Law Commons^™

Correctional Discharge Planning & The Missing Linkages, D'Andre D. Lampkin

D'Andre Devon Lampkin

This research project explores correctional rehabilitation and disconnects between correctional facilities and linkage to follow up mental health treatment. One of the components to releasing inmates is providing them with services that help reintroduce them into society. For the mentally ill, linkage to mental health services after spending any amount of time in a correctional facility is heavily dependent on follow through by the former inmate and the expediency and capacity of the mental health departments’ outpatient facilities within the community the former inmate is released into.

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt

Benjamin L. Apt

A number of current theories attempt to explain the purpose and need for criminal punishment. All of them depend on some sort of normative basis in justifying why the state may penalize people found guilty of crimes. Yet each of these theories lacks an epistemological foundation; none of them explains how we can know what form punishments should take. The article analyses the epistemological gaps in the predominant theories of punishment: retributivism, including limited-retributivism; and consequentialism in its various versions, ranging from deterrence to the reparative theories such as restorative justice and rehabilitation. It demonstrates that the common putative epistemological …

Democracy Enhancement And The Sixth Amendment Right To Choose, Janet Moore

Janet Moore

A democracy deficit undermines the legitimacy of criminal justice systems. People enmeshed in these systems are disproportionately poor people and people of color with little voice in creating or implementing the governing law. A stark example is the Sixth Amendment right to choose a lawyer. This understudied and undertheorized right is protected for criminal defendants who can afford to hire counsel. Yet according to Supreme Court dicta and rulings by other courts across the country, poor people “have no right to choose” their lawyers. This Article argues that the Sixth Amendment right to choose should apply to the overwhelming majority …

One Small Problem With Administrative Driver’S License Suspension Laws: They Don’T Reduce Drunken Driving, Steve R. Darnell

Steve R Darnell

Only eight states continue to rely on the judicial system to suspend a drunken driver’s license instead of an administrative process. Federal agencies and special interest groups such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety press for Administrative License Suspension (ALS) laws arguing these laws reduce drunken driving. While some research supports this view, there is an equally and more compelling literature indicating ALS laws are not effective in reducing drunken driving. This study analyzed data from eight states that have adopted ALS laws to determine if the ALS laws reduced drunken driving. A …

City Of Los Angeles V. Patel: The Upcoming Supreme Court Case No One Is Talking About, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Focusing solely on whether a hotel owner has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a guest registry is akin to asking whether Verizon Wireless has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its customer lists. The answer to those questions should be yes, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question—and the proverbial elephant in the room—is whether hotel occupants and cell phone users forfeit their privacy rights simply because they check into the Beverly Hills Hotel or call their significant others from a Smart Phone on the Santa Monica Freeway. Put differently, a hotel owner’s expectation of privacy in a guest registry …

Demon At The Back Door: Rise Of The Mexican Drug Cartels, Oliver T. Beatty

Oliver T Beatty

This article addresses the rise of the violent Mexican drug cartels and searches within the legislative and law enforcement toolbox on how to dethrone the epidemic of violence on the border. The Mexican drug cartels rose from the ashes and structural framework of the Colombian cocaine cartels which gave these new criminal empires their routes, connections, and ease at taking over Pablo Escobar’s monopoly on the drug trafficking game. In addressing the origins of the cartels this article explores the trajectory of cocaine from imported medical remedy to criminalized substance. Additionally this article explores how the Italian mafia was dismantled …

The Evolution Of The Digital Millennium Copyright Act; Changing Interpretations Of The Dmca And Future Implications For Copyright Holders, Hillary A. Henderson

Hillary A Henderson

Copyright law rewards an artificial monopoly to individual authors for their creations. This reward is based on the belief that, by granting authors the exclusive right to reproduce their works, they receive an incentive and means to create, which in turn advances the welfare of the general public by “promoting the progress of science and useful arts.” Copyright protection subsists . . . in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, now known or later developed, from which they can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or …

Penal Modernism In Theory And Practice, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This comment on James Whitman's article, "The Case for Penal Modernism: Beyond Utility and Desert," suggests additional reasons why the era of penal modernism was eventually elipsed by retributivism in the U.S., and questions the degree to which penal modernism's fall also represents retributivism's triumph.

