Law Commons^™

Technological Tethereds: Potential Impact Of Untrustworthy Artificial Intelligence In Criminal Justice Risk Assessment Instruments, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin

Washington and Lee Law Review

Issues of racial inequality and violence are front and center today, as are issues surrounding artificial intelligence (“AI”). This Article, written by a law professor who is also a computer scientist, takes a deep dive into understanding how and why hacked and rogue AI creates unlawful and unfair outcomes, particularly for persons of color.

Black Americans are disproportionally featured in criminal justice, and their stories are obfuscated. The seemingly endless back-to-back murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and heartbreakingly countless others have finally shaken the United States from its slumbering journey towards intentional criminal justice reform. Myths about …

"You Crossed The Fog Line!"—Kansas, Pretext, And The Fourth Amendment, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

In Whren, the United States Supreme Court sanctioned pretextual traffic stops. In practice the holding of Whren condones police investigations that target certain suspect classes of people, like Hispanics, for increased police scrutiny. In permitting pretextual stops, the Court ignored the risk that such practices will encourage police to distort the truth, overlooked the cost of under-enforcement of the laws, and ignored the consequences to the criminal justice system of race and ethnicity based discrimination.

Kansas law exacerbates these risks by making fog-line stops a model for protecting ulterior motives from a sifting judicial inquiry. In Kansas, it makes …

An Exclusionary Rule For Police Lies, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

Our legal system treats the police as if they are impartial fact gatherers, trained and motivated to gather facts both for and against guilt, rather than biased advocates attempting to disprove innocence, which is the reality. Because of its partiality in favor of officers, the criminal justice system lacks the appropriate structure to expose and effectively deter police lies, which distort the truth about criminal or unconstitutional conduct.

This Article, presented in three parts, argues that the current system should be changed to provide the structure necessary to promote honest police work. Specifically, it urges a modification to the exclusionary …

A Return To The Grand Jury To Promote A Zen Zeal In Prosecutors, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

DNA evidence has freed at least 209 convicted people. Sometimes DNA evidence exonerates a person. Other times, it does not. When it does not exonerate, a prosecutor must decide whether to persist in further prosecution of the defendant. I propose a fresh, but simple, solution for prosecutors who face such choices. To protect the interests of defendants and victims, and to assuage society’s need for fair and accurate outcomes, prosecutors should represent these cases to a grand jury. The grand jury is an easily convened neutral party that can dispassionately evaluate the evidence, old and new, and determine whether a …

Finding A Happy And Ethical Medium Between A Prosecutor Who Believes The Defendant Didn't Do It And The Boss Who Says That He Did, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

The increasing prevalence of DNA testing has proven that, at times, our criminal justice system renders wrongful convictions. Extrapolating from such significant errors, we can infer that smaller mistakes also occur. Because criminal prosecution is not an exact science, like DNA evidence, prosecutors can disagree about aspects of a case-whether to reward a cooperating defendant with a sentence reduction, whether to indict a defendant under a mandatory minimum statute, and even whether a defendant is guilty of a crime. This Essay examines the tension that arises when the prosecutor handling a case disagrees with her boss about one or more …

Parker V. Randolph, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

The Admissibility Of Prior-Crimes Evidence In Prosecutions For Child Abuse

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Derivative Evidence Under Mcnabb-Mallory

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Involuntary Confessions And New York Procedure

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disposition Of Physical Exhibits Used In Criminal Trials

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.