Law Commons^™

An Examination Of The Death Penalty, Alexandra N. Kremer

The Downtown Review

The death penalty, or capital punishment, is the use of execution through hanging, beheading, drowning, gas chambers, lethal injection, and electrocution among others in response to a crime. This has spurred much debate on whether it should be used for reasons such as ethics, revenge, economics, effectiveness as a deterrent, and constitutionality. Capital punishment has roots that date back to the 18^th century B.C., but, as of 2016, has been abolished in law or practice by more than two thirds of the world’s countries and several states within the United States. Here, the arguments for and against the death …

The Robot-Transporter: Sex Trafficking, Autonomous Vehicles, And Criminal Liability For Manufacturers, Olivia Phillips

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Despite global condemnation, sex trafficking continues to plague our world. Even in developed countries, the problem persists. Technological advancements, like the Internet, have spurred the development of organized sex trafficking networks and have made “transactions” easier. Although law enforcement agencies have tried to adapt their investigative techniques to combat the problem, developments in technology move at a much quicker rate.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) will present a new set of challenges for law enforcement agencies in the fight against sex trafficking. In the not-too-distant future, AVs, or “self-driving cars,” will dominate the roadways. An AV will be completely aware of the …

In Consumer Protection We Trust? Re-Thinking The Legal Framework For Country Of Origin Cases, Shmuel I. Becher, Jessica C. Lai

San Diego Law Review

Markets are becoming more complicated in an ever faster changing world. New findings pertaining to human behavior and consumer markets constantly challenge traditional legal and policy assumptions. Social science offers a myriad of insights into the ways trust, identity, ideology, and preferences interact and impact one another. Against this background, the need to advance a nuanced legal framework is increasingly vital.

Consumer law policy requires an interdisciplinary and holistic approach. Recent scholarship has acknowledged this need, proposing novel ways to enrich the academic discourse and develop consumer law policy. Along these lines, a growing body of literature examines how notions …

Leaving The Devil You Know: Crime Victimization, Us Deterrence Policy, And The Emigration Decision In Central America, Jonathan T. Hiskey, Abby Córdova, Mary Fran Malone, Diana M. Orcés

Political Science Faculty Publications

Following a sharp increase in the number of border arrivals from the violence-torn countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras in the spring and summer of 2014, the United States quickly implemented a strategy designed to prevent such surges by enhancing its detention and deportation efforts. In this article, we examine the emigration decision for citizens living in the high-crime contexts of northern Central America. First, through analysis of survey data across Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, we explore the role crime victimization plays in leading residents of these countries to consider emigration. Next, using survey data collected across twelve …

Soft-Served Deserts: Soft Retributivism As A Free Will-Independent Alternative For The Criminal Justice System, Theodore Benson Randles

Catholic University Law Review

Human free will is foundational to our criminal justice system, yet contemporary scientific understanding casts doubt on a robust sense of human free will. If a person’s actions are wholly determined by the laws of physics, is that person morally deserving of punishment? This Article argues that our criminal justice system can be put on a footing that is not threatened by physical determinism. It suggests that a coherent system of criminal punishment can be founded on Daniel Farrell’s notion of “weak retributivism.” The Article build on Farrell’s work and develops a system built up from the universal right to …

Indian Tribes, Civil Rights, And Federal Courts, Robert D. Probasco

Robert Probasco

A citizen’s civil rights include protections against certain actions by three different governments – federal, state, and tribal. If the federal or a state government violates your civil rights, you can seek a remedy in federal court, including injunctive or declaratory judgment and damages. But the Supreme Court decided in Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez that that – other than habeas corpus relief – you cannot challenge a civil rights violation by an Indian tribe in federal court. The decision has resulted in a significant amount of controversy and proposals that Congress explicitly grant such jurisdiction. This article reviews the …

How Strong Is Public Support For The Death Penalty In Singapore?, Wing-Cheong Chan, Ern Ser Tan, Jack Tsen-Ta Lee, Braema Mathi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Singapore is well known internationally for its uncompromising stance towards law and order and its use of the death penalty in particular for murder and drug trafficking. Until 2012, it was one of the few countries in the world where the death penalty was mandatory for persons convicted of these two crimes. The law was amended in 2012 to give a judge the choice to impose the death penalty or life imprisonment (with caning) for non-intentional murder and drug trafficking in some situations. What do Singaporeans think of the use of the death penalty in their own country? This article …

Trapped In The Shackles Of America's Criminal Justice System, Shristi Devu

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Why Exempting Negligent Doctors May Reduce Suicide: An Empirical Analysis, John Shahar Dillbary, Griffin Edwards, Fredrick E. Vars

