Law Commons^™

Manning, Powell, And The Habitual Misunderstanding Of Addiction, Matt Dean

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Bryan Manning, a homeless resident of Roanoke, Virginia, has been arrested and prosecuted more than thirty times for drinking or possessing alcohol. Although alcohol is generally legal in Virginia, Mr. Manning was forbidden for many years to “possess” it, “consume” it, or “purchase” it. On at least one occasion, police arrested him merely for “smelling like alcohol.” On another occasion, he was arrested because he happened to be shopping in a Walmart where alcoholic beverages were sold. For decades, Virginia law permitted a state circuit court to issue a civil order declaring an individual to be “an habitual drunkard” …

Can A Person's "Slate" Ever Really Be "Cleaned"? The Modern-Day Implications Of Pennsylvania's Clean Slate Act, Kimberly E. Capuder

St. John's Law Review

(Exceprt)

In 2006, Khalia was arrested for a “low-level counterfeiting charge.” While Khalia was innocent and never convicted for the charged offense, she still had a criminal record. Because she was concerned that future employers would “view her as a thief,” she never applied to any of her dream jobs. But once Khalia’s arrest record was automatically sealed, she finally had enough confidence to send in a job application to a prestigious consulting firm, and was offered the position. Khalia believes that her newly sealed criminal record “means a future without judgment.” And this future without judgment was made possible …

Reversing The Evils Of Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentences: Is Clemency The Only Answer?, Melissa Johnson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Thirty-five years ago, Alice Marie Johnson lived a full life. She was a wife, a mother of five children, and a manager at FedEx. Then divorce, the death of one of her children, and job loss shattered her world. Ms. Johnson was able to find employment as a factory worker, a role which paid only a fraction of her former salary and was insufficient to support her children. Desperate and burdened, she became a telephone mule for drug dealers. She was instructed to “pass phone messages [and] [w]hen people came to town . . . [to tell] them what …

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy: Mental Disease Or Defect That Can Trigger A Successful Criminal Defense, Thomas Mosczczynski

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

When he was a child, he was called kind, gentle and even sweet. He started playing football at a young age that ripened into a successful high school career that lasted from 2004 to 2007. He was a dominant force on the gridiron under the Friday night lights as he played both offense and defense—rarely missing a play. College scouts took notice, and suddenly, the world was his oyster. A small-town kid from Bristol, Connecticut became the talk of college recruiters across the country. In 2007, a year after the death of his father, the quiet kid from Bristol …

Sexual Misconduct By Law Enforcement: A New Meaning To Stop And Frisk?, Anastasia Cassisi

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Turn on the television at any time during the day and you are likely to find at least one channel playing an episode of Law and Order, Special Victims Unit (S.V.U.). If you catch the opening sequence, after a few moments of catchy music, an ominous narrator recites the above words. The fictional show is about a group of New York City detectives who investigate sex crimes and the attorneys who prosecute the offenders. The show portrays sex crimes as egregious offenses committed by heinous criminals. However, what the show fails to depict is what happens when these dedicated …

Save A Friend's Life Or Risk Your Freedom: The Dilemma Too Many People Face When Witnessing An Overdose, Jennie M. Miller

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

You are a Chicago, Illinois resident, walking your dog when you trip over a crack in the pavement and break your arm. You need surgery. After surgery, your doctor gives you a one-month prescription of opioids. Just one little pill has the ability to make all of your pain magically disappear and allow you to function as though you had never even fallen. Near the end of your limited prescription, the pain fails to disappear as easily, and the high does not last quite as long as it once did. There are zero refills remaining. Suddenly, you find yourself …

Victims, Right?, Anna Roberts

Faculty Publications

In criminal contexts, a “victim” is typically defined as someone who has been harmed by a crime. Yet the word commonly appears in legal contexts that precede the adjudication of whether a crime has occurred. Each U.S. state guarantees “victims’ rights,” including many that apply pre-adjudication; ongoing “Marsy’s Law” efforts seek to expand and constitutionalize them nationwide. At trial, advocates, judges, and jury instructions employ this word even though the existence or not of crime (and thus of a crime victim) is a central question to be decided. This usage matters in part because of its possible consequences: it risks …

When Public Defenders And Prosecutors Plea Bargain Race – A More Truthful Narrative, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This paper challenges prevailing stereotypes about public defenders and prosecutors and updates those stereotypes with a more accurate narrative about how reform-minded public defenders and prosecutors can plea bargain race to yield more equitable justice outcomes.

