Law Commons^™

Spillover Effects In Police Use Of Force, Justin E. Holz, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba

All Faculty Scholarship

We study the link between officer injuries-on-duty and the force-use of their peers using a network of officers who, through a random lottery, began the police academy together. We find that peer injuries-on-duty increase the probability of using force by 7%. The effect is concentrated in a narrow time window near the event and is not associated with significantly lower injury risk to the officer. Complaints of improper searches and failure to provide service also increase after peer injuries, suggesting that the increase in force might be driven by heightened risk aversion.

A New Breed Of Cop: Keeping Kids On The Straight And Narrow, Michael Tashji

Capstones

Policing kids in America today has changed—the ‘tough on crime’ days are over. Public scrutiny of police is at an all-time high, five years after the unrest in Ferguson. Officers Camacho, Charles and Romano serve the town of Bloomfield, New Jersey, and work specifically with kids in the community. They’ve adapted to these changes. But they’ve also banded together to support each other behind the thin blue line.

https://michaeltashji.com

Dangerous Drivers Still On City Streets Despite Thousands Of Speeding Tickets, Liam Quigley

Capstones

A months-long investigation of a vehicle in New York City with many speeding tickets led to a Nassau County address and a man who claims his employer paid all the tickets. It’s one of a limited number of cases where thousands of dollars in fines have proven ineffective at changing behavior and highlights a blind spot of the city’s Vision Zero initiative. This article explores a bill that lawmakers are hoping to use to get the worst drivers off the road and into a safety course.

Link: https://medium.com/@lquigley/dangerous-drivers-still-on-city-streets-despite-thousands-of-speeding-tickets-2cfda50883d7

After 31 Years In Prison, Lee Chalk Asks For Forgiveness., Jeffery Harrell, Brenda Leon

Capstones

Lee Chalk has spent more than three decades in state prison, and is now applying for executive clemency to have his sentence ended early. He is guilty of a crime, being involved in an armed robbery turned deadly which killed two people. Our project explores the potential for transformation and rehabilitation inside prison, and the personal and political ramification of mass incarceration and extreme sentencing.

https://medium.com/p/738d1cb28532/edit

A shorter version of the capstone was also published with Gothamist here: https://gothamist.com/news/ny-prison-clemency-parole-cuomo

Who Ya Gonna Call? An Analysis Of Paradigm Shifts And Social Harms As A Result Of Hyper-Viral Police Violence, Ariana H. Aboulafia

University of Miami Race & Social Justice Law Review

No abstract provided.

Safety & Risk Management News - December 2019, Otterbein University

Otterbein Police Department

No abstract provided.

Experimental Punishments, John F. Stinneford

Notre Dame Law Review

The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause prohibits, under its original meaning, punishments that are unjustly harsh in light of longstanding prior practice. The Clause does not prohibit all new punishments; rather, it directs that when a new punishment is introduced it should be compared to traditional punishments that enjoy long usage. This standard presents a challenge when the government introduces a new method of punishment, particularly one that is advertised as more “progressive” or “humane” than those it replaces. It may not always be obvious, for example, how to compare a prison sentence to a public flogging, or death by …

Cops And Cars: How The Automobile Drove Fourth Amendment Law, Tracey Maclin

Faculty Scholarship

This is an essay on Professor Sarah A. Seo’s new book, Policing the Open Road: How Cars Transformed American Freedom (Harvard Univ. Press 2019). I focus on Professor Seo’s analysis of Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132 (1925) and Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S. 160 (1949). Carroll is important not only because it was the Court’s first car case. Understanding Carroll (and Brinegar, which solidified and expanded Carroll’s holding) is essential because, nearly one hundred years later, its logic continues to direct how the modern Court resolves Fourth Amendment claims of motorists. Put simply, a majority of today’s …

Assessing The Impact Of Police Body Camera Evidence On The Litigation Of Excessive Force Cases, Mitch Zamoff

Georgia Law Review

In the wake of several hotly debated and widely publicized shootings of civilians by police officers, calls for the increased use of body-worn cameras (bodycams) by law enforcement officers have intensified. As police departments across the country expand their use of this emergent technology, courts will increasingly be presented with video evidence from bodycams when making determinations in cases alleging the excessive use of force by the police. This Article tests the hypotheses that bodycam evidence will be dispositive in most excessive force cases and that such evidence will positively impact the way those cases are litigated and decided. In …

