platforms, by prioritizing profits over user well-being, contribute to widespread harm such as anxiety, depression, and suicide among youth. While acknowledging concerns about judicial overreach and the challenges of proving causation, the note advocates for judicial intervention as a necessary corrective in the absence of effective legislative action.

Richmond Law Magazine: Autumn 2024

Richmond Law Magazine

Conviction is not the end

Law's newest laboratory

Take good care

A Case Study Analysis Examining The Removal Of Unanimity From Death Penalty Sentencing, Jeremiah J. Moniz

Selected Honors Theses

The following thesis is written as a result of the 2023 law passed in the state of Florida that removed unanimity for death penalty sentencing proceedings. The thesis looks into the previously researched information on death penalty law, juries, and the combination of the two. It then examines three two-prong case studies comparing cases in Alabama to cases in North Carolina and Ohio to determine if there are any specific or general differential outcomes when it comes to the removal of unanimity in death penalty sentencing trials. The results of the case study found significant differences in jury voting in …

Crimen En La Frontera: Exploring Texas-Mexico Border Crimes Using A Geospatial Analysis, Carlos Alvarez, Jascha Wagner

Journal of Strategic Security

Border crimes threaten public safety and security in the United States and the US-Mexico border region. Several evaluations support that data-driven, place-based crime prevention approaches can complement current public safety strategies and help reduce crime. Accordingly, place-based crime prevention may successfully prevent border crimes since these are inherently spatial. However, few studies have analyzed the geographies of Texas-Mexico border crimes, and assessments of data-driven, place-based crime prevention strategies of border crimes still lack a solid empirical foundation – especially in more rural border communities. To address this issue, this study builds police report data (Border Incident Assessment Report (BIAR)), used …

Disciplinary Differences And Scholarly Literature: Faculty Experiences With Discovery, Browsing, And Format, Chad E. Buckley, Rachel E. Scott, Anne Shelley, Cassie Thayer-Styes, Julie A. Murphy

Faculty and Staff Publications – Milner Library

This study reports faculty experiences regarding the discovery of scholarly content, highlighting similarities and differences across a range of academic disciplines. The authors interviewed twenty-five faculty members at a public, high-research university in the Midwest to explore the intersections of discovery, browsing, and format from diverse disciplinary perspectives. Although most participants rely on similar discovery tools such as library catalogs and databases and Google Scholar, their discovery techniques varied according to the discipline and type of research being done. Browsing is not a standard method for discovery, but it is still done selectively and strategically by some scholars. Journal articles …

Cas Honor Symposium Program, Fall 2024, College Of Arts & Sciences Honors Program

College of Arts & Sciences Honors in the Major Symposium

No abstract provided.

The Scientific Border: Dna Testing For Family Reunification, Alexa Greco

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

No abstract provided.

Interactive Example-Based Explanations To Improve Health Professionals’ Onboarding With Ai For Human-Ai Collaborative Decision Making, Min Hun Lee, Renee Bao Xuan Ng, Silvana Xinyi Choo, Shamala Thilarajah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A growing research explores the usage of AI explanations on user’s decision phases for human-AI collaborative decision-making. However, previous studies found the issues of overreliance on ‘wrong’ AI outputs. In this paper, we propose interactive example-based explanations to improve health professionals’ onboarding with AI for their better reliance on AI during AI-assisted decision-making. We implemented an AI-based decision support system that utilizes a neural network to assess the quality of post-stroke survivors’ exercises and interactive example-based explanations that systematically surface the nearest neighborhoods of a test/task sample from the training set of the AI model to assist users’ onboarding with …

2024 Quality Of Life Survey - Orleans And Jefferson Parishes, Edward E. Chervenak, Anthony Liciardi

Survey Research Center Publications

The University of New Orleans Survey Research Center (SRC) conducted a live interviewer telephone survey of active registered voters in Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish. Four hundred and ninety-one randomly selected respondents from Orleans Parish and 487 randomly selected respondents from Jefferson Parish were interviewed from September 9th through October 1st, 2024. Each survey yields a margin of error of +/- 4.4% at a 95% confidence level.

Childhood Adversity's Impact On Criminal Behavior, Isobel Marie Avento

Theses and Dissertations

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), such as abuse, neglect, and family criminal history, have been identified as potential risk factors for negative physical, psychological, and behavioral health outcomes. Emerging literature suggests that ACEs are also among the primary factors leading to delinquency and adult criminal behavior. However, there is limited applied research that provides practitioners with appropriate insight to intervene when ACEs are identified among juvenile delinquents to reduce recidivism risk. This study adds to the existing literature by examining how cumulative ACEs shape criminal behavior of individuals from the onset until its desistance over the span of twenty years. Using …

Investigating The Effects Of Empathy On Implicit Race Bias, Macy Kisiel

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Over the years there have been changes to social norms, which now discourage expressions of prejudice, and changes in many people’s self-reported attitudes, but prejudice is still a major issue in present-day American society. One important step toward addressing prejudice and social injustices is to understand the psychological processes that underlie and strengthen them. The current study aimed to use an empathy passage to positively prime the schema about a minority person of color and manipulate regulation of implicit bias. The study utilized a mixed 2 × 2 design. Sixty-four participants (Mage = 20.88 years, SD = 4.75 years) were …

