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Articles 1 - 30 of 284

Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

Rethinking International Armed Conflict: Legal Challenges In The Age Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Havryshuk, Roman Hryshchenko Jun 2026

Rethinking International Armed Conflict: Legal Challenges In The Age Of Hybrid Warfare, Oleksandr Havryshuk, Roman Hryshchenko

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The binary classification of armed conflicts under international humanitarian law (IHL) — distinguishing international armed conflicts (IACs) from non-international armed conflicts (NIACs) — was forged in the aftermath of World War II and increasingly fails to capture the realities of twenty-first century warfare. Hybrid tactics, cyber operations, the proliferation of private military companies (PMCs), the expanding role of non-state actors, and the near-disappearance of formal declarations of war have eroded the analytical utility of the existing framework, generating legal uncertainty and weakening protections for affected populations. This Article critically examines the conceptual foundations of IAC as set out in Common …


No Place For Success Stories: Challenging The Sex Offender Exclusion In New York City's Fair Chance Housing Law, Abby Connell Jun 2026

No Place For Success Stories: Challenging The Sex Offender Exclusion In New York City's Fair Chance Housing Law, Abby Connell

Brooklyn Law Review

As criminal justice reform gains widespread political appeal, people convicted of sex crimes remain outside of mainstream discourse about who deserves protection from the collateral consequences of criminal system involvement. As one example, New York City’s recently enacted Fair Chance Housing Law prohibits criminal record discrimination in housing but leaves people convicted of sex crimes outside of its protection. In New York, people convicted of sex crimes face unique barriers to housing due to a complex web of federal and state laws that restrict access to safe, stable, and affordable housing. Like other New Yorkers with criminal records, people on …


Two Strikes And A Prisoner’S Out: The Supreme Court’S Bad Call In Lomax V. Ortiz-Marquez, Molly Guptill Manning Jun 2026

Two Strikes And A Prisoner’S Out: The Supreme Court’S Bad Call In Lomax V. Ortiz-Marquez, Molly Guptill Manning

Journal of Law and Policy

Since 1892, federal legislation has provided for the waiver of court filing fees so indigent plaintiffs can access the courts. In 1996, the Prison Litigation Reform Act amended the law. Citing an explosion in the number of prisoner filings (and ignoring the commensurate explosion in the size of the prisoner population), Congress sought to disincentivize prisoners from filing federal actions by denying them an outright waiver and instead requiring them to pay filing fees in installments. It also added a “three strikes” rule. Under the latter provision, if a prisoner files three or more actions or appeals that are dismissed …


President Or King? What The United States Can Learn From Brazil’S Conviction Of Former President Jair Bolsonaro, Emma Al-Angurli Peltzer Jun 2026

President Or King? What The United States Can Learn From Brazil’S Conviction Of Former President Jair Bolsonaro, Emma Al-Angurli Peltzer

Journal of Law and Policy

In the United States, January 6, 2021, became a defining moment. President Donald Trump’s conduct and the lack of consequences have been indelibly etched into the nation’s political memory. In Brazil, January 8, 2023, marked a similar political rupture, but one that sealed former President Jair Bolsonaro’s fate in a very different legal order. Through a comparison of the Unites States Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States and Brazil’s criminal conviction of former President Bolsonaro, this Note demonstrates how two presidential democracies took sharply different paths when confronted with attacks on their constitutional order. Brazil’s 1988 Constitution, shaped …


With All The Strings Attached: Analyzing Participation Of Disempowered Groups In Structuring New York’S Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, Nicholas Schuermann Jun 2026

With All The Strings Attached: Analyzing Participation Of Disempowered Groups In Structuring New York’S Social Equity Cannabis Investment Fund, Nicholas Schuermann

Journal of Law and Policy

For decades, New York’s selective enforcement of cannabis prohibition has disproportionately targeted low-income Black and brown communities, resulting in mass incarceration, decimated economic opportunity, and entrenched generational harm. In 2021, New York enacted the Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act (“MRTA”) with an explicit reparative mandate: to redress these harms by lowering barriers to enter the new recreational cannabis market for those severely impacted by prohibition. Central to this effort is the Cannabis Social Equity Investment Fund, a $200 million program designed to provide justice-impacted entrepreneurs with turnkey retail locations, low-interest loans, and business support. In practice, however, the Fund has …


Esg-Based Litigation: A Solution To Social Media Companies’ Immunization From Liability For Human Trafficking On Their Platforms, Grace Dore May 2026

