Law Commons^™

Analyses Of Prosecutorial Power And Discretion In Mississippi: Evaluating Proposals To Address Misconduct And Abuse, Lucy Pruitt

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to create a policy proposal in order to address incidences of prosecutorial misconduct and abuse of discretion in the Mississippi criminal justice system. To do so, the author has summarized and analyzed seven criminal cases in which defendants have become victims of prosecutorial misconduct in order to shed light on the lack of prosecutorial accountability in the state’s criminal justice system. In an attempt to solve the problem, the author has developed a novel grading rubric in order to objectively and systematically analyze and evaluate previously proposed policy recommendations by legal experts and justice organizations. The successes …

Public-School Systems Are Criminalizing Our Young People: Giving Voice To The Marganilized, Carrie Stoltzfus

Graduate Theses & Dissertations

A phenomenological qualitative study using Critical Race Theory and counter-storytelling was completed to investigate what K-12 public schools should be doing to keep young people out of the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP). This study took place in a large city in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Interviews were completed with former students of the researcher who were previously incarcerated, educational professionals, and justice system professionals. Additionally, observations of the court systems and document reviews were completed in order to triangulate findings. Themes emerged around factors that lead to incarceration and the preferred practices to support young people to avoid …

Lgbtq Training For Aquatic Employees: Impact On Attitudes And Professional Competencies, Austin R. Anderson, Eric Knee, William D. Ramos

International Journal of Aquatic Research and Education

This study examined the impact of a LGBTQ diversity training on the attitudes and professional competencies of aquatic employees within a campus recreational sports setting. While diversity training is often discussed as a key component of inclusive aquatic programming, little empirical research examining the outcomes associated with such trainings exists. As such, members of the research team developed, implemented, and evaluated a four-month long training program consisting of one in-person training session and monthly inclusion handouts discussing issues related to the inclusion of LGBTQ participants. A comparative quantitative research design was used to measure employee’s attitudes towards the LGBTQ population …

Non-Traditional Church Involvement As A Life-Course Turning Point: Qualitative Interviews With Religious Offenders, William Hunter Holt

Dissertations

This research project conducted and then analyzed qualitative interviews from former and current addicts and criminal offenders who are voluntarily participating in the Christian faith at the same non-traditional, Protestant church. An abridged case study of this church is also provided for background and context. Life-course theory and grounded theory are utilized.

Both the offenders and this church were chosen in an attempt to better understand how the offenders’ involvement at this house of worship, along with their faith in general, have impacted them. Obtaining the perspectives of the offender is essential for three reasons. First, qualitative research conducted in …

The Revolving Door Of Recidivism, Laura E. Bull

Classical Conversations

With the rise in the use of prisons, recidivism also grew. Recidivism, in the broadest sense, is the act of a past offender coming back into contact with the justice system. Prisons have been used as far back as the fourth century, but over time their purpose has changed. Today in the United States, the main purpose of prisons is rehabilitation. The most recent law, the First Steps Act, reflects the desire to reduce the trend of recidivism. Many programs have been used as a method of reducing recidivism. Recidivism is a cycle of pain, creating jaded prisoners and placing …

Environmental Justice In Little Village: A Case For Reforming Chicago’S Zoning Law, Charles Isaacs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Chicago’s Little Village community bears the heavy burden of environmental injustice and racism. The residents are mostly immigrants and people of color who live with low levels of income, limited access to healthcare, and disproportionate levels of dangerous air pollution. Before its retirement, Little Village’s Crawford coal-burning power plant was the lead source of air pollution, contributing to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits, and 2,800 asthma attacks per year. After the plant’s retirement, community members wanted a say on the future use of the lot, only to be closed out when a corporation, Hilco Redevelopment Partners, bought the lot …

Much Obliged? Moral Psychology And The Social Obligation Of Property: An Essay In Honor Of Gregory Alexander, Nestor M. Davidson

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

Few scholars have argued as eloquently as Gregory Alexander for the normative force of social obligation in American property law and for a broader understanding of property as inherently relational. The idea that mutual regard for the ability of each person to have meaningful life choices means that ownership entails duties to others has always seemed to me-perhaps not surprisingly given my own moral intuitive priors-deeply compelling. But it is clear that other moral intuitions lead people to value just as deeply and just as intuitively property's ability to establish individual sanctuary within strong, clear boundaries. I don't have the …