Legalized Lynch Mobs In The 21st Century: Racial Improprieties In The Death Penalty, Betsy A. Daniller

Betsy A Daniller

No abstract provided.

Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim

Andrew Chongseh Kim

Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …

No Prisoner Left Behind? Enhancing Public Transparency Of Penal Institutions, Andrea Armstrong

Andrea Armstrong

Prisoners suffer life-long debilitating effects of their incarceration, making them a subordinated class of people for life. This article examines how prison conditions facilitate subordination and concludes that enhancing transparency is the first step towards equality. Anti-subordination efforts led to enhanced transparency in schools, a similar but not identical institution. This article argues that federal school transparency measures provide a rudimentary and balanced framework for enhancing prison transparency.

Mediating Theft, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Mediating Theft, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Mediating Theftv, Kaitlyn E. Tucker

Kaitlyn E Tucker

In the attached short article, I argue for a change in the punishment scheme in non-violent theft crimes. Specifically, I outline a new Victim-Offender Mediation program and then argue how and why it should integrate into the criminal justice system to advance restorative justice as a viable method for punishment in America. I describe restorative justice as a model for punishment and Victim-Offender Mediation specifically as a restorative technique. I then explain why our criminal justice system needs Victim-Offender Mediation. The nation faces unprecedented numbers of prisoners and costs to run prison facilities, in addition to the disparate number of …

Lights, Camera, Arrest: The Stage Is Set For A Federal Resolution Of A Citizen's Right To Record The Police In Public, Taylor R. Robertson

Taylor R Robertson

Grab your cellphone, press the record button, and amaze your friends!

No advertisement like this exists in real life, of course, because the action is already universally automatic—it needs no encouragement or instruction. But aim the camera at the police and you could be arrested and face up to fifteen years in prison under some eavesdropping or wiretapping laws simply for recording the police in public speaking at volumes audible to any unassisted ear. While wiretapping laws were originally intended to protect citizens from the snooping detective, some states have effectively turned these laws into government protection from the watchful …

How To Create American Manufacturing Jobs, John D. Gleissner Esquire

John D Gleissner Esquire

No abstract provided.

Holmes And The Common Law: A Jury's Duty, Matthew P. Cline

Matthew P Cline

The notion of a small group of peers whose responsibility it is to play a part in determining the outcome of a trial is central to the common conception of the American legal system. Memorialized in the Constitution of the United States as a fundamental right, and in the national consciousness as the proud, if begrudged, duty of all citizens, juries are often discussed, but perhaps not always understood. Whatever misunderstandings have come to be, certainly many of them sprang from the juxtaposition of jury and judge. Why do we have both? How are their responsibilities divided? Who truly decides …

Punishment And Rights, Benjamin L. Apt

Benjamin L. Apt

Prevalent theories of criminal punishment lack a rationale for the precise duration and nature of state-ordered criminal punishment. In practice, too, criminal penalization suffers from inadequate evidence of punitive efficacy. These deficiencies, in theory and in fact, would not be so grave were the state to enjoy unfettered power over the disposition of criminal penalties. However, in societies that recognize legal rights, criminal punishments must be consistent with rights. Efficacy, even where demonstrable, does not suffice as a legal justification for punishment. This article analyzes the source of rights and how they function as primary rules in a legal system. …

Costs Of Codification, Dru Stevenson

Dru Stevenson

Between the Civil War and World War II, every state and the federal government shifted toward codified versions of their statutes. Academia has so far ignored the systemic effects of this dramatic change. For example, the consensus view in the academic literature about rules and standards has been that precise rules present higher enactment costs for legislatures than would general standards, while vague standards present higher information costs for courts and citizens than do rules. Systematic codification – featuring hierarchical format and numbering, topical arrangement, and cross-references – inverts this relationship, lowering transaction costs for legislatures and increasing information costs …

