Law Commons^™

Does Today's India Need 'Decolonisation' Speak?, Salmoli Choudhuri, Moiz Tundawala

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This article analyses the introduction of three new Bills to replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860, the Indian Evidence Act, 1872 and the updated Criminal Procedure Code of 1973—the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Sakshya Bill and Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, respectively—in light of Indian and global discourse on decoloniality.

Excerpt:

"The proposed exercise of indigenising laws – insincere at best and dangerous at worst – would only bring about a surface-level change of the imaginary through a spectacular show of rejecting the colonial inheritance while harbouring no aspirations for freedom at the structural and systemic level of the symbolic order …

Understanding Mass Incarceration In The Us Is The First Step To Reducing A Swollen Prison Population, Jeffrey Bellin

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No abstract provided.

The Imagined Juror: How Hypothetical Juries Influence Federal Prosecutors (Book Review), Jeffrey Bellin

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No abstract provided.

Prescribing Opioids Without Fear Of Prosecution, Adam M. Gershowitz

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No abstract provided.

Seditious Conspiracy Charge Against Oath Keepers Founder And Others In Jan. 6 Riot Faces First Amendment Hurdle, Timothy Zick

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No abstract provided.

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings In 2018, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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Fatal police taserings have been a persistent phenomenon in the United States for nearly two decades. Steadily, relentlessly, year after year, month after month, our police kill citizens with tasers. This article reviews the history of fatal police taserings and those that occurred in 2018.

International Criminal Court Comes Of Age, Nancy Amoury Combs

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No abstract provided.

The Case That Stirred The State Of Georgia, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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In the second half of the 19th Century, hundreds of murders occurred in Georgia, but only two murder cases electrified the entire state. Both cases were the subject of massive amounts of publicity in Georgia newspapers, and for years both cases were ceaselessly talked about in every part of this state.

One of these two notable murder cases was the Woolfolk murder case, involving Tom Woolfolk, nicknamed Bloody Woolfolk, who in 1887 murdered nine members of his family with an axe in Bibb County and after two trials was hanged in 1890. In 1997, I published a book review in …

Neil Gorsuch And The Return Of Rule-Of-Law Due Process, Nathan Chapman

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Something curious happened at the Supreme Court last week. While the country was glued to the Cirque du Trump, the rule of law made a comeback, revived by Neil Gorsuch, whose place on the Court may prove to be one of Trump’s most important legacies.

Unlike the partisan gerrymander and First Amendment cases currently pending before the Court, immigration cases are usually long on textual analysis and short on grand themes. Accordingly, court-watchers didn’t have especially high expectations for Sessions v. Dimaya.

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings In 2017, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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Fatal police taserings are a persistent phenomenon in the United States. Every year dozens of Americans are fatally tasered by our police.This article looks at the number of deaths cause by police tasering during 2017.

Blog Post: Supreme Court Supports Immigrant’S Right To Understand Consequences Of Conviction, Jenny Roberts

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The author of the following post about the Supreme Court’s decision in Jae Lee v. United States drafted an amicus brief in the case for several national immigrant rights organizations.

In 2010, Padilla v. Kentucky established that criminal defense lawyers must advise clients about the deportation consequences of a conviction, as part of their duties under the Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel. Jose Padilla won in the Supreme Court because his trial lawyer erroneously informed him that he would not be deported after pleading guilty to drug trafficking because he had been in the U.S. for …

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings 2016, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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In this Article, Professor Wilkes updates his research on police tasering by surveying the fatal taserings by police officers that occurred in 2016.

Louisiana Rapper’S Case Speaks To Bigger Problems In The Criminal Justice System, Andrea L. Dennis, Erik Nelson, Michael Render

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This article published on April 25, 2016 at the Huffington Post examines the case of McKinley Phipps. He was sentenced to thirty years of hard labor for a crime that, to this day, he insists he did not commit. During the trial prosecutors used Phipps’s rap persona and lyrics - remixed for special effect - to carefully construct a story of Phipps’s guilt. The article discusses how Phipps lyrics and persona contributed to his conviction and the progress of his appeals.

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings, Part 2, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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This article updates the author's previous article on the statistics on deaths resulting from police taserings.

The Persistence Of Fatal Police Taserings, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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There is, newfound interest in obtaining accurate information about police use of force in this country. This means, among other things, that we need reliable statistics about police violence. We cannot address the problem of unlawful police violence unless we possess adequate statistical information about all police violence, lawful as well as unlawful.

This article explores the violence of police tasering and the statistics of this practice.

