Law Commons^™

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

Cyberstalking, A New Crime: Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Current State And Federal Laws, Naomi Harlin Goodno

ExpressO

Imagine a distressed woman discovering the following message on the Internet that was falsely attributed to her: “Female International Author, no limits to imagination and fantasies, prefers group macho/sadistic interaction . . . stop by my house at [current address] . . . . Will take calls day or night at [current telephone number] . . . I promise you everything you ever dreamt about. Serious responses only.” This is an example of cyberstalking – which involves the use of the Internet, e-mail, or other means of electronic communication to stalk another individual. Current statistics suggest that tens of thousands …

To Catch A Sex Thief: The Burden Of Performance In Rape And Sexual Assault Trials, Corey Rayburn Yung

ExpressO

Despite decades of efforts to reform American rape law, prosecution and conviction rates remain low compared to similar crimes. While activists led legislatures to adopt important statutory changes for rape and sexual assault, only modest effects in the levels of sexual violence have been observed. Nonetheless, reform-minded scholars continue to focus on statutory and rule tinkering as a means to quell sexual violence.

This article argues against the commonly-held belief that the crucial factors in determining the outcome of rape trials are substantive and procedural in nature. Rather, the issues of performance, representation, and language often pre-determine the outcomes of …

The Punishment Of Dixie Shanahan: Is There Justice For Battered Women Who Kill?, Leigh Goodmark

ExpressO

The article explores the prevailing theories justifying criminal punishment in the United States through the lens of the case of Dixie Shanahan, an Iowa woman who was sentenced to fifty years imprisonment for killing her abusive spouse after nineteen years of battering. The article begins with a detailed examination of the life of Dixie Shanahan and places her within the context of the literature on battered women who kill. The piece then looks at both retributivist and utilitarian justifications for punishment and concludes that only a retributivist rationale justifies the punishment of Ms. Shanahan and other battered women who kill, …

Loyalty's Reward — A Felony Conviction: Recent Prosecutions Of High-Status Female Offenders, Michelle S. Jacobs

UF Law Faculty Publications

Between 2001 and 2004, six high-status women were charged with crimes in connection with corporate criminal cases. The public is familiar with some of them, although not all of their cases have been covered equally in the press. With the exception of an occasional article now and then mentioning the exploding rates of female incarceration, women's crime tends to be invisible to the public eye. The statistical data the government collects and analyzes on women and crime will be discussed. This article will focus on the prosecution of the individual cases of Lea Fastow, Betty Vinson, and Martha Stewart. Their …

Gender Equality, Social Values And Provocation Law In The United States, Canada And Australia, Caroline A. Forell

ExpressO

In this article I examine and compare the partial defense of provocation as it applies to domestic homicide in Australia, Canada, and the United States on both the gendered-male basis of jealous rage and gendered-female basis of fear. I explain why substantive equality, prevalent under Canadian constitutional law, has not resulted in woman-friendly provocation rules in Canada and the United States and why Australia is the leader in incorporating substantive equality into its provocation doctrine. I conclude that the main reason why some Australian jurisdictions have abolished provocation and others have female-friendly versions of the doctrine is that, unlike Canada …

The New "Fetal Protection": The Wrong Answer To The Crisis Of Inadequate Health Care For Women And Children, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will expand upon the feminist critique by focusing on children's health as well as the health and liberty interests of their mothers. In the first part of this article, I examine the legal and cultural underpinnings of “fetal protection” and explore its current manifestations. In the second part, I place “fetal protection” in a broader context, documenting the ways in which American law currently promotes fetal life, while simultaneously neglecting the lives and health of born children. The third part of the article offers concrete recommendations about how government, both state and federal, can actually achieve the goal …

Roman Rape: An Overview Of Roman Rape Laws From The Republican Period To Justinian's Reign, Nghiem L. Nguyen

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The modern Western crime of rape is commonly defined as "[u]nlawful sexual activity (esp. intercourse) with a person (usu. a female) without consent and usu. by force or threat of injury," and it is often seen as an assault of the person's body and a violation of self-autonomy. However, this differs significantly from the conception of rape in ancient Rome. In fact, "there is no single word in... Latin with the same semantic field as the modern English word 'rape.'” For the Romans, the act of rape was covered under a variety of legal terms, but each of those words …

Gender Equality, Social Values And Provocation Law In Australia, Canada And The United States, Caroline A. Forell

Caroline A Forell

This article examines and compares the partial defense of provocation as it applies to domestic homicide in the United States, Canada and Australia.