Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Keyword
-
- Criminal law (2)
- Fourth Amendment (2)
- AAID (1)
- Alcohol (1)
- Allocution (1)
-
- Appellate waiver (1)
- Arizona (1)
- Arizona marijuana law (1)
- Atkins (1)
- Attempt (1)
- Attenuated circumstances (1)
- BAC (1)
- Bad faith (1)
- Bail; cash bail; money bail; pretrial; incarceration; risk assessments; PSA; electronic monitoring; pretrial defendants; bail reform; community bail funds; bail hearings; misdemeanor; California; Washington (1)
- Bail; pretrial detention; pretrial release; supervised release; equal protection; Fourteenth Amendment; equal justice under law; law and policy reform; law and justice (1)
- Bargained for exchange (1)
- Black lives matter (1)
- Breach (1)
- Briseño factors (1)
- CBD (1)
- Cannabinoid (1)
- Cannabis (1)
- Capital Punishment; Death Penalty; Racial Justice; Black Lives Matter (1)
- Capital punishment (1)
- Chemical (1)
- Civil rights; police misconduct; police tort liability; intellectual history of public and private law; public law; private law; intentional infliction of emotional distress; IIED; police accountability law; Section 1983; constitutional tort; tort law; tort liability; middle spaces; racialized policing; (1)
- Colorado (1)
- Colorado marijuana law (1)
- Constitutional Law; Federalism; Public Policy; Criminal Law; Legislation; Opioids; Opioid Epidemic; Drug Policy; Heroin; Drug Addiction; Safe Injection Facility (1)
- Contract (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 41
Full-Text Articles in Law
A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley
A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley
Brooklyn Law Review
American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …
Identity Crisis: First Amendment Implications Of State Identification Card And Driver’S License Branding For Registered Sex Offenders, Marina D. Barron
Identity Crisis: First Amendment Implications Of State Identification Card And Driver’S License Branding For Registered Sex Offenders, Marina D. Barron
Brooklyn Law Review
The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act has been criticized since its inception as excessively punitive, a poor means of preventing sex crimes, and an invasion of basic privacy rights. There are currently eight states that require registered sex offenders to carry branded identification cards (IDs) that mark their registrant status. These markings range anywhere from a letter or symbol on the face of the card, to the words “SEXUAL OFFENDER” or “SEXUAL PREDATOR” in bright red or orange letters. Registrants are forced to share this private and harmful information to the unknowing and presumably uninterested public, including pharmacists, hotel …
Gang Accusations: The Beast That Burdens Noncitizens, Mary Holper
Gang Accusations: The Beast That Burdens Noncitizens, Mary Holper
Brooklyn Law Review
This article examines evidence that the government presents in deportation proceedings against young men of color to prove that they are gang members. The gang evidence results in detention, deportation, adverse credibility decisions, and denial of discretionary relief. This article examines the gang evidence through the lens of the law’s use of presumptions and the corresponding burdens of proof at play in immigration proceedings. The immigration burden allocations allow adjudicators to readily accept the harmful presumption contained in the gang evidence—that urban youth of color are criminals and likely to engage in violent crime associated with gangs. The article seeks …
No Need For Speed: The Inherent Unreasonableness Of High-Speed Police Chases And A New Approach To Excessive Force Litigation, Hayley Bork
Brooklyn Law Review
High-speed police chases are a deadly tactic used and abused by the police to apprehend motorists who flee from traffic stops. Police departments around the country routinely escalate stops for mere traffic infractions into dangerous high-speed pursuits, resulting in death and injury to those involved. Moreover, Black Americans represent a disproportionate number of those stopped, chased, and killed by police, making high-speed chases, like many police-citizen encounters, highly racialized. However, for motorists injured by high-speed chases, maintaining a successful lawsuit against the responsible officers remains incredibly difficult under current excessive force jurisprudence. Although police department policies limiting when and why …
A Civil Shame: The Failure To Protect Due Process In Discretionary Immigration Bond Hearings, Stacy L. Brustin
A Civil Shame: The Failure To Protect Due Process In Discretionary Immigration Bond Hearings, Stacy L. Brustin
Brooklyn Law Review
Over the last four years, the US Supreme Court has granted certiorari in four immigration bond review cases. The sheer number of cases the Court has recently considered underscores the significance of this area of immigration law. Each case centers on whether the Immigration and Nationality Act or the Constitution mandates a bond review hearing after prolonged detention. Yet these cases leave unresolved the issue of whether initial bond hearings themselves meet the due process threshold required of civil confinement proceedings. Federal circuit and district courts have addressed aspects of this question and found procedural due process violations. However, most …
Foreword: The Role Of The “Victim” In The Criminal Legal System, Kate Mogulescu
