Law Commons^™

Old Age As The Hidden Sentencing Factor, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Imagine two doctors who illegally sold opioids in exchange for cash. Both doctors sold roughly the same quantity of pills, had no prior criminal convictions, and accordingly faced the same sentencing guidelines range. The major difference was that one doctor was in his sixties and considerably older than the other doctor. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines provide that judges should consider a defendant's age only in atypical cases. Yet, this Article demonstrates that older defendants received sentencing discounts far more often than younger defendants convicted of the same crime.

This Article gathers sentencing data for almost 130 doctors convicted in federal …

Free Appropriate Public Education: The Unfulfilled Promise Of The Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, Madison Flores

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Impact Of Abortion Bans On Low-Income Women, Jeni Siegel

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Applying Constitutional Due Process Rights In Immigration Detainment, Gabrielle Risolvato

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Corrosive Effect Of Inevitable Discovery On The Fourth Amendment, Tonja Jacobi, Elliot Louthen

Faculty Articles

The Supreme Court has only once, almost four decades ago, addressed the doctrine of inevitable discovery, when it established the exception in Nix v. Williams. Inevitable discovery encapsulates the notion of no harm, no foul—if law enforcement would have discovered unlawfully obtained evidence regardless of a constitutional violation, then the resulting evidence need not be excluded. Nix laid out two simple dictates: the eponymous requirement of inevitability and a corresponding evidentiary burden requiring the prosecution to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that law enforcement inevitably would have discovered the evidence without the violation. Such analysis requires counterfactual …

"With All The Majesty Of The Law": Systemic Racism, Punitive Sentiment, And Equal Protection, Darren L. Hutchinson

Faculty Articles

United States criminal justice policies have played a central role in the subjugation of persons of color. Under slavery, criminal law explicitly provided a means to ensure White dominion over Blacks and require Black submission to White authority. During Reconstruction, anticrime policies served to maintain White supremacy and re-enslave Blacks, both through explicit discrimination and facially neutral policies. Similar practices maintained racial hierarchy with respect to White, Latinx, and Asian-American populations in the western United States. While most state action no longer explicitly discriminates on the basis of race, anticrime policy remains a powerful instrument of racial subordination. Indeed, social …

Put Down The Phone! The Standard For Witness Interviews Is In-Person, Face-To-Face, One-On-One, Sean O'Brien, Quinn O'Brien, Dana Cook

Faculty Works

Professor and capital defense attorney Sean O’Brien, private investigator Quinn O’Brien, and mitigation specialist Dana Cook team up in this article to explain why the standard for competent defense investigation requires face-to-face, one-on-one, culturally competent client and witness interviews, and why short cuts to investigation, such as telephone calls or remote video links, are counter-productive, prone to failure, and constitute substandard work. Although the primary focus of this article is on standards that apply to capital mitigation work, the problems created by remote witness interviews are not unique to death penalty work; there are persuasive arguments and authority that the …

The Runaway Jury Of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán; Or Dishonesty Only Our Justice System Could Ratify, Sean Roman Strockyj

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Acts And Basic Moral Equality, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Modern criminal justice presupposes that persons are not morally equal. On the contrary, those who do wrong are viewed by the law as less worthy of respect, concern and decent treatment: Offenders, it is said, “deserve” to suffer for their misdeeds. Yet, there is scant logical or empirical basis for the law's supposition that offenders are morally inferior. The usual reasoning is that persons who intentionally or knowingly do wrong are the authors and initiators of their acts and, as such, are morally responsible for them. But this reasoning rests on the assumption that a person's mental states, such as …

Prosecutorial Nonenforcement And Residual Criminalization, Justin Murray

Publications

In recent years a small but influential group of locally elected prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform have openly refused to enforce various criminal laws—laws prohibiting marijuana possession, sentencing enhancements, laws authorizing the death penalty, and much more—because they see those laws as unjust and incompatible with core reform objectives. Condemned by many on the political right for allegedly usurping the legislature’s lawmaking role and praised by many on the left for bypassing dysfunctional state legislatures in favor of local solutions, these prosecutorial nonenforcement policies are commonly said to have the same effect as nullifying, or even repealing, the laws …

Very Important Cases (“Vics”): United States V. Briggs And The Status Of Cases Involving Sexual Violence And Statutes Of Limitations, Michele A. Yankson

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Modelling Pretrial Detention, Melissa Hamilton

American University Law Review

Pretrial detention has become normative in contemporary criminal justice, rather than the exception to a rule of release for individuals not convicted of any crime. Even the opportunity for release with a bond amount often eludes the many individuals who are unable to afford, to pay. Defendants detained, pending trial suffer numerous negative consequences to their own legal cases, such as being more likely to feel pressured to plead guilty and to receive a prison sentence. The high numbers of those detained appear to disproportionately impact minorities and. have contributed to mass incarceration. As a. result, of these issues, the …

Why Not Both Nature And Nurture: Using Behavioral Genetic Markers As Sentencing Factors, Seely Kaufmann

Law Student Publications

"On the evening of July 1, 2013, Amos Wells was upset that his pregnant girlfriend, Chanice Reed, would not answer his calls. He then drove to where she, her mother Annette, and ten-year-old brother Eddie, lived. After arguing with Chanice and yelling at the top of his voice in a “bone-chilling scream,” Wells retrieved a handgun from his Chevrolet Tahoe parked in front of the house, and shot Chanice in the front yard as she screamed, “No, no, no.” Her mother then tried to bat the gun away before he shot her too. Further shots were heard before Wells finally …

State V. Michaud, 251 A.3d 9 (Ri 2021)., Blair Robinson

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Jones, 242 A.3d 47 (R.I. 2020)., Elizabeth Gravelle

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

2021 Rhode Island Public Laws, Madison C. Picard

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rap Reform: Why Rhode Island Should Exclude Police Detectives And Gang Experts From Interpreting A Criminal Defendant’S Ambiguous Rap Lyrics, Chad O. Stroum

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

2021 Surveys Of Rhode Island Law

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Smith, 243 A.3d 1045 (R.I. 2021), Katriina Rose Juntunen

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Public Interest Law Reporter

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Guilty Until The Check Clears: How Money Bail Incentivizes Wealth And Criminalizes Poverty, Caroline Jarcho

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Nfib V. Osha: Weighing Public Safety Against Non-Delegation, Dean Jepsen

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

A Look At The Inception And Evolution Of The Juvenile Legal System In Illinois, Annie Keller

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Guns For Freedom: An Unlawful Police Tactic In Chicago, Malachy Schrobilgen

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Public Interest Law Reporter

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

The Next Era Of Health Law: Medical-Legal Partnerships, Anna Ahrens

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

An End To Sacrifice Zoning In Chicago, Jasmine Anderson

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Gun Violence: The American Hate Crime Epidemic, Melissa Charbonneau

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Poverty As A Barrier To Family Unification: A Look At The Relationship Between Child Welfare Involvement And Access To Housing, Abby Dompke

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Water Is Life: The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's Legal Battle Against The Dakota Access Pipeline, Jasper Gingrich

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.