Esg-Based Litigation: A Solution To Social Media Companies’ Immunization From Liability For Human Trafficking On Their Platforms, Grace Dore

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

Social media platforms have transformed communication, but they have also become a critical tool for human traffickers, who use them to recruit victims, maintain control, and facilitate illegal activities. Despite this, social media companies have largely avoided legal accountability due to the broad immunity provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (“CDA”), which courts have interpreted to shield platforms from lawsuits arising from user activity. Congress has sought to address this gap through legislation such as the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (“TVPA”) and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (“FOSTA”). However, these efforts …


The Constitution And Financial Freedom: Analyzing First Amendment Claims About Cryptocurrencies, Mithun Imbulamure May 2026

The Constitution And Financial Freedom: Analyzing First Amendment Claims About Cryptocurrencies, Mithun Imbulamure

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In recent years, the United States has intensified regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency technologies. In August 2022, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Tornado Cash, a cryptocurrency mixer, leading to the prosecution and conviction of its developers for operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. Congress also amended § 6050I of the Tax Code through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, extending cash transaction reporting requirements to digital assets. These developments prompted cryptocurrency advocates to assert First Amendment protections for their activities, arguing that compelled disclosure requirements violate associational privacy and that computer code constitutes protected speech. The government …


A Case For United States V. Connolly: The Forgotten Posterchild Of Protecting Corporate Employees’ Rights During Internal Investigations And Why It Should Be The Standard, Not The Exception, William Marment May 2026

A Case For United States V. Connolly: The Forgotten Posterchild Of Protecting Corporate Employees’ Rights During Internal Investigations And Why It Should Be The Standard, Not The Exception, William Marment

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In May 2019, United States v. Connolly provided a benchmark for government involvement in corporate internal investigations. The decision curtailed the close, and oftentimes coercive nature of the relationship between the prosecutor and corporate counsel conducting internal investigations on a corporation’s behalf. It drew a line between the government improperly outsourcing its investigation to the target corporation and when an employee’s statements are not fairly attributable to government prosecutors, and thus not compelled. The Connolly Court ruled that statements from counsel-led employee interviews, conducted under the threat of termination, were fairly attributable to the government and thus improperly compelled. Those …


Combating The Colorblind Courtroom: Using Race-Switching To Make Racial Bias Salient, Cynthia Lee Mar 2026

Combating The Colorblind Courtroom: Using Race-Switching To Make Racial Bias Salient, Cynthia Lee

Brooklyn Law Review

In criminal courtrooms across the country, well-meaning judges insist on running colorblind courtrooms — courtrooms in which the attorneys are not allowed to call attention to race. Many judges, including many US Supreme Court justices, believe it is best to ignore racial difference, and that noticing race will encourage racial discrimination. The problem is that colorblind courtrooms are likely to exacerbate, not ameliorate, implicit racial bias. Decades of social science research have demonstrated that making race salient helps decision makers treat similarly situated individuals of different races the same and that not calling attention to race results in decisionmakers treating …


Police And Ai: When Abundantly Helpful Becomes Intrinsically Harmful, Landon Brickey Mar 2026

Police And Ai: When Abundantly Helpful Becomes Intrinsically Harmful, Landon Brickey

Brooklyn Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly crept into nearly all aspects of life, including in government, the criminal justice system, and policing. While Supreme Court Due Process jurisprudence has outlined certain boundaries for police interrogations, much police conduct is left for the states to regulate. Such regulation is sporadic and less restrictive than the public might assume, especially in the realm of police deception. Across jurisdictions, courts allow police to deceptively inform suspects that a witness identified the suspect of the perpetrator of a crime. That the suspect’s finger prints, DNA, or shoe prints were found at the scene of the …


The Quest For Objectivity In A World Of Discretion: How The Ohio Risk Assessment System Can Serve As A Blueprint To Overhaul The Sentencing Reform Act And First Step Act, Hadi Akbik Dec 2025

The Quest For Objectivity In A World Of Discretion: How The Ohio Risk Assessment System Can Serve As A Blueprint To Overhaul The Sentencing Reform Act And First Step Act, Hadi Akbik

