Law Commons^™

Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Sheri Lynn Johnson

In federal habeas corpus proceedings, Earl Matthews, an African American, South Carolina death row inmate, alleged that his death sentence was the result of invidious racial discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To support his contention, Matthews presented statistical evidence showing that in Charleston County, where a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, the prosecutor was far more likely to seek a death sentence for a Black defendant accused of killing a white person than for any other racial combination of victims and defendants, and also that such a Black defendant was more …

Post-Mccleskey Racial Discrimination Claims In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Theodore Eisenberg, Sheri Lynn Johnson

John H. Blume

In federal habeas corpus proceedings, Earl Matthews, an African American, South Carolina death row inmate, alleged that his death sentence was the result of invidious racial discrimination that violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To support his contention, Matthews presented statistical evidence showing that in Charleston County, where a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death, the prosecutor was far more likely to seek a death sentence for a Black defendant accused of killing a white person than for any other racial combination of victims and defendants, and also that such a Black defendant was more …

Deadly Force In Memphis: Tennessee V. Garner, John H. Blume

John H. Blume

On October 3, 1974, officers Hymon and Wright of the Memphis Police Department responded to a call about a burglary in progress. When they arrived at the address, a woman standing in the door told the officers that she had heard glass breaking and that someone was breaking into the house next door. Officer Hymon went around the near side of the house. When he reached the backyard, he saw someone run from the back of the house. With his flashlight, he found a person crouched next to a fence at the back of the yard, some thirty to forty …

County Court, Westchester County, People V. Gant, Albert V. Messina Jr.

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Welcome: We’re Glad Georgia is On Your Mind.

Georgia is on many minds as Warren Hill prepares for a state court hearing to once again begin the process of trying to show that he is intellectually disabled. As Warren Hill continues to flirt with death, one must ask, is Georgia really going to execute someone that nine experts and a lower court twice found to be mentally retarded? The answer is yes, and the Georgia courts do not understand why we are scratching our heads. The answer is simple: executing an intellectually disabled man is akin to strapping a ten-year …

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia’S Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Fourth Department, People V. Mcfarley, Erica R. Borgese

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …

The Criminalization Of Consensual Adult Sex After Lawrence, Richard Broughton

Richard Broughton

Ten years after the Supreme Court’s supposedly momentous decision in Lawrence v. Texas, the case still confounds not merely constitutional law, but the criminal law of sex, as well. This Article seeks to advance the literature on both Lawrence and the criminal law by examining Lawrence’s impact upon sex crimes that involve consensual, private, non-prostitution conduct between adults. It positions Lawrence as a relatively conservative opinion as to sex crimes generally, especially in light of the “Exclusions Paragraph” on page 578 of the Court’s opinion. Still, Lawrence (albeit ambiguously) must protect some form of private, consensual, non-prostitution adult sexuality beyond …

Gender Dysphoria In The Jailhouse: A Constitutional Right To Hormone Therapy?, Susan S. Bendlin

Susan S. Bendlin

This Article explores whether incarcerated inmates with Gender Dysphoria, such as Private Manning, have a constitutional right to receive medical treatment for gender re-assignment, and if so, whether they are likely to succeed in suing to obtain treatment if it is not provided by prison officials. Evaluating a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment claim involves two inquiries: an objective component as to whether the inmate displays a “serious medical need”, and a subjective component as to whether the prison officials were “deliberately indifferent” to that need.The issue is a sensitive one because the diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria as a medical illness has …

Jailing Black Babies, James G. Dwyer

Utah Law Review

Children-in-prison programs reflect a commendable sympathy for the lifelong disadvantage and deprivation that most prison inmates have suffered and a wish to transform their lives. But acting primarily on the basis of that sympathy and wish, rather than focusing realistically on what is truly best for children, is a moral and policy mistake. Available evidence suggests that the extreme form of connecting incarcerated birth parents with their offspring, prison nurseries, harms the great majority of those children, especially when the impact is compared to the life the children might have had if adopted immediately after birth. Advocacy for this practice …

Blind Injustice: The Supreme Court, Implicit Racial Bias, And The Racial Disparity In The Criminal Justice System, Tyler Rose Clemons

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” This statement by Chief Justice John Roberts in 2007 is alluring in both its grammatical symmetry and its logical simplicity. Yet it encapsulates the naiveté of the view of racial discrimination currently held by the majority of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Roberts’s assertion contains the implied assumption that the only racial discrimination that exists—or at least the only kind that matters under the Constitution—is explicit and susceptible to conscious control. Decades of …

Prisoner Disenfranchisement In The Uk Vs. The Us: Whom Does It Affect?, Rosi Lehr

Rosi Lehr

Prisoner disenfranchisement is the denial of a prisoner's right to vote. The UK and US both recognize and apply prisoner disenfranchisement in their countries. Both countries are viewed as the biggest advocates of disenfranchisement. The right to vote is viewed as a privilege by both, which may be revoked for antisocial behavior and for violating the laws of the land. There are some differences though between the two countries. The actual extent of the disenfranchisement, where it originates, who it affects, and how it is governed are just a few differences. We will first examine how the UK handles a …