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Full-Text Articles in Law

After The Criminal Justice System, Benjamin Levin Oct 2023

After The Criminal Justice System, Benjamin Levin

Washington Law Review

Since the 1960s, the “criminal justice system” has operated as the common label for a vast web of actors and institutions. But as critiques of mass incarceration have entered the mainstream, academics, activists, and advocates increasingly have stopped referring to the “criminal justice system.” Instead, they have opted for critical labels—the “criminal legal system,” the “criminal punishment system,” the “prison industrial complex,” and so on. What does this re-labeling accomplish? Does this change in language matter to broader efforts at criminal justice reform or abolition? Or does an emphasis on labels and language distract from substantive engagement with the injustices …


Private Police Regulation And The Exclusionary Remedy: How Washington Can Eliminate The Public/Private Distinction, Jared Rothenberg Oct 2023

Private Police Regulation And The Exclusionary Remedy: How Washington Can Eliminate The Public/Private Distinction, Jared Rothenberg

Washington Law Review

Private security forces such as campus police, security guards, loss prevention officers, and the like are not state actors covered by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures nor the Fifth Amendment’s Miranda protections. As members of the umbrella category of “private police,” these private law enforcement agents often obtain evidence, detain individuals, and elicit confessions in a manner that government actors cannot, which can then be lawfully turned over to the government. Though the same statutory law governing private citizens (assault, false imprisonment, trespass, etc.) also regulates private police conduct, private police conduct is not bound by …


Marital Disharmony: Examining The Adverse Spousal Testimonial Privilege And Its Impact In Washington State, Sabrina Suen Jun 2023

Marital Disharmony: Examining The Adverse Spousal Testimonial Privilege And Its Impact In Washington State, Sabrina Suen

Washington Law Review

In Washington State, RCW 5.60.060(1) provides that “[a] spouse or domestic partner shall not be examined for or against his or her spouse or domestic partner, without the consent of the spouse or domestic partner.” This evidence rule, known as the adverse spousal testimonial privilege, allows a defendant to exclude witness testimony by their spouse under most circumstances. A product of common law tradition, this privilege stems from a time when the law treated women as chattel with no independent legal rights. Since Washington State codified the adverse spousal privilege, the United States Supreme Court amended the federal spousal testimonial …


Making Bad Decisions With Toxic Emissions: Exploring The Prosecution Of Companies For Superfund Crimes, Dr. Melissa Jarrell Ozymy, Dr. Joshua Ozymy May 2023

Making Bad Decisions With Toxic Emissions: Exploring The Prosecution Of Companies For Superfund Crimes, Dr. Melissa Jarrell Ozymy, Dr. Joshua Ozymy

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

Marginalized communities in the United States bear the brunt of toxic pollution from Superfund sites. Criminal provisions in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), also known as Superfund, allow prosecutors to seek penalties for environmental crimes involving significant harm and/or culpable conduct, but we know little about how companies have been prosecuted for Superfund crimes. We utilize content analysis of 2,728 environmental crime prosecutions stemming from U.S. EPA criminal investigations from 1983-2021, and select cases of companies prosecuted for Superfund crimes. We found that across 41 prosecutions, 126 defendants were prosecuted, resulting in 68 years of probation …


Evaluating Congress's Constitutional Basis To Abolish Felony Disenfranchisement, James E. Lauerman Mar 2023

Evaluating Congress's Constitutional Basis To Abolish Felony Disenfranchisement, James E. Lauerman

Washington Law Review

In the past three years, members of Congress unsuccessfully introduced a series of federal voting rights legislation, most recently the Freedom to Vote Act. One goal of the legislation is to abolish felony disenfranchisement. Felony disenfranchisement is the practice of revoking a citizen’s right to vote due to a prior felony conviction. The Freedom to Vote Act aims to restore voting rights for every citizen who has completed their prison sentence. A ban on felony disenfranchisement would be historic, as the practice stretches back to ancient Greece and Rome. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court consistently upholds the practice by …


No Sense Of Decency, Kathryn E. Miller Mar 2023

No Sense Of Decency, Kathryn E. Miller

Washington Law Review

For nearly seventy years, the Court has assessed Eighth Amendment claims by evaluating “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” In this Article, I examine the evolving standards of decency test, which has long been a punching bag for critics on both the right and the left. Criticism of the doctrine has been fierce but largely academic until recent years. Some fault the test for being too majoritarian, while others argue that it provides few constraints on the Justices’ discretion, permitting their personal predilections to rule the day. For many, the test is seen …


Gone Fishing: Casting A Wide Net Using Geofence Warrants, Ryan Tursi Mar 2023

Gone Fishing: Casting A Wide Net Using Geofence Warrants, Ryan Tursi

Washington Law Review

Technology companies across the country receive requests from law enforcement agencies for cell phone location information near the scenes of crimes. These requests rely on the traditional warrant process and are known as geofence warrants, or reverse location search warrants. By obtaining location information, law enforcement can identify potential suspects or persons of interest who were near the scene of a crime when they have no leads. But the use of this investigative technique is controversial, as it threatens to intrude upon the privacy of innocent bystanders who had the misfortune of being nearby when the crime took place. Innocent …