Criminal Law Commons^™

Unusual Suspects: Recognizing And Responding To Female Staff Perpetrators Of Sexual Misconduct In U.S. Prisons, Lauren A. Teichner

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Despite the general public's ignorance of this issue of sexual misconduct perpetrated by female prison staff against male inmates, such stories are remarkably familiar to those who study or work in the world of prisons. The Prison Rape Elimination Act ("PREA") of 2003 mandated that the Bureau of Justice Statistics ("the Bureau") undertake new studies of sexual violence in prisons. Accordingly, the Bureau released a report in July 2006 revealing some groundbreaking data. Of the 344 substantiated allegations of staff-on-inmate sexual violence made in federal, state, and private prisons in 2005, 67% of the overall victims were male inmates and …

Animal Cruelty Laws And Factory Farming, Joseph Vining

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

“Should laws criminalizing animal abuse apply to animals raised for food?” The answer is yes, and yes especially because farm animals are generally now under the control of business corporations. State and federal criminal law have proved critical in modifying corporate policy and practice in other areas, a current example being worker safety. Criminal liability today would include criminal liability of the corporate entity itself, and would thus also introduce the most effective regulation of individual handling of farm animals—regulation by the corporation, which has methods and resources public agencies cannot match. We have a background public policy of humane …

Preventing, Implementing And Enforcing International Humanitarian Law, Juan E. Mendez

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Symposium 2008: The United Nations Genocide Convention: A 60th Anniversary Commemoration: Keynote Address, Juan E. Mendez

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Rape And The Querela In Italy: False Protection Of Victim Agency, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Essay describes the history of the querela in Italy and explores the controversy surrounding the decision to maintain this institution. In addition, this Essay questions the degree to which the querela can protect victim agency when the attitudes of judges and lawyers in the Italian criminal justice system reflect persistent rape myths.

Criminal Conspiracy Law In Japan, Chris Coulson

Michigan Journal of International Law

Part II of this Note describes CATOC's group criminality requirement. Part III outlines the provisions of several versions of Japan's conspiracy bill and compares these provisions to common-law conspiracy. Part IV analyzes Japan's conspiracy law by examining both substantive and procedural laws in Japan related to criminal conspiracy, as well as criticism within Japan of the conspiracy bills.

The Yukos Money Laundering Case: A Never-Ending Story, Dmitry Gololobov

Michigan Journal of International Law

The Yukos case has unveiled the possible dangers of money laundering legislation in the hands of governments with transitional economies and weak democratic traditions. Even if the anti-money laundering laws of the country comply with international pronouncements to the letter, there are still a number of ways the laws could be used for the sole purpose of persecuting political opponents. In the Yukos case, the money laundering charges were interrelated with the charges of corporate tax evasion, which, taken separately, in Russia, represent a rather weak tool for suppressing the political opponents, but taken together they are perfect for the …

Humanitarian Intervention: The New Missing Link In The Fight To Prevent Crimes Against Humanity And Genocide, Paul Williams

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Password Theft: Rethinking An Old Crime In A New Era, Daniel S. Shamah

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

By putting themselves out in front as the victims, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) helped reshape the governing norms of the times, and as a result, people viewed the act of file-sharing differently. By forcing people to see music downloading as a form of theft, the RIAA was quite successful in deterring it. In the process, they also proposed a radical view of theft that changes our basic economic understandings of the action[...] This paper argues that the RIAA's model for deterring music theft could be successfully used to deter many other forms of computer theft, and, specifically, …

Global Sex Trafficking And The Trafficking Victims Protection Act Of 2000: Legislative Responses To The Problem Of Modern Slavery, Rosy Kandathil

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Human trafficking is becoming the fastest growing criminal activity in the world. Generally, trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons across international borders for labor purposes, by means of force, fraud, or coercion. Commerce directly related to human slavery yields approximately $7-$10 billion a year, trailing only behind drugs and weapons trade for international profit. According to recent congressional findings, over 700,000 human beings are trafficked across international borders each year, including approximately 50,000 women and children into the United States. Women and girl children are the primary targets for sexual exploitation into prostitution, pornography, sex tourism, and other …

Pornography As Trafficking, Catharine A. Mackinnon

Michigan Journal of International Law

In material reality, pornography is one way women and children are trafficked for sex. To make visual pornography, the bulk of the industry's products, real women and children, and some men, are rented out for use in commercial sex acts. In the resulting materials, these people are then conveyed and sold for a buyer's sexual use. Obscenity laws, the traditional legal approach to the problem, do not care about these realities at all. The morality of what is said and shown remains their focus and concern. The injuries inflicted on real people to make the materials, or because they are …

