Law and Race Commons^™

Women In Shareholder Activism, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

Even a cursory review of the history of American environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) shareholder activism reveals the presence of women leaders. This Article sketches some of this history and interrogates the role of women in the shareholder activism movement. That movement typically has involved claims by minority shareholders to corporate power; activists are nearly always on the margins of power, though minority shareholders may, collectively, represent a majority interest. This Article ascribes women’s leadership in shareholder activism to their longstanding position as outsiders to corporate organization. Women’s participation in shaping corporate policy—even from the margins—has provided women with …

#Metoo And The Corporation In Popular Culture, Brenda Cossman

Seattle University Law Review

#MeToo’s initial virtual explosion in the fall of 2017 was very much about Hollywood, with famous actresses speaking out against famous producers, media moguls and celebrities, exposing the ubiquity of sexual harassment and sexual violence in and around the entertainment industry. Since then, #MeToo has made its way into Hollywood representations without much irony. Films and television shows have explicitly taken up the #MeToo themes, exploring issues of sexual harassment and violence and its afterlives. Many television shows, from the relaunched version of Murphy Brown to Brooklyn Nine-Nine to The Good Fight have incorporated #MeToo themes into episodes exploring the …

Woke Capital Revisited, Jennifer S. Fan

Seattle University Law Review

Inclusive corporate leadership is now at the forefront of discussions related to corporate governance. Two corporate theories help to explain the rise in prominence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) efforts in corporate leadership. First, an expanded definition of corporate purpose which elevated the idea of the importance of stakeholders, contributed to the momentum from business and legal quarters for broader corporate inclusion. Second, the increasing publicness of corporations—the social expectation of how large, typically public corporations should act given their position of power—also led to corporations becoming more active in the DEI space. It is against this backdrop that …

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

A Synthesis Of The Science And Law Relating To Eyewitness Misidentifications And Recommendations For How Police And Courts Can Reduce Wrongful Convictions Based On Them, Henry F. Fradella

Seattle University Law Review

The empirical literature on perception and memory consistently demonstrates the pitfalls of eyewitness identifications. Exoneration data lend external validity to these studies. With the goal of informing law enforcement officers, prosecutors, criminal defense attorneys, judges, and judicial law clerks about what they can do to reduce wrongful convictions based on misidentifications, this Article presents a synthesis of the scientific knowledge relevant to how perception and memory affect the (un)reliability of eyewitness identifications. The Article situates that body of knowledge within the context of leading case law. The Article then summarizes the most current recommendations for how law enforcement personnel should—and …

The Conflict Among African American Penal Interests: Rethinking Racial Equity In Criminal Procedure, Trevor George Gardner

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that neither the criminal justice reform platform nor the penal abolition platform shows the ambition necessary to advance each of the primary African American interests in penal administration. It contends, first, that abolitionists have rightly called for a more robust conceptualization of racial equity in criminal procedure. Racial equity in criminal procedure should be considered in terms of both process at the level of the individual, and the number of criminal procedures at the level of the racial group—in terms of both the quality and “quantity” of stops, arrests, convictions, and the criminal sentencings that result in …

The Black Fourth Amendment, Charisma Hunter

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Policing Black bodies serves at the forefront of the American policing system. Black bodies are subject to everlasting surveillance through institutions and everyday occurrences. From relaxing in a Starbucks to exercising, Black bodies are deemed criminals, surveilled, profiled, and subjected to perpetual implicit bias when participating in mundane activities. Black people should have the same protections as white people and should possess the ability to engage in everyday, commonplace, and routine activities.

The Fourth Amendment was not drafted with the intention of protecting Black bodies. In fact, Black bodies were considered three-fifths of a person at the drafting of the …

Debiasing Criminal Justice, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The killing of George Floyd by police officers in Minnesota inspired a summer of protests in 2020, followed by a call for racial reckoning and a professed commitment to reform criminal justice. Many have condemned the “systemic racism” reflected in countless demographic measures. From killings of unarmed men by the police at the front end of the criminal justice system to incarceration rates at the back end, the statistics show stark disparities along racial lines. These disparities are held up as evidence of racial bias in the system.

Statements about racial bias may be intended as an indictment of a …

Revisiting The Ox-Bow Incident: The Almost Forgotten Western Classic About The Lynching Of Three Innocent Men Is As Relevant As Ever, Marc Bookman

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The concept of lynching, several hundred years old and unclear in its origins, has never really left the lexicon. The word itself, however, has taken on different meanings over the years, from a mob’s taking the law into its own hands, to an organized utilization of racial violence as a means of societal control and intimidation; and finally to the more casual and defensive use of the word (“high tech lynching”) by current Supreme Court justices Thomas and Kavanaugh and others after being questioned about their past behaviors. Many academics have opined that the modern system of capital punishment is …

Policing By Proxy: Interrogating Big Tech's Role In Law Enforcement, Claire Elizabeth

