Law Commons^™

Childist Objections, Youthful Relevance, And Evidence Reconceived, Mae C. Quinn

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Evidence rules are written by and for adults. As a result, they largely lack the vantage point of youth and are rooted in arm’s-length assumptions about the lives and legal interests of young people. Moreover, because children have been mostly treated as evidentiary afterthoughts, they have been patched into the justice system and its procedures in a piecemeal fashion. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive scholarly critique of evidence principles and practices for failing to meaningfully account for youth. And the evidentiary intersection of youth and race has been almost entirely overlooked in legal scholarship. This Article, in …

The Long Road To Justice: Why State Courts Should Lower The Evidentiary Burden For Proving Racialized Traffic Stops And Adopt The Exclusionary Rule As A Remedy For Equal Protection Violations, Abby M. Fink

Washington Journal of Social & Environmental Justice

Racist and brutal policing continues to pervade the criminal legal system. Black and brown people who interact with the police consistently face unequal targeting and treatment. Routine traffic stops are especially dangerous and harmful and can lead to death. Under Whren, a police officer’s racist motivations or implicit bias towards a driver do not influence the constitutionality of a traffic stop. An officer only needs to show there was probable cause to believe a traffic stop occurred. Although the unconstitutionality of pre-textual traffic stops has been widely explored since Whren, both federal and state courts have struggled to find legal …

The "Crisis Of Expertise" Reaches The Courtroom: An Introduction To The Symposium On, And A Response To, Edward Cheng's Consensus Rule, David S. Caudill

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Owls: Some Difficulties In Judging Scientific Consensus, Harry Collins

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Adversity Of Adversarialism: How The Consensus Rule Reproduces The Expert Paradox, Martin Weinel

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Consensus Rule: Lessons From The Regulatory World, Wendy Wagner

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Embracing Deference, Edward K. Cheng, Elodie O. Currier, Payton B. Hampton

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Consensus Rule: Judges, Jurors, And Admissibility Hearings, Robert Evans

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

What A Waste! An Evaluation Of Federal And State Medical And Biohazard Waste Regulations During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Their Impact On Environmental Justice, Samantha Newman

Villanova Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Something Doesn’T Add Up: Solving Dna Forensic Science Statistical Fallacies In Trial Testimony, Kendall Brooke Kilberger

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

While the limitations of traditional forensic sciences are generally recognized, the presentation of DNA forensic science statistical testimony has widely evaded criticism. This lack of oversight has allowed four DNA forensic science statistical fallacies to plague the legal system: providing statistics without empirical support, the individualization fallacy, the prosecutor’s fallacy, and the defense attorney’s fallacy. These fallacies pose a significant risk to the preservation of justice, as erroneous DNA forensic science statistical testimony plays a critical role in wrongfully convicting innocent defendants.

This Note suggests administering standard jury instructions every time DNA forensic science statistical testimony is presented during trial. …

Reforming Eyewitness Identification Processes: Challenges And Recommendations For Successful Implementation, Daniel Manley

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Safeguarding The Alford Plea: Minimizing State-Sanctioned Wrongful Convictions, Zana Molina

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Ai Risk Assessment Tools Amid The War On Drugs: Productive Or Counterproductive?, Matin Pedram

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

The War on Drugs refers to a situation in which all the processes of production, distribution, and consumption of all illegal drugs are prohibited. This ambitious goal has imposed considerable costs on societies. The war has weaponized harsher punishments such as life imprisonment, execution, and long-term incarceration against drug offenders. Nonviolent offenders, those who possessed illegal drugs, have been easy targets for governments to show that the war is still ongoing. Although some countries became pioneers in changing the laws to end this costly war, Iran and the United States have made their stance on the drug issue clear, and …

Environmental Evidence, Seema Kakade

Faculty Scholarship

The voices of impacted people are some of the most important when trying to make improvements to social justice in a variety of contexts, including, criminal policing, housing, and health care. After all, the people with on the ground experience know what is likely to truly effectuate change in their community, and what is not. Yet, such lived experience is also often significantly lacking and undermined in law and policy. People with lived experience tend to be seen as both community experts with valuable knowledge, as well as non-experts with little valuable knowledge. This Article explores the lived experience with …

Provisional Measures In Aid Of Arbitration, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

