Law Commons^™

Pressing The Verdict: The Social Influence Of Pretrial Publicity On Juror Biases, Kara Cato

CMC Senior Theses

Past psychological research has indicated that pretrial publicity has a significant impact on jury decision-making (Shniderman, 2013). This current review aims to expand on past research by investigating the social influence of pretrial publicity on juror biases. The effects of pretrial publicity on juror biases are examined through three mechanisms of social influence: story model, predecisional distortion, and conformity prejudice. This research inspects the relationship between media and the law by reviewing the pervasiveness of the media's depiction of criminal cases, the changing nature of media, and the biasing effects of media exposure. In addition, it explores the different forms …

The Effects Of Gender Stereotypes And Types Of Crime On Perceptions Of Responsibility, Sentencing Severity, And Likelihood Of Recidivism, Spencer Hagenbuch

CMC Senior Theses

Past research has produced mixed findings regarding the roles of gender stereotypes in criminal sentencing. Usually, women receive preferential treatment; however, studies have shown that women receive harsher sentencing than men under certain circumstances. In light of these findings, we argued that the Chivalry and Paternalism thesis shows how women are exempted from harsh punishment when their crimes align with negative gender stereotypes, resulting in lenient treatment most of the time. Additionally, we argued that women receive harsher sentencing when their crimes violate positive gender stereotypes while men receive harsher sentencing when their crimes 1) violate positive gender stereotypes or …

Sex, Money, And Free Speech: The Many Harms Of Fosta/Sesta, Desmond Mantle

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis tracks the development of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act/Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act, or FOSTA/SESTA, which became federal law in 2018. The law's passage followed as a natural consequence of popular concerns about human trafficking. Congress passed the legislation by large margins in both houses given bipartisan opposition to sex trafficking. This thesis identifies plausible reasons for the only two Senate votes against the bill: those of Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden. Though these senators came from opposite sides of the aisle, they shared concerns about the future of free speech online and the potential failure …

Neither “Post-War” Nor Post-Pregnancy Paranoia: How America’S War On Drugs Continues To Perpetuate Disparate Incarceration Outcomes For Pregnant, Substance-Involved Offenders, Becca S. Zimmerman

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis investigates the unique interactions between pregnancy, substance involvement, and race as they relate to the War on Drugs and the hyper-incarceration of women. Using ordinary least square regression analyses and data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, I examine if (and how) pregnancy status, drug use, race, and their interactions influence two length of incarceration outcomes: sentence length and amount of time spent in jail between arrest and imprisonment. The results collectively indicate that pregnancy decreases length of incarceration outcomes for those offenders who are not substance-involved but not evenhandedly -- benefitting white …

Empathy And Worthiness: The Modern Victims' Rights Movement And The Growth Of Mass Incarceration, Samantha Dresner

Scripps Senior Theses

The Victims' Rights Movement emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, at the same time as the War on Drugs and War on Crime were driving mass incarceration at unprecedented levels. This paper examines the historical roots of the victims' rights movement and its evolution from grassroots organizing into a tool of state power. It interrogates the meaning of "worthy" victims, and looks into the landmark Supreme Court case Payne v. Tennessee as an example of victim impact evidence being used to support the state project of the death penalty.

Challenging Moral And Policy Rationales For Charging Youth As Adults, Molly Lockwood

Pitzer Senior Theses

Does the practice of charging juveniles as adults serve the retributive and consequentialist goals of criminal justice policy? Proponents of limiting juvenile court jurisdiction argue that the rehabilitation-oriented remedies available therein are neither sufficient to hold adolescents accountable for wrongdoing, nor strong enough to deter future youth crime. The first chapter of this thesis examines the forward and backward looking premises underlying juvenile transfer to adult criminal court. I find that transfer policies are inconsistent with dominant theories of responsibility and punishment as applied to juveniles. I argue in Chapter One that transfer produces undesirable outcomes with respect to the …

Comparisons Of The Soul: A Foucauldian Analysis Of Reasonable Doubt, Jeri Mallory

