Law Commons^™

Prohibiting Cashless Retailers And Protecting The Impoverished, Allison Kretovic

Georgia State University Law Review

A growing number of customer-facing businesses have opted to implement cashless policies, declining to accept cash for payment and limiting consumers’ options on how they can pay for goods and services. Proponents for cashless policies cite the efficiencies gained by removing cash from a business and concerns about theft as their primary reasons for supporting such policies. Opponents to the move toward cashless express concerns that the policy is discriminatory and has a disparate impact on lower-income consumers who do not have access to financial institutions. Policymakers at the local and state levels have responded by proposing and enacting legislation …

Shelter From The Storm: Human Rights Protections For Single-Mother Families In The Time Of Covid-19, Theresa Glennon, Alexis Fennell, Kaylin Hawkins, Madison Mcnulty

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

COVID-19’s arrival, and the changes it has unleashed, reveal how longstanding legal and policy decisions produced structural inequalities that have left so many families, and especially single-parent families with children, all too insecure. The fragility of single-mother families is amplified by the multifaceted discrimination they face. While all single parents, including single fathers and other single relatives who are raising children, share many of these burdens, this Article focuses on the challenges confronting single mothers.

Federal policy choices stand in sharp contrast to the political rhetoric of government support for families. Social and economic policy in the twentieth century developed …

The Promotion Of The General Welfare: Using The Spending Clause To End The Criminalization Of Homelessness In America, David Stuzin

University of Miami Law Review

The U.S. is experiencing a homelessness crisis. While the government claims that there are half a million people experiencing homelessness in this country, the actual number is likely much larger than that estimate. Rather than investing in long-term solutions to homelessness, most states and municipalities have responded to this crisis by criminalizing conduct related to homelessness—an expensive approach hat perpetuates the cycle of homelessness and causes many people experiencing homelessness to needlessly suffer as a result. While advocates have fought criminalization in the courts, a problem of this size and scale cannot be solved through litigation alone. This Note advocates …

Law, Lawyers And Sustainable Development: Reflections Of A Fellow Traveler, Muna B. Ndulo

Southern African Journal of Policy and Development

At the national level, the rule of law is necessary to create an environment for providing sustainable livelihoods and eradicating poverty. Poverty often stems from disempowerment, exclusion and discrimination. The rule of law fosters development through strengthening the voices of individuals and communities, by providing access to justice, ensuring due process and establishing remedies for the violation of rights. Security of livelihoods, shelter, tenure and contracts can enable and empower the poor to defend themselves against violations of their rights. Legal empowerment goes beyond the provision of legal remedies and supports better economic opportunities. In order for the rule of …

Remarks, Lisa Foster

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In both Greek and Roman mythology, a Hydra guards the entrance to the underworld. For those who don’t remember their mythology, a Hydra is a multi-headed serpent who exhales poisonous fumes. If you get close enough to the Hydra and are able to cut off one of its heads, two grow back in its place. Slaying the Hydra was number two on Hercules’ famous list of Labors. He was successful, but not without a fierce struggle.

As you’ve heard over the last four days, fines and fees are Hydralike. Fines are imposed for almost every minor offense — misdemeanors, infractions, …

Debt To Society: The Role Of Fines & Fees Reform In Dismantling The Carceral State, Wesley Dozier, Daniel Kiel

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Fines and fees that result from contact with the criminal legal system serve as a suffocating debt for those against whom they are assessed. Many states have countless laws that require taxes, fines, and fees to be assessed against individuals involved in the criminal legal system at various stages of the criminal legal process, and they have the effect of permanently trapping individuals within the system. In Tennessee, for example, these debts, which can accumulate to over $10,000 in a single criminal case, stand in the way of individuals getting their criminal records expunged, keeping valid driver’s licenses, and restoring …

How The Rational Basis Test Protects Policing For Profit, William R. Maurer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 and the civil unrest that followed, numerous lawsuits have challenged laws that use the government’s ability to impose fines and fees for reasons other than the protection of the public. These challenges have usually raised equal protection challenges to these laws—that is, that the laws punish the poor more harshly than others. The challenges have been unsuccessful, largely because courts examine these laws using “rational basis review,” a standard that is highly deferential to the government and one in which the courts themselves are often required to actively advocate for the …

More Than Hungry: How Political Narratives Built & Maintain Hunger In The United States, A. Camille Karabaich