It's Not Personal: Social Obligations In The Office Of Ownership, Larissa Katz

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

In November 2016, the City of Vancouver passed its "Vacancy Tax By-law." The law requires homeowners to submit a property status declaration each year to the City, revealing the uses they are making of their property. An owner whose property is not rented or in use for at least 6 months a year is subject to a vacancy tax. The stated purpose of the law is to address the affordable housing crisis in Vancouver, a city where the official rental vacancy rate is less than 1%. By penalizing absentee owners, the law is intended to increase supply and to deter …

Liberalism And The Commons, Hanoch Dagan

Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy

It is a real privilege for me to participate in the celebration of Greg Alexander's enormous contribution to the scholarship and jurisprudence on property, which has enhanced our understanding of property in numerous ways. Alexander utilized almost every tool in a legal theorist's kit-notably: history, comparative law, and philosophical investigation-to study property and developed an innovative and nuanced theory of property. Property, for Alexander, has a core role in fostering human flourishing. A proper conception of property, he claims, must acknowledge that obligations and not just rights, and communities and not only individuals, take center stage.

How Factors Of State Supreme Court Retention Affect Votes To Overturn Precedent: How Do Different Factors Of State Supreme Court Composition Effect The Likelihood That Salient Cases Will Result In An Overturning Of Precedent?, Autumn N. Fosteson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Since the establishment of individual states supreme courts, there has been debate on the best way to retain individual judges to their court. With five different forms of retention, each comes with their own set of outside forces that determine how a judge behaves while on the court. Some of these outside forces like a judge’s length of service on the court can also affect the decision to overturn a standing precedent, especially when the case captures great amounts of media attention. Salient cases are often more likely to result in an overturned precedent than other cases but outside factors …

Are Police Actions Towards African Americans Different From Other Races?, Colby King

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Research implies that African Americans and other minorities experience racial disparities in their encounters with police. Their white counterparts tend to not experience any racially driven disparity. Oftentimes this research does not use different characteristics while testing for racial disparity, leaving much more to be explored when researching police encounters among minorities. I will be using data from the United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics to test some of these characteristics. This study will test demographics regarding the citizens race and gender, as well as the nature of their police encounters. Using these demographics, we can find …

Nebraska Transcript (University Of Nebraska College Of Law), Volume 53, Number 1, Spring 2020

Nebraska Transcript

2 Dean's Message

4 Faculty Notes

10 Civil Procedure, State Con Law scholar, Jonathan Marshfield, joins Nebraska Law

11 Remembering Steve Kalish

14 Remembering Marty Gardner: Long time faculty member, Gardner loved teaching, prioritized students. Professor Marty Gardner passed away late November 2019. His longtime friend and colleague, Professor Robert Denicola, remembers his kindness and love of teaching.

17 University hosts FCC Chairman Ajit Pai

18 Nebraska Law Hosts 12th Annual Nebraska Space Law Conference

20 Women’s Leadership Initiative features former ACLU president Nadine Strossen

29 Football agent Mulugheta maintains, ‘For success, be all in, but find balance' David Mulugheta, …

Digital Forensic Readiness: An Examination Of Law Enforcement Agencies In The State Of Maryland, James B. Mcnicholas Iii

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

Digital forensic readiness within the law enforcement community, especially at the local level, has gone mostly unexplored. As a result, a current lack of data exists that examines the digital forensic readiness of individual agencies, the possibility of proximity relationships, and correlations between readiness and backlogs. This quantitative, crosssectional research study sought to explore these issues by focusing on the state of Maryland. The study resulted in the creation of a digital forensic readiness scoring model that was then used to assign digital forensic readiness scores to thirty (30) of the one-hundred-forty-one (141) law enforcement agencies throughout Maryland. It was …

Screened Out Of Housing: The Impact Of Misleading Tenant Screening Reports And The Potential For Criminal Expungement As A Model For Effectively Sealing Evictions, Katelyn Polk

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Having an eviction record “blacklists” tenants from finding future housing. Even renters with mere eviction filings—not eviction orders—on their records face the harsh collateral consequences of eviction. This Note argues that eviction records should be sealed at filing and only released into the public record if a landlord prevails in court. Juvenile record expungement mechanisms in Illinois serve as a model for one way to protect people with eviction records. Recent updates to the Illinois juvenile expungement process provided for the automatic expungement of certain records and strengthened the confidentiality protections of juvenile records. Illinois protects juvenile records because it …