Exonerations In The United States 1989 Through 2003, Samuel R. Gross, Kriten Jacoby, Daniel J. Matheson, Nicholas Montgomery, Sujata Patil

Articles

On August 14, 1989, the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago, Illinois, vacated Gary Dotson's 1979 rape conviction and dismissed the charges.1 Mr. Dotson-who had spent ten years in and out of prison and on parole for this conviction-was not the first innocent prisoner to be exonerated and released in America. But his case was a breakthrough nonetheless: he was the first who was cleared by DNA identification technology. It was the beginning of a revolution in the American criminal justice system. Until then, exonerations of falsely convicted defendants were seen as aberrational. Since 1989, these once-rare events have become …

Tribal Jurisdiction And Domestic Violence: The Need For Non-Indian Accountability On The Reservation, Amy Radon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Domestic violence is a severe problem for tribes across the nation, as their female members are victimized at highly disproportionate rates compared to members of dominant society. Many tribes have sophisticated domestic violence codes to combat the problem, but they are powerless to prosecute the majority of those who will abuse Indian women: non-Indian men. In 1978 the Supreme Court stripped tribes of their power to prosecute non-Indians in criminal matters, which not only damaged tribal sovereignty but also meant the difference between a life free from abuse and one with constant fear, intimidation, and pain for Indian women.

The …

Hearing The Danger Of An Armed Felon- Allowing For A Detention Hearing Under The Bail Reform Act For Those Who Unlawfully Possess Firearms, Matthew S. Miner

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article advocates an interpretation of the Bail Reform Act that affords courts the ability to hold detention hearings in gun crime cases to evaluate defendants' potential danger to the community. According to an interpretation advanced by some courts, gun possession offenses do not constitute "crimes of violence" within the meaning of the Act and therefore those charged with such crimes, even ifth ey have a prior felony conviction, are not subject to pre-trial detention. Arguing against this approach, the Article looks to the Bail Reform Act, the relevant federal case law, and the alarming statistics concerning the growing use …

Sexual Slavery And The International Criminal Court: Advancing International Law, Valerie Oosterveld

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article explores the advancement of the international crime of sexual slavery, from its initial inclusion in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court through further development in the delineation of the ICC's Elements of Crime document. This Article begins with a detailed exploration of the negotiation process that led to the inclusion of the crime of sexual slavery in the Rome Statute. The first Section describes the decision to include both sexual slavery and enforced prostitution as crimes, as well as the debate on listing sexual slavery as a crime separate from that of enslavement. Next, the Section …

Continuing Crimes In The Rome Statute, Alan Nissel

Michigan Journal of International Law

One of the most ambitious goals of the International Criminal Court is to balance the ideal of ending impunity with the legalistic protection of the accused from the arbitrary application of law. Accordingly, the main task of this Article will be to determine when continuing crimes will fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court according to the established primary and secondary sources of international law-i.e., within the rule of law.

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Inter-American Human Rights System: Activities From Late 2000 Through October 2002, Richard J. Wilson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Road Work: Racial Profiling And Drug Interdiction On The Highway, Samuel R. Gross, Katherine Y. Bames

Articles

Hypocrisy about race is hardly new in America, but the content changes. Recently the spotlight has been on racial profiling. The story of Colonel Carl Williams of the New Jersey State Police is a wellknown example. On Sunday, February 28, 1999, the Newark Star Ledger published a lengthy interview with Williams in which he talked about race and drugs: "Today... the drug problem is cocaine or marijuana. It is most likely a minority group that's involved with that."4 Williams condemned racial profiling - "As far as racial profiling is concerned, that is absolutely not right. It never has been con-doned …

Economic Espionage Act--Reverse Engineering And The Intellectual Property Public Policy, The, Craig L. Uhrich

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The publicity surrounding[...] incidents of industrial espionage resulted in a push for federal protections. In response to this pressure from U.S. industries, Congress passed the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 ("EEA"). The EEA protects trade secrets through the use of federal criminal sanctions." The EEA's provisions are introduced in Part I. Trade secrets are a form of intellectual property. Therefore, a basic understanding of intellectual property law is important to an analysis of the EEA. Part II of this Article provides an overview of the various forms of intellectual property. To be effective, the EEA must complement existing intellectual property …

Reconciling Amnesties With Universal Jurisdiction - A Reply To Mr. Phenyo Keiseng Rakate, Juan E. Mendez, Garth Meintjes

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Profiling Of Threat Versus The Threat Of Profiling, Frank H. Wu

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This speech covers three points. First, a brief summary of the failed federal criminal prosecution of Wen Ho Lee is given. Second, Wu talks about the racial profiling used in this case. Third, Wu talks about the possibilites for Asian Americans and other racial minorities to engage in principled activism to overcome these unfortunate trends.