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

This Note aims to examine the role of the legal system in creating and maintaining hunger in the United States. Through this lens, the Note discusses the shift necessary to support specific legal interventions to end hunger. This Note begins by discussing how hunger was built in the United States through policies regarding land, housing, incarceration, and food, and the narratives that allowed these policies to flourish. These policies created hunger by creating pockets of poverty and disempowerment. Although many individuals and organizations donate their time, money, and energy to support local food banks, soup kitchens, and free school meal …

Prohibiting The Punishment Of Poverty: The Abolition Of Wealth-Based Criminal Disenfranchisement, Amy Ciardiello

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The majority of U.S. states disenfranchise formerly incarcerated individuals because of their poverty by conditioning re-enfranchisement on the full payment of legal financial obligations. This Note discusses the practice of wealth-based criminal disenfranchisement where the inability to pay legal financial obligations, including fines, fees, restitution, interest payments, court debts, and other economic penalties, prohibits low-income, formerly incarcerated individuals from voting. This Note argues this issue has not been adequately addressed due to unsuccessful legislative reforms and failed legal challenges. An examination of state policies, federal and state legislative reforms, and litigation shows that a more drastic state legislative solution is …

Introduction, Colin Crawford, Daniel Bonilla Maldonado

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

The papers gathered in this volume analyze access to justice in Latin America, Europe, and North America from a philosophical, legal, and sociological perspective. In these three regions of the world, as in the rest of the globe, liberal democracies face a troubling gap between the normative and the descriptive: the access to justice promises made by the legal and political system are not fully realized in practice. The studies collected here, therefore, share two baseline assumptions. First, the right of access to justice is fundamental in a liberal state. Access to justice ensures that citizens are able to defend …

Access To Justice For Collective And Diffuse Rights: Theoretical Challenges And Opportunities For Social Contract Theory, Colin Crawford

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

This analysis consists of three principal parts. First, it briefly reviews the classical contract account that explains how and why individuals enter civil society, found in the writings of both Hobbes and Locke. The analysis then examines the limited extent to which classical contract theory treats questions of rights vindication or, in more modern terms, with questions of access to justice. Second, the analysis examines the nature of collective and diffuse rights claims and will make a case for their importance in the modern world. Third, the analysis seeks to identify arguments from the classical account that might be useful …

Cause Lawyering And Compassionate Lawyering In Clinical Legal Education: The Case Of Chile, Fernando Munoz L.

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

In order to contribute from a situated perspective to a global narrative of access to justice, in the next sections I will trace the origins of compassionate and cause lawyering in the history of Chilean legal aid and training. Part II will explain how legal assistance to the poor was codified as a duty of legal professionals during the Middle Ages, in both canon law and in Castilian legislation. Part III will show that practical legal training, both in Spain and in Chile, began much later as the result of the ambition among prominent members of the legal profession to …

The Future Of Pretrial Detention In A Criminal System Looking For Justice, Gabrielle Costa

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Fifty Years After The Consumer Credit Protection Act: The High Price Of Wage Garnishment, Faith Mullen

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Structural Underpinnings Of Access To Justice: Building A Solid Pro Bono Infrastructure, Latonia Haney Keith

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Senate Bill 4 On Wage-Theft: Why All Workers Are At Risk In Low-Income Occupations, Daniella Salas-Chacon

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

Abstract forthcoming

Take This Job And Shove It: The Pragmatic Philosophy Of Johnny Paycheck And A Prayer For Strict Liability In Appalachia, Eugene "Trey" Moore Iii

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

Abstract forthcoming

Be Careful What You Wish For? Reducing Inequality In The Twenty-First Century, Reuven S. Avi-Yonah, Orli K. Avi-Yonah

Michigan Law Review

A review of Walter Scheidel, The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century.

Forward, Jennifer D. Oliva

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Parallel Worlds: Comparing Rural Development To Development In Global Communities, Jena Martin, Karon Powell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trapped In Tragedies: Childhood Trauma, Spatial Inequality, And Law, David Dante Troutt

Marquette Law Review

Each year, psychological trauma arising from community and domestic violence, abuse, and neglect brings profound psychological, physiological, and academic harm to millions of American children, disproportionately poor children of color. This Article represents the first comprehensive legal analysis of the causes of and remedies for a crisis that can have lifelong and epigenetic consequences. Using civil rights and local government law, this Article argues that children’s reactions to complex trauma represent the natural symptomatology of severe structural inequality—legally sanctioned environments of isolated, segregated poverty. The sources of psychological trauma may be largely environmental, but the traumatic environments themselves are caused …

Serving Pets In Poverty: A New Frontier For The Animal Welfare Movement, Amanda Arrington, Michael Markarian

Sustainable Development Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

A Constitutional Critique On The Criminalization Of Panhandling In Washington State, Drew Sena