The success of the New York Convention has made arbitration a preferred means of dispute resolution for international commercial transactions. Success in arbitration often depends on the extent to which a party may secure assets, evidence, or the status quo between parties prior to the completion of the arbitration process. This makes the availability of provisional measures granted by either arbitral tribunals or by courts fundamental to the arbitration. In this Article, I consider the existing legal framework for provisional measures in aid of arbitration, with particular attention to the sources of the rules providing for such measures. Those sources …

Evidence, John E. Hall Jr., W. Scott Henwood, Krysta Grimes

Mercer Law Review

Georgia’s judicial system has continued to grapple with the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) for more than two years since the Honorable Harold D. Melton, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia,
first issued the Order Declaring Statewide Judicial Emergency on March 14, 2020. That order was extended fifteen times before finally terminating on June 30, 2021.

Seemingly in response to the world of uncertainties created by COVID-19, Georgia appellate courts took the opportunity to provide some additional interpretation and explanation to various aspects of Georgia’s new Evidence Code. This Article highlights some of the continuing interpretations of Georgia’s evidence …

What Counts As ‘Racist Enough?’: A Clearer Standard For New Trials When Jurors Demonstrate Racial Bias, Priyadarshini Das

Journal of Law and Policy

The no-impeachment rule, Federal Rule of Evidence 606(b), necessitates that jurors keep their deliberations secret. However, in the 2017 Supreme Court case Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the Court created a racial bias exception to the no-impeachment rule. This exception allows jurors to notify the court when “one or more jurors made statements exhibiting overt racial bias that cast serious doubt on the fairness and impartiality of the jury’s deliberations and resulting verdict.” This Note argues that this standard is too narrow because it fails to consider several situations of racial bias, like implicit bias. The ineffectiveness of this exception is demonstrated …

Limiting Limited Liability: Requiring More Than Mere Subsequence Under Federal Rule Of Evidence 407, Cynara Hermes Mcquillan

Scholarly Works

Rule 407 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, the “Subsequent Remedial Measures” Rule, is troubling. This exclusionary rule of evidence prohibits using subsequent remedial measures to demonstrate negligence, culpable conduct, or product defect. But, other than in the title of the rule, the phrase “subsequent remedial measures” does not appear anywhere in the rule’s text and the rule itself does not expressly define what measures fall within its purview. This omission creates space for different judicial interpretations of the rule’s language and ultimately disparate judicial outcomes. Although the Federal Rules of Evidence lend themselves to fact-specific inquiries that can lead …

You Can’T Simply Say “No!” Almighty Ceo: Georgia’S View On The Apex Doctrine And Discovery Abuse, W. Warren Hedgepeth

Mercer Law Review

Discovery is the process that allows litigants to gather information from the opposing party in a civil lawsuit. Discovery practices differ among states, and each state’s discovery laws generally determine (1) the scope and limits of what information can be gathered, (2) how it is gathered, and (3) when it is gathered. Depositions are included in discovery methods and allow parties to ask the deponent questions relating to the case. Depositions are not only expensive but can be disruptive, especially to high-level corporate executives whose time and dedication to their companies should be their primary focus. In some jurisdictions, corporate …

Rethinking Evidentiary Rules In An Age Of Bench Trials, Henry Zhuhao Wang

UC Irvine Law Review

American jury trials are vanishing. Statistics indicate that the number of jury trials in U.S. federal and state courts has diminished for decades, a phenomenon that has become even more pronounced amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Courts throughout the nation are on track for more than a year without any trials by jury. But as jury trials wane, bench trials are dominant in federal and state courts for both civil and criminal cases. What does that mean, then, for evidentiary rules? The Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE), first adopted in 1975, codify federal evidence law and have been adopted by …

Shaky Science: Shaken Baby Syndrome And Its Disproportionate Impact On False Convictions Of Women Of Color, Shae A. Woodburn

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

Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is a controversial diagnosis and an even more controversial basis for conviction. The syndrome is questioned by scientists and doctors who have yet to come to a consensus on its diagnosis. Courts have permitted SBS evidence to be admitted in criminal trials, and many people have been convicted solely on the basis of this controversial diagnosis. This Note seeks to analyze the history of SBS, the conflicts in the medical and scientific community, standards of evidence that permit its admission in court, and how all of these factors converge in a way that disproportionately impacts women …

Artificial Justice: The Quandary Of Ai In The Courtroom, Paul W. Grimm, Maura R. Grossman, Sabine Gless, Mireille Hildebrandt

Judicature International

No abstract provided.