Journal of Law and Policy

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 fundamentally altered federal sentencing by introducing the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to establish consistency and serve as a check to judicial discretion. Yet, over four decades later, those same guidelines are increasingly criticized for their perpetuation of disparities and failure to reflect the individualized characteristics of their offenders and their potential for rehabilitation. While the First Step Act of 2018 aimed to modernize federal sentencing, it remains largely incomplete due to the Act’s hasty rollout and the lack of high quality, empirically grounded tools that can guide the federal sentencing system more effectively. This Note …


Regulating Misdemeanors In China, Enshen Li Jun 2025

Regulating Misdemeanors In China, Enshen Li

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

China has arguably entered an era of misdemeanors. Perceived as offenses punishable by a sentence of three years’ imprisonment or less, misdemeanors have reportedly taken up the majority of criminality in China over the past two decades. This shift in criminal dynamics has precipitated a pressing need for structural changes in the state’s criminal legal system, with calls for reform oriented toward decriminalization as a tailored dispositional channel for petty offenders showing a lower level of criminal culpability. This Article offers a critical scrutiny of China’s prevailing decriminalization initiatives for reducing the penalties and collateral consequences of misdemeanors. Situating these …


Beyond Statutory Loopholes, Qualified Immunity, And Internal Investigations: A Comparative Analysis Of Police Accountability In The United States And The United Kingdom, Kevyn Mcconlogue Jun 2025

Beyond Statutory Loopholes, Qualified Immunity, And Internal Investigations: A Comparative Analysis Of Police Accountability In The United States And The United Kingdom, Kevyn Mcconlogue

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

While the landscape of policing in the United States and United Kingdom appear different today, their shared roots of enslavement and racism fostered a culture of impunity for police officers in both countries. With community skepticism and public discontent with law enforcement continuing to rise in the United States, the investigative and procedural roadblocks in the way of holding police officers accountable for misconduct must come to an end. In an effort to facilitate conversations about progressive police reform and eventual abolition, this Note compares the modern American and British police accountability systems and the avenues through which victims of …


Conduits For Crime: How The Us Art Industry Has Become A Market Ripe For Financial Crime, Sage Espindola Feb 2025

Conduits For Crime: How The Us Art Industry Has Become A Market Ripe For Financial Crime, Sage Espindola

Brooklyn Law Review

The US art market is the largest in the world, with an estimated total worth of $67.8 billion. In the last decade, art market transactions have skyrocketed in value, with works like Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi selling at auction for $450 million, making it the most expensive individual work to ever be sold. However, unlike other markets that handle similarly high-value assets and commodities, the US art market is largely unregulated. The lack of adequate formal regulation, coupled with a culture of anonymity, has allowed for the US art market to become a hotbed for financial crime, such as …


The Case For Abolishing The Civil Character-Evidence Rule, Steven Goode Feb 2025

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 …


The Geopolitics Of Group Referrals To The International Criminal Court And Its Implications On The Court's Legitimacy And Credibility, Dr. Destaw A. Yigzaw Dec 2024

The Geopolitics Of Group Referrals To The International Criminal Court And Its Implications On The Court's Legitimacy And Credibility, Dr. Destaw A. Yigzaw

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Under the Rome Statute, situations are referred to the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “Court”) either by a state party or the Security Council. In recent years, however, referrals from both sources have become difficult to come by. Instead, there is an evolving practice of referrals by a coalition of third states parties (“group referrals”). Yet, a group referral as a trigger mechanism does not have an explicit textual basis under the Rome Statute (“Statute” or “ICC Statute”). There is no rationale for it either, since a referral by a single state party is all that is needed to trigger …


Growing Rich Off The Fruits Of Private Incarceration, Joseph Hennessy Dec 2024

Growing Rich Off The Fruits Of Private Incarceration, Joseph Hennessy

Journal of Law and Policy

Mass incarceration is a uniquely American phenomenon. With roots in chattel slavery, modern mass incarceration truly exploded in the latter half of the 20th Century. As Reagan-era politicians advocated for fiscal conservatism on the one hand and heavy-handed responses to crime on the other, private prison pioneers saw an opportunity to derive profit from society’s most vulnerable. Today, private prisons house as much as half of some states’ total prison population, and private prison corporations have demonstrated an insatiable desire to expand their reach. This Note explores the unique social vulnerability of privately incarcerated people through a statutory and judicial …


Thai Drug Offenses And Narcotic Charges: Tracing Thailand’S Drug Control And Capital Punishment History, Jonathan Hasson, Carolyn Hoyle May 2024

