Law Commons^™

No Restoration, No Rehabilitation: Shadow Detention Of Mentally Incompetent Noncitizens, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the burgeoning mental competency regime in immigration removal proceedings, as well as its shortcomings. While some strides have been made in the last six years to identify noncitizen detainees who are incompetent, and to implement safeguards, including appointed counsel, to protect their rights, the current mental competency framework fails to protect some of the most vulnerable. Specifically, this article explains that mentally incompetent, noncitizen detainees for whom no adequate safeguards are available, face a kind of shadow, prolonged and potentially indefinite detention. These detainees’ continued detention is wholly without process – despite their incompetence, they are not …

Sufficiently Safeguarded?: Competency Evaluations Of Mentally Ill Respondents In Removal Proceedings, Sarah R. Sherman-Stokes

Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, I examine the current regime for making mental competency determinations of mentally ill and incompetent noncitizen respondents in immigration court. In its present iteration, mental competency determinations in immigration court are made by immigration judges, most commonly without the benefit of any mental health evaluation or expertise. In reflecting on the protections and processes in place in the criminal justice system, and on interviews with removal defense practitioners at ten different sites across the United States, I conclude that the role of the immigration judge in mental competency determinations must be changed in order to protect the …

Conceptualizing Disability Discrimination, Michael C. Harper

Faculty Scholarship

In a series of law review articles written over the past decade, Professor Bagenstos has established himself as the preeminent academic voice on disability discrimination law. Indeed, the transferable utility of the conceptual insights developed and applied in these articles, in my view, warrants a claim for Bagenstos as the most important scholar of the decade in the general field of employment discrimination law. Anyone with a serious intellectual interest in discrimination law who has not read Bagenstos’s articles should take the occasion of the publication of this pithy and trenchant little volume to familiarize themselves with Bagenstos’s analysis of …

A Quality Life, Frances H. Miller

Faculty Scholarship

DEDICATION OF ISSUE TO ALLAN MACURDY

Allan Macurdy passed away June 23, 2008. Mr. Macurdy was a visiting associate professor at the Boston University School of Law and the director of Boston University’s Office of Disability Services. Mr. Macurdy was also a graduate of the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences (’84) and the School of Law (’86).

The following three pieces are memories of Mr. Macurdy by Professor Frances Miller, Professor Larry Yackle and William S. Richardson School of Law Dean Aviam Soifer. The tragedy of Mr. Macurdy’s passing, a noted disability rights advocate, was only underscored by …

Working And Poor: The Increasingly Popular Practice Of Excluding Disabled Employees From Health Care Coverage, Maria O'Brien

Faculty Scholarship

One might think, since passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA),' that the employment story for disabled employees or would-be disabled employees was cheerful, or at least improving. This may be true in so far as obtaining and retaining employment is concerned;' however, the ADA, because it permits employers and third-party insurers to continue to utilize traditional risk management techniques, has resulted in reduced or (in some cases) non-existent employee benefits for the disabled. At the same time, more and more employers are opting to self-insure under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA),3 in …

Fee Shifting And Incentives To Comply With The Law, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

Law and economics is a top-heavy discipline, in the sense that it is largely theoretical. Empirical tests of its claims have been carried out only recently, and a great deal remains to be done. The larger part of the recent wave of empirical law and economics research, however, examines the litigation process. This research has focused on the frequencies with which lawsuits are brought and with which they are settled.1 Surprisingly, empirical researchers2 have given little attention to the theoretical literature that makes predictions concerning incentives to comply with legal rules and the optimality of compliance equilibria.3 This lack of …