Law Commons^™

Strategies For Increasing And Improving Public Corruption Prosecutions: The Task Force Model, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Without a doubt, public corruption is the sort of crime that prosecutors and investigators everywhere would like to vigorously pursue. With the limited resources available to most of these offices and competing mandates to fight many other sorts of crime, however, how can offices expand their ability to do more corruption cases? One solution can be found in banding together as a task force. This brief provides examples of task forces around the country that could serve as models for an office or a jurisdiction looking to improve their capabilities to fight corruption effectively and efficiently.

What Is Asset Tracing? A Primer On "Following The Money" For Integrity Practitioners And Policymakers, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

To put it simply, asset tracing is the process by which investigators “follow the money.” Investigators trace assets by conducting financial investigations, during which they determine a subject’s assets, examine the revenue generated by criminal activity, and follow its trail.

Mexico City's Citizen Comptroller Program, Patricio Martinez Llompart

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Since 1997, Mexico City has had an autonomous, elected government responsible for meeting the needs of nearly nine million metropolitan citizens. Controlling corruption has been a key public priority. In 2004, the city government passed the Citizen Participation Act (Ley de Participación Ciudadana), which established a landmark program to enlist citizen volunteers directly in the day-to-day work of procurement oversight.

These trained volunteers, called “citizen comptrollers,” act as ground-level watchdogs to observe and evaluate public contracting processes. The “bottom up” approach to municipal anti-corruption control pioneered by the Citizen Comptrollers program can serve as an innovative model for cities and …

Ingredients For An Effective Public Ethics Training Program, Alicia Olmstead, Sabine Romero

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Most of us will agree that ethics training is vital to ensuring a government whose employees act with integrity. But many employees find training on their ethical obligations to be some other things as well: difficult to understand, overly preachy, or just plain boring. We all know that people retain information better when it is presented in an interesting and memorable way. The challenge with ethics training is to take this important, but not always accessible, subject matter and make it stick in the minds of government employees so that they do the right thing when facing an ethical dilemma.

What Do Corrupt Firms Have In Common? Red Flags Of Corruption In Organizational Culture, Alison Taylor

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

What kind of an organizational culture do corrupt companies tend to have? To answer this question, I conducted a study based on a review of academic literature as well as in-depth interviews with 23 prominent lawyers, investigators, scholars, and policymakers with firsthand knowledge of the inner workings of dozens of corrupt firms. They highlighted a number of common traits often missed by standard compliance processes that might be “red flags” for organizational corruption. These traits don’t guarantee corruption within an organization, but they do point to the conditions in which it thrives.

Asset Forfeiture In Public Corruption Cases, Pamela S. Stanek

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

This publication is intended to be a practical guide to pursuing federal asset forfeiture where a public corruption crime is the underlying offense. Although the reader of this guide may be pursuing state crimes and forfeiture, reaching out to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the experts in public corruption cases, is recommended. Addressing the laws of all fifty states is beyond the scope of this guide. Nonetheless, the considerations and guidance underlying federal forfeiture will generally apply to the pursuit of state forfeitures as the majority of the state statutes are modeled after the federal statutes and involve similar …

Senator Menendez And The Speech And Debate Clause, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Robert “Bob” Menendez is a United States Senator from New Jersey. He was appointed to the Senate in 2006 by newly elected Governor John Corzine to fill Corzine’s vacated seat. Menendez served two years as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, from 2013 to 2015, and remained that committee’s ranking Democrat until his indictment. He is also a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs and the Committee on Finance. Between 1993 and 2006, Menendez represented New Jersey’s 13th district in the United States House of Representatives.

The Conviction Of Congressman Chaka Fattah, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Congressman Chaka Fattah has represented Pennsylvania’s 2nd District, which includes parts of Philadelphia, for 20 years.

On June 21, 2016, Congressman Fattah was convicted on all 23 counts of public corruption he faced, including conspiracy to commit racketeering (RICO), bribery, money laundering, and fraud. Fattah’s four co-defendants included his chief of staff as well as a former Philadelphia deputy mayor.

A Practitioner's Guide To Wiretaps In Public Corruption Investigations, Wesley Cheng

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

The nonconsensual interception of wire, oral, or electronic communications of targets in criminal investigations is a powerful law enforcement tool and can be used to great effect in many cases, including public corruption cases. Indeed, particularly in cases where wrongful behavior is covert – as is often the case when public officials are involved – there is great value to evidence that allows prosecutors to use the defendant’s own recorded words against him in the courtroom. But there are many factors to consider before using this labor-intensive, long-term tool in your corruption investigation, and once a decision has been made …

The Rikers Island Smuggling Bust, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Rikers Island is New York City’s primary jail complex, with a daily inmate population of approximately 10,000. The 400-acre complex consists of ten different jails that can hold up to 15,000 inmates in total. Rikers has come under criticism as a rise in violent attacks, between inmates and against corrections officers, has drawn public attention to perceived systemic corruption, abuses, and a culture of violence within the complex.

