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Full-Text Articles in Law

Reflection: How Multiracial Lives Matter, Lauren Sudeall Jun 2017

Reflection: How Multiracial Lives Matter, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Race plays an important organizing function in society, and one over which we have little control as individuals; this can be difficult to reconcile with the self-determination many multiracial individuals possess to control their own racial identity and how it is perceived by others. While some are dismissive of that premise, instead favoring a racial solidarity approach that minimizes the relevance of subcategories, I have contended that it is important to allow multiracial individuals to define their own identity. This is a sentiment that has been echoed by Justice Kennedy's language in several recent opinions discussing racial identity (if not …


For What It's Worth: The Role Of Race- And Gender-Based Data In Civil Damages Awards, Loren D. Goodman May 2017

For What It's Worth: The Role Of Race- And Gender-Based Data In Civil Damages Awards, Loren D. Goodman

Vanderbilt Law Review

Following months of behavioral problems, hyperactivity, and intermittent complaints of headache and nausea, five-year-old Kelsey Craig's mother finally takes her to the pediatrician to determine the root of the problem. After multiple consultations, a blood test shows a surprising culprit: there is a dangerously high amount of lead present in Kelsey's blood, suggesting prolonged exposure to the irreversibly toxic substance. Upon returning to their older, prewar apartment building, Kelsey's mother passes a neighboring family in the hallway and woefully relays the tale of her diagnosis. The neighbors' eyes grow wide as they realize their own five-year-old son has been experiencing …


An Empirical Assessment Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard To Determine Intellectual Disability In Capital Cases, Lauren Sudeall Apr 2017

An Empirical Assessment Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard To Determine Intellectual Disability In Capital Cases, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that execution of people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In doing so, the Court explicitly left to the states the question of which procedures would be used to identify such defendants as exempt from the death penalty. More than a decade before Atkins, Georgia was the first state to bar execution of people with intellectual disability. Yet, of the states that continue to impose the death penalty as a punishment for capital murder, Georgia is the only state that requires capital defendants to prove …


Reconstructing Local Government, Daniel Farbman Mar 2017

Reconstructing Local Government, Daniel Farbman

Vanderbilt Law Review

After the Civil War, the South faced a problem that was almost entirely new in the United States: a racially diverse and geographically integrated citizenry. In one fell swoop with emancipation, millions of former slaves were now citizens. The old system of plantation localism, built largely on the feudal control of the black population by wealthy white planters, was no longer viable. The urgent question facing both those who sought to reform and those who sought to preserve the "Old South" was: What should local government look like after emancipation? This Article tells the story of the struggle over the …