Timeless Trial Strategies And Tactics: Lessons From The Classic Claus Von Bülow Case, Daniel M. Braun

Daniel M Braun

In this new Millennium -- an era of increasingly complex cases -- it is critical that lawyers keep a keen eye on trial strategy and tactics. Although scientific evidence today is more sophisticated than ever, the art of effectively engaging people and personalities remains prime. Scientific data must be contextualized and presented in absorbable ways, and attorneys need to ensure not only that they correctly understand jurors, judges, witnesses, and accused persons, but also that they find the means to make their arguments truly resonate if they are to formulate an effective case and ultimately realize justice. A decades-old case …

The Risky Interplay Of Tort And Criminal Law: Punitive Damages, Daniel M. Braun

Daniel M Braun

The rise of modern mass tort litigation in the U.S. has transformed punitive damages into something of a “hot button” issue. Since the size of punitive damage awards grew so dramatically in the past half century, this private law remedy has begun to involve issues of constitutional rights that traditionally pertained to criminal proceedings. This has created a risky interplay between tort and criminal law, and courts have thus been trying to find ways to properly manage punitive damage awards. The once rapidly expanding universe of punitive damages is therefore beginning to contract. There remain, however, very serious difficulties. Despite …

Pretend “Gun-Free” School Zones: A Deadly Legal Fiction, David B. Kopel

David B Kopel

Most states issue permits to carry a concealed handgun for lawful protection to an applicant who is over 21 years of age, and who passes a fingerprint-based background check and a safety class. These permits allow the person to carry a concealed defensive handgun almost everywhere in the state. Should professors, school teachers, or adult college and graduate students who have such permits be allowed to carry firearms on campus? In the last two years, many state legislatures have debated the topic. School boards, regents, and administrators are likewise faced with decisions about whether to change campus firearms policies. The …

Wild-West Cowboys Versus Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys: Some Problems In Comparative Approaches To Extreme Speech, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

All European states ban some form of hate speech. US law precludes such bans. In view of the political and symbolic importance of free speech, it becomes tempting to assume that trans-Atlantic differences towards hate speech reflect deeper cultural divisions.

However, we must pay attention to comparative methodology before drawing ambitious conclusions about cross-cultural social and political differences that derive solely from differences in formal, black-letter norms. In this volume, Robert Post claims that formal, constitutional requirements of content-neutral regulation reflect a freer public sphere in the US, in contrast to the European public sphere.

Yet a legal-realist approach casts …

Cumulative Jurisprudence And Hate Speech: Sexual Orientation And Analogies To Disability, Age And Obesity, Eric Heinze

Prof. Eric Heinze, Queen Mary University of London

Non-discrimination norms in human rights instruments generally enumerate specified categories for protection, such as race, ethnicity, sex or religion, etc. They often omit express reference to sexual minorities.

Through open-ended interpretation, however, sexual minorities subsequently become incorporated. That ‘cumulative jurisprudence’ yields protections for sexual minorities through norms governing privacy, employment, age of consent, or freedoms of speech and association.

Hate speech bans, too, are often formulated with reference to traditionally recognised categories, particularly race and religion. It might be expected that the same cumulative jurisprudence should therefore be applied to include sexual minorities. In this article, that approach is challenged. …

The Personal Is Political--And Economic: Rethinking Domestic Violence, Deborah M. Weissman

Deborah M. Weissman

This Article seeks to expand the scope of the domestic violence discourse within the context of the theory and practice of legal strategies. The intent is to shift the analytical parameters beyond the criminal justice system to include the political economy of everyday experiences of households. Such a paradigm shift examines the conditions of the private sphere as a function of the circumstances of public realms. It considers domestic violence by linking it to the structural transformations of the U.S. economy during recent years. It assesses domestic violence from the perspective of the daily life of men and women who …