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Full-Text Articles in Law
How U.S. Society Has Treated Those With Mental Illnesses, Michael Mullan
How U.S. Society Has Treated Those With Mental Illnesses, Michael Mullan
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Persons with mental illness are incarcerated in prisons across the United States at disproportionate rates compared to the general population. Under-standing why this is so requires an examination of how society in general has treated persons with mental illnesses. This article relates a history of neglect and stigmatization in examining the entities responsible for care of persons with mental illnesses, including the family, asylums and prisons. The article identifies trends of institutionalization, deinstitutionalization, and transinstitutionalisation, whereby large amounts of inpatients with mental illnesses moved out of psychiatric institutions, into the streets, and then into the criminal justice system. The article …
Letter From The Editor, Eudora F.S. Arthur
Letter From The Editor, Eudora F.S. Arthur
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
No abstract provided.
Transformation Of The American Legal System: Permanent Measures From Covid-19, John B. Taschner
Transformation Of The American Legal System: Permanent Measures From Covid-19, John B. Taschner
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
The COVID-19 pandemic upended virtually every aspect of everyday life, from grocery stores to judicial procedures. The American judicial process is a unique adversarial system that guarantees the right to confront, often before a live jury. Yet, the necessities of social distancing and protecting public health means that these once unshakeable tenets of the United States justice system have been forced to undergo watershed transformation throughout the pandemic. The word transformation is carefully chosen, as certain measures are no longer temporary. Rather, a fundamental shift in the formerly concrete facets of judicial procedure has occurred – almost certainly never to …
Cancelling Justice? The Case Of James Clark Mcreynolds, Todd C. Peppers
Cancelling Justice? The Case Of James Clark Mcreynolds, Todd C. Peppers
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Over the last several years, there has been a vigorous debate as to whether monuments and memorials of Confederate leaders and controversial historical figures should be purged from the public square. These conversations have included former Supreme Court justices and have led to the removal of multiple statues of former Chief Justice Roger Taney, author of the infamous “Dred Scott” decision. Drawing on the arguments mounted for and against the removal of statues, this article explores the decision of a small liberal arts college to strip the name of former Supreme Court Justice James Clark McReynolds from a campus building. …
Pressure On The Trigger Will Now Fire The Weapon: An Examination Of How The Supreme Court, Congress, And Presidents Have Left The Legal Foundation For Executive Detention Akin To The World War Ii Era Internment Of Japanese Americans Largely Intact, Kevan F. Jacobson
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Contrary to Chief Justice Robert's dicta, Trump v. Hawaii (2018) did not overrule Korematsu v. United States (1944) which upheld the exclusion of Japanese Americans from the West Coast during World War II. Korematsu and its related cases are still troublingly vital. Their expansive reading of the war powers justifying executive detention has been bolstered by the Court's cases addressing detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004), which sanctioned the detention of a U.S. citizen pursuant to the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, exposed a fundamental weakness in the Non-Detention Act, the principal statutory barrier to …
From The Exception To The Rule: A Realistic Analysis And Approach For Advancing Board Diversity, Brianne Donovan
From The Exception To The Rule: A Realistic Analysis And Approach For Advancing Board Diversity, Brianne Donovan
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
With companies increasingly promoting diversity and inclusion measures, how are they ensuring diversity and inclusion within their own leadership teams? The landscape for gender diversity within corporate boards is bleak and the landscape for racial diversity is worse. Throw in the intersection of race and gender and the picture becomes even bleaker. In order to combat this corporate governance issue, the U.S. and other countries have primarily focused on three regulatory approaches: (1) the quota system, (2) the disclosure method, and (3) the comply-or-explain approach. This paper addresses each approach (internationally and domestically) to implement greater board diversity for U.S. …
Federal Execution Protocols: Lessons Learned In Grammar And Reverse Federalism, Julianna Meely
Federal Execution Protocols: Lessons Learned In Grammar And Reverse Federalism, Julianna Meely
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
In 2019, the Department of Justice announced that it was ready to restart federal executions and issued a press release outlining how they would proceed. The Press Release dictated that the federal inmates would be injected using a one-drug protocol comprised of the barbiturate pentobarbital. This was a source of controversy as the new federal protocol was not the same protocol used in several states and the federal statute governing executions at the federal level states that federal executions be conducted “in the same manner” as the state in which the execution occurs. This discrepancy sparked litigation in which courts …
United States Penal System: Approaches To Rehabilitating Minor Drug Offenders And The Efforts Of Governments To Reduce The Number Of Incarcerated Individuals, Thomas Tyler Moses
United States Penal System: Approaches To Rehabilitating Minor Drug Offenders And The Efforts Of Governments To Reduce The Number Of Incarcerated Individuals, Thomas Tyler Moses
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
