Law and Politics Commons^™

Blue Lives Have Always Mattered: The Usurping Of Hate Crime Laws For An Unintended And Unnecessary Purpose, Lisa M. Olson

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Online Dispute Resolution: Stinky, Repugnant, Or Drab, Robert J. Condlin

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In Part II, I provide a brief overview of ODR systems, describing the largest, most well-known, and most sophisticated platforms now in place, to give the reader a sense of the- richness, variety, and benefits of online disputing, and a hint of developments still to come. In Part III, I describe certain legal, political, and moral concerns that have yet to be addressed in the ODR literature, and identify some of the unintended consequences the widespread adoption of ODR systems might produce. And in Part IV, I describe ODR's unfinished agenda, the questions proponents of the process must answer, and …

Non-Sexual Predators: The Negative Implications Of Required Registration For Non-Sexual Offenses, Alexandra Vargas

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

Abstract forthcoming.

Opposing International Justice: Kenya’S Integrated Backlash Strategy Against The Icc, Laurence R. Helfer, Anne E. Showalter

Faculty Scholarship

The government of Kenya has employed a wide range of strategies to undermine the recently-dismissed prosecutions of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto before the International Criminal Court (ICC). This Article argues that these strategies are part of an integrated backlash campaign against the ICC, one that encompasses seemingly unrelated actions in multiple global, regional and national venues. We identify three overarching themes that connect these diverse measures— politicizing complementarity, regionalizing political opposition, and pairing instances of cooperation and condemnation to diffuse accusations of impunity. By linking its discrete acts of opposition to these three themes, the government …

For The Sake Of Consistency: Distinguishing Combatant Terrorists From Non-Combatant Terrorists In Modern Warfare, Alexander Fraser

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Genocide On The Drina River, Iva Vukušić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Erdos V. United States: Expansion Of Extraterritoriality And Revival Of Exterritoriality, Gary I. Strausberg

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

No Vengeance For 'Revenge Porn' Victims: Unraveling Why This Latest Female-Centric, Intimate-Partner Offense Is Still Legal, And Why We Should Criminalize It, Sarah Bloom

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Judging Judicial Elections, Michael S. Kang, Joanna M. Shepherd

Michigan Law Review

Melinda Gann Hall’s new book Attacking Judges: How Campaign Advertising Influences State Supreme Court Elections suggests what seems impossible to many of us—a powerful defense of today’s partisan judicial elections. As judicial races hit new levels of campaign spending and television advertising, there has been a flood of criticism about the increasing partisanship, negativity, and role of money. In view of the “corrosive effect of money on judicial election campaigns” and “attack advertising,” the American Bar Association (ABA) recommends against judicial elections, which are currently used to select roughly 90 percent of state judges. Justice O’Connor, who has championed judicial-election …

Why Properly Policing A Movement Matters: A Response To Alafair Burke’S Policing, Protestors, And Discretion, Lenese Herbert

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Crime, Surveillance, And Communities, Bennett Capers

Fordham Urban Law Journal

We have become a surveillance state. Cameras—both those controlled by the state, and those installed by private entities—watch our every move, at least in public. For the most part, courts have deemed this public surveillance to be beyond the purview of the Fourth Amendment, meaning that it goes largely unregulated—a cause for alarm for many civil libertarians. This Article challenges these views and suggests that we must listen to communities in thinking about cameras and other surveillance technologies. For many communities, public surveillance not only has the benefit of deterring crime and aiding in the apprehension of criminals. It can …

Policing, Protestors, And Discretion, Alafair Burke

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Detention Without Trial In Kenya, Kevin Conboy

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Incarceration Incentives In The Decarceration Era, Avlana Eisenberg

Scholarly Publications

After forty years of skyrocketing incarceration rates, there are signs that a new “decarceration era” may be dawning; the prison population has leveled off and even slightly declined. Yet, while each branch of government has taken steps to reduce the prison population, the preceding decades of mass incarceration have empowered interest groups that contributed to the expansion of the prison industry and are now invested in its continued growth. These groups, which include public correctional officers and private prison management, resist decarceration-era policies, and they remain a substantial obstacle to reform.

This Article scrutinizes the incentives of these industry stakeholders …

The Antidemocratic Sixth Amendment, Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Criminal procedure experts often claim that poor people have no Sixth Amendment right to choose their criminal defense lawyers. These experts insist that the Supreme Court has reserved the Sixth Amendment right to choose for the small minority of defendants who can afford to hire counsel. This Article upends that conventional wisdom with new doctrinal, theoretical, and practical arguments supporting a Sixth Amendment right to choose for all defendants, including the overwhelming majority who are indigent. The Article’s fresh case analysis shows the Supreme Court’s “no-choice” statements are dicta, which the Court’s own reasoning and rulings refute. The Article’s new …

The Second Amendment In The 21st Century: An In-Depth Examination Of Firearm Freedoms And Their Relationship With Public Safety And Interests, Mathew E. Klein

Honors Undergraduate Theses

One of the most hotly contested topics in the world today revolves around an object. An object that has caused debate among all members of society both in the United States, and all across the globe. But how could an object, something that on its own does nothing, spur such heated argument? This object is the evolution of invention and the product of fighting amongst each other. This object changes the way people think and how they act. This object can be used for both good and bad. This object is a gun.