"Every Direction We Turn, It’S A Wall”: North Carolina School Counselors And Their Advocacy And Support For Undocumented Students’ Access To Higher Education, Wendy Eberhart Cook

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

High school counselors in North Carolina assist with post-secondary planning for all their students, including the approximately 3,000 undocumented students who graduate from North Carolina schools each year (Zong & Batalova, 2019). Access to post-secondary education is difficult to attain for undocumented students (Groce & Johnson, 2021), especially true for undocumented students in North Carolina, a state considered hostile to this student population due to tuition and financial aid policy (Mansfield & Hernandez, 2024). Undocumented students also face a fear of deportation, food insecurity, lower socioeconomic conditions, and language barriers (Abrego, 2006).

Despite the many barriers undocumented students face, school …

Reimagining Supportive Approaches At The Intersection Of Mandatory Reporting Policies For The Mother–Infant Dyad Affected By Substance Use, Kelly Mcglothen-Bell, Diana Cartagena, Kathryn J. Malin, Dorothy Vittner, Jacqueline M. Mcgrath, Rebecca Koerner, Ashlee J. Vance, Allison Crawford

College of Nursing Faculty Research and Publications

Background: As rates of substance use during pregnancy persist, the health and optimal development of infants with prenatal substance exposure remain a key priority. Nurses are tasked with identifying and reporting suspected cases of child maltreatment, including abuse and neglect, which is often assumed to be synonymous with substance use during pregnancy. While policies aimed at protecting infants from child abuse and neglect are well intentioned, literature regarding the short- and long-term social and legal implications of mandatory reporting policies is emerging.

Purpose: In this article, we explore the intersections between the condition of substance use in pregnancy and policies …

Administrators And Teachers' Experiences With Trauma Training And Trauma Informed Care, Pamala Patterson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trauma problems have made an impression on school systems in the United States, and parents, students, administrators, and teachers pose concerns in the community and schools. The purpose of this study was to understand the lived experiences of administrators and teachers on trauma training and the implementation of trauma-informed care. This qualitative method was hermeneutical-phenomenological and centered on the lived experiences of this population. The researcher analyzed individual interviews of 11 educators identified as administrators and teachers. The results indicated that this population was disadvantaged by the trauma training they received in their ability to provide trauma-informed care. Three themes …

The Lead, Mid-Fall 2024, Lindenwood University

The Lead

The Lead is an electronic newsletter produced by the Lindenwood College of Education & Human Services.

Women On Death Row In The United States, Sandra Babcock, Nathalie Greenfield, Kathryn Adamson

Cardozo Law Review

This Article presents a comprehensive study of forty-eight persons sentenced to death between 1990 and 2022 who were legally recognized as women at the time of their trials. Our research is the first of its kind to conduct a holistic and intersectional analysis of the factors driving women’s death sentences. It reveals commonalities across women’s cases, delving into their experiences of motherhood, gender-based violence (“GBV”), and prior involvement with the criminal legal system. We also explore the nature of the women’s crimes of conviction, including the role of male codefendants and the state’s use of aggravating factors. Finally, we reveal …

Anyone You Are Related To Can Be Used Against You: Criminal Discovery Statutes And Investigative Genetic Genealogy, Caroline Levine

Cardozo Law Review

The use of investigative genetic genealogy (“IGG”) as a basis for arresting suspects in complex and dormant investigations is raising serious concerns about whether the due process rights of criminal defendants in these cases are being violated. This Note provides a comprehensive look at the role of this groundbreaking, yet little-understood technology in criminal prosecutions. Technological advances have historically necessitated that courts expand and reinterpret legal principles. As a novel derivative of traditional DNA testing, this Note argues IGG should similarly require that discovery statutes be amended or rewritten to adapt to this cutting-edge technique, which is so new that …

Access To Justice As Access To Data, Tanina Rostain

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Keynote Address, delivered in celebration of the launch of SCALES, discusses the importance of making local and state court data available for research on the functioning of the American civil justice system. It describes the regulatory and administrative challenges of obtaining good-quality data from courts. It calls for a concerted effort among researchers and policymakers to develop open-source technologies for the development of case management systems and data infrastructure. And it urges researchers to foster a collaborative research ecosystem based on broadly sharing court data.

Navigating Ethical Challenges In Online Wildlife Trade Research, Thais Q. Morcatty, Shan Su, Penthai Siriwat, Astrid Alex Andersson, Sadek Atoussi, Kim Feddema, Sergio Henriques, Jordi Janssen, Anushri Karve, Jennifer Pytka, Ruth M. Thompson, Vincent Nijman, Joss Wright, David L. Roberts

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The surge in internet accessibility has transformed wildlife trade by facilitating the acquisition of wildlife through online platforms. This scenario presents unique ethical challenges for researchers, as traditional ethical frameworks for in-person research cannot be readily applied to the online realm. Currently, there is a lack of clearly defined guidelines for appropriate ethical procedures when conducting online wildlife trade (OWT) research. In response to this, we consulted the scientific literature on ethical considerations in online research and examined existing guidelines established by professional societies and ethical boards. Based on these documents, we present a set of recommendations that can inform …