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Full-Text Articles in Law
Participatory Litigation: A New Framework For Impact Lawyering, Jules Lobel
Participatory Litigation: A New Framework For Impact Lawyering, Jules Lobel
Articles
This Article argues that the manner in which class-action and impact lawyers have traditionally litigated leaves little room for class participation in lawsuits, and that a new, participatory framework can and should be adopted. Through the story of a successful class-action suit challenging California’s use of prolonged solitary confinement in its prisons, the Article demonstrates that plaintiff participation is both possible and important.
Academic literature has assumed that broad plaintiff participation in class-action and impact litigation is not achievable. Yet this Article describes how, in a key California case, attorneys actively involved the plaintiffs in all aspects of the litigation: …
Equitable Gateways: Toward Expanded Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Court Criminal Convictions, Eve Brensike Primus
Equitable Gateways: Toward Expanded Federal Habeas Corpus Review Of State Court Criminal Convictions, Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
State prisoners who file federal habeas corpus petitions face a maze of procedural and substantive restrictions that effectively prevent almost all prisoners from obtaining meaningful review of their convictions. But it is a mistake to think that habeas litigation is just a Kafkaesque nightmare with no constructive potential. Federal courts do sometimes cut through the doctrinal morass to consider state prisoners’ claims, relying on what this Articleterms "equitable gateways" to federal habeas relief. Litigants and courts generally underestimate the potential these gateways offer, with the result that habeas litigation does not focus on them as often as it should. Here …
Jurisdiction And Resentencing: How Prosecutorial Waiver Can Offer Remedies Congress Has Denied, Leah Litman, Luke C. Beasley
Jurisdiction And Resentencing: How Prosecutorial Waiver Can Offer Remedies Congress Has Denied, Leah Litman, Luke C. Beasley
Articles
This Essay is about what prosecutors can do to ensure that prisoners with meritorious legal claims have a remedy. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) imposes draconian conditions on when prisoners may file successive petitions for post-conviction review (that is, more than one petition for post-conviction review). AEDPA’s restrictions on post-conviction review are so severe that they routinely prevent prisoners with meritorious claims from vindicating those claims.
Keeping It Real: Why Congress Must Act To Restore Pell Grant Funding For Prisoners, Spearit
Keeping It Real: Why Congress Must Act To Restore Pell Grant Funding For Prisoners, Spearit
Articles
In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (VCCLEA), a provision of which revoked Pell Grant funding “to any individual who is incarcerated in any federal or state penal institution.” This essay highlights the counter-productive effects this particular provision has on penological goals. The essay suggests Congress acknowledge the failures of the ban on Pell Grant funding for prisoners, and restore such funding for all qualified prisoners.
Resentencing In The Shadow Of Johnson V. United States, Leah Litman
Resentencing In The Shadow Of Johnson V. United States, Leah Litman
Articles
On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court handed down a decision many years in the making—Johnson v. United States. Johnson held that the ‘‘residual clause’’ of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) is unconstitutionally vague. Although Johnson may have been overshadowed in the final days of a monumental Supreme Court term, the decision is a significant one that will have important consequences for the criminal justice system. ACCA’s residual clause imposed a severe 15-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment, and many federal prisoners qualify for ACCA’s mandatory minimum. Johnson did away with ACCA’s residual clause such that defendants will no …
The 'Hot Trail' Into Mexico And Extradition Analogies, Edwin D. Dickinson
The 'Hot Trail' Into Mexico And Extradition Analogies, Edwin D. Dickinson
Articles
The recent decision of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Dominguez v. State, 234 S. W. 79, has given us an important precedent and also a valuable example of the solution of novel problems by means of analogies. A detachment of the military forces of the United States had been authorized by the War Department to enter Mexico on the "hot trail" in pursuit of bandits. While following a "hot trail" this detachment arrested Dominguez, a native citizen and resident of Mexico, and returned with him to the United States. It developed later that he was not one of …