Law Commons^™

Table Of Contents

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Evidence Machine: Rethinking Admissibility And Privacy In India's Ai Surveillance State, Samyukta Ramaswamy

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

The proliferation of artificial intelligence (‘AI’) surveillance technologies that utilise machine learning (‘ML’) capabilities to gather and process information to derive insights about individuals has transformed the surveillance landscape by enabling governments and private entities to engage in increasingly pervasive monitoring and data-driven profiling. In India, this transformation is compounded by the presence of executive-controlled surveillance mechanisms under the legal framework of the Telecommunications Act 2023, the Telecommunications (Procedures and Safeguards for Lawful Interception of Messages) Rules 2024, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, amongst others, which authorises wide-ranging data interception and dragnet surveillance while exempting government agencies …

Chatgpt Goes To (National)Law School, Rahul Hemrajani, Vedant Gupta, R Srivatsan, Radhika Singhal, Krishne Tanneerbavi, Shristy Chhaparia, Siddharth Johar, Srujan Sangai, Suvanssh Mahajan, Priyansh Dixit, V Sreedharan, Dhruv Holla, Gunjan Modi, Kajal Jamdare, Pratyay Amrit, Sannah Mudbidri, Ishaan Goel, Akshit Singla, Arjun Mehta, Madhav Mitruka, Mannat Mahaey, Nathaniel Warjri, Swapnil Das, Ojas Chandaniha, Yash Ahirwar, Animesh Tiwari, Aman Meena

Indian Journal of Law and Technology

This paper presents the first comprehensive empirical evaluation of Large Language Models’ (‘LLMs’) performance in Indian legal education. We compare six Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) chatbots with law students at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, across four subjects: Contract Law, Corporate Law, Criminal Procedure, and Jurisprudence. Our findings show that LLMs achieve performance comparable to human students (B+ grade), with newer commercial models consistently outperforming older and open-source alternatives. We also find that while LLMs excel in theoretical subjects and structured legal analysis, they show limitations in handling jurisdiction-specific knowledge and complex scenario-based reasoning. These findings have important …

The Brady Materiality Standard, Brandon L. Garrett, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Scholarship

The Brady doctrine requires prosecutors to disclose all favorable and material evidence to the defense. To effectuate that rule, the U.S. Supreme Court has defined materiality as a “reasonable probability” that the evidence would have affected the outcome at trial. But apart from that definition, the Court has resisted offering any further guidance to lower courts. While far too little is known about how Brady materiality claims are actually adjudicated, there is strong evidence that courts often reject Brady claims involving withheld evidence on the grounds that the evidence was not significant enough to be material.

To examine how Brady …

Civil And Criminal Justice Remedies For Intimate Partner Violence, Demetrice M. Lopez, Anika Ramos

Hunter Center Publications

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a persistent public health problem that impacts the physical and mental health of millions of people each year. The United States has historically relied on the legal system as the primary means of addressing IPV as a criminal or civil infraction. This chapter begins with a review of the history of IPV in the context of the legal system. It then considers the dynamics of IPV and its influence on the legal response. The chapter then looks at the broader impact of IPV and remedies for survivors in the justice system. Finally, it considers the …

The Indelible Flaws Of Conviction Integrity Units, Sarah Gottlieb

Scholarly Articles

Conviction Integrity Units within prosecutors’ offices have doubled in number over the last 10 years. Leaders of the innocence movement initially praised these units, believing they were necessary for the future of innocence work given their unique access to discovery, and scholars hoped Conviction Integrity Units would lead prosecutors away from fighting against claims of innocence to sincere and open review of wrongful convictions. But, as Conviction Integrity Units proliferated, the question of whether prosecutors can fulfill the mandate of these offices and conduct thorough review of their colleagues’ work has received insufficient inquiry, particularly given that official misconduct continues …

“No One Can Hear You Scream”: Intimate Partner Violence And Family Justice Centers In Rural America, Jordan Stevenson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

In rural Kentucky, where cars are a necessity to traverse the rugged Appalachian Mountains and sparsely populated farmlands, “Barbara’s” abusive husband couldn’t let her get away—so he set her car aflame. Although census-defined rural areas contain only 20% of the United States population, some studies have found that intimate partner violence is more common and severe in rural areas than urban or suburban regions. 

People, especially women, in rural areas experience intimate partner violence in unique ways tied to their geographic and cultural context. Consequently, organizations, courts, and law enforcement struggle to meet the needs of affected populations in rural …

Collaborative Nullification: Bending Or Ignoring The Law To Free The Over-Punished, David A. Singleton

Journal Articles

The United States accounts for about 25% of the world’s prisoners but only about 5% of its population. It has the fifth highest imprisonment rate—higher than China and Russia—with people of color disproportionately impacted. This racialized mass incarceration, and the lack of political will to meaningfully address it, demands bold remedies. ...