The Arrest Of Norman Seabrook And The Nypd Corruption Probe, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Since 1995, Norman Seabrook has served as president of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association (COBA), the largest municipal jail union in the U.S. with a membership of more than 9,000. As president, Seabrook controls the union’s finances, including its welfare fund. COBA’s welfare fund, which supports benefits for members like dental care and prescription drug purchases, is funded by New York City as part of the union employees’ compensation packages.

The Trial Of Congressman Chaka Fattah, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Congressman Chaka Fattah has represented Pennsylvania’s 2nd District, which includes parts of Philadelphia, for 20 years.

On July 29, 2015, a federal Grand Jury indicted Congressman Fattah on 29 counts, including conspiracy to commit racketeering (RICO), bribery, money laundering, and fraud. The charges encompassed four co-conspirators as well, including Fattah’s chief of staff as well as a former Philadelphia deputy mayor.

Profile In Public Integrity: Robert Lafrenière, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Robert Lafrenière is the Commissioner of Quebec’s Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (l’Unité permanente anticorruption, or UPAC), which he has led since its creation in 2011. In early 2016, he was appointed to a second five-year term. Prior to UPAC, Lafrenière served for two years as Deputy Minister of Quebec’s Ministry of Public Safety (ministère de la Sécurité publique du Québec, or MSP). Earlier in his career, Lafrenière served in Quebec’s provincial police force (Sûreté du Québec), and taught policing at the Collège de Maisonneuve in Montreal.

Profile In Public Integrity: Hubert Sparks, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Hubert Sparks was appointed the first inspector general of the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1989 and was also the first inspector general of the Denali Commission. Previously, Sparks served 29 years in oversight roles at Offices of the Inspector General at the Departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security, and Veteran’s Affairs. He is a member of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and served on the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Sparks holds a B.B.A. in accounting from the City College of New York.

Profile In Public Integrity: Josh Silver, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Josh Silver is the director of Represent.Us, a non-profit grassroots organization that advocates for anti-corruption legislation in states and local communities nationwide. Previously, he co-founded and led Free Press, a public interest organization that advocates for media and technology reform. Earlier, Silver served as the campaign manager for the successful Arizona Clean Elections ballot initiative in 1998, and also directed development for the cultural arm of the Smithsonian Institution.

Profile In Public Integrity: Drew Sullivan, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Drew Sullivan is currently an advising editor at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Program (OCCRP) in Sarajevo, which he co-founded in 2006. Previously, he founded the Center for Investigative Reporting in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Journalism Development Network. He has received many honors for his investigative reporting on issues of transnational crime and corruption, including the Global Shining Light Award and the Online Journalism Award.

Profile In Public Integrity: Jane Feldman, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Jane Feldman was recently appointed as the first executive director of the New York Assembly’s new Office of Ethics and Compliance. She previously served as the first executive director of the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission. After leaving the State of Colorado, Feldman opened Rocky Mountain Ethics Consulting, which worked with local governments to foster ethical organizational cultures. Previously, she co-founded Great Education Colorado and Colorado Protectors of Public Schools, bi-partisan organizations which advocated for increased funding of public schools. Feldman began her career as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office. She also served as …

Profile In Public Integrity: Matthew Boxer, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Matthew Boxer currently chairs the Corporate Investigations and Integrity practice group at Lowenstein Sandler, LLP. Previously, Boxer served six years as New Jersey’s first independent State Comptroller. In that role, he was responsible for auditing government finances, examining the efficiency of government programs, investigating misconduct by government officers, scrutinizing the legality of government contracts and recovering improperly expended Medicaid funds. Under Boxer’s leadership, the office uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars in waste and fraud.

Fighting "Small Town" Corruption: How To Obtain Accountability, Oversight, And Transparency, Center For The Advancement Of Public Integrity

Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (Inactive)

Small municipalities have been the subject of numerous corruption scandals. Bell, California and Crystal City, Texas are just two of many small cities to have made their way into the national spotlight after suffering at the hands of seriously corrupt leadership.1 While news headlines often focus on issues of corruption within state or federal governments, the effects of corruption within local municipalities is equally problematic. First, there are many thousands of small cities and towns in the United States, depending on one’s definition. And these governments receive and spend billions of dollars in public funds. For obvious reasons, however, small …

Debunking The Myth Of The Copyright Troll Apocalypse, Shyamkrishna Balganesh, Jonah B. Gelbach

Faculty Scholarship

Professor Matthew Sag’s Copyright Trolling, An Empirical Study tells a riveting tale of a litigation system run amok.1 A plaintiff files suit in federal court. Each instance of alleged unlawful conduct targeted in the suit may well entail little in the way of actual damages, and for that reason the complaint demands statutory rather than actual damages. The conduct in question is as common as it is allegedly unlawful and, in some people’s views, this conduct isn’t particularly objectionable. And the economics of the litigation in question simply don’t make sense without the aggregation of claims related to many individuals. …