This research project will explore the Second …

Abandoned Criminal Attempts: An Economic Analysis, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

An attempt is 'abandoned' if the criminal, despite having a chance to continue with his criminal plan, forgoes the opportunity to do so. A regime that makes abandonment a defense to criminal attempts provides an incentive to the offender to withdraw from his criminal conduct prior to completing the previously intended offense. However, the same regime may induce offenders to initiate criminal plans more often by reducing the expected costs associated with such plans. The former effect is called the marginal deterrence effect and the latter is called the ex-ante deterrence effect of the abandonment defense. This Article formalizes a …

Systemic Corruption In An Advanced Welfare State: Lessons From The Quebec Charbonneau Inquiry, Denis Saint-Martin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The Quiet Revolution in the 1960s propelled the province of Quebec onto the path of greater social justice and better government. But as the evidence exposed at the Charbonneau inquiry makes clear, this did not make systemic corruption disappear from the construction sector. Rather, corrupt actors and networks adjusted to new institutions and the incentive structure they provided. The patterns of corruption emerging from the Charbonneau inquiry bear the imprint of the so-called Quebec model inherited from the Quiet Revolution in at least three ways: (1) the economic nationalism that made public policies partial towards French-speaking and Quebec-based businesses, notably …

Dangerous Diagnoses, Risky Assumptions, And The Failed Experiment Of "Sexually Violent Predator" Commitment, Deirdre M. Smith

Faculty Publications

In its 1997 opinion, Kansas v. Hendricks, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that reflected a new model of civil commitment. The targets of this new commitment law were dubbed “Sexually Violent Predators” (SVPs), and the Court upheld indefinite detention of these individuals on the assumption that there is a psychiatrically distinct class of individuals who, unlike typical recidivists, have a mental condition that impairs their ability to refrain from violent sexual behavior. And, more specifically, the Court assumed that the justice system could reliably identify the true “predators,” those for whom this unusual and extraordinary deprivation of liberty …

Impact Of The “Nirbhaya” Rape Case: Isolated Phenomenon Or Social Change?, Tina P. Lapsia

Honors Scholar Theses

In December 2012, a twenty-three year old college student, who was given the pseudonym “Nirbhaya” (“fearless”), was fatally gang-raped on a private bus in Delhi, India, galvanizing the country to swiftly adopt new legislative measures and catapulting the issue of violence against women in India into the international spotlight. Although assault and rape cases have made India infamous for its high volume of crimes against women, the reaction to this particular incident was much different from before. This paper investigates whether the governmental and societal responses represent social change, as indicated by changing attitudes towards violence against women in India. …

"Stand Your Ground" And Self Defense, Cynthia Ward

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Executioner's Dilemmas, Eric Berger

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Politics Of Botched Executions, Corinna Barrett Lain

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Has The "Machinery Of Death" Become A Clunker?, Stephen F. Smith

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Excusing Murder? Conservative Jurors’ Acceptance Of The Gay Panic Defense, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica Salerno, Bette L. Bottoms, B. L. Harrington, Dave Kemner

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

We conducted a simulated trial study to investigate the effectiveness of a “gay-panic” provocation defense as a function of jurors’ political orientation. Mock jurors read about a murder case in which a male defendant claimed a victim provoked the killing by starting a fight, which either included or did not include the male victim making an unwanted sexual advance that triggered a state of panic in the defendant. Conservative jurors were significantly less punitive when the defendant claimed to have acted out of gay panic as compared to when this element was not part of the defense. In contrast, liberal …

The ’73 Graft: Punishment, Political Economy, And The Genealogy Of Morals, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, I explore the place of a genealogy of morals within the context of a history of political economy. More specifically, I investigate the types of moralization – of criminals and delinquents, of the disorderly, but also of political economic systems, of workers and managers, of rules and rule-breaking – that are necessary and integral to making a population accept new styles of political and economic governance, especially the punitive institutions that accompany modern political economies in the contemporary period.

The marriage of political economy and a genealogy of morals: this essay explores how the moralization of certain …

Reorienting Restorative Justice: Initiating A New Dialogue Of Rights Consciousness, Community Empowerment And Politicization, Thalia González

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

For the last three decades scholars have explored the practice of restorative justice as a crime control mechanism in a multitude of settings. Much of the discourse has focused on restorative justice as an alternative to traditional punitive and retributive criminal justice processes. Whether restorative or punitive, criminal justice processes that seek to address harm are not apart, above, or outside social, cultural and political relations. This Article seeks to initiate a new dialogue of justice and argues that the ontology of restorative justice should to be viewed to include a liberatory moment of politicization focused on promoting equality and …

Two Excursions Into Current U.S. Supreme Court Opinion-Writing, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the last weeks in June, 2015, as the present term of the U.S. Supreme Court drew to a close, many controversial and important decisions were handed down by the Court. The substance of the decisions has been written about extensively. Two of the decisions in particular, though, caught my eye as a teacher of legal techniques, not for the importance of the subject of the particular decision, but for what they may illustrate in a teachable fashion about at least some opinion writing. The two cases are Ohio v. Clark (June 18, 2015) interpreting the Confrontation Clause of the …

From Commitment To Compliance: Enforceability Of Remedial Orders Of African Human Rights Bodies, Roger-Claude Liwanga

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Over the last seven decades, there has been a global proliferation of international and regional human rights tribunals. But with no coercive power to enforce their judgments, these international tribunals rely either on the good faith of the State parties or on the political process for the implementation of their remedial orders. This nonjudicial approach to enforcement has showed its limits, as most State parties are noncompliant with international judgments to the detriment of human rights victims. This article recommends a new approach involving the judicialization of the post-adjudicative stage of international proceedings as an avenue to increase the enforceability …

Mexico's Legal Revolution: An Appraisal Of Its Recent Constitutional Changes, 1988-1995, Jorge A. Vargas

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.