Thai Drug Offenses And Narcotic Charges: Tracing Thailand’S Drug Control And Capital Punishment History, Jonathan Hasson, Carolyn Hoyle

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The Article examines Thailand's political economy of drugs and use of sanctions, including capital punishment, using a historical approach. It traces Thailand's nation building and emergence as a global hub for illicit drugs against the backdrop of European and US interventions since the colonial era. The Article reveals how Western concepts and discourses were appropriated by Thai elites to advance local agendas while suppressing democratic movements. The Article explores how the drug trade became entangled with government corruption, militarization, and extrajudicial state violence which often targeted ethnic minorities. In light of recent cannabis policy changes, the Article considers the historical …


“A Tale Of National Disgrace”: Applying The Doctrine Of Unconscionability To Establish The Impermissibility Of Secret Non-Prosecution Agreements, Denna Fraley May 2024

“A Tale Of National Disgrace”: Applying The Doctrine Of Unconscionability To Establish The Impermissibility Of Secret Non-Prosecution Agreements, Denna Fraley

Journal of Law and Policy

Crime victims are directly harmed by crime and therefore have a stake in, and should be treated as individual participants in the criminal justice process. In recognition of this, Congress passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA”) in 2004 to enumerate specific rights afforded to crime victims, including the rights to confer with the prosecutor in the case, to be heard at public court proceedings involving a plea or sentencing, to be informed in a timely manner of a plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement, and to be treated with fairness and respect. Whether the CVRA extends these rights to …


Addressing The Root Cause Of Covid-19 Hate Crimes Against The Aapi Community: Shifting From Reactive Policies To Preventative Solutions, Alexa A. Panganiban May 2024

Addressing The Root Cause Of Covid-19 Hate Crimes Against The Aapi Community: Shifting From Reactive Policies To Preventative Solutions, Alexa A. Panganiban

Journal of Law and Policy

While the COVID-19 Pandemic affected health, social interaction, and politics on a global scale, Asian Americans in the United States faced the added hardship of racism and xenophobia. Unfortunately, anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. is not unprecedented and has historical roots dating back to at least the nineteenth century. However, with right-wing leaders using condescending labels like “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” to describe the deadly infection, Asian hate has escalated to astronomical levels. Within one year of the onset of the Pandemic, more than 9,000 reports of Asian hate were filed, and this exponential surge led to the adoption …


Murder And A Mother’S Love: Understanding Maternal Altruistic Filicide And Reshaping The Legal System’S Approach To Mentally Ill Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Morgan Woodbridge May 2024

Murder And A Mother’S Love: Understanding Maternal Altruistic Filicide And Reshaping The Legal System’S Approach To Mentally Ill Mothers Who Kill Their Children, Morgan Woodbridge

Journal of Law and Policy

Every year, thousands of children are killed by their parents. Some of these killings are committed by mentally ill mothers who believe that death is in their children's best interest. This category of killings is called maternal altruistic filicide. Numerous studies have found that mothers who commit altruistic filicide are severely mentally ill and have histories of psychiatric illness, trauma, and suicidality. Despite this, mothers who commit altruistic filicide are often railroaded through the criminal legal system without access to adequate mental health care. Traditional legal procedures designed to assist the mentally ill, such as the insanity defense or the …


A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley Mar 2024

A New Private Law Of Policing, Cristina Carmody Tilley

Brooklyn Law Review

American law and American life are asymmetrical. Law divides neatly in two: public and private. But life is lived in three distinct spaces: pure public, pure private, and hybrid middle spaces that are neither state nor home. Which body of law governs the shops, gyms, and workplaces that are formally accessible to all, but functionally hostile to Black, female, poor, and other marginalized Americans? From the liberal midcentury onward, social justice advocates have treated these spaces as fundamentally public and fully remediable via public law equity commands. This article takes a broader view. It urges a tort law revival in …


Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour Mar 2024

Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Response: Client Counseling In Post-Conviction, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour Jan 2024

Response: Client Counseling In Post-Conviction, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Plea Bargains, Prosecutorial Breach, And The Curious Right To Cure, Michael D. Cicchini Jan 2024

Plea Bargains, Prosecutorial Breach, And The Curious Right To Cure, Michael D. Cicchini

