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Articles 1 - 9 of 9
Full-Text Articles in Law
If Black Lives Really Matter, We Must End Traffic Stops!, Kenneth Williams
If Black Lives Really Matter, We Must End Traffic Stops!, Kenneth Williams
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
This Article will argue that African Americans will continue to be fatally shot and killed by police disproportionately and in many cases unjustifiably as long as police are allowed to stop motorists for minor non-violent traffic infractions. These stops do little to combat crime and are not worth the lives they upend and the continued unconstitutional racial discrimination that motivates many of these stops. Although the standards for police use of force need to be reformed and police culture has to be changed, the other reform that is imperative in order to significantly reduce the disproportionate fatal police shootings of …
Reducing Community Violence While Protecting Civil Rights, Kami Chavis
Reducing Community Violence While Protecting Civil Rights, Kami Chavis
Popular Media
No abstract provided.
Qualified Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, And Systemic Reform, Katherine Mims Crocker
Qualified Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, And Systemic Reform, Katherine Mims Crocker
Faculty Publications
Qualified immunity has become a central target of the movement for police reform and racial justice since George Floyd’s murder. And rightly so. Qualified immunity, which shields government officials from damages for constitutional violations even in many egregious cases, should have no place in federal law. But in critical respects, qualified immunity has become too much a focus of the conversation about constitutional-enforcement reform. The recent reappraisal offers unique opportunities to explore deeper problems and seek deeper solutions.
This Article argues that the public and policymakers should reconsider other aspects of the constitutional-tort system—especially sovereign immunity and related protections for …
The Supreme Court's Reticent Qualified Immunity Retreat, Katherine Mims Crocker
The Supreme Court's Reticent Qualified Immunity Retreat, Katherine Mims Crocker
Faculty Publications
The recent outcry against qualified immunity, a doctrine that disallows damages actions against government officials for a wide swath of constitutional claims, has been deafening. But when the Supreme Court in November 2020 and February 2021 invalidated grants of qualified immunity based on reasoning at the heart of the doctrine for the first time since John Roberts became Chief Justice, the response was muted. With initial evaluations and competing understandings coming from legal commentators in the months since, this Essay explores what these cases appear to say about qualified immunity for today and tomorrow.
The Essay traces idealistic, pessimistic, and …
Section 1983 & Qualified Immunity: Qualifying The Death Of Due Process And America's Most Vulnerable Classes Since 1871. Can It Be Fixed?, Gabrielle Pelura
Section 1983 & Qualified Immunity: Qualifying The Death Of Due Process And America's Most Vulnerable Classes Since 1871. Can It Be Fixed?, Gabrielle Pelura
William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice
No abstract provided.
Improving Community Safety Means Addressing Police Violence As A Public Health Problem, Kami Chavis, Josh Horwitz
Improving Community Safety Means Addressing Police Violence As A Public Health Problem, Kami Chavis, Josh Horwitz
Popular Media
JURIST Guest Columnists from the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence Kami Chavis, a law professor at Wake Forest University, and Josh Horwitz, the Fund's executive director, discuss ways to address systemic police violence against people of color.
Reforming Policing, André Douglas Pond Cummings
Reforming Policing, André Douglas Pond Cummings
Faculty Scholarship
Law enforcement killing of unarmed black men and police brutality visited upon minority citizens continues to confound the United States. Despite protests, clarion calls for reform, admitted training shortcomings and deficiencies among U.S. law enforcement officers, conferences, summits, and movements to reform policing, the solution to ending undisciplined police violence and the hostile killings of unarmed minority individuals at the hands of U.S. police seems to elude us. Why should this be? The United States is home to some of the most creative, innovative, pathmarking, and course-changing thinkers the world has ever known. This challenge — police killing of unarmed …
Why Insurance Contracts Might Be The Trick To Police Reform, John F. Preis
Why Insurance Contracts Might Be The Trick To Police Reform, John F. Preis
Law Faculty Publications
How do lawsuits deter misconduct? That is an issue that Professor Joanna Schwartz has written about before, and her latest article on the topic, How Governments Pay: Lawsuits, Budgets and Police Reform, could not be more timely. Over the past year, our county has witnessed dramatic instances of police abuse and the public is understandably demanding reform. Schwartz’s terrific article explains why civil rights actions may fail to instigate reform, and suggests how insurance contracts, of all things, can play a role in fixing this problem.
Naacp V. The Attorney General: Black Community Struggle Against Police Violence, 1959-68, Jay Stewart
Naacp V. The Attorney General: Black Community Struggle Against Police Violence, 1959-68, Jay Stewart
Journal Articles
On March 30, 1959, the U.S. Supreme Court issued two decisions which set the stage for a new era in police-community relations. In Abbate v. United States. I and Bartkus v. Illinois,2 the Court gave the U.S. Justice Department the power to prosecute police officers under federal civil rights laws for acts of racist violence - even when they were already under state or local investigation - without fear of violating states' rights. These decisions - had they been enforced - would have been welcome news at the New York headquarters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored …