Criminal Law Commons^™

Crypto Kleptocracy, W. Robert Thomas, Jeffery Y. Zhang

Michigan Law Review Online

Many Americans are worrying about whether they will soon be living in a postdemocracy autocracy. But in the meantime, they may already be living in a crypto-fueled kleptocracy. Less than one year into his second presidential term, Donald Trump has reportedly taken his wealth to new heights by embracing, both as a businessman and a politician, the crypto industry. Trump’s family businesses are involved in minting Trump-themed meme coins, creating America- themed stablecoins, and mining crypto assets—so successfully that most of Trump’s wealth is likely now from crypto, not real estate. All the while, the Trump Administration is rolling back …

Statistical Analysis Of Evidence In Criminal Cases, Giuliana Leon Carrillo

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ideally, the evaluation of relevant forensic evidence must corroborate the hypotheses that the prosecution and/or the defense holds regarding the commitment of a crime. Therefore, optimal forensic evidence would be the one that can be found all the time under the same circumstances, and cannot be found otherwise, making the forensic scientist able to evaluate this evidence given the hypotheses provided. Nevertheless, this is hard to find, as ideal evidence being only a concept.

In this project, the probabilistic interpretation of relevant forensic evidence investigated in criminal cases with the aid of Wigmore charts and Bayesian networks was proposed. Using …

To The Hague And Beyond: The Shifting Terrain Of International Criminal Justice, Leila Nadya Sadat, Valerie Oosterveld, Sharon Weil, Nancy Combs, David Crane

Faculty Publications

Panel of international criminal law experts speak about the areas in which they work.

Affirmatively Misled: The Commutation Instruction That Distorted Louisiana’S Death Penalty, G. Ben Cohen

Akron Law Faculty Publications

In 1997, Louisiana voters amended the state constitution to mandate that capital juries be instructed on the governor’s power to commute life and death sentences. This amendment, urged by the Louisiana District Attorneys Association, followed a Louisiana Supreme Court ruling that found an earlier clemency instruction violated the state constitution.     The instruction was fundamentally false. Louisiana governors, it turns out, lacked the unilateral authority to commute sentences; such actions require a favorable vote from the Parole Board. This reality became starkly clear in 2023, when the clemency petitions of fifty-six condemned prisoners—many sentenced by juries affirmatively given this instruction—were terminated …

Laws, Looting, And Legitimate Trade: The Effectiveness Of The Icc At Prosecuting Cultural Heritage Crimes From An Art Market Perspective, Kassidy Houlihan

MA in Art Business Dissertations

This dissertation is a legal analysis of cultural heritage crime prosecution at the International Criminal Court aimed for art market practitioners. It seeks to evaluate whether the ICC could be an effective means of prosecuting cultural heritage crime in a way that positively effects the art market. It closely reads the Rome Statute to determine how the cultural heritage crimes of looting and intentional destruction of cultural property could be charged at the ICC. It then uses the case studies of Prosecutor v. Al Mahdi and Prosecutor v. Al Hassan, the only two cultural heritage cases at the ICC to …

Pona V. State, 329 A.3d 485 (R.I. 2025)., Trina Capezza

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Thornton V. State, 332 A.3d 912 (R.I. 2025)., Matthew Alden Zeller

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Insidious Interstice: Understanding Cognition And Language Behaviour Through The Eyes Of Juvenile Justice Professionals, Anne M. Perrotti, Allison T. Chappell, Tancy Vandecar-Burdin

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

Introduction

Despite evidence suggesting language and cognition deficits are prevalent for justice involved youth, little research explores how juvenile justice personnel experience language and cognition behaviours in the youth they serve.

Aims

This qualitative study explored how juvenile justice personnel understand language and cognition skills and deficits in justice involved youth.

Methods

Twenty-two U.S. juvenile justice professionals participated in individual, semi-structured interviews. Questions focused on individual understanding of receptive language, expressive language, social communication, and cognition (i.e., problem-solving, predicting consequences and impulsiveness) in juveniles served. Using a phenomenological lens, transcripts were coded identifying themes and sub-themes of participant responses.

Results …

How To Stop Mass Shootings Without Violating The Second Amendment: Designing Regulations To Prevent Acts Of Mass Violence That Pass The 6:3 History And Tradition Test, Robert D'Alessandro

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article proposes that states can constitutionally implement ammunition possession limits to reduce mass violence by aligning such laws with the "history and tradition" test established by the current Supreme Court. It argues that modern caps on ammunition are analogous to early American gunpowder restrictions, which were enacted for public safety to prevent catastrophic explosions in populated areas.

Data Sanctuaries: Rethinking Technological Progress To Preserve Federalism, Nathan S. Lee

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

Why are sanctuary states and cities in the present moment largely failing to protect immigrants and other vulnerable people from federal enforcement of an agenda based on mass deportation and fear? While federalism was painted during the Civil Rights Era as a weapon of states to protect policies of discrimination and segregation, federalism was also a powerful tool used by Northern States before the Civil War to resist Southern and federal laws enabling the dehumanizing capture and transport offugitive slaves (or suspected fugitive slaves). What has changed in the passing years to make federalism seem like such a thin concept, …

Plutocratic Public Safety, Erin R. Collins

Law Faculty Publications

Recent political events have laid bare the ways that the United States functions like a plutocracy, in which the ultra-wealthy exert influence over core governance functions. The criminal system is not immune from this influence. Big Capital shapes the operation of the criminal system in highly visible ways through its investments in policing technology, electronic monitoring systems, and correctional and detention systems. This Article shows how the economic elite shape the operation of the criminal system in a less obvious way: through philanthropic giving. Big Philanthropy provides another—albeit seemingly benevolent—avenue through which the ultra-wealthy can advance a vision of public …

Undermining Discretion: The Selective Attacks On Progressive Prosecutors, Angela J. Davis

Cardozo Law Review

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal legal system. They decide whether to bring criminal charges and what those criminal charges should be. These decisions are totally within their discretion. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected the power and discretion of prosecutors in making these decisions, and legal challenges to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion have been largely unsuccessful.

In recent years, a growing number of individuals have successfully run for chief prosecutor on platforms of reducing the prison and jail populations, consistent with public safety. They pledged to use their power and discretion to implement policies …

Exploring The Principles And Values Of Co-Operative Economics And Sustainability To Inform Positive Solutions With Communities Impacted By Incarceration, Mary A. Sutton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The United States incarcerates more people than any other country. Each month, tens of thousands of people across the country are released from prison or jail. Most return to communities that are economically, socially, and environmentally disenfranchised. The cycling of targeted populations in and out of the carceral system has imposed devastating consequences and inequities on poor Black and Brown communities, consequences that will reverberate for generations. The literature indicates a need for a critical sustainability assessment tool to examine incarceration policies and measure their real impacts on individuals, families, and communities. There is a need for sustainable solutions to …

Confession Contamination And Dna Exonerations, 1989-2025, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Application Paths Of Semantic Modeling In Financial Fraud Detection And Risk Identification, Victor P. Gauthier, Daniel S. Wu

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Financial fraud and risk pose significant threats to economic stability and individual well-being. Traditional detection methods often struggle to keep pace with increasingly sophisticated fraudulent schemes. Semantic modeling, which focuses on understanding the meaning and relationships within data, offers a promising avenue for enhancing fraud detection and risk identification. This review paper explores the application paths of semantic modeling in this domain. We begin with a historical overview of fraud detection techniques, highlighting the limitations of traditional approaches. Subsequently, we delve into core themes, including knowledge graph-based fraud detection and semantic rule-based inference for risk assessment. We then compare and …

The Punishment Paradox, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

What does criminal punishment do? Across centuries of criminal legal thought, a shared answer persists: punishment incapacitates the wrongdoer. And yet punishment sometimes yields its opposite. Paradoxically, punishment sometimes becomes a rallying point-expanding community identification and solidarity around the defendant. This Article shows this punishment paradox using the 2023-24 prosecutions of President Trump and recent and historical case examples-from Luigi Mangione to Karen Read to Rosa Parks. By arguing that criminal law can generate solidarity rather than stigma, the Article both rethinks foundational theories of punishment and reconsiders the role of criminal law in democratic politics. Such an approach transcends …

Informed Applicants: Anti-Discrimination Enforcement Based On The Use Of Criminal Records, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

Navigating the labor market with a criminal record is treacherous. Countless job applicants will be turned down immediately after a potential employer learns they have had contact with the criminal legal system. Criminal records reflect and exacerbate long-standing racial and economic inequalities in the United States. Thus, the use of records in employment decisions will often implicate anti-discrimination laws. However, successfully enforcing these protections requires job applicants to, at minimum, understand why they were not hired. Many applicants never learn why they were not hired and thus will never be able to protect their rights. This Article argues that understanding …

Negligent Hiring: Recidivism And Employment With A Criminal Record, Benjamin David Pyle

Faculty Scholarship

This Article tackles a difficult legal and policy challenge— reducing the impact of criminal records on job applicants’ chances in a manner that does not spur more discrimination—by looking at how another area of law, tort liability, impacts employers’ decision-making. It uses theoretical and empirical methods to study the most common reason employers report being reluctant to hire workers with a criminal record: legal liability generated by the tort of negligent hiring. While the purpose of the tort is ostensibly to protect and make whole those harmed when an employee misbehaves in a foreseeable manner, I show that, in practice, …

Why Dobbs Is No Roadmap For Deciding State Constitutional Abortion Issues, Daniel A. Small

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In deciding that Fourteenth Amendment “liberty” does not protect a woman’s decision to end her pregnancy, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization sought to distinguish the precedent that Roe and Casey relied on to recognize an abortion right. The Dobbs majority claimed that this precedent did not support a right to abortion because, in its view, destroying a fetus is more immoral than the conduct at issue in those earlier cases. However, moral concerns about fetal destruction shed no light on the nature or characteristics of a woman’s liberty interest in an abortion decision. These concerns, therefore, cannot show whether …

Nonviolent Felony Offenders And The Second Amendment: Reexamining Categorical Disarmament Laws In Light Of Bruen And Rahimi, Nikolay Belardi

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

INTRODUCTION: The Second Amendment ensures that “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In a country with more civilian-owned firearms than people—and more gun dealers than McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, and Wendy’s locations combined—it is no surprise that Americans pride themselves on their right to bear arms. However, a majority of the American population favors stricter gun laws and regulations, a position that seems sensible given that mass shootings are an all-too-familiar occurrence in the United States. The enshrinement of the right to bear arms in the Constitution limits the laws and regulations …

Dualisme Tujuan Pembebanan Uang Pengganti: Analisis Putusan Angelina Sondakh Di Berbagai Tingkat Peradilan, Valencia Puspa Novandra Ali, Tamsil .

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Studi ini meneliti perbedaan interpretasi dan penerapan hukuman tambahan berupa restitusi (uang pengganti) dalam kasus korupsi melalui analisis komparatif keputusan Angelina Sondakh di pengadilan tingkat pertama, pengadilan banding, pengadilan kasasi, dan pengadilan peninjauan yudisial. Muncul interpretasi ganda antara memandang restitusi sebagai kompensasi atas kerugian keuangan negara dan sebagai mekanisme untuk menyita keuntungan ilegal. Judex facti menolak penerapan restitusi dengan alasan bahwa tidak terjadi kerugian negara dalam kasus suap dan gratifikasi, sementara judex juris di tingkat kasasi menafsirkan restitusi sebagai instrumen pemulihan aset yang ditujukan untuk keuntungan yang diperoleh secara ilegal. Orientasi konseptual yang bertentangan ini menghasilkan perbedaan signifikan dalam penjatuhan …

Kedudukan Putusan Peradilan Etik Sebagai Keputusan Tata Usaha Negara: Studi Kasus Gugatan Hakim Konstitusi Anwar Usman, Satrio Febriyanto

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

As an effort to concretize ethics, there is a process of formalizing ethics into a set of rules through a code of ethics. The code of ethics needs institutional enforcement instruments so that it can be effectively applied through ethical trials. Ethical courts, as institutions that adjudicate violations of the code of ethics, have the authority to issue decisions as a follow-up to cases of violations of the code of ethics that they handle. In carrying out its duties, ethical courts use ethical and moral analysis to assess the appropriateness of an action. This analytical approach differs from legal decisions …

This Land Is Our Land: Creating Abortion Safe-Havens In Federal Enclaves Using The Nondelegation Doctrine, Callie Fucarino

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

In a post-Dobbs world, the legal status of abortion care is in the hands of the states. Healthcare providers and people seeking abortion care must either take legal risks or betray their morals and oath to care for their patients to follow the law in certain restrictive states. What remains in flux is the status of abortion rights on federal lands. There is currently no federal law that criminalizes abortion, but many states prohibit it. Within some states that have restricted abortion, there lie federal enclaves—certain specified land that the United States government owns, where federal law controls. At first …

Kedudukan Hukum Eks-Kreditor Pasca Debt To Equity Swap Yang Dihomologasi Dalam Pkpu Kedua Dan Kepailitan Debitor Akibat Pembatalan Perdamaian, Reza Rahmawati

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Debt to Equity Swap (DES) under a composition plan in Suspension of Debt Payment Obligations (PKPU) proceedings constitutes a restructuring mechanism that transforms the legal status of a Creditor into that of a shareholder upon homologation. Legal issues arise when The Debtor subsequently enters a Second PKPU due to newly incurred debts or is declared bankrupt following the annulment of the composition, while Law No. 37 of 2004 on Bankruptcy and Suspension of Debt Payment does not expressly regulate the legal consequences of a DES under such circumstances. This normative legal research aims to analyze the legal standing and legal …

Tinjauan Frasa “Setiap Orang” Dalam Pasal 3 Ayat (1) Peraturan Pemerintah Nomor 56 Tahun 2021 Tentang Pengelolaan Royalti Hak Cipta Lagu Dan/Atau Musik, Fajar Hidayansyah Ilham, Luna Dezeana Ticoalu

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

Copyright is one form of legal protection for intellectual works, occupying an important position within the intellectual property law system. The Copyright Law explicitly grants exclusive rights to creators, encompassing both moral rights and economic rights. Economic rights, as stipulated in Article 9 paragraph (1), allow creators to obtain economic benefits from their works, ranging from publication, reproduction, distribution, performance, to communication to the public. This provision shows that creators hold a primary position as legal subjects entitled to protection, while also serving as central actors in the creative industry ecosystem. In practice, the mechanism for copyright protection requires implementing …