Criminal Law Commons^™

25 Years For A Crime He Didn’T Commit: Anthony Wright, Caleb D. Purvis

SACAD: Scholarly Activities

Anthony Wright was found guilty of the rape and murder of an elderly woman in 1991 in Philadelphia. He was then convicted in 1993 (Kaur, 2020). Anthony Wright spent the next 25 years in prison before becoming the 344th person to be exonerated by DNA in the US (Innocence Project, 2025). Upon the re-examination of the evidence found at the crime scene, a new suspect was identified, but had already passed away, preventing any criminal charges from being filed against them. Anthony Wright also filed a civil lawsuit on January 17, 2017, after his exoneration (Wright v. Philadelphia, 2017).

Independent Justice? U.S. Attorneys As A Case Study Of Political Appointments, Jennifer L. Selin, Lauren Mattioli

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Concerns over presidential use of federal prosecution as a political weapon and the overall independence of the Department of Justice have increased in recent years. While most scholarship exploring the potential for political prosecution has focused on the legal and political forces that influence prosecutorial discretion, few studies have identified the varying ways that federal prosecutors obtain their jobs or how those processes affect who serves as U.S. Attorney. This is a consequential oversight, as U.S. Attorney appointments provide an informative case study of the legal frameworks, historical conventions, and politics that influence presidential appointments more generally.

In this Article, …

Konstitusionalitas Model Putusan Bawaslu Dalam Penyelesaian Pelanggaran Administratif Pemilu, Muhammad Rifai Yusuf, Syarif Hidayat

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

As one of the institutions that carries out quasi-judicial functions in the field of general elections, Bawaslu could issue a decision through an adjudication process. In 2017, Bawaslu was criticized for its several decisions in the Sipol case held by the KPU for the registration of participants in the 2019 general elections, mainly because it was considered that Bawaslu equated its position with the Supreme Court by assessing that Sipol in the KPU Regulation was not in line with the Election Law. In 2024, decisions on election administrative violations appear to be softer or seem to avoid the same potential …

Quo Vadis Hak Atas Kesehatan Reproduksi: Analisis Rekonstruksi Pengaturan Aborsi Di Indonesia (Perbandingan Hukum Indonesia Dengan Perancis), Dian Kencana Putri, Erna Dyah Kusumawati

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Pembatasan akses aborsi di Indonesia menyebabkan banyak perempuan dengan kehamilan tidak diinginkan terpaksa berhadapan dengan hukum. Pembatasan aborsi yang mengakibatkan kriminalisasi ini dapat menyebabkan dilema moral bagi banyak perempuan yang mengalami kehamilan tidak diinginkan. Padahal aborsi berpotensi terjadi pada setiap perempuan berusia produktif di Indonesia. Aborsi di Indonesia merupakan tindakan ilegal dan aborsi hanya dapat dilakukan dalam dua kondisi saja, yakni kedaruratan medis dan kehamilan yang disebabkan perkosaan. Artikel ini menganalisa bagaimana sebenarnya substansi aborsi dapat dimasukkan pada kategori hak kesehatan reproduksi perempuan dan mengapa negara Indonesia perlu mengubah kebijakan dan hukum mengenai aborsi. Untuk melihat seberapa pentingnya negara harus …

Orientasi Rigid Dan Moderat Dalam Penafsiran Original Intent Dan Praktiknya Di Indonesia, Muhammad Alwi Khoiri Ramdani, Susi Dwi Harijanto, Lailani Sungkar

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Metode original intent lazimnya menghasilkan penafsiran yang bersifat rigid sesuai niat perumusnya. Selama konstitusi tidak diubah, maka tafsiran original intent pun tidak berubah. Namun penggunaan metode penafsiran original intent di Indonesia dapat menghasilkan pemaknaan yang berbeda/berubah meskipun ketentuan konstitusi dan perumusnya tidak berganti. Hal ini terjadi karena terdapat perkembangan pemikiran dalam penerapan metode penafsiran original intent. Penelitian ini membahas mengenai perkembangan pemikiran tersebut dan menganalisa pola penerapan metode original intent dalam penafsiran konstitusi yang dilakukan oleh Mahkamah Konstitusi di Indonesia. Ini merupakan penelitian doktriner dengan pendekatan konsep dan kasus. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa terdapat perkembangan pemikiran dalam penerapan metode penafsiran …