Schools Fail To Get It Right On Rap Music, Andrea L. Dennis

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School officials treat rap music as a serious threat to the school environment. Fear and misunderstanding of, as well as bias against, this highly popular and lucrative musical art form negatively shape their perspectives on this vital aspect of youth culture.

As a result, students who express themselves through rap music in a way that challenges the schoolhouse setting risk the possibility of suspension, permanent exclusion and referral to the criminal justice system.

The ongoing case of Taylor Bell is the latest and most complex battleground on which this issue is playing out.

Justice For The 1 Percent: A Corrupt Governor Stays Free, Those Who Should Have Never Been Jailed Die There, Jeffrey Bellin

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No abstract provided.

Electroshock Injustice In Athens-Clarke County, Part 4, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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This article, part 4 in a series, reviews the Athens Clarke County Police Department's (ACCPD) decision to purchase tasers and looks at comments from ACCPD's new police chief.

Police Fatally Tase Another Georgian, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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This article looks at the most recent taser fatality in Georgia.

Guerrilla Warfare And The Constitution, Sonja R. West

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Earlier this week, the United States Supreme Court upheld, by a 5-4 vote, the states’ ability to execute death row inmates with a three-drug lethal injection cocktail that critics argue causes excruciating pain. The Court reasoned that states should be allowed to use the drug in question, despite its involvement in several botched executions, in part because states can no longer attain more effective alternatives. In the majority opinion, the justices spin an erroneous tale about “anti-death-penalty advocates” pressuring pharmaceutical companies into refusing to supply other, more humane drugs to the states for use in capital punishment. This alleged radical …

Tasers Kill: Electroshock Injustice In Athens-Clarke County, Part 3, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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The Athens-Clarke County Police Department’s campaign to popularize its decision to begin using taser electroshock weapons on the local citizenry must be recognized for what it is—a public-relations crusade based on clever misrepresentations and shifty evasions, as well as outright denials of fact. This articles reviews the the concerns about implementing tasers in Athens.

Electroshock Injustice Coming To Athens-Clarke County Part 2: More On The "Benefits" Of Police Tasering, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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This article reviews the Athens-Clarke County police department's arguments in implementing tasers and argues against using them in police enforcement.

Taser Time: Electroshock Injustice Coming Soon To Athens-Clarke County, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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On Sunday, Apr. 19, 2015, an article in the daily newspaper in Athens announced that Athens-Clarke County Police have already received a shipment of 145 tasers and will soon begin using them on the citizenry of this county.

Although taser electroshock devices are technically classified as nonlethal weapons, this means only that their purpose is to avoid fatalities, not that they are incapable of resulting in fatalities. Use of a nonlethal weapon may and sometimes does result in death or serious injury. In recent years, at least 600 Americans, perhaps as many as 1,000, have died suddenly, unexpectedly, or shortly …

Suffocated Habeas Corpus And Merciless Clemency In The Execution Of Warren Hill, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

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On Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015, the state of Georgia executed Warren Lee Hill, Jr. by lethal injection at the state prison in Jackson. This state unconstitutionally wielded its most dangerous and irreversible power, the power to kill. A prisoner with significantly sub-average intellectual functioning, a 54-year old man with the mind of a boy, was strapped down and killed in flagrant violation of a provision of the Bill of Rights intended to maintain human dignity.

This article discusses capital punishment against intellectually disabled individuals and how the erosion of habeas corpus at the Federal and state level and the abandonment …

Shadow Trial: Prosecutors In Ferguson Violated Our Right To An Open Criminal Justice System, Sonja R. West, Dahlia Lithwick

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St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s decision to “open up” the grand jury proceedings by including massive amounts of testimony and evidence has been decried as “highly unusual,” “deeply unfair,” and evidence that police officer Darren Wilson received “special treatment.” McCulloch’s move to include a good deal of exculpatory evidence and testimony led to a three-month, closed-door proceeding that included 70 hours of testimony, including 60 witnesses and three medical examiners. The breadth of the evidence presented to the grand jury has led many to declare that it turned the entire proceeding into something that walks and quacks an awful …

Symposium: Surprising Unanimity, Even More Surprising Clarity, Adam M. Gershowitz

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No abstract provided.

How 'Duty To Retreat' Became 'Stand Your Ground', Jeffrey Bellin

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No abstract provided.

The Interpretive Authority Of Consensus In The Lower Courts, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

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The Rule Of Lenity As A Rule Of Federalism, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

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No abstract provided.

Waiting For Davis V. United States -- Or Not Waiting, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl

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No abstract provided.