Indiana Law Journal

This Article is the first to empirically analyze the impact of tort liability on suicide. Counter-intuitively, our analysis shows that suicide rates increase when potential tort liability is expanded to include psychiatrists—the very defendants who would seem best able to prevent suicide. Using a fifty-state panel regression for 1981 to 2013, we find that states which allowed psychiatrists (but not other doctors) to be liable for malpractice resulting in suicide experienced a 9.3% increase in suicides. On the other hand, and more intuitively, holding non-psychiatrist doctors liable de-creases suicide by 10.7%. These countervailing effects can be explained by psychiatrists facing …

Deterrence And Aggregate Litigation, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the deterrence properties of aggregate litigation and class actions, with an emphasis on positive value claims. In the multiple victim scenario with positive value claims, the probability that an individual victim will bring suit falls toward zero with geometric decay as the number of victims increases. The reason is that the incentive to free ride increases with the number of victims. Deterrence does not collapse but is degraded. Undercompliance is observed, which worsens as the number of victims increases. Compliance is never socially optimal, and the shortfall from optimality increases with the number of victims. These results, …

Cartel Criminalization In Europe: Addressing Deterrence And Institutional Challenges, Francesco Ducci

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article analyzes cartel criminalization in Europe from a deterrence and institutional perspective. First, it investigates the idea of criminalization by putting it in perspective with the more general question of what types of sanctions a jurisdiction might adopt against collusive behavior. Second, it analyzes the institutional element of criminalization by (1) discussing the compatibility of administrative enforcement with the potential de facto criminal nature of administrative fines under European law and (2) evaluating the trade-offs between an administrative and a criminal model of enforcement. Although a "panoply" of sanctions against both corporations and individuals may be necessary under a …

Deterrence, David Crump

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Does Enforcement Reduce Voluntary Tax Compliance?, Leandra Lederman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Governments generally use enforcement methods, such as audits and the imposition of penalties, to deter noncompliance with tax laws. Although this approach is consistent with most economic modeling of tax compliance, some scholars caution that enforcement may backfire, “crowding out” taxpayers’ intrinsic motivations to pay taxes to such an extent that they reduce their tax payments. This article analyzes the existing evidence to determine if this occurs. In fact, field studies suggest that enforcement tools, such as audits, are effective deterrents, generally greatly increasing tax collections. A few recent studies have found that audits have a negative effect on the …

Distributive Principles Of Criminal Law, Paul H. Robinson, Tyler Scot Williams

All Faculty Scholarship

This first chapter from the recently published book Mapping American Criminal Law: Variations across the 50 States documents the alternative distributive principles for criminal liability and punishment — desert, deterrence, incapacitation of the dangerous — that are officially recognized by law in each of the American states. The chapter contains two maps visually coded to display important differences: the first map shows which states have adopted desert, deterrence, or incapacitation as a distributive principle, while the second map shows which form of desert is adopted in those jurisdictions that recognize desert. Like all 38 chapters in the book, which covers …

Optimal Deterrence And The Preference Gap, Brook E. Gotberg

Faculty Publications

This Article is the first of its kind to argue that preference law is ineffective as a deterrent of collection behavior based on empirical evidence, drawn from interviews of actors within the field-debtors, creditors, and the attorneys who represented them in bankruptcy proceedings. This Article reports on interviews of sampled individuals who participated in successful 7 Chapter 11 reorganization cases involving preference actions. The overwhelming and indisputable conclusion from these interviews is that creditors may adjust their behavior in response to preference law, but not in ways that further the purported goal of preference deterrence. Accordingly, if preference law is …

Using Tickets In Employment Standards Inspections: Deterrence As Effective Enforcement In Ontario, Canada?, Rebecca Casey, Eric Tucker, Leah F. Vosko, Andrea M. Noack

Articles & Book Chapters

It is widely agreed that there is a crisis in labour/employment standards enforcement. A key issue is the role of deterrence measures that penalise violations. Employment standards enforcement in Ontario, like in most jurisdictions, is based mainly on a compliance framework promoting voluntary resolution of complaints and, if that fails, ordering restitution. Deterrence measures that penalise violations are rarely invoked. However, the Ontario government has recently increased the role of proactive inspections and tickets, a low-level deterrence measure which imposes fines of $295 plus victim surcharges. In examining the effectiveness of the use of tickets in inspections, we begin by …

Assessing The International Criminal Court, Beth A. Simmons, Mitchell Radtke, Hyeran Jo

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most important issues surrounding international courts is whether they can further the dual causes of peace and justice. None has been more ambitious in this regard than the International Criminal Court (ICC). And yet the ICC has been the object of a good deal of criticism. Some people claim it has been an expensive use of resources that might have been directed to other purposes. Others claim that its accomplishments are meager because it has managed to try and convict so few people. And many commentators and researchers claim that the Court faces an inherent tension between …