Abolish Ice . . . And Then What?, Peter L. Markowitz

Articles

In recent years, activists and then politicians began calling for the abolition of the United States’s interior immigration-enforcement agency: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Many people have misinterpreted the call to “Abolish ICE” as merely a spontaneous rhetorical device used to express outrage at the current Administration’s brutal immigration policies. In fact, abolishing ICE is the natural extension of years of thoughtful organizing by a loose coalition of grassroots immigrant-rights groups. These organizations are serious, not only about their literal goal to eliminate the agency, but also about not replacing it with another dedicated agency of immigration police. Accordingly, …

Incarceration Or E-Incarceration: California's Sb 10 Bail Reform And The Potential Pitfalls For Pretrial Detainees, Ashley Mullen

Cornell Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enter At Your Own Risk: Criminalizing Asylum-Seekers, Thomas M. Mcdonnell, Vanessa H. Merton

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In nearly three years in office, President Donald J. Trump’s war against immigrants and the foreign-born seems only to have intensified. Through a series of Executive Branch actions and policies rather than legislation, the Trump Administration has targeted immigrants and visitors from Muslim-majority countries, imposed quotas on and drastically reduced the independence of Immigration Court Judges, cut the number of refugees admitted by more than 80%, cancelled DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), and stationed Immigration Customs and Enforcement (“ICE”) agents at state courtrooms to arrest unauthorized immigrants, intimidating them from participating as witnesses and litigants. Although initially saying that …

The Future Of Bail In California: Analyzing Sb 10 Through The Prism Of Past Reforms, Adam Peterson

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

The cash bail system is the cause of numerous injustices. It favors the rich over the poor, it packs jails to the breaking point, and it forces those who have yet to be found guilty to sit in jail—often for weeks or months at a time. In 2018, the California legislature passed SB 10. The bill purported to abolish cash bail wholesale and replace it with a risk assessment program. While SB 10 is a step in the right direction, it faces many obstacles before it accomplishes its goal. This Note examines the bill in light of past attempts at …

The Effect Of Police Oversight On Crime And Allegations Of Misconduct: Evidence From Chicago, Bocar A. Ba, Roman G. Rivera

All Faculty Scholarship

Does policing the police increase crime? We avoid simultaneity effects of increased public oversight during a major scandal by identifying events in Chicago that only impacted officers’ self-imposed monitoring. We estimate crime’s response to self- and public-monitoring using regression discontinuity and generalized synthetic control methods. Self-monitoring, triggered by police union memos, significantly reduced serious complaints without impacting crime or effort. However, after a scandal, both civilian complaints and crime rates rise, suggesting that higher crime rates following heightened oversight results from de-policing and civilian behavior simultaneously changing. Our research suggests that proactive internal accountability improves police-community relations without increasing crime.

The Noisy "Silent Witness": The Misperception And Misuse Of Criminal Video Evidence, Aaron M. Williams

Indiana Law Journal

This Note examines recent developments in the research of situational video evidence biases. Part I examines the current and growing body of psychological research into the various situational biases that can affect the reliability of video evidence and the gaps in this research that require further attention from researchers and legal academics. Because these biases do not “operate in a vacuum,” Part I also examines some of the recent and exciting research into the interaction between situational and dispositional biases. Part II examines the development of camera and video processing technology and its limitations as a means of mitigating such …

The Gendered Burdens Of Conviction And Collateral Consequences On Employment, Joni Hersch, Erin E. Meyers

Joni Hersch

Ex-offenders are subject to a wide range of employment restrictions that limit the ability of individuals with a criminal background to earn a living. This Article argues that women involved in the criminal justice system likely suffer a greater income-related burden from criminal conviction than do men. This disproportionate burden arises in occupations that women typically pursue, both through formal pathways, such as restrictions on occupational licensing, and through informal pathways, such as employers’ unwillingness to hire those with a criminal record. In addition, women have access to far fewer vocational programs while incarcerated. Further exacerbating this burden is that …

In-Group Bias And The Police: Evidence From Award Nominations, Nayoung Rim, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of in-group bias on the internal dynamics of a police department. Prior studies have documented racial bias in policing, but little is known about bias against officers due to lack of available data. We construct a novel panel dataset of Chicago Police Department officers, with detailed information on officer characteristics and work productivity. Exploiting quasi-random variation in supervisor assignment, we find that white supervisors are less likely to nominate black officers than white or Hispanic officers. We find weaker evidence that male supervisors are less likely to nominate female officers than male officers. We explore …

Catholic Social Thought And Criminal Justice Reform, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

Professor Cassidy examines the criminal justice reform movement in the United States through the lens of Catholic social thought. In particular, he focuses on God’s gift of redemption and the Gospels’ directives that we love one another and show mercy toward the poor, the oppressed and the imprisoned. Cassidy then examines the implications of these fundamental Catholic teachings for the modern debate about the death penalty, sentencing reform, prisoner reentry and parole.