Scripps Senior Theses

The purpose of this paper is to uncover a new level of thinking regarding the discourse and debate around the standard of reasonable doubt and how it is used in our court rooms. The current argument surrounding the reasonable doubt standard has become circular and reached an impasse. By introducing the lens of social control and using the writings of notable French philosopher Michel Foucault, this paper looks at the origins and development of the reasonable doubt standard and links it with the increasing methods of social control present in punishment as well as evaluating the cultural narrative around its …

Harmless Constitutional Error: How A Minor Doctrine Meant To Improve Judicial Efficiency Is Eroding America's Founding Ideals, Ross C. Reggio

CMC Senior Theses

The United States Constitution had been in existence for almost two hundred years before the Supreme Court decided that some violations of constitutional rights may be too insignificant to warrant remedial action. Known as "harmless error," this statutory doctrine allows a court to affirm a conviction when a mere technicality or minor defect did not affect the defendant's substantial rights. The doctrine aims to promote judicial efficiency and judgment finality. The Court first applied harmless error to constitutional violations by shifting the statutory test away from the error's effect on substantial rights to its impact on the jury's verdict. Over …

It Takes A Village: An Analysis Of Multilateralism And The Legal Mechanisms Designed To Prevent Violence Against Women, Madison Ivey

Scripps Senior Theses

Treaties and international organizations work together to create a global environment that protects the rights of a person and actively promotes the well-being of society. However, they do not necessarily guarantee the rights of everyone. Since women are not explicitly named in human rights documents, they are often not granted equal human rights. Therefore, it takes more than just international legal instruments to guarantee women's rights as human rights. A combination of civil society (NGOs), International organizations (IOs), and domestic government creates a perfect coalition to beat the barriers that must be overcome to fully protect women from violence.

The Changing Nature Of Death Qualification And Its Interaction With Attitude Salience, Brendan Busch

CMC Senior Theses

Death qualification is a problematic aspect of capital trials, as death qualified jurors have higher conviction rates than non-death qualified jurors. The current study examines whether the death qualification process itself affects juror decision-making via attitude salience effects.

Participants (n=90) recruited from the venire juror pool at the Santa Ana Superior Court were asked to read a trial transcript and decide guilt or innocence and whether they would sentence the defendant to death. Half of the participants were given a survey determining death qualification before they read the trial (making death qualification salient), while the other half were given the …

California As A “Blue-Print’ For Progressive Immigration Reform?: Uncovering Racial Liberalism To Expose Reconfigured Anti-Migrant Hegemony, Edith Jaicel Ortega

Scripps Senior Theses

Using the frames of analysis and language of political whiteness and anti-migrant hegemony, this paper examines the narrative of liberal immigration reformers transforming California’s political landscape within the period of 1994 to 2017. Taken as case studies the following articles of legislation are analyzed: Proposition 187 in 1994, the California Dream Act in 2010, the Trust Act in 2014, up to the present Senate Bill 54 in 2017. The paper finds that while California has experienced a recognizable shift in racial liberalism in rhetoric and legislation, its overall policy continues to work within the framework of anti-migrant hegemony that functions …

Grave Breaches: American Military Intervention In The Late Twentieth- Century And The Consequences For International Law, Calla Cameron

CMC Senior Theses

The duality of the United States’ relationship with international criminal law and human rights atrocities is a fascinating theme that weaves through all of American history, but most distinctly demonstrates the contradictory nature of American foreign policy in the latter half of the 20th century. America is both protector of human rights and perpetrator of human rights atrocities, global police force and aggressor. The Cold War exacerbated the tensions caused by American military dominance. The international political and physical power of the American military allowed the United States to do as it pleased in the 20th century with few consequences, …