Seattle University Law Review

Individuals who have lost everything—their homes, jobs, and dignity—are often forced to live on the street. Those with no reasonable alternative can find themselves relying on the generosity of others just to survive. In response, citizens petition, legislatures enact, and officers enforce laws that criminalize signs of visible poverty. Municipalities have made considerable attempts to remove visible poverty from their cities by drafting legislation that disproportionately punishes people experiencing homelessness. This Note focuses on a particular subset of such legislation, laws that criminalize panhandling. Section I of this Note provides an overview of the First Amendment and the protection of …

Injustice Under Law: Perpetuating And Criminalizing Poverty Through The Courts, Judge Lisa Foster

Georgia State University Law Review

Money matters in the justice system. If you can afford to purchase your freedom pretrial, if you can afford to immediately pay fines and fees for minor traffic offenses and municipal code violations, if you can afford to hire an attorney, your experience of the justice system both procedurally and substantively will be qualitatively different than the experience of someone who is poor. More disturbingly, through a variety of policies and practices—some of them blatantly unconstitutional—our courts are perpetuating and criminalizing poverty. And when we talk about poverty in the United States, we are still talking about race, ethnicity, and …

An Invisible Crisis In Plain Sight: The Emergence Of The "Eviction Economy," Its Causes, And The Possibilities For Reform In Legal Regulation And Education, David A. Dana

Michigan Law Review

Review of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City by Matthew Desmond.

Poverty, The Great Unequalizer: Improving The Delivery System For Civil Legal Aid, Latonia Haney Keith

Catholic University Law Review

When individuals in the United States face civil justice issues, they are not entitled to legal counsel and therefore must secure paid counsel, proceed pro se or qualify for free legal assistance. As a result of the economic downturn, the number of Americans who are unable to afford legal counsel is now at an all-time high. In response to this ever-widening justice gap, the public interest community has launched multiple initiatives to supplement the underfunded legal aid system. Though valiant, this article argues that this approach has unfortunately created a complex, fragmented and overlapping delivery system for legal aid. This …

Self-Sufficiency: The Approach Welfare Reform Should Take In Order To Remedy The Shortcomings Of Past Efforts, Ashley Carroll

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment will explain the evolution of welfare reform, present some proposals that others have suggested in order to remedy the problems the current system has, and suggest a way to best serve those of a lower socio-economic status. Part II explains the background on welfare reform and why the reform that occurred during the Clinton administration was so revolutionary. It will explain how the progress in the Clinton administration impacted the effectiveness of welfare reform. Part III details how the current welfare programs in place impact the United States, and how the changes by the Obama administration contrast with …

Mainstreaming Equality In Federal Budgeting: Addressing Educational Inequities With Regard To The States, Elizabeth K. Hinson

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Great Society reformers targeted poverty as the defining characteristic for a novel federal education policy in the United States in 1965. Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reincarnated within the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, distributes financial aid to disadvantaged students within public schools solely based upon students’ socioeconomic status. This Article does not dispute that financial resources improve student outcomes, but this Article argues that Title I’s funding formula is ineffective, and a new funding scheme – specifically, a mainstreaming equality funding scheme – must replace it. The implementation of this funding scheme …

"I Do For My Kids": Negotiating Race And Racial Inequality In Family Court, Tonya L. Brito, David J. Pate Jr., Jia-Hui Stefanie Wong

Fordham Law Review

Socio-legal scholarship examining issues of access to justice is currently experiencing a renaissance. Renewed inquiry into this field is urgently needed. Studies confirm that only 20 percent of the legal needs of low- income communities are met and that the vast majority of unrepresented litigants are low income, creating what some call a “justice gap” that has become even more urgent in recent years. State tribunals that deal with high-stakes issues particularly relevant to low-income residents, such as family courts and housing courts, are seeing an increasing number of litigants, the majority of whom are unrepresented.

"First Food" Justice: Racial Disparities In Infant Feeding As Food Oppression, Andrea Freeman

Fordham Law Review

Tabitha Walrond gave birth to Tyler Isaac Walrond on June 27, 1997, when Tabitha, a black woman from the Bronx, was nineteen years old. Four months before the birth, Tabitha, who received New York public assistance, attempted to enroll Tyler in her health insurance plan (HIP), but encountered a mountain of bureaucratic red tape and errors. After several trips to three different offices in the city, Tabitha still could not get a Medicaid card for Tyler. Tabitha’s city caseworker informed her that she would have to wait until after Tyler’s social security card and birth certificate arrived to get the …