To Knock Or Not To Knock? No-Knock Warrants And Confrontational Policing, Brian Dolan

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

This Note proceeds in three parts. Part I begins by explaining what no-knock warrants are and why they are used. Part I then addresses recent state legislative efforts to reform no-knock warrant use and argues that these efforts, however well-intentioned, are insufficient. Part I will also provide a brief history of how no-knock warrant use developed and gives an overview of the current status of state law regarding no-knock warrants. Part II argues that, contrary to the arguments of no-knock proponents, elimination of no-knock warrants and strict adherence to the knock-and-announce requirement is a more effective way to ensure …

Sexual Misconduct In Prison: What Factors Affect Whether Incarcerated Women Will Report Abuses Committed By Prison Staff?, Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, Hannah Brenner, Deborah Bybee, Rebecca Campbell, Cristy E. Cummings, Kathleen M. Darcy, Gina Fedock, Rachael Goodman-Williams

Cristy Cummings

No abstract provided.

Talking About Black Lives Matter And #Metoo, Bridget J. Crawford, Linda S. Greene, Lolita Buckner Inniss, Mehrsa Baradaran, Noa Ben-Asher, I. Bennett Capers, Osamudia R. James, Keisha Lindsay

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This essay explores the apparent differences and similarities between the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements. In April 2019, the Wisconsin Journal of Gender, Law and Society hosted a symposium entitled “Race-Ing Justice, En-Gendering Power: Black Lives Matter and the Role of Intersectional Legal Analysis in the Twenty-First Century.” That program facilitated examination of the historical antecedents, cultural contexts, methods, and goals of these linked equality movements. Conversations continued among the symposium participants long after the end of the official program. In this essay, the symposium’s speakers memorialize their robust conversations and also dive more deeply into the phenomena, …

2019 Annual Campus Security And Fire Safety Report, Otterbein Police Department

Otterbein Police Department

2019 Annual Campus Security and Fire Safety Report

Private Prisons, Private Governance: Essay On Developments In Private-Sector Resistance To Privatized Immigration Detention, Danielle C. Jefferis

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Handcuffing The Vote: Diluting Minority Voting Power Through Prison Gerrymandering And Felon Disenfranchisement, Rebecca Harrison Stevens, Meagan Taylor Harding, Joaquin Gonzalez, Emily Eby

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

For the purposes of legislative redistricting, Texas counts prison populations at the address of the prison in which they are incarcerated at the time of the census, rather than their home prior to incarceration—regardless of whether the prisoners themselves maintain a residence in their home communities and intend to return home after incarceration. This deprives those home communities of full representation in the redistricting process. Combined with Texas’s felon disenfranchisement laws, this also results in arbitrarily bolstering the representational power of some Texans on the backs of other Texans who themselves are unable to vote. All of this takes place …

Prosecuting Dark Net Drug Marketplace Operators Under The Federal Crack House Statute, Thomas J. Nugent

Fordham Law Review

Over 70,000 Americans died as the result of a drug overdose in 2017, a record year following a record year. Amidst this crisis, the popularity of drug marketplaces on what has been called the “dark net” has exploded. Illicit substances are sold freely on such marketplaces, and the anonymity these marketplaces provide has proved troublesome for law enforcement. Law enforcement has responded by taking down several of these marketplaces and prosecuting their creators, such as Ross Ulbricht of the former Silk Road. Prosecutors have typically leveled conspiracy charges against the operators of these marketplaces—in Ulbricht’s case, alleging a single drug …

Texas, The Death Penalty, And Intellectual Disability, Megan Green

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Changing Tradition Of Constitutional Review Of Sign And Billboard Regulation, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Ronald H. Rosenberg

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Law - The Eighth Amendment And Prison Reform, Ronald H. Rosenberg

Ronald H. Rosenberg

No abstract provided.

What We Should Learn From Garner And Ferguson Cases, Jeffrey Bellin

Jeffrey Bellin

No abstract provided.