Law Commons^™

Film Review: Operation Finale, Melanie O'Brien

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In 1960, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, undertook an operation in Argentina to capture the architect of the Final Solution, Adolf Eichmann, and bring him to Israel to stand trial. Operation Finale [Chris Weitz, 2018] tells the story of this intelligence operation: the actions of and challenges for the agents involved, in a way that captures the banality of Eichmann’s personality before it was put on show for the world to see in his televised trial. Operation Finale is available on Netflix, rendering it a Holocaust film with an extraordinarily large reach.

Justice And The Struggle For The Soul Of Medicaid, Dayna Bowen Matthew

Saint Louis University Journal of Health Law & Policy

The soul of Medicaid is and always has been to achieve justice in health care. Medicaid at its inception was designed to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society are not excluded from access to good health that all others enjoy. Yet, as the title of this symposium aptly reflects, “The Struggle for the Soul of Medicaid” remains vulnerable to repeated and relentless political attacks. Why is this so, given that the program finances care for nearly sixty-four million Americans?

This article posits that Medicaid is vulnerable because our nation’s commitment to justice in health care remains uncertain. Historically, …

The Fundamental Right To Technology, Haochen Sun

Hofstra Law Review

Waves of technological progress in recent decades have tremendously improved quality of life. Meanwhile, concerns about technology-driven injustices, such as unfair distribution of wealth and racial discrimination, have deepened. Experts have cautioned that new technologies could have potentially devastating effects, claiming for instance that artificial intelligence may lead to World War III. We are at a crossroads, and how we harness technology now will determine the future of humanity.

This Article presents a thought experiment, proposing that a new fundamental right to technology be recognized under the U.S. Constitution. Given that technology is of fundamental importance to human dignity and …

Brett Kavanaugh Vs. The Exonerated Central Park Five: Exposing The President's "Presumption Of Innocence" Double Standard, Sofia Yakren

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In the service of Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the United States Supreme Court, the President of the United States (and Republican Senators) both misappropriated and further eroded the already compromised concepts of due process and presumption of innocence. This Essay uses the prominent “Central Park Five” case in which five teenagers of color were wrongly convicted of a white woman’s widely-publicized beating and rape to expose the President’s disparate use of the presumption along race and status lines. This narrative is consistent with larger systemic inequities that leave poor black and brown criminal defendants less likely to benefit …

Hearing Women: From Professor Hill To Dr. Ford, Stephanie M. Wildman

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

One of the recent traumas, another skirmish in today’s civilian conflict over what kind of society America will be, arose from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony about sexual assault she had endured. Her composed, measured statement during the nowJustice Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing exemplified bravery in the face of adversity. The Senate and the nation’s response to her testimony underscored the high stakes in the ongoing ideological conflict, beyond the obvious prize of a Supreme Court seat. Constituents in the current ideological battle had differing reactions to Ford’s testimony and to this hearing, reflecting a range of views about …

"I Still Like Smear": The Senate Judiciary Committee's Obstructing Politics Surrounding The Kavanaugh Hearing And A Solution To The Chaos That Ensued, Frank J. Tantone

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

The incredible events and raucous behavior by members of the Committee that colored Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation process rose to a level of intensity and virulence never seen before in this specific area of American government and politics. Nevertheless, the most analogous situation that somewhat closely reflects the events that transpired in 2018 occurred seventeen years earlier. President George H.W. Bush, on July 1, 1991, nominated then District of Columbia Circuit Court Judge, Clarence Thomas, to replace Justice Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court. Thomas’s confirmation hearing was also opposed from the outset but by civil rights and feminist organizations …

How The Boogeyman Saved Brett Kavanaugh, Cathren Page

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

We love to hate these boogeymen. When the societal narrative creates these invisible boogeymen, people can pour their rage against sexual abuse into these faceless antagonists. At the same time, the enraged survivors and protectors avoid conflicts with family, neighbors, colleagues, and social acquaintances who might actually commit or enable sexual abuse. We can dodge sticky questions regarding how a churchgoer, a judge, or an Ivy Leaguer could have committed a heinous act. The survivors can avoid all the victim-blaming backlash, threats of violence, and invalidation that accompanies reporting a sexual offense. Moreover, having less power on their own, …

The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House: Kavanaugh's Confirmation Hearing And The Perils Of Progressive Punitivism, Hadar Aviram

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

This essay proceeds in four parts. In Part I, I problematize the idea of the accused’s demeanor as evidence of guilt, remorse, or entitlement, arguing that we tend to overestimate our ability to deduce internal states of mind from people’s behavior and expressions. Part II assesses the potential (or lack thereof) of public performances of reckoning to produce a valuable expression of remorse, discussing the value of contingent apologies. Part III expands the framework to examine the way our politically fractured field responds to partisan efforts to excoriate culprits, arguing that “starting a national conversation” on the basis of …

In The Dark – Pushing The Boundaries Of True Crime, Sharon Davis

RadioDoc Review

True crime podcasts are a burgeoning genre. As journalists and storytellers, how do we balance the pursuit of justice and our responsibility to the victims with the demand to tell a gripping tale? As listeners, are we using the pain of others for our own entertainment? In the Dark podcast (Seasons 1 and 2) takes us beyond a vicarious fascination with true crime stories into a forensic and essential look at deep-rooted biases, corruption and systemic failures that prevent justice from being served.

