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Full-Text Articles in Law

Supermax’S Kryptonite? Wilkinson V. Austin: The Due Process Challenge To Ohio’S Super-Maximum Security Prison, Adam Miller Dec 2014

Supermax’S Kryptonite? Wilkinson V. Austin: The Due Process Challenge To Ohio’S Super-Maximum Security Prison, Adam Miller

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This note discusses the Supreme Court’s holding in Wilkinson that OSP’s system for inmate placement in its Supermax facility does not violate the Equal Protection Clause. Part II will summarize OSP’s purpose and condition, and will focus on Ohio’s New Policy regarding inmate placement. Part III will examine Supreme Court precedent and the Court’s conclusions of law in determining whether inmates have a protected liberty interest in avoiding assignment to OSP and the due process implications of the inmate selection process to OSP. Part IV will question the Supreme Court’s disregard of the adverse mental effects in inmates subjected to …


A Critique Of The Second Circuit’S Analysis In Nicholas V. Goord, John Dorsett Niles Dec 2014

A Critique Of The Second Circuit’S Analysis In Nicholas V. Goord, John Dorsett Niles

University of Massachusetts Law Review

The Case Note proceeds as follows. Part I traces the historical and procedural facts underlying Nicholas. Part II describes the legal backdrop against which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided the case. Part III steps through the Second Circuit’s majority opinion, and Part IV critiques the opinion. Part V concludes the Case Note by discussing the ramifications of Nicholas for future DNA-indexing cases.


Spreading Democracy Everywhere But Here: The Unlikely Prospect Of Foreign National Defendants Asserting Treaty Violations In American Courts After Sanchez-Llamas V. Oregon And Medellin V. Dretke, Miriam F. Miquelon-Weismann Dec 2014

Spreading Democracy Everywhere But Here: The Unlikely Prospect Of Foreign National Defendants Asserting Treaty Violations In American Courts After Sanchez-Llamas V. Oregon And Medellin V. Dretke, Miriam F. Miquelon-Weismann

University of Massachusetts Law Review

To squarely address this decisional quagmire, this article examines the binding effect of ICJ orders, entered pursuant to its compulsory jurisdiction, on American courts; earlier decisions of the Supreme Court penalizing foreign nationals for failing to timely raise individual treaty claims; the effect on treaty enforcement in domestic courts after the executive branch’s recent foreign policy decision to withdraw from compulsory ICJ jurisdiction; the current policy disputes dividing the United States and the ICJ; and, the national interest, or lack thereof, in treaty compliance. The article concludes that the government’s current claim that a “long standing presumption” exists to prevent …


The Case For Extending Pretrial Diversion To Include Possession Of Child Pornography, Sarah J. Long Dec 2014

The Case For Extending Pretrial Diversion To Include Possession Of Child Pornography, Sarah J. Long

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Pretrial diversion removes offenders with a low-risk of reoffending from the penal system and instead sends them to supervised treatment programs. The result is lower cost to the state and a second chance for those who successfully complete the program. Typically, violent crimes, such as murder and attempted murder, are exempt from pretrial diversion. Notably, sex related crimes are also ineligible in all jurisdictions. By excluding all sex-related crimes from pretrial diversion, possession of child pornography is adjudicated by the courts. As a result, young, first-time offenders who may be candidates for treatment are bundled with physical offenders, members of …


Furman, After Four Decades, J. Thomas Sullivan Mar 2014

Furman, After Four Decades, J. Thomas Sullivan

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Problems of racial discrimination in the imposition of capital sentences, disclosure of misconduct by prosecutors and police, inconsistency in the quality of defense afforded capital defendants, exoneration of death row inmates due to newly available DNA testing, and, most recently controversies surrounding the potential for cruelty in the execution process itself continue to complicate views about the morality, legality, and practicality of reliance on capital punishment to address even the most heinous of homicide offenses. Despite repeated efforts by the Supreme Court to craft a capital sentencing framework that ensures that death sentences be imposed fairly in light of the …


Watching The Watchers: The Growing Privatization Of Criminal Law Enforcement And The Need For Limits On Neighborhood Watch Associations, Sharon Finegan Mar 2014

Watching The Watchers: The Growing Privatization Of Criminal Law Enforcement And The Need For Limits On Neighborhood Watch Associations, Sharon Finegan

University of Massachusetts Law Review

On the night of February 26, 2012, George Zimmerman, a member of a neighborhood watch program, was patrolling his community in Sanford, Florida, when he spotted Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old Africa-American high school student, walking through the neighborhood. Zimmerman dialed 911 and indicated that he was following "a real suspicious guy". The police dispatcher requested that Zimmerman discontinue following Martin, but he ignored the request and approached the teenager. In the resulting confrontation, Zimmerman used his legally owned semi-automatic handgun to shoot and kill Trayvon Martin. Martin, who was unarmed, had been returning from a local convenience store. George Zimmerman …