The War on Drugs drastically changed the criminal treatment of illicit drug users in the United States. Changes in the 1980s brought about stricter sentencing laws for simple possession of unlawful substances. While the intent of the legislature was to prevent repeat offenders through the imposition of harsher penalties, these sterner consequences have forced countless individuals into a vicious cycle of incarceration without being offered the rehabilitative services needed to address substance abuse or addiction. Historically, the legal system has treated minor drug offenders in the same regard as those committing violent crimes. Inmates leaving American prisons often find themselves …
The Virginia Values Act: A Landmark Civil Rights Legislation Leapfrogs Virginia Into A Leader On Equality, Sarah Warbelow, Cathryn Oakley
The Virginia Values Act: A Landmark Civil Rights Legislation Leapfrogs Virginia Into A Leader On Equality, Sarah Warbelow, Cathryn Oakley
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
After more than 25 years of Republican political control, Virginia passed thirteen pieces of pro-equality legislation in 2020, the most sweeping of which was the Virginia Values Act. That legislation modernized Virginia civil rights law, bringing the state into line with the overwhelming majority of other states in addressing discrimination. In addition to adding nondiscrimination protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in existing law - which included housing, public employment, and credit it created all-new protections from discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, …
Decriminalization In Virginia: Marijuana In The 2020 General Assembly Session, Jenn Michelle Pedini, Cassidy Crockett-Verba
Decriminalization In Virginia: Marijuana In The 2020 General Assembly Session, Jenn Michelle Pedini, Cassidy Crockett-Verba
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Cannabis is regulated in over one-third of the United States and it has finally made its way to Virginia. While it is not yet legal in the Commonwealth, it has been decriminalized. This is when the criminal penalties are removed but civil penalties (often fines) remain. This is a step in the right direction but activists know that this is not enough for the communities that continue to be harmed by a failed war on drugs. The legislation in Virginia will not fix the issue of over-policing in Black and Brown communities but activists believe that it will put Virginia …
The Fight Over The Virginia Redistricting Commission, Henry L. Chambers Jr.
The Fight Over The Virginia Redistricting Commission, Henry L. Chambers Jr.
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
In its 2020 regular session, Virginia's General Assembly debated whether to send to Virginians a constitutional amendment that transfers the General Assembly’s redistricting responsibility to a newly created Virginia Redistricting Commission (VRC). The VRC is a bipartisan commission of legislators and citizens that will redraw electoral districts before sending them to the General Assembly for up-or-down ratification without alteration. If a supermajority of the VRC fails to agree on redistricted maps or the General Assembly fails to approve the maps, the Virginia Supreme Court will draw the districts. The amendment triggered a fight over how to redistrict, how to end …
Remembering The Ladies: Taking A Look At Some Of Virginia's Most Notable Female Leaders As Virginia Fights For Recognition Of The Equal Rights Amendment, Michelle Kallen, Jessica Merry Samuels, Morgan Maloney
Remembering The Ladies: Taking A Look At Some Of Virginia's Most Notable Female Leaders As Virginia Fights For Recognition Of The Equal Rights Amendment, Michelle Kallen, Jessica Merry Samuels, Morgan Maloney
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
In January 2020, Virginia ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, fulfilling the constitutional ratification requirements and thus enshrining it as the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This article seeks to highlight and explore the lives and contributions of some of the Virginia women who paved the way for this monumental achievement and shaped our nation and our Commonwealth. From Pocahontas to Barbara Johns and the women of the Virginia Military Institute, the history of Virginia women has been one of grit and determination even in the face of subjugation and exploitation. This article seeks to amplify their voices and …
Unallot A Lot: Virginia's Human Services Budgeting In The Time Of Coronavirus, Valerie L'Herrou, Cassie Cunningham, Salaam Bhatti
Unallot A Lot: Virginia's Human Services Budgeting In The Time Of Coronavirus, Valerie L'Herrou, Cassie Cunningham, Salaam Bhatti
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
Virginia’s 2020 General Assembly budgeting process for fiscal year (“FY”) 2021-2022 was upended by the global pandemic which, after a rosy economic forecast for the Commonwealth, sent revenue expectations tumbling, and necessitated a nearly complete rewrite of the budget immediately upon its enactment by the legislature. Social services, an important aspect in the economic health of the Commonwealth, seemed poised to have greater support from the new Democratic majority in both houses of the state legislature as well as the governor’s mansion. But this may or may not have been true, even before the impact of COVID-19.
Letter From The Editor, Eudora F. S. Arthur
Letter From The Editor, Eudora F. S. Arthur
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
No abstract provided.
No Rest For The Weary: A Survey Of Virginia's 2020 General Assembly Regular And Special Sessions, Samantha R. Galina
No Rest For The Weary: A Survey Of Virginia's 2020 General Assembly Regular And Special Sessions, Samantha R. Galina
Richmond Public Interest Law Review
This has been possibly the most historic year in the Virginia General Assembly in decades. During the regular session alone, 3,857 bills were introduced, spanning thousands of pages covering topics as vast as criminal justice reform to election laws to natural resource protection.1 As if that wasn’t enough, the General Assembly reconvened for a Special Session in August to address the COVID-19 pandemic, related budgetary changes, and a myriad of police conduct-related bills in response to the killing of George Floyd and the national Black Lives Matter movement. This article will provide a summary of some of the major bills …