Testimony Regarding The First Amendment Defense Act (Fada), Katherine M. Franke, Elizabeth A. Sepper, Ariela Gross, Sylvia A. Law, Martin S. Flaherty, Suzanne B. Goldberg, Carol Sanger, J. Stephen Clark, Florens Wagman Roisman, Gregory Magarian, Caroline Mala Corbin, Nomi Stolzenberg, Carlos A. Ball, Aaron Ezra Waldman, Aziza Ahmed, Jennifer A. Drobac, Deborah Widiss, Arthur S. Leonard, Martha M. Ertman

Faculty Scholarship

My testimony today is delivered on behalf of twenty leading legal scholars who have joined me in providing an in depth analysis of the meaning and likely effects of the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), were it to become law. We feel particularly compelled to provide testimony to this Committee because the first legislative finding set out in FADA declares that: “Leading legal scholars concur that conflicts between same-sex marriage and religious liberty are real and should be addressed through legislation.” As leading legal scholars we must correct this statement: we do not concur that conflicts between same-sex marriage and …

Bringing International Tax Policy Into The 21st Century, Michael J. Graetz

Faculty Scholarship

Michael J. Graetz delivered the following remarks at the Tax Policy Center's "A Corporate Tax for the 21st Century" conference on July 14 in Washington. These remarks are substantially taken from his April 2015 Ross Parsons Lecture at the University of Sydney Law School.

Environmental Law: Time To Reboot, James Gustave Speth

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Presentation given by James Gustave Speth at the 2016 David Sive Memorial Lecture.

A Mitigation Based Rationale For Incorporating A Climate Change Impacts Fee Into The Federal Coal Leasing Program, Michael Burger

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This paper describes the legal and policy rationale for imposing a fee on federal coal that reflects the costs of the climate change impacts generated by that coal. It notes that the federal government has a duty to mitigate climate impacts from the federal coal leasing program, and that the Department of Interior (“Interior”) and the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) have ample authority to impose a climate change impacts fee on coal leases as a form of compensatory mitigation for those coal leases. The paper also discusses technical issues that should be considered when assessing the effectiveness of this …

Considering The Effects Of Climate Change On Natural Resources In Environmental Review And Planning Documents: Guidelines For Agencies And Practitioners, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This paper describes how climate change will affect natural resources in the United States, and explains why consideration of how climate change will affect those resources is necessary in order to fulfill legal requirements under NEPA and other statutes governing the management of these resources. It also presents examples of how climate change has been meaningfully accounted for in environmental review and planning documents. The accompanying protocol contains guidelines for considering the impacts of climate change in environmental reviews as well as other planning documents (e.g., resource management plans and resource assessments).

Local Law Provisions For Climate Change Adaptation, Justin Gundlach, P. Dane Warren

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

In September 2014, New York enacted the Community Risk and Resiliency Act (CRRA), which requires in part that the New York Department of State (DOS) and the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) create model local laws relating to climate change adaptation for use by local governments. In an effort to assist the State with drafting model local laws for adaptation; to encourage the State to incorporate a broad range of adaptation strategies, including retreat from areas of high flood risk; and to assist local governments with implementation of these programs. The Sabin Center for Climate Change Law has assembled existing …

La Victoria De Urgenda: El Inicio De La Lucha Judicial Frente Al Cambio Climatico, Teresa Parejo Navajas

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

La Sentencia del Tribunal del Distrito de La Haya de junio de 2015, por medio de la cual se obliga al gobierno de los Países Bajos a adoptar una política de mitigación más ambiciosa, ha supuesto una noticia inesperada y valiente que, sin perjuicio de su – en algunas ocasiones – débil argumentación, supone un importantísimo avance en la lucha contra el cambio climático.

Abstract in English
The ruling of The Hague District Court of June 2015 forces the Dutch government to implement a more ambitious mitigation policy in order to comply with its duty of care. This unexpected and …

Using Online Databasing To Unlock The Full Value Of Environmental Impact Assessments, Jessica A. Wentz

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

Government agencies are often required to conduct some form of environmental impact assessment (EIA) before approving a major project or proposal. The documents generated during these assessments contain a wealth of information about baseline environmental conditions, impact assessment methodologies, predicted impacts, and mitigation measures, among other things. This information is compiled at great effort and expense and is valuable in many different applications. Unfortunately, the challenge of locating and searching through these documents poses a serious impediment to effectively harnessing the information contained therein.

Granted, public access to EIA documents has improved considerably in the past decade. Environmental Impact Statements …

Use Cases For Eis Databases, Malanding S. Jaiteh

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

An overview of use cases supporting the development of an online database of environmental impact statements.

Ontario’S Climate Change Mitigation And Low Carbon Economy Act: Pious Aspirations Or New Dawn?, Damilola Olawuyi

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

This paper assess Ontario's proposed cap and trade program for effectiveness; comprehensiveness; transparency and fairness; and offset eligibility. It identifies its areas of innovation and strengths, key implementation and logistical questions that may arise, and offers perspectives on how to address such gaps.