So, what should attorneys do for clients like Pat when no viable release mechanisms remain: concede defeat and move on, or collaborate with those who are willing to ignore the law and grant release anyway?

This article proposes that the second option, which I call “collaborative nullification,” can …

Computational Clinical Judgment: Predicting Risk With Large Language Models, Hannah Laqueur, Ryan W. Copus

Faculty Works

For seventy years, research has shown actuarial methods outperform clinical judgment. Yet actuarial approaches have limitations: they generally rely on structured data; cannot exploit rare case-specific details; have limited accuracy where outcome data are scarce or incomplete; and cannot offer case-level justifications. Large language models (LLMs) offer a different approach. Like actuarial methods, they aggregate information algorithmically, but like clinicians, they bring general knowledge and can provide case-level justifications. We prompted seven LLMs to assess rearrest risk from 113 parole hearing transcripts and compared their predictions to a machine learning model trained on 4,000 cases with 91 administrative variables. GPT-5 …

Legislatively Erased: The Failure Of Privacy Legislation To Protect People Connected To The Criminal Legal System, Chaz Arnett, Kate Weisburd

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can We Close The Rhode Island Women’S Prison?, Nick Horton

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Imprisoned Without A Verdict: The Constitutional Crisis Of Pre-Trial Solitary Confinement, Symone R. Gibbs

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Kalief Browder’s name endures as a chilling reminder of the human cost of pre-trial solitary confinement. His story reveals the constitutional paradox and moral failure at the heart of this practice: Individuals who remain legally innocent are subjected to one of the harshest punishments the state can impose. This practice strips people of their liberty twice over, first through incarceration itself, and again through prolonged isolation that inflicts devastating psychological harm. Despite its severity, the use of solitary confinement against pre-trial detainees remains largely overlooked in legal scholarship and reform, even as it undermines the presumption of innocence, exacerbates systemic …

Incentivized Delegation In Corporate Criminal Investigations: State Action, Unconstitutional Conditions, And Fifth Amendment Erosion., Ying Zhou

American University Business Law Review

This Article identifies and critiques “incentivized delegation,” an enforcement regime in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) conditions prosecutorial leniency on corporations’ completion of specified, prosecution-oriented, internal investigations of employee misconduct. While courts readily find state action when the government formally delegates investigative functions, they have not squarely addressed whether corporate investigations undertaken to secure prosecutorial leniency—without explicit governmental direction—should likewise trigger state-action scrutiny. United States v. Coburn illustrates the blind spot: by insisting that state action requires overt governmental direction and control, the decision exposes a fundamental failure to appreciate how the government can embed investigative mandates within the …

Vice, Morality, And Immigration: Critiquing And Examining The Application Of Legal Moralism In The Criminalization Of Immigrants For Vice-Related Crimes, Sofia Garcia

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

Dual Purposes Of A Plea Bargaining Simulation: Pedagogical Skills Training And Controlled Data Collection Experiment About Crime Victim’S Access To Justice Via Counsel, Tung Yin

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

State V. Mclean., 337 A.3d 655 (R.I. 2025)., Kelsey Carter

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Roman, 335 A.3d 782 (R.I. 2025)., Kylie Rau

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Interrogating The Facts Of The Case, Anna Roberts

Indiana Law Journal

Buried within many criminal judicial opinions is the origin of their “facts”—the interrogation room. Criminal law pedagogy should expose this origin. If we treat the alleged product of interrogation as “what happened,” as criminal cases (and professors) sometimes do, we obscure the ways in which interrogators are trained to incriminate and to co-create confessions. We also risk obscuring subsequent layers of reporting by police, prosecutors, or judges.

Recent scholarly literature urges criminal law professors to teach differently, warning that we distort, sanitize, and bolster the carceral state when we erase governmental agents and bypass procedure. Treating the “facts of the …

Misinformation And The Jury, Gustavo Ribeiro

Indiana Law Journal

This Article bridges critical gaps between the growing body of social science research on misinformation and the persistent challenges jurors face in evaluating potentially unreliable evidence in courtrooms. Misinformation—a pervasive issue undermining decision-making in democratic societies—mirrors the difficulties jurors encounter in distinguishing truth from falsehood amid compelling but unreliable evidence. The consequences of such challenges are dire: wrongful convictions, racial disparities, and the erosion of public trust in the legal system.