Brooklyn Law Review

When the prosecutor breaches a plea bargain—e.g., by recommending prison instead of the agreed-upon probation—the defendant is entitled to a remedy: either sentencing in front of a different judge or plea withdrawal. However, if defense counsel objects to the breach, the prosecutor may halfheartedly change the recommendation to probation. Most courts have held that to be an effective “cure”—even when the judge then sentences the defendant to prison, as the prosecutor originally recommended. The right to cure, which was intended for commercial sales contracts, fails miserably in the plea-bargain context. In the above example, the attempted cure is too late, …


Background Noise: Lessons About Media Influence, Mitigation Measures, And Mens Rea From Argentine And Us Criminal Cases, Agustina Mitre, Matthew P. Cavedon Dec 2023

Background Noise: Lessons About Media Influence, Mitigation Measures, And Mens Rea From Argentine And Us Criminal Cases, Agustina Mitre, Matthew P. Cavedon

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

This Article reflects on the influence that intense media coverage can have on high-profile criminal cases and considers ways to reconcile defendants’ right to a fair trial with press freedom, comparing approaches and cases from Argentina and the US. The Article begins by discussing the tension between journalists’ and defendants’ rights (Part I). It then surveys how the US seeks to mitigate media influence (Part II). After this, it notes two recent Argentine mitigation measures (Part III). Next, it conducts a legal analysis of the Fernando Báez Sosa case, blaming media pressure for errors in the judgment and then proposing …


Gang Accusations: The Beast That Burdens Noncitizens, Mary Holper Dec 2023

Gang Accusations: The Beast That Burdens Noncitizens, Mary Holper

Brooklyn Law Review

This article examines evidence that the government presents in deportation proceedings against young men of color to prove that they are gang members. The gang evidence results in detention, deportation, adverse credibility decisions, and denial of discretionary relief. This article examines the gang evidence through the lens of the law’s use of presumptions and the corresponding burdens of proof at play in immigration proceedings. The immigration burden allocations allow adjudicators to readily accept the harmful presumption contained in the gang evidence—that urban youth of color are criminals and likely to engage in violent crime associated with gangs. The article seeks …


Identity Crisis: First Amendment Implications Of State Identification Card And Driver’S License Branding For Registered Sex Offenders, Marina D. Barron Dec 2023

Identity Crisis: First Amendment Implications Of State Identification Card And Driver’S License Branding For Registered Sex Offenders, Marina D. Barron

Brooklyn Law Review

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act has been criticized since its inception as excessively punitive, a poor means of preventing sex crimes, and an invasion of basic privacy rights. There are currently eight states that require registered sex offenders to carry branded identification cards (IDs) that mark their registrant status. These markings range anywhere from a letter or symbol on the face of the card, to the words “SEXUAL OFFENDER” or “SEXUAL PREDATOR” in bright red or orange letters. Registrants are forced to share this private and harmful information to the unknowing and presumably uninterested public, including pharmacists, hotel …


Good Intentions With Bad Consequences: Post-Bruen Gun Legislation In New York, Michal E. Folczyk Dec 2023

Good Intentions With Bad Consequences: Post-Bruen Gun Legislation In New York, Michal E. Folczyk

Journal of Law and Policy

In response to a changing landscape for firearm licensing, New York State adopted training requirements for handgun ownership and sensitive place laws. Prior to obtaining a handgun license, training requirements ensure that applicants will be able to safely use a firearm. Upon obtaining a firearm license, sensitive place laws limit where a licensed individual may or may not bring their firearm, as a preventative measure. A violation of a sensitive place law could not only bring revocation of one’s license to carry a firearm, but also felony charges. Although well-intentioned by New York State, unintended consequences attach. This Note explores …


Toward “The Most Freedom”: Decriminalizing Sex Work Alleviates Housing Discrimination And Housing Instability Faced By Sex Workers In New York City, Bianca B. Li Dec 2023

Toward “The Most Freedom”: Decriminalizing Sex Work Alleviates Housing Discrimination And Housing Instability Faced By Sex Workers In New York City, Bianca B. Li

Journal of Law and Policy

While sex work has been incrementally decriminalized in New York City, statutes that criminalize some forms of sex work remain good law in New York City and generate potentially life-altering penalties for sex workers who are arrested or convicted under these laws. This leads to complications for sex workers who seek to rent apartments. The New York City Human Rights Law, the City’s anti-discrimination statute, does not offer explicit protection to sex workers against housing discrimination, and two criminal laws penalize property owners for allowing sex work to occur on or near their premises. This Note explores the shortcomings of …