Quo Vadis Desain Pengamanan Hakim Dari Perbuatan Merendahkan Kehormatan Dan Keluhuran Martabat Hakim (Pmkh) Di Indonesia, Zainatul Ilmiyah

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Judges, as the main judicial actors in law enforcement, have an independent nature, both in terms of institutions and in terms of determining their decisions. However, in exercising their authority, judges are often faced with the risk of injury, both physical and psychological, by the public, who are not satisfied with the decisions made by the judges. With an empirical legal research method and using a conceptual approach, statute approach, and comparative approach, this study aims to find the best form in the design of an institutional model for judge and court security units. In this study, it was found …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …

This Is Not A Game: The Addictive Allure Of Digital Companions, Nizan Geslevich Packin, Karni Chagal-Feferkorn

Seattle University Law Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents have become an inescapable part of modern childhood, reshaping education, leisure activities, entertainment, and social interaction. From AI-powered tutors that adapt to individual learning styles to emotionally responsive chatbots that simulate human companionship, these systems promise unprecedented personalization, cognitive stimulation, and social support. However, these benefits mask significant risks that remain unregulated and inadequately addressed.

Although adults are also susceptible to forming deep emotional bonds with AI companions—often trusting them as if they possessed genuine understanding and empathy—children are particularly vulnerable. Their misplaced trust can more severely distort social development, weaken critical thinking, and foster unhealthy …

Barlow V. Washington: Judicial Hesitancy And Sexual Violence At Universities, Elizabeth G. Porter

Washington Law Review

Sexual violence among university students—most frequently, violence against women—is a well-known and pernicious problem. But the liability of universities for failing to prevent such violence is exceedingly rare. Courts remain hesitant to impose a duty on universities to prevent sexual violence, even in situations where they are in by far the best position to do so. This Article examines that judicial hesitancy in the context of a claim by Madeleine Barlow, who sued Washington State University (WSU) after she was raped at an off-campus party in her first week of college by a student with a record of past sexual …

The Case For Abolishing The Civil Character-Evidence Rule, Steven Goode

Brooklyn Law Review

The Federal Rules of Evidence were enacted fifty years ago. The Advisory Committee charged with drafting the rules successfully reformed a good number of common-law rules and failed in its attempts to reform others. But it did not even attempt significant reform of one of the most troublesome rules—the character-evidence rule. Indeed, it declined to seriously consider even a very modest proposal to reform the way the character-evidence rule applies in civil cases. Those espousing change, it declared, “have not met the burden of persuasion.” This Article takes up that challenge. I argue that Rule 404’s categorical exclusion of character …

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: An Analysis Of Racial Disparities In Civil Asset Forfeiture Seizures, Kelsey O'Callaghan

Mitchell Hamline Law Journal of Public Policy and Practice

No abstract provided.

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

Cyber Sexual Misconduct: The Evolution Of Sexual Privacy Laws And Best Practices For Representing Victims, Jolie Bodner Zangari, Lindsay Lieberman

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Lipstick On A Slaughtered Piggybank: Civil Rico Against “Pig Butchering” Cryptocurrency Investment Schemes, Samantha B. Larkin

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Impact Of Attorneys With Exposed Tattoos On Jurors, Diego F. Mahoney

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Within the legal field, there appears to be a pervasive stigmatization of exposed tattoos. Law firms justify their explicit or implicit bans on exposed body art by arguing that tattoos could negatively prejudice jurors who may be biased against people with tattoos. This thesis intends to put that notion to the test via a digital survey. Subjects who meet the qualifications to serve as a juror in the United States were shown one of two identical videos of an opening statement. However, in one video the attorney has a neck tattoo, whereas in the other the attorney does not. Subjects …