The first season (2016) investigates the 1989 kidnapping, sexual assault and murder of 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling In …

A Rebuttal To Kinsler's And To Anderson And Muller's Studies On The Purported Relationship Between Bar Passage Rates And Attorney Discipline, William Wesley Patton

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Because of the escalating cost of legal education and the recent decline in bar passage rates among ABA approved law schools, some analysts have reasonably attempted to determine the social costs of legal education. Many have attempted to place the blame on segments of the legal education marketplace. The complicated relationships among the policies of providing more access to justice, increasing minority representation in the bar, and protecting the public from shoddy law practice have recently inflamed academic debate. In the rush for assessing blame, some analysts have published empirically flawed reports that have received a great deal of …

International Prison Standards And Transnational Criminal Justice, Dirk Van Zyl Smit

UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law

Prison standards are an important element of transnational criminal

justice. This Article shows how legal standards governing prison conditions

emerged at the international and regional levels and considers how,

increasingly, they have gained legitimacy. It then describes how these

standards are applied in a way that contributes to a recognizable

transnational legal order in respect of prison conditions, which has real

impact at the national level. The Article pays close attention to the transfer

of prisoners between states, as a mechanism that operates transnationally

and, in the process, enhances the importance of international prison

standards. It concludes that the benefits …

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law: 2019 Update, Justice Charles W. Johnson, Justice Debra L. Stephens

Seattle University Law Review

This survey is intended to serve as a resource to which Washington lawyers, judges, law enforcement officers, and others can turn as an authoritative starting point for researching Washington search and seizure law. In order to be useful as a research tool, this Survey requires periodic updates to address new cases interpreting the Washington constitution and the U.S. Constitution and to reflect the current state of the law. Many of these cases involve the Washington State Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Washington constitution. Also, as the U.S. Supreme Court has continued to examine Fourth Amendment search and seizure jurisprudence, its …

From Justice To Injustice: Lowering The Threshold Of European Consensus In Oliari And Others Versus Italy, Nazim Ziyadov

Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies

Oliari and Others v. Italy, decided by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in 2015, changed its case law. The ECHR changed its position stated in Schalk and Kopf v. Austria (2010) when evaluating an alleged violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It concluded that Italy has a positive obligation under the convention to guarantee alternative legal recognition for same-sex couples. The same conclusion was not reached in Schalk. In Oliari and Others, the ECHR heavily relied on the European consensus doctrine and eventually deepened formalization of two different institutions (marriage and civil unions). …

Elusive Justice: The Rohingya Chronic Crisis And The Responsibility To Protect, Sumangala Bhattacharya

Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Review

No abstract provided.

Economic Empowerment In The Alabama Black Belt: A Transactional Law Clinic Theory And Model, Casey E. Faucon

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

This essay argues that transactional legal clinics that serve university, urban, and rural communities with cultures and ecosystems shaped by the long-term impacts of racial segregation, Civil Rights, and socioeconomic disenfranchisement can play both a powerful symbolic role and a practical material role in regional economic development by providing direct client representation to historically and economically significant organizations and by training lawyers in transactional methods to use the law to impact the industrial identity and economic vitality of their communities. This essay concludes with a design for a transactional law clinic model.

Growing The Resistance: A Call To Action For Transactional Lawyers In The Era Of Trump, Gowri Krishna

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

New Yorkers woke to a dreary, drizzly day on November 9, 2016. The weather matched the mood of many of the city’s inhabitants. Tears streamed down my face as I sat in the subway waiting for my stop. One by one, as my colleagues in the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center came into the office that morning, we shared expressions of shock, anger, fear, and sadness. We feared for what Trump’s election meant for our clients, for ourselves and our families, for our country, and for our world. In the days and weeks that followed, we coalesced …

The Economic Justice Imperative For Lawyers In “Trump Country”, Priya Baskaran

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

This article serves as a call to action for rural law schools to meaningfully incorporate economic justice into transactional legal education, and in doing so, train much needed rural advocates, legal experts, and local leaders. Rural areas are continuously portrayed as “Trump Country” in today’s mainstream media coverage, which largely focuses on socio-cultural differences between urban and rural areas. Many rural scholars and activists are troubled by the “Trump Country” label as it masks the structural poverty issues that lead to housing insecurity, water insecurity, poor public health indicators, unemployment, underemployment, troubled public education systems, and environmental degradation impacting both …

Victim Or Villain?: The Effects Of Rape Culture And Rape Myths On Justice For Rape Victims, Kimberly Peterson

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Which Radicals?, Cass R. Sunstein

Michigan Law Review

Review of Jeremy McCarter's Young Radicals: In the War for American Ideals.

Small Crimes, Big Injustices, Stephanos Bibas

Michigan Law Review

Review of Alexandra Natapoff's Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.

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

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.