A Political Effect On Judicial Decision Making: Does Ideology Or Election Effect The Way Judges Decide?, Kaylynne Lyons

Political Science Theses and Capstones

Politics have shown to have a strong effect on most things in our country. There has been lots of research on our state judicial systems and their effects on judicial decisions. Judges have been accused of having underlying reasons to their decisions even though they are not supposed to. Past research has suggested that how the judge is retained has a small but relevant effect on judicial decision making. The literature review discusses effects of the state's system of judicial selection. That leads us to question more about political effects on decision making. I analyze how the ideology of a …

Evidence, Arrest Circumstances, And Felony Cocaine Case Processing, Jacqueline G. Lee, Alexander Testa

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications and Presentations

Case evidence and situational arrest characteristics are widely speculated to influence courtroom actor decisions, yet such measures are infrequently included in research. Using new data on felony cocaine cases from an urban county in a Southern non-guideline state, this study examines how physical evidence and arrest circumstances affect three stages of case processing: initial charge type, charge reduction, and sentence length. The influence of evidence appeared strongest at the early stage when prosecutors chose the appropriate charge, though certain evidentiary and arrest measures continued to influence later decisions. Charge reductions were driven mostly by legal factors, and while guilt should …

Racialized Tax Inequity: Wealth, Racism, And The U.S. System Of Taxation, Palma Joy Strand, Nicholas A. Mirkay

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article describes the connection between wealth inequality and the increasing structural racism in the U.S. tax system since the 1980s. A long-term sociological view (the why) reveals the historical racialization of wealth and a shift in the tax system overall beginning around 1980 to protect and exacerbate wealth inequality, which has been fueled by racial animus and anxiety. A critical tax view (the how) highlights a shift over the same time period at both federal and state levels from taxes on wealth, to taxes on income, and then to taxes on consumption—from greater to less progressivity. Both of these …

Debt Bondage: How Private Collection Agencies Keep The Formerly Incarcerated Tethered To The Criminal Justice System, Bryan L. Adamson

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

This Article examines the constitutionality of statutes which allow courts to transfer outstanding legal financial obligations to private debt collection agencies. In Washington State, the clerk of courts can transfer the legal financial obligation of a formerly incarcerated person if he or she is only thirty days late making a payment. Upon transfer, the debt collection agencies can assess a “collection fee” of up to 50% of the first $100.000 of the unpaid legal financial obligation, and up to 35% of the unpaid debt over $100,000. This fee becomes part of the LFO debt imposed at sentencing, and like that …

Reflections On The Effects Of Federalism On Opioid Policy, Matthew B. Lawrence

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

Mhpaea & Marble Cake: Parity & The Forgotten Frame Of Federalism, Taleed El-Sabawi

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

No abstract provided.

State Regulatory Responses To The Prescription Opioid Crisis: Too Much To Bear?, Lars Noah

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In order to prevent further overuse of prescription opioids, states have adopted a variety of strategies. This article summarizes the growing use of prescription drug monitoring programs, crackdowns on “pill mills,” prohibitions on the use of particularly hazardous opioids, limitations on the duration and dosage of prescribed opioids, excise taxes, physician education and patient disclosure requirements, public awareness campaigns, and drug take-back programs. Although occasionally challenged on constitutional grounds, including claims of federal preemption under the Supremacy Clause, discrimination against out-of-state businesses under the dormant Commerce Clause doctrine, and interference with rights of commercial free speech, this article evaluates the …

Safe Consumption Sites And The Perverse Dynamics Of Federalism In The Aftermath Of The War On Drugs, Deborah Ahrens

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

In this Article, I explore the complicated regulatory and federalism issues posed by creating safe consumption sites for drug users—an effort which would regulate drugs through use of a public health paradigm. This Article details the difficulties that localities pursuing such sites and other non-criminal-law responses have faced as a result of both federal and state interference. It contrasts those difficulties with the carte blanche local and state officials typically receive from federal regulators when creatively adopting new punitive policies to combat drugs. In so doing, this Article identifies systemic asymmetries of federalism that threaten drug policy reform. While traditional …

The Drive To Advise: A Study Of Law Students At A Pro Bono Brief Advice Project, Linda F. Smith

