Law Commons^™

Vol. 7 No. 1, Fall 2015; As If All The World Were Watching: Why Today's Law Enforcement Needs To Be Wearing Body Cameras, Rikkilee Moser

Northern Illinois Law Review Supplement

The widespread use of body-worn cameras among police departments across the nation is not only the next logical step in law enforcement, but in the wake of the confrontation in Ferguson, Missouri between Michael Brown and Darren Wilson, it is also crucial to ensuring the safety of both civilians and officers alike. This article discusses the numerous advantages to body-worn technology and the positive results that have been demonstrated by precincts already utilizing the equipment; as well as dispels several counter arguments, namely that body-worn cameras are a violation of privacy.

2015 Esther Clark Moot Court Competition: Finals, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Trending@Rwu Law: Professor David Logan's Post: Diversity In The Rhode Island Judiciary, David A. Logan

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

High Expectations And Some Wounded Hopes: The Policy And Politics Of A Uniform Statute On Videotaping Custodial Interrogations, Andrew E. Taslitz

School of Law Faculty Publications

Much has been written about the need to videotape the entire process of police interrogating suspects. Videotaping discourages abusive interrogation techniques, improves police training in proper techniques, reduces frivolous suppression motions because facts are no longer in dispute, and improves jury decision making about the voluntariness and accuracy of a confession. Despite these benefits, only a small, albeit growing, number of states have adopted legislation mandating electronic recording of the entire interrogation process. In the hope of accelerating legislative adoption of this procedure and of improving the quality of such legislation, the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), formerly the National Conference …

Trending@Rwu Law: Swapna Yeluri's Post: Baltimore: Ignoring Problems No Longer An Option, Swapna Yeluri

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Process Costs And Police Discretion, Charlie Gerstein, J. J. Prescott

Articles

Cities across the country are debating police discretion. Much of this debate centers on “public order” offenses. These minor offenses are unusual in that the actual sentence violators receive when convicted — usually time already served in detention — is beside the point. Rather, public order offenses are enforced prior to any conviction by subjecting accused individuals to arrest, detention, and other legal process. These “process costs” are significant; they distort plea bargaining to the point that the substantive law behind the bargained-for conviction is largely irrelevant. But the ongoing debate about police discretion has ignored the centrality of these …

Body-Mounted Police Cameras: A Primer On Police Accountability Vs. Privacy, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Immediately following the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the death of Eric Garner at the hands of a New York Police Department officer, criminal justice advocates called for greater measures to hold police officers accountable for their actions. For many observers, the failure to secure criminal indictments against the officers involved in each of these deaths of unarmed citizens suggested various shortcomings in the criminal justice system.

One of the most hotly contested reform proposals involves requiring police officers to wear body cameras. The NAACP, the ACLU, and The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law …

Holder Assails Policing For Profit, Lauren Carasik

Media Presence

No abstract provided.

From Fugitives To Ferguson: Repairing Historical And Structural Defects In Legally Sanctioned Use Of Deadly Force, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The lawful use of lethal force to subdue suspected wrongdoers has a long tradition in our nation. There is certainly nothing wrong with securing, incapacitating, or even killing violent persons who pose a serious threat to the lives of innocent individuals. One of the important roles of government is to protect people from harm and keep the peace. Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, have highlighted the tension between the officers on the beat and citizens on the street. These tensions are not likely to subside unless there are major structural changes in the way the police do their job and …

Increasing Police Accountability: Restoring Trust And Legitimacy Through The Appointment Of Independent Prosecutors, Kami Chavis Simmons

Faculty Publications

Criminal prosecution of police officers raises a myriad of issues that this Article will begin to explore. First, while there has been a paradigmatic shift in police accountability in recent decades from remedies focusing on individual officers to those focusing on broad organizational reform, this Article will explore the important role that the deterrence rationale of criminal prosecution might play as one tool to address police misconduct. Second, other than deterrence, criminal prosecutions serve numerous goals, including retribution for the harms imposed upon the victims and society for the crimes. Historically, many racial minorities, when compared with their white counterparts, …

Cutting Cops Too Much Slack, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Police officers can make mistakes, which, for better or worse, the U.S. Supreme Court has often seen fit to forgive. Police, for instance, can make mistakes of fact when assessing whether circumstances justify the seizure of an individual or search of a residence; they can even be mistaken about the identity of those they arrest. This essay examines yet another, arguably more significant context where police mistakes are forgiven: when they seize a person based on their misunderstanding of what a law prohibits.

Hands Up At Home: Militarized Masculinity And Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse, Leigh S. Goodmark

Faculty Scholarship

The deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and the almost daily news stories about abusive and violent police conduct are currently prompting questions about the appropriate use of force by police officers. Moreover, the history of police brutality directed towards women is well documented. Most of that literature, however, captures the violence that police do in their public capacity, as officers of the state. This article examines the violence and abuse perpetrated by police in their private lives, against their intimate partners, although the public and private overlap significantly to the extent that the power and training provided to …

Are We Training Our Detectives? A Survey Of Large Law Enforcement Agencies Regarding Investigation Training And Training Needs, Brian F. Kingshott, John P. Walsh, Robert T. Meesig

Funded Articles

In this study, a mail survey was conducted of 146 of the largest local, sheriff, and state law enforcement agencies in the United States to assess the extent and type of investigation training they receive, and to identify needs. Twenty-nine agencies (20%) responded regarding extent and training for investigators that provided references for agency training programs. Many agencies reported similar courses, delivery systems, and needs. This indicated similar central investigation tasks across agency types, and suggested standardized training courses and delivery systems would likely fit their training needs. Two promising developments concerning online training were noted.

Good Cop -- Bad Cop: Police Violence And The Child’S Mind, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

Police violence against citizens lately has gripped the nation’s attention because of recent cases in Ferguson, Missouri; Staten Island, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Baltimore, Maryland; and elsewhere. Children in those communities and nationwide have been directly and indirectly exposed to these well-publicized incidences of police killings and the aftermath of those killings.

Exposure to police violence may cause children physical, cognitive, emotional, and social trauma. Moreover, the exposure may negatively influence children’s mindsets regarding the criminal justice system and police.

Undoubtedly, these events of late are not the first and only instances in which children have been exposed to physically …

Stereotype Threat And Racial Differences In Citizens’ Experiences Of Police Encounters, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Phillip Atiba Goff

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted 2 studies to investigate how cultural stereotypes that depict Blacks as criminals affect the way Blacks experience encounters with police officers, expecting that such encounters induce Blacks to feel stereotype threat (i.e., concern about being judged and treated unfairly by police because of the stereotype). In Study 1, we asked Black and White participants to report how they feel when interacting with police officers in general. As predicted, Blacks, but not Whites, reported concern that police officers stereotype them as criminals simply because of their race. In addition, this effect was found for Black men but not Black …

Revisiting The Mansions And Gatehouses Of Criminal Procedure: Reflections On Yale Kamisar's Famous Essay, William T. Pizzi

Publications

In 1965, Yale Kamisar published a now-famous essay entitled, Equal Justice in the Gatehouses and Mansions of American Criminal Procedure: From Powell to Gideon, from Escobedo to... to make his case that the Court needed to take action to protect citizens in interrogation rooms, Kamisar used the powerful metaphors of the gatehouse and the mansion to contrast the treatment received in interrogation rooms in the back of police stations with the way defendants were treated when they arrived at courthouses where the power of the state was restricted and they had strong constitutional protections.

On its 50th anniversary since publication, …