Foreword: The Role Of The “Victim” In The Criminal Legal System, Kate Mogulescu
Brooklyn Law Review
On September 24, 2021, the Brooklyn Law Review brought together scholars looking at the role of the “victim” in the criminal legal system. Of consideration were the following questions: Who is labeled a victim and how does that impact outcomes and process? Where does the issue of victimization emerge, how is it received and what should the system’s response be? Who gets a voice? And when? Does the existing victim-offender binary further exacerbate a criminal legal system build on misogyny, xenophobia, and white supremacy? The series of articles and essays that make up this issue reflect the symposium’s multidimensional discussion …
Should Victims’ Views Influence Prosecutors’ Decisions?, Bruce A. Green, Brandon P. Ruben
Should Victims’ Views Influence Prosecutors’ Decisions?, Bruce A. Green, Brandon P. Ruben
Brooklyn Law Review
This article seeks to promote a conversation about how prosecutors, particularly in misdemeanor cases with identifiable victims, should take account of what victims want, including what they regard as the just result. The criminal law assumes that victims want retribution, which means incarcerating offenders, and prosecutors’ offices largely accept that premise. We argue that in a process that generally is weighted toward punishment and excessive use of state power, prosecutors should ascertain victims’ actual views and take them into account as a counterweight. That is, when prosecutors would otherwise pursue a misdemeanor prosecution, they should generally defer to victims’ informed …
Blame The Victim: How Mistreatment By The State Is Used To Legitimize Police Violence, Tamara Rice Lave
Blame The Victim: How Mistreatment By The State Is Used To Legitimize Police Violence, Tamara Rice Lave
Brooklyn Law Review
The surprising thing about George Floyd is not that he was killed by the police. What is remarkable is that the officer who killed him was charged, convicted, and sentenced to more than twenty-two years in prison. This article examines the institutional mechanisms that support police violence against Black people. In the process, it illuminates the insidious ways in which state actors exploit structural social, economic, and health mistreatment to legitimize police violence. After exploring these issues, this article provides suggestions to reform our institutions in a manner that will bring about meaningful and lasting change.
Parole, Victim Impact Evidence, And Race, Alexis Karteron
Parole, Victim Impact Evidence, And Race, Alexis Karteron
Brooklyn Law Review
Parole offers the possibility of release for a substantial number of incarcerated people in the United States, the world’s largest jailer, but is seriously understudied. In particular, the role of victims and race in the parole decision-making process deserves attention. Decades of research has shown that the “race-of-victim effect” leads to more punitive sentences when white victimhood is at issue. In the parole context, the ubiquity of victim impact statements and the emotional responses they trigger raise the likelihood that the “race-of-victim effect” plagues parole decision-making as well. This essay calls for greater data collection and scrutiny into the role …
Rotten Social Background And Mass Incarceration: Who Is A Victim?, Steven Zeidman
Rotten Social Background And Mass Incarceration: Who Is A Victim?, Steven Zeidman
Brooklyn Law Review
Despite the theoretical right to be heard at different junctures in the criminal legal system, in practice, the right is unsecured for many accused and convicted of various offenses. Criminal defendants are rarely heard at trial, upon sentencing, or at parole board interviews to determine eligibility for release. Consequently, these individuals are not able to offer explanations for their behavior. This is particularly harmful given the role that “severe environmental deprivation” or, sometimes controversially referred to as “rotten social background,” plays in criminal behavior. Research now indicates that societal shortcomings, including a lack of healthcare, education, and employment opportunities, combined …
The Victim/Offender Overlap And Criminal System Reform, Cynthia Godsoe
The Victim/Offender Overlap And Criminal System Reform, Cynthia Godsoe
Brooklyn Law Review
Victimization makes people more likely to harm others, and vice versa. In short, “hurt people hurt people.” This victim/offender overlap is especially pronounced in sexual and violent offenses. Unfortunately, the criminal law continues to imagine victims and offenders in two different and mutually exclusive categories, each rigidly defined and morally laden. I first encountered this phenomenon while representing teenagers termed “crossover youth” due to their being both in the foster care system and the juvenile criminal system, and was surprised to find so little on this topic in the criminal law literature. Beginning to fill this gap is an important …
What Are Victim Impact Statements For?, Susan A. Bandes
What Are Victim Impact Statements For?, Susan A. Bandes
Brooklyn Law Review
In Payne v. Tennessee, the US Supreme Court upheld the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) on the ground that they provide valuable information to the sentencer. In the three decades since, two additional rationales for VIS have become ascendant: most prominently, a therapeutic rationale, and more recently, a public education rationale. In this article, I expand upon my critiques of the informational and therapeutic rationales in light of a growing body of empirical evidence about how VIS affect both sentencers and crime victims. Focusing on the powerful and viral VIS delivered at the Larry Nassar guilty plea hearings and …
Giving Meaning To The Apostrophe In Victim[’]S Rights, Margaret Garvin
Giving Meaning To The Apostrophe In Victim[’]S Rights, Margaret Garvin
Brooklyn Law Review
There is a lack of consistency in how courts interpret the use or placement of an apostrophe on “victim.” While this may seem like a minor grammatical or typological error, it has a tremendous effect on victim’s rights, as it virtually erases the victim due to the confusion over the ownership of said rights. This essay analyzes how the placement of the apostrophe, in cases dealing with subpoenas duces tecum, have led courts to interpret victim rights in multiple ways, but all with the same outcome—excluding the actual victim from consideration. This causes the actual victims, even when the court …
Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning
Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning
Brooklyn Law Review
Defendants have constitutional rights to cross-examine witnesses and to represent themselves. But when these rights are combined, they can have devastating effects on crime victims. All too often, defendants use the rights in a last-ditch effort to harass, bully, and intimidate the crime’s victims, sometimes leading to a dismissal of charges altogether, as victims withdraw their testimony to avoid personal cross-examination by the defendant. It does not have to be this way. Numerous courts have allowed standby counsel to conduct cross-examination of the victim within constitutional constraints. This article explores the limitations courts have imposed on pro se cross-examination to …
Defense Counsel’S Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts
Defense Counsel’S Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts
Brooklyn Law Review
A broad scholarly coalition supports the prohibition or diminution of the impeachment of criminal defendants with their convictions. Yet scholars should pay more attention to the flipside arrangement: impeachment of prosecution witnesses by defense counsel. First, because those engaged in reform efforts need to resolve the competing interests: constitutional arguments on behalf of the defense, but, on the other hand, concerns about a tool that (regardless of the nature of the witness) risks reinforcing biases and stereotypes. Second, because the impossibility of adequate resolution is itself important to note. Whether one considers the conflicting values of rule-makers deciding whether to …
Keeping Guns In The Hands Of Abusive Partners: Prosecutorial And Judicial Subversion Of Federal Firearms Laws, Bonnie Carlson
Keeping Guns In The Hands Of Abusive Partners: Prosecutorial And Judicial Subversion Of Federal Firearms Laws, Bonnie Carlson
Brooklyn Law Review
State actors are imbued with the power of the government to enforce and apply the law. When they use that power to instead inhibit a law’s enforcement, they are engaging in subversion. Subversion is problematic on its face: it frustrates legislative intent, creates confusion, and destabilizes the separation of powers foundational to our democracy. But subversion is particularly insidious when it is done to the detriment of vulnerable individuals. That is the case when state prosecutors and judges purposefully undermine federal law intended to keep firearms out of the hands of abusive partners. Guns and domestic violence can be a …
Black Deaths Matter: The Race-Of-Victim Effect And Capital Punishment, Daniel S. Medwed
Black Deaths Matter: The Race-Of-Victim Effect And Capital Punishment, Daniel S. Medwed
Brooklyn Law Review
The racial dimensions of the death penalty are well-documented. Many observers assume this state of affairs derives from bias—often implicit and occasionally explicit—against black defendants in particular. Research points to an even more alarming factor. The race of the victim, not the defendant, steers cases in the direction of death. Regardless of the perpetrator’s race, those who kill whites are more likely to face capital charges, receive a death sentence, and die by execution than those who murder blacks. This short Essay adds a contemporary gloss to the race-of-victim effect literature, placing it in the context of the Black Lives …
Prosecuting Misconduct: New York’S Creation Of A Watchdog Commission, Danielle Robinson
Prosecuting Misconduct: New York’S Creation Of A Watchdog Commission, Danielle Robinson
Brooklyn Law Review
Prosecutors play an integral role in America’s inherently adversarial criminal justice system and thus have a significant impact on the individual liberties of accused citizens. Therefore, they have long since been subject to continuous scrutiny by the public, which in turn leads to criticism of state legislatures for not addressing the issue. The state of New York attempted to meet this challenge of prosecutorial misconduct head-on as part of a multi-pronged criminal justice reform agenda with the creation of a first-in-the-nation commission on prosecutorial conduct (CPC). At this point in time, the CPC has been held unconstitutional. This note will …