Taking A Bite Out Of Circumvention: Analyzing 17 U.S.C. 1201 As A Criminal Law, Jason M. Schulz

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

...information content providers who depend heavily on copyright law are growing increasingly wary of advances in digital technology that allow manipulation of their content and potentially diminish the effectiveness of their copyright protection. Technology firms, on the other hand, are looking more and more at developing products which provide low-cost, high quality access to content without restriction. Thus, as technologists work feverishly to find new ways to free up information, content providers are fighting just as hard to constrain access in order to prevent market-killing duplication and distribution of their works. These two codependent yet clashing interest groups recently met …

Incitement To Violence On The World Wide Web: Can Web Publishers Seek First Amendment Refuge?, Lonn Weissblum

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this comment is to analyze the potential First Amendment implications of the appearance of bomb-making instructions on the Web in the United States. Moreover, this comment will ultimately consider the notion that "because Brandenburg allows consideration of all the unique characteristics of the Web, there is no reason to formulate new jurisprudence merely because of new technology." Part II examines the seminal cases in the area of speech action, including Schenck v. United States, Hess v. Indiana, and Brandenburg v. Ohio, and the adulations and criticisms that resulted from these cases. Part III discusses the civil cases …

A Matter Of Principle And Consistency: Understanding The Battered Woman And Cultural Defenses, Sharan K. Suri

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

To adequately explain and argue why feminists, as a matter of legal theory, must take both the BWS and cultural defenses seriously, these defenses need further elaboration. Section I details what these defenses are, how they developed, and how they work in the justice system. Section II enlarges the picture by revealing the similarities between the two defenses which share not only the same theoretical and practical goals, but also the same criticisms and flaws highlighted by scholars. Finally, Section III asserts that cultural evidence and evidence of battering must be admitted to show the absence of mens rea. However, …

Traffic Jam: Recommendations For Civil Penalties To Curb The Recent Trafficking Of Women From Post-Cold War Russia, Christopher M. Pilkerton

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will examine the recent criminal trend of trafficking women from post-Cold War Russia into the United States. First, it will examine the Russian mafia and its development. It will also discuss the system of economic corruption that currently exists in Russia, which facilitates government involvement with this criminal activity. It will further investigate the issues surrounding trafficked women and the international anti-trafficking conventions that have been created by the United Nations. Next, it will go into a deeper discussion of the current status of relevant international law and the issues involving the International Criminal Court. Finally, this Article …

Grotius Repudiated: The American Objections To The International Criminal Court And The Commitment To International Law, Marcell David

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article analyzes the American objections to the Statute. Part I describes the historical precedents for a permanent international criminal court and the drafting process undertaken. Part I concludes with a summary of the sections of the Statute which are implicated by the American objections. These statutory sections include the Statute's definitions of crimes, the role of the Prosecutor, the Court's anticipated relationship with the U.N. Security Council, and the Court's anticipated jurisdiction over states not party to the Statute. Part II selects three recent or current instances where the United States has used armed force, and analyzes the claims …

Lost Lives: Miscarriages Of Justice In Capital Cases, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

In case after case, erroneous conviction for capital murder has been proven. I contend that these are not disconnected accidents, but systematic consequences of the nature of homicice prosecution in the general and capital prosecution in particular - that in this respect, as in others, death distorts and undermines the course of the law.

Justification By Faith, Carl E. Schneider

Articles

In June 1997 a sixteen-year-old girl named Shannon Nixon began to feel ill. Her parents belonged to the Faith Tabernacle Church, one of a number of American sects which believe that illness should be treated spiritually rather than medically. Accordingly, the Nixons prayed for Shannon and took her to be anointed at their church. Shannon reported that she felt better and that the spiritual treatment had gained her her victory-her recovery. Before long, however, Shannon again felt ill. She became weaker and weaker and then fell into a coma. A few hours later she died. An autopsy revealed that she …

Extraditing Mexican Nationals In The Fight Against International Narcotics Crimes, Joshua S. Spector

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent years, Mexican narcotics trafficking has become a major threat to the security of the Americas. Mexican narco-traffickers have used their wealth and violence to corrupt political and judicial systems and avoid effective prosecution or penalty in Mexican courts. Historically, Mexico has refused to extradite its nationals in reliance on Mexican law prohibiting the extradition of nationals in all but "exceptional" cases. This Note argues that Mexico should take a step toward controlling the cross-border narcotics trade and recognize international drug trafficking as an "exceptional" crime. Upon recognizing narcotics crimes as "exceptional," Mexico should then begin extraditing Mexican narco-traffickers …