Law Commons^™

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 …