23andeveryone: Privacy Concerns With Law Enforcement’S Use Of Genealogy Databases To Implicate Relatives In Criminal Investigations, Shanni Davidowitz
23andeveryone: Privacy Concerns With Law Enforcement’S Use Of Genealogy Databases To Implicate Relatives In Criminal Investigations, Shanni Davidowitz
Brooklyn Law Review
The discovery of DNA typing in the 1980s transformed law enforcement’s ability to exonerate innocent suspects, while implicating those who are guilty, with “the power of a silent biological witness at the crime scene.” This transformation, coupled with the new trend of law enforcement’s use of genealogy databases, has created legal issues that police officers, prosecutors, genealogy companies, and policy makers are all currently trying to navigate. The technological advancement comes with serious ethical and privacy concerns, including fear of the establishment of a “genetic panopticon.” General concern exists that if a “genetic panopticon” comes to fruition, the government can …
Where Are You, Congress?: Silence Rings In Congress As Juvenile Offenders Remain In Prison For Life, Megan R. Pollastro
Where Are You, Congress?: Silence Rings In Congress As Juvenile Offenders Remain In Prison For Life, Megan R. Pollastro
Brooklyn Law Review
Over the last decade, Supreme Court precedent has changed the way courts have sentenced juveniles in the United States. It has failed, however, to clearly establish the proper handling of cases in which juveniles are sentenced to extended periods of time in prison that equate to a de facto sentence of life in prison without parole. Congress has also remained noticeably silent on the issue. Children are not considered mature enough to vote, to drink alcohol, to serve on a jury, and yet, courts treat juvenile offenders as mature enough to pay for their crimes for the remainder of their …
Introducing Disruptive Technology To Criminal Sanctions: Punishment By Computer Monitoring To Enhance Sentencing Fairness And Efficiency, Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter
Introducing Disruptive Technology To Criminal Sanctions: Punishment By Computer Monitoring To Enhance Sentencing Fairness And Efficiency, Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter
Brooklyn Law Review
The United States criminal justice system is the most punitive on earth. The total correctional population is nearly seven million, equating to a staggering one in thirty-eight adults. Most of the correctional population comprises offenders who are on parole or probation, and a high portion of these defendants who are on parole or probation reoffend during the sanction period. There has been a growing consensus among lawmakers and the wider community that reforms need to be implemented to reduce the cost of criminal sanctions and to improve their effectiveness. For example, the United States Sentencing Commission has recently proposed an …
Assuring Financial Stability For Survivors Of Domestic Violence: A Judicial Remedy For Coerced Debt In New York’S Family Courts, Megan E. Adams
Assuring Financial Stability For Survivors Of Domestic Violence: A Judicial Remedy For Coerced Debt In New York’S Family Courts, Megan E. Adams
Brooklyn Law Review
Domestic violence is a national crisis impacting more than one in three women and one in four men. Abuse is often experienced in nonviolent forms, including emotional, verbal and economic abuse. This note focuses on the harms of economic abuse and, specifically, coerced debt. As society’s understanding of the nuances of domestic violence deepens, many states, including New York, have recognized economic abuse as a unique harm and have empowered family courts to adjudicate such abuse. While promising, many states have yet to devise a suitable remedy for such harm. This critical gap leaves far too many survivors of abuse …
Give Me Liberty Or Give Me . . . Alternatives?: Ending Cash Bail And Its Impact On Pretrial Incarceration, Muhammad B. Sardar
Give Me Liberty Or Give Me . . . Alternatives?: Ending Cash Bail And Its Impact On Pretrial Incarceration, Muhammad B. Sardar
Brooklyn Law Review
Every day in the United States, thousands of pretrial defendants are imprisoned due to their inability to afford bail. These individuals have not been convicted of an offense, yet are incarcerated for the crime of being poor. Pretrial incarceration wreaks havoc both on the individual detainee and society at large. Pretrial detainees are more likely to plead guilty, receive higher sentences, and face grave future economic prospects. The cash bail system in particular disproportionately affects racial minorities, furthering the already racially disparate outcomes inherent in the U.S. criminal justice system. From a societal perspective, the increased rate of incarceration due …
The Problem Of The Terror Non-State: Rescuing International Law From Isis And Boko Haram, Darin E.W. Johnson
The Problem Of The Terror Non-State: Rescuing International Law From Isis And Boko Haram, Darin E.W. Johnson
Brooklyn Law Review
This article examines how terror non-states, such as ISIS and Boko Haram, blur the distinctions between non-state actors and states under international law. Terror non-states’ confounding of this dichotomy undermines the efficacy of international human rights law in the territories that they control, complicates responsive foreign military intervention, and confuses the appropriate legal framework that governs armed conflicts in which they are involved. This article assesses these challenges and makes recommendations from a perspective that gives primacy to the protection and liberation of vulnerable populations. The article recommends that the United Nations Security Council pass a resolution that mandates that …
