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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Risk Of Money Laundering Through Crowdfunding: A Funding Portal's Guide To Compliance And Crime Fighting, Zachary Robock
The Risk Of Money Laundering Through Crowdfunding: A Funding Portal's Guide To Compliance And Crime Fighting, Zachary Robock
Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review
With the recent passage of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (“JOBS Act”) and proposed regulations, equity crowdfunding is poised to play an important role in fundraising for many types of emerging growth companies. A fundamental purpose of crowdfunding is to reduce economic barriers to capital markets for emerging growth companies, in part by relaxing rigorous information disclosure requirements currently mandated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Relaxed regulation should help reduce the cost of fundraising, but it will also present certain risks. Investor fraud is a common concern, which is addressed at length in the JOBS Act and …
Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr
Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr
Articles
Using rich data linking federal cases from arrest through to sentencing, we find that initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes. Most of this disparity can be explained by prosecutors’ initial charging decisions, particularly the filing of charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Ceteris paribus, the odds of black arrestees facing such a charge are 1.75 times higher than …
Sex Offender Law And The Geography Of Victimization, Amanda Y. Agan, J. J. Prescott
Sex Offender Law And The Geography Of Victimization, Amanda Y. Agan, J. J. Prescott
Articles
Sex offender laws that target recidivism (e.g., community notification and residency restriction regimes) are premised—at least in part—on the idea that sex offender proximity and victimization risk are positively correlated. We examine this relationship by combining past and current address information of registered sex offenders (RSOs) with crime data from Baltimore County, Maryland, to study how crime rates vary across neighborhoods with different concentrations of resident RSOs. Contrary to the assumptions of policymakers and the public, we find that, all else equal, reported sex offense victimization risk is generally (although not uniformly) lower in neighborhoods where more RSOs live. To …
Widening Our Lens: Incorporating Essential Perspectives In The Fight Against Human Trafficking, Jonathan Todres
Widening Our Lens: Incorporating Essential Perspectives In The Fight Against Human Trafficking, Jonathan Todres
Jonathan Todres
In 2000, the international community formally launched the modern movement to combat human trafficking with the United Nations' adoption of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking Protocol). With the Trafficking Protocol, the international community created a new cornerstone upon which to build a global initiative to combat this modem form of slavery. As the first major international treaty on human trafficking in half a century, the Trafficking Protocol represented a significant step forward. One hundred forty-seven countries are now party to the …
How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing The Path To Mandatory Criminal Intervention In Domestic Violence Cases, Claire Houston
How Feminist Theory Became (Criminal) Law: Tracing The Path To Mandatory Criminal Intervention In Domestic Violence Cases, Claire Houston
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
Our popular understanding of domestic violence has shifted significantly over the past forty years, and with it, our legal response. We have moved from an interpretation of domestic violence as a private relationship problem managed through counseling techniques to an approach that configures domestic violence first and foremost as a public crime. Mandatory criminal intervention policies reflect and reinforce this interpretation. How we arrived at this point, and which understanding of domestic violence facilitated this shift, is the focus of this Article. I argue that the move to intense criminalization has been driven by a distinctly feminist interpretation of domestic …
Sexting Prosecutions: Minors As A Protected Class From Child Pornography Charges, Sarah Thompson
Sexting Prosecutions: Minors As A Protected Class From Child Pornography Charges, Sarah Thompson
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Caveat
"Firt love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity." -- George Bernard Shaw Teenagers will explore their sexuality; this is no new phenomenon. However, the ways that teens are exploring their curiosity is changing with technology. This trend has serious repercussions for teens, society, and the law. ‘Sexting’—defined as the act of sending sexually explicit photographs or messages via cell phone—is one recently-developed means of sexual exploration. The practice overlaps with the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography that is banned by both state and federal law. Due to the overlap, minors have been prosecuted under …
The Two Faces Of Bribery: International Corruption Pathways Meet Conflicting Legislative Regimes, Jeffrey R. Boles
The Two Faces Of Bribery: International Corruption Pathways Meet Conflicting Legislative Regimes, Jeffrey R. Boles
Michigan Journal of International Law
Suppose a government agency tasks its purchasing agent with buying a set of computer servers for the agency’s use, and the agent contacts a technology company to make the purchase. After selecting the needed servers, the agent learns of the servers’ fair market value but does not negotiate with the technology company to obtain the lowest possible price. Instead, unbeknownst to the government, the agent agrees with the technology company’s sales manager to purchase the servers on behalf of the government for an amount significantly above their fair market value, and, in return, the company agrees to give the agent …
Lost In Translation: The Accidental Origins Of Bond V. United States, Kevin L. Cope
Lost In Translation: The Accidental Origins Of Bond V. United States, Kevin L. Cope
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
One of the unusual features of cases about the constitutionality of federal statutes is that they are nearly always foreseeable. Even before the bill’s introduction in Congress, lawmakers are often aware that they are inviting a federal lawsuit. Anticipating a legal challenge, legislators and their staffs attempt to predict the courts’ views of the statute and adapt the bill accordingly. Generally speaking, the bigger the bill’s potential constitutional impact, the more foreseeable the resulting case. By this logic, jurists should have seen the constitutional issues in Bond v. United States from a mile away. In reality, they were foreseen by …
Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime, David M. Uhlmann
Prosecutorial Discretion And Environmental Crime, David M. Uhlmann
Articles
Prosecutorial discretion exists throughout the criminal justice system but plays a particularly significant role for environmental crime. Congress made few distinctions under the environmental laws between acts that could result in criminal, civil, or administrative enforcement. As a result, there has been uncertainty about which environmental violations will result in criminal enforcement and persistent claims about the overcriminalization of environmental violations. To address these concerns — and to delineate an appropriate role for criminal enforcement in the environmental regulatory scheme — I have proposed that prosecutors should reserve criminal enforcement for violations that involve one or more of the following …
Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma
Toward Greater Guidance: Reforming The Definitions Of The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, Matthew W. Muma
Michigan Law Review
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 is the cornerstone of the United States’ efforts to combat the involvement of U.S. companies and individuals in corruption abroad. Enforced by both the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), the Act targets companies and individuals that pay bribes to “foreign officials,” a nebulous category of persons that includes everyone from foreign cabinet members to janitors at companies only partially owned by a foreign state. After only sporadic enforcement in the early years of the Act’s existence, the SEC and DOJ now bring many cases annually. This increased …