I was invited to the discussion about criminal justice reform in plea bargaining, because of my work in dispute resolution, dispute system design, and discrimination. Plea bargaining is a justice system negotiation that is used in upwards of 97% of criminal case dispositions. Unlike many of my colleagues in criminal justice reform who have also had years of experience working in the criminal …

Addressing Racial Inequities In The Criminal Justice System Through A Reconstruction Sentencing Approach, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Justice reform is having a moment. Across the nation and in the federal government, legislation has passed “to reduce the scale of incarceration and the impact of collateral consequences of a felony conviction.” While some of these reforms were the result of fiscal concerns over mass incarceration, others were in response to the criminal justice reckoning brought on by events of 2020 and intensified calls for racial justice. In the summer of 2020 media attention on the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor sparked nationwide and global protests and accompanying antiracism pledges by individuals and institutions. This …

Presumed Punishable: Sentencing On The Streets And The Need To Protect Black Lives Through A Reinvigoration Of The Presumption Of Innocence, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Following the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, there has been a renewed focus on protecting Black people in America from excessive police violence. While the images of George Floyd were shocking to the public, that level of extreme violence and disregard for life has been a common aspect of the lives of Black Americans throughout history. In America, Black people are "pre­sumed punishable." Due to the historical and persistent biases against Black people, Black people find themselves subject to false assumptions about their criminality and presumptions that they are deserving of punishment. This stands …

That Is Enough Punishment: Situating Defunding The Police Within Antiracist Sentencing Reform, Jalila Jefferson-Bullock, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

During the summer of 2020, the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others created a movement that unearthed a reality that Black people in the United States have always been aware of: systemic racism, in the form of police brutality, is alive and well. While the blatant brutality of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police is the flame, the spark was ignited long ago. One need only review the record of recent years — the killings of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Antwon Rose, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, and countless other souls …

Reconstruction Sentencing: Reimagining Drug Sentencing In The Aftermath Of The War On Drugs, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The year is 2020, and the world has been consumed by a viral pandemic, social unrest, increased political activism, and a history-changing presidential election. In this moment, anti-racism rhetoric has been adopted by many, with individuals and institutions pledging themselves to the work of dismantling systemic racism. If we are going to be true to that mission, then addressing the carnage of the failed War on Drugs has to be among the top priorities. The forty years of treating drug law offenders as enemies of society have left us with decimated communities and have perpetuated a biased view of …

Preventing Predatory Alienation By High-Control Groups: The Application Of Human Trafficking Laws To Groups Popularly Known As Cults, And Proposed Changes To Laws Regarding Federal Immigration, State Child Marriage, And Undue Influence, Robin Boyle Laisure

Faculty Publications

In this article, I summarize some of the significant legal developments in the United States that have taken place within the past year. First, United States v. Raniere was a criminal case launched against the founder of a purported self-help organization, NXIVM, and several of his associates. The Raniere case established precedent for using the human-trafficking statutes, among other grounds, to pursue justice for victims of high-demand groups. Second, the number of asylum seekers is increasing annually, and some of these undocumented immigrants are escaping from their countries-of-origin cults, gangs, and other extremist groups. However, once they arrive in the …

Scarred: The True Story Of How I Escaped Nxivm The Cult That Bound My Life, Robin Boyle Laisure

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Sarah Edmondson provides us with candid insight into the lure of NXIVM, a business built on the promise of empowering members to achieve their personal goals. In the aftermath of the federal criminal trial of the organization’s kingpin, Keith Raniere, we get a deeper understanding of how Raniere and his cadre of manipulators were able to entice people into believing that, by spending thousands of dollars on workshops and following the ever-changing rules of the organization, they would find success.

Unshackling Plea Bargaining From Racial Bias, Elayne E. Greenberg

Faculty Publications

“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, [but] if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”

Dr. Maya Angelou

When an African American male defendant tries to plea bargain an equitable justice outcome, he finds that the deep-rooted racial bias that casts African American men as dangerous, criminal and animalistic, compromises his justice rights. Plea bargaining has become the preferred process used to secure convictions for upwards of 97 percent of cases because of its efficiency. This efficiency, however, comes at a cost. The structure and process of plea bargaining makes it more likely that the historical racial …