A Safe Harbor In The Opioid Crisis: How The Federal Government Should Allow States To Legislate For Safe Injection Facilities In Light Of The Opioid Public Health Emergency, Amber A. Leary
Brooklyn Law Review
Opioid addiction is wreaking havoc across the United States, leading to a shocking number of overdoses and deaths. This epidemic has prompted the Trump Administration to declare opioid abuse a public health emergency and to call for increases in evidence-based treatment for those addicted to harmful opioids. To combat this epidemic, some cities have embraced one such evidence-based treatment plan—safe injection facilities—which are infirmaries where drug users can inject pre-obtained drugs under the supervision of nurses or overdose reversal specialists who can respond in real time to prevent overdose and death. Though safe injection facilities outside the United States have …
The (Not-So) “Brave New World Of International Criminal Enforcement”: The Intricacies Of Multi-Jurisdictional White-Collar Investigations, Emily T. Carlson
The (Not-So) “Brave New World Of International Criminal Enforcement”: The Intricacies Of Multi-Jurisdictional White-Collar Investigations, Emily T. Carlson
Brooklyn Law Review
We have entered a new age of international white-collar crime and are seeing the growing interdependency of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and parallel foreign agencies to conduct investigations and subsequent prosecutorial proceedings. This coordination to combat these crimes, however, has revealed a troubling question—how can enforcement agencies work effectively together if they have fundamental differences in the legal authority governing testimony-gathering and what evidence is allowed before a grand jury? The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in United States v. Allen, confronted this issue directly as it overturned two indictments arising out of suspected manipulation of a …
Essay: Injustice In Black And White: Eliminating Prosecutors’ Peremptory Strikes In Interracial Death Penalty Cases, Daniel Hatoum
Essay: Injustice In Black And White: Eliminating Prosecutors’ Peremptory Strikes In Interracial Death Penalty Cases, Daniel Hatoum
Brooklyn Law Review
This essay advocates that prosecutors’ peremptory strikes should be eliminated in interracial capital cases. The application of the death penalty has a race problem, especially for interracial cases. A conviction is far more likely if the defendant is black and the victim is white. This is due to the fact that in interracial cases, prosecutors utilize peremptory strikes to prevent black jurors from serving on cases in which the defendant is black and the victim is white. This essay is the first to argue that such a system stacks the deck against defendants in interracial capital cases in an unconstitutional …
Prisoner-To-Public Communication, Demetria D. Frank
Prisoner-To-Public Communication, Demetria D. Frank
Brooklyn Law Review
The pervasive problem of over-incarceration in the United States is in part due to lack of correctional facility accountability to the public, and public lack of access to the prisoner experience. In light of the incessant persistence of over-incarceration and “hands off approach” taken by courts in prison administration, this article proposes an unqualified and unfettered prisoner-to-public communication right that would provide prison accountability to the public.
The Context Of Violence: The Lautenberg Amendment & Interpretive Issues In The Gun Control Act, Rachel B. Polan
The Context Of Violence: The Lautenberg Amendment & Interpretive Issues In The Gun Control Act, Rachel B. Polan
Brooklyn Law Review
Few areas of the law are as hotly debated as gun control, or as universally condemned as domestic violence – and the Supreme Court’s decisions on the Lautenberg Amendment address both. An amendment to the Gun Control Act, it prohibits persons convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from owning a firearm. The amendment qualifies a predicate conviction as one that has a “force clause” as an element. In particular, while looking at the force in domestic violence, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that one must also look to context: a “squeeze of an arm” of an intimate partner …
The Chilling Effect: The Politics Of Charging Rape Complainants With False Reporting, Lisa Avalos
The Chilling Effect: The Politics Of Charging Rape Complainants With False Reporting, Lisa Avalos
Brooklyn Law Review
Although legal scholars have addressed the persistent failure to effectively investigate and prosecute rape despite decades of attempts at reform, the issue of prosecutors going so far as to bring false reporting charges against disbelieved sexual assault victims has received scant scholarly attention. This article calls attention to this particularly disturbing externality of the mishandling of rape cases. First contextualizing false reporting prosecutions of rape victims, the article demonstrates that such prosecutions are a direct outgrowth of poor quality, under-resourced police rape investigations. These prosecutions move forward as a result of several systemic problems: procedural irregularities and informal policies that …