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

The Political Development Of Capital Punishment In The Modern Moroccan State, Mia Barr

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The modern Moroccan state seen today is very young. Having only been independent from France since 1956, the country has spent the last sixty-four years crafting its post-colonial statehood. What has emerged is a hybrid political system with powers split, however unequally, between the King and his inner circle, known as the makhzen, and the Parliament. Not only is the monarchy constitutional—meaning that its legitimacy is literally written into the primary governing document of Morocco, which had its last referendum in 2011—but it is also self-sustaining and self-legitimizing, for the monarchy uses its constitutional powers to grant itself further powers …

Toxic Colonialism And Green Victimization Of Native Americans: An Examination Of The Genocidal Impacts Of Uranium Mining, Averi R. Fegadel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

While the field of criminology has delved into environmental justice issues in Black communities through the exploration of urban exposure to toxins, it has failed to expand this research orientation to examine issues affecting peoples in different locations, which in the U.S. draws attention to the green victimization of Native Americans. In short, existing criminological research has largely ignored the social, economic, and environmental injustices experienced by Native Americans. This study addresses this research gap by exploring environmental justice issues as they relate to the ways toxic colonialism affects Native Americans. Specifically, this study confronts historic and current struggles endured …

How Can Presidents Properly Calibrate The Terror Threat?, Gabriel Rubin

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Presidential rhetoric has minimally changed from the narrative set by George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks. Bush’s policies and agenda have also largely remained. This chapter provides proposals for change given the empirical and theoretical findings made in the book. The counterterrorist policy agenda needs to be narrowed and made more precise. The public needs to educate itself about the terror threat to understand that it is not a significant risk when weighed against others. Presidents need to be more careful with what words they use when describing America’s terrorist adversaries and with who they call terrorists. Recalibrating the …

“But I’M Standing Inside Right Now And I Need Help”: Security Projects And The Perceptions Of Campus Security, Andrea Corradi, Carrie B. Sanders, James Popham

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Acts of violence at institutions of higher education have been heavily publicized, leading security on post-secondary campuses to become a hotbed issue in the media and in the daily lives of those who attend them. With extensive media coverage of events such as the attack on Jeanne Clery, and the mass shootings at Northern Illinois University, Dawson College, and Virginia Tech, many post-secondary schools are working to enhance their security practices. The present study uses Valverde’s (2001; 2008; 2009; 2010; 2011; 2014) security projects framework to examine the lived experiences of security measures on a Canadian urban-integrated campus. Through semi-structured …

Public Opinion Of The Police In 1930s America: A Qualitative Historiographical Study, Willard M. Oliver

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Public opinion polls largely developed post-WWII and questions about the police did not appear until the late 1960s. Since then, over 100+ studies have assessed the modern-day public opinion of the police, but none have looked to public opinion from an earlier time period. This study uses a qualitative historiographical approach for assessing public opinion of the police in the 1930s by drawing on the primary source of a letter exchange between two of that eras greatest pulp writers: Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. Findings suggest similarities between the 1930s and present day public opinion of the police."

Jennifer E. Cobbina, Hands Up, Don't Shoot, Joshua R. Ruffin

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Issues surrounding police use of excessive force continue to be a longstanding debate in the field of Criminal Justice. In the timely boots-on-the-ground work, Hands Up, Don't Shoot, Jennifer Cobbina amplifies the voices of Ferguson and Baltimore protestors by conducting indepth interviews with residents as it relates to their everyday experience with the police. In Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, Cobbina takes an “and” instead of an “or” approach in understanding the experiences often faced by residents of different intersecting identities in these communities. Further, Cobbina provides readers the opportunity to learn of the racialized experiences of these groups …

Out-Of-School Suspensions: Counter-Narratives From The Student Perspective, Karen Mcelrath, Lori Guevara, Zahra Shekarkhar, Joe M. Brown

Qualitative Criminology (QC)

"Out-of-school suspension (OSS) is a major disciplinary tool that has impacted large numbers of students in the United States. Most research into OSS has drawn exclusively on data collected from school records and other “official” sources, and this body of work has contributed to our understanding of suspension decisions by school officials. Considerably less is known about how students experience out-of-school suspensions. This line of inquiry is important because it captures the student voice and reveals a series of counter-narratives that offer alternative interpretations of students’ behaviors that lead to OSS. The aims of this study were twofold: 1) to …