This Article is the first piece of legal scholarship to provide a comprehensive discussion of current research on the psychological mechanisms underlying susceptibility to misinformation—such as the illusory truth …

The Eighth Amendment And Prison Staff-To-Sentenced Prisoner Sexual Violence, Matthew Lyskawa

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I provide the first comprehensive account of lower federal courts’ Eighth Amendment prison conditions jurisprudence regarding prison staff-to-sentenced prisoner sexual violence. I show that lower federal courts are systematically misunderstanding and misapplying Supreme Court case law in this context. The result is that sexually victimized prisoners must meet extremely burdensome doctrinal standards unique to sexual violence claims. Lower federal courts would faithfully follow Supreme Court precedent if they applied the excessive force standard to sexual assault claims and the conditions of confinement standard to sexual harassment claims. However, a faithful application of Supreme Court case law does …

Rebutting The Presumption: A Constitutional Theory Of Pre-Trial Asset Seizures And Procedural Due Process, Benjamin Y. Rabin

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In this Comment, I trace the origins and examine the current state of the doctrine on pre-trial asset seizures, then argue for a new approach grounded in procedural due process and constitutional theory.

The existing frameworks for assessing due process in these cases fall into three categories. The first grants the government broad presumptive validity for pre-trial seizures. The second applies a utilitarian balancing test, following the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Mathews v. Eldridge and Connecticut v. Doehr. The third, illustrated by the recent decision in Culley v. Marshall, relies on comparisons to historical practice.

I argue that …

The Influence Of Adverse Childhood Experiences On Female Violent Offending: A Scoping Systematic Review, Alexis M. Wolgemuth

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Female-perpetrated violence has exhibited concerning data trends in recent years. Prior scholarship indicates that past victimization and trauma in childhood, known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), are highly prevalent among women offenders. However, the research concerning ACEs and violent females is scattered. This thesis provides a scoping literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) updated 2020 guidelines. A systematic database search was conducted using Academic Search Complete, SAGE Journals, Springer Nature Link, and HeinOnline to identify relevant peer-reviewed journal articles. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are established, focusing on studies published after January 2015. These …

Justice For The Accomplice: Minnesota's 2023 Accomplice Liability Amendment And Its Shortcomings, John M. Thompson

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Premium Injustice: Addressing The Harms That Cash Bail Premiums Inflict On The Non-Convicted, Jeffery L. Young

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Prosecutorial Discretion In Criminal Immigration Matters, Brian L. Owsley

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

If the Trump administration’s goal is to remove between fifteen and twenty million undocumented individuals, then it would be far more effective to reduce the incentive of American companies and employers to hire undocumented individuals. Therefore, from a prosecutorial perspective, the federal government should consider whether seeking to charge and prosecute individuals is the most effective approach, or whether they should redirect their effort to the individual’s employer.

In addition to employers engaging in criminal immigration offenses, for several years now, the federal government has notably ignored the action of one person engaged in the smuggling of over 100,000 undocumented …

Social Safety And Social Security: Validating Context-Specific Instruments For Slums, Liss D. Romero, Katherine Palacio, Zacheous Ako Abang, Valeria Silgado, Humberto Llinas, Leidy González, Erika Frydenlund, Daniel Bolivar, Jose J. Padilla

VMASC Publications

Social safety and social security are concepts that help explain a community's well-being by assessing how it manages and mitigate existing, or perceived, risks. However, these terms are often conflated, which can limit understanding, particularly in areas with unstable living conditions. This study explores both concepts in the context of residents living in slums. As the number of displaced people grows, slums and informal settlements are becoming increasingly common worldwide, making it essential to clarify these concepts. Residents of slums face numerous hazards, including crime, violence, inadequate housing, overcrowding, and limited access to essential services. To measure social safety and …

Policy Recommendations To Reduce False Confessions By Juveniles In Wrongful Conviction Cases, Rohit R. Iyer

CMC Senior Theses

This research focuses on false confessions by juveniles in the United States justice system. False confessions are statements made by suspects during investigations in which individuals provide statements to investigators admitting to a crime in which they had no part. In these cases, individuals often spend years, if not the entirety, of their lives behind bars for crimes they did not commit. False confessions are the result of a number of systemic factors that will be discussed in this paper. While relatively rare, they are one of the largest blemishes in the U.S. justice system. Juveniles – individuals below the …

A Terrorist In Death Only: How The Death Penalty Fills The Gap In Federal Terrorism Law, Caroline Alden Mcbride

Law Student Publications

In the absence of a federal statute criminalizing domestic terrorism, the United States turned to an unlikely proxy: the death penalty. This Comment argues that capital punishment is used to define domestic terrorism, particularly when statutory tools cannot capture white supremacist attacks. Although former President Biden commuted most federal death sentences to life imprisonment without parole, three individuals whose attacks met the legal definition of domestic terrorism were excluded from clemency. Examining several cases from Timothy McVeigh to Luigi Mangione reveals a trend of defendants whose crimes meet the legal definition of domestic terrorism receiving the death penalty, even when …

Police Use Of Force: Barnes V. Felix And Moving Beyond The Moment Of Threat, Rebecca Aitchison

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Martinez V. State, 328 A.3d 626 (R.I. 2025)., Carter Lee Hazzard

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.