An Analytical Study On Legal Validity Of Online Dispute Resolution (Odr) System In India And Indonesia, Dr Rahul Nikam, Bangkim Singh Nongthombam

Indonesia Law Review

Advancement in technology brought many inevitable changes with more efficiency, making human life easier. Benefit of technology shall be incorporated for effective and efficient justice delivery in dispute resolution mechanism. New development in this area is online arbitration dispute resolutions (ODR) which have been without doubt adopted and practices by justice delivery system across the globe. But the question remains the same as whether justice delivery system is equipped to cope up in the same pace with the changes taking place in the society and technology. Are the existing laws being enough to conduct online system as an effective mechanism …

For Whom The Sol Tolls: Examining The Role Of The Discovery Rule And Statutes Of Limitations In Ncaa Concussion Litigation, Joseph Sabin Esq., Andrew L. Goldsmith Ph.D.

UNH Sports Law Review

No abstract provided.

Brown (Larry) V. State Of Nevada, 138 Nev. Adv. Op. 44 (June 23, 2022), Anne-Greyson Long

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In this appeal, the Court considered whether a jury may consider footwear impression evidence without the aid of expert testimony. The Court determined it was proper here. The Court also considered whether the district court violated the defendant's rights under the Confrontation Clause by allowing a witness to testify via a two-way video and limiting cross-examination to protect proprietary trade secrets. The Court determined that the district court failed to make express findings under Lipitz. The Court also concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting witness testimony. No reversal was granted, and the court …

A Dog's Bark To Act As A Nark, Bailey R. Geller

Arkansas Law Review

This Comment therefore advocates for systemic reconsideration of dog scent lineups at trial. It will not claim that all dog scent lineups are flawless, particularly given the slipshod manner in which many are performed. But dog scent identifications are increasingly more valuable than our legal system currently acknowledges when they are properly conducted. They should be admissible.

Private Search And Seizure: The Constitutionality Of Anton Piller Orders In Canada, Dimitros Valkanas

Dalhousie Law Journal

This paper examines the constitutionality of the Anton Piller order in Canadian law. First, the paper examines whether Anton Piller orders overall are unconstitutional through three major avenues of attack: (i) Charter challenges; (ii) the ultra vires doctrine; and (iii) the principle of natural justice, audi alteram partem. Afterwards, in the event that no challenge against Anton Piller orders broadly would succeed, the paper examines whether their uniquely Canadian variant known as a “rolling” or “John (or Jane) Doe” Anton Piller orders could be challenged, looking at both Charter and non-Charter challenges. Finally, this paper proposes the imposition of additional …

The “Fool’S Gold” Standard Of Confession Evidence: How Intersecting, Disadvantaged Identities Heighten The Risk Of False Confession, Nicole Weis

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Defense Counsel’S Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts

Brooklyn Law Review

A broad scholarly coalition supports the prohibition or diminution of the impeachment of criminal defendants with their convictions. Yet scholars should pay more attention to the flipside arrangement: impeachment of prosecution witnesses by defense counsel. First, because those engaged in reform efforts need to resolve the competing interests: constitutional arguments on behalf of the defense, but, on the other hand, concerns about a tool that (regardless of the nature of the witness) risks reinforcing biases and stereotypes. Second, because the impossibility of adequate resolution is itself important to note. Whether one considers the conflicting values of rule-makers deciding whether to …

What Are Victim Impact Statements For?, Susan A. Bandes

Brooklyn Law Review

In Payne v. Tennessee, the US Supreme Court upheld the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) on the ground that they provide valuable information to the sentencer. In the three decades since, two additional rationales for VIS have become ascendant: most prominently, a therapeutic rationale, and more recently, a public education rationale. In this article, I expand upon my critiques of the informational and therapeutic rationales in light of a growing body of empirical evidence about how VIS affect both sentencers and crime victims. Focusing on the powerful and viral VIS delivered at the Larry Nassar guilty plea hearings and …