The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton

CMC Senior Theses

This empirical study analyzes the political implications for presidential election outcomes that stem from varying felon disenfranchisement laws within the United States. In the past decade incarceration rates have drastically increased, consequently augmenting the disenfranchised population. This paper focuses on presidential election outcomes and state political party majorities in the election years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. I use demographic characteristics to calibrate assumptions for voter turnout and political party choice among the disenfranchised populations within each state. I then apply these voting populations to historical election outcomes and find that three state political party outcomes change, as well as …

Did The Curtailing Of The "Stop, Question, And Frisk" Policy Lead To An Increase In New York City's Homicide Rate In 2015?: An Examination Of The Relationship Between Stop-And-Frisk And Violent Crime Rates, Isabel P. Smith

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis is an examination of the relationship between the New York Police Department's "Stop, Question, and Frisk" policy and the city's homicide rates. Using a historical analysis of NYC crime data as well as a cross-city comparison of homicide rates across the United States, I determine whether or not there is a consistent, causal relationship between the policy and the city's violent crime rates.

When Society Becomes The Criminal: An Exploration Of Society’S Responsibilities To The Wrongfully Convicted, Amelia A. Haselkorn

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis explores how society can and should compensate those who have been wrongfully convicted after they are exonerated and how we can prevent these mistakes from happening to others in the future. It begins by presenting research on the scope of the problem. Then it suggests possible reforms to the U.S. justice system that would minimize the rate of innocent convictions. Lastly, it takes both a philosophical and political look at what just compensation would entail as well as a variety of state compensation laws.

Juvenile Transfer To Adult Criminal Court: Why Transfer Is Not The Best Method In Addressing Juvenile Delinquency, Sarah E.S. Kukino

CMC Senior Theses

Reducing juvenile delinquency is an important issue because today’s juvenile population will become the next generation of contributing members to society. Therefore, the juvenile justice system is faced with the challenge of creating effective methods of decreasing delinquency and providing necessary treatment to juvenile offenders. Legislators implemented juvenile transfer to adult criminal court with the intent of increasing punishments in order to deter future juvenile crime and to hold juvenile offenders accountable for their criminal behavior. This paper shows why juvenile transfer is not an effective method in addressing the issues of juvenile delinquency by looking at several studies that …

A Philosophical Analysis Of California Determinate Sentencing, Three Strikes, And Realignment, Madeline Stein

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between philosophy and policy in the context of three California policies, Determinate Sentencing, Three Strikes, and Realignment. The philosophy portion includes theories of retribution, deterrence, and rehabilitation, focusing on the tensions and conflicts within them.

Die Frauen, Der Strafvollzug, Und Der Staat: Incarceration And Ideology In Post-Wwii Germany, Andrea Moody Kozak

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores how the material reality of Germany's women's prisons has been largely determined by their ideological foundations, and by the historical developments that have produced these ideologies. The German women's prison system is complex and imperfect, yet in many ways very progressive. It is the result of the last sixty years of tumultuous German history, and has been uniquely shaped by the capitalist and communist histories of the once-divided state. In its current state, it seems to have incorporated elements of a supposedly “rational” or individualistic conception of humanity as well as one that is relational and interdependent, …

A Reexamination Of Us Heroin Policy, Daniel Fogel

CMC Senior Theses

Misguided drug policy in the United States has led to many severe social and economic problems that have burgeoned over the past century. I analyzed heroin policy specifically, investigating new treatment methods and alternative decriminalization policies that would ameliorate some of these problems.

Gender Inequality In The Law: Deficiencies Of Battered Woman Syndrome And A New Solution To Closing The Gender Gap In Self-Defense Law, Meredith C. Doyle

CMC Senior Theses

Dr. Lenore Walker developed battered woman syndrome to address the issue of domestic violence and to give battered women a defense in situations in which they kill their abusive partners when they are not overtly threatening them. Self-defense law is based on male on male combat. Women are less able to protect themselves in an attack by a man, and so they may preemptively attack their sleeping partners to avoid a situation in which they cannot adequately protect themselves. Battered woman syndrome explains why these battered women act in a way that is irrational to a non-battered person. Walker's theory …