University Honors Theses

Predictive policing, sometimes referred to as data-driven or actuarial policing, is a method of policing that uses a risk-based approach to law enforcement. For-profit technology companies market proprietary risk assessment algorithms to law enforcement organizations as tools meant to proactively mitigate crime. Using data collected from a vast array of sources, both personal and public, police are able to "predict" the likelihood of criminal activity in a given area using these algorithms. Proponents claim that risk assessment tools have the potential to fight crime with unbiased accuracy and speed by predicting when, where, and whom to police by relying on …

Consider Collateral Consequences: The Inherent Hypocrisy Of Veterans Treatment Courts’ Failure To Dismiss Criminal Charges, Julia W. Williams

Journal of Law and Policy

American veterans are often plagued by psychological and physical injuries, among other hardships, which, when unaddressed, can lead to substance abuse, criminal behavior, and suicide. As public awareness of the difficulties that American veterans face was growing, the problem-solving court movement was also gaining momentum. Largely inspired by therapeutic jurisprudence, an interdisciplinary framework that sees the law as a way to reach therapeutic outcomes, problem-solving courts seek to identify the root causes of criminal behavior and address those causes in ways that promote rehabilitation and reduce recidivism. Veterans Treatment Courts (“VTCs”) emerged when veterans advocacy intersected with the problem-solving court …

Restorative Justice And Anti-Racism, Martha Minow

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Slaying The Serpents: Why Alternative Intervention Is Necessary To Protect Those In Mental Health Crisis From The State-Created Danger “Snake Pit”, Kathleen Giunta

Journal of Law and Policy

The Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and ongoing reports of police brutality around the United States sparked extensive debate over qualified immunity and the legal protections that prevent police accountability. Individuals experiencing mental health crises are especially vulnerable to police violence, since police officers lack the requisite skills and knowledge to provide effective crisis support during mental health emergencies. Although the state-created danger doctrine was created by the courts as an exception to qualified immunity, it is so rarely applied that individuals harmed or even killed by police are left without legal remedy. This Note explores qualified immunity and …

An Argument Against Unbounded Arrest Power: The Expressive Fourth Amendment And Protesting While Black, Karen Pita Loor

Faculty Scholarship

Protesting is supposed to be revered in our democracy, considered “as American as apple pie” in our nation’s mythology. But the actual experiences of the 2020 racial justice protesters showed that this supposed reverence for political dissent and protest is more akin to American folklore than reality on the streets. The images from those streets depicted police officers clad in riot gear and armed with shields, batons, and “less than” lethal weapons aggressively arresting protesters, often en masse. In the first week of the George Floyd protests, police arrested roughly 10,000 people, and approximately 78 percent of those arrests were …

Parole, Victim Impact Evidence, And Race, Alexis Karteron

Brooklyn Law Review

Parole offers the possibility of release for a substantial number of incarcerated people in the United States, the world’s largest jailer, but is seriously understudied. In particular, the role of victims and race in the parole decision-making process deserves attention. Decades of research has shown that the “race-of-victim effect” leads to more punitive sentences when white victimhood is at issue. In the parole context, the ubiquity of victim impact statements and the emotional responses they trigger raise the likelihood that the “race-of-victim effect” plagues parole decision-making as well. This essay calls for greater data collection and scrutiny into the role …

Walking Back The System Trope: Reimagining Incarceration And The State Through A Spatial Theory Approach, Cody Hunter

All Dissertations

This dissertation critiques the systems theory approach to incarceration policy, practice, and research and proposes a rhetorically informed spatial theory approach as an alternative. Offering a non-hierarchical complexity theory as a bridge between systems and space, I then integrate rhetorical listening as a strategy for navigating and operationalizing our proposed spatial theory approach. I then apply our proposed methodology to archival research, focusing on the South Carolina Penitentiary as a case study, and offer two heuretic experiments to explore the range of this methodology for archival research. I also explore potential applications of this rhetorically informed spatial theory approach in …

Symposium Transcript

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Minimum Sentences, Maximum Suffering: A Proposal To Reform Mandatory Minimum Sentencing, Jordan Ramsey

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

This paper offers several proposals to reform mandatory minimum sentencing laws and asks how we can best uphold Freedom and the Rule of Law within sentencing law.

The Color Of Justice, Alexis Hoag

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Free-Ing Criminal Justice, Bennett Capers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth-Century America. By Sara Mayeux

Duty To Rescue In The Digital Age: A Comparative Analysis, Cameron Kellett

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The article advocates for the enactment of state legislation establishing a duty-to-rescue doctrine, arguing that the absence of such a legal duty leads to preventable harm and undermines societal solidarity. It critiques the arbitrary nature of the special relationship exception under current law and proposes Minnesota's duty-to-rescue statute as a model for reform. The analysis emphasizes that requiring bystanders to provide reasonable assistance, without endangering themselves, is both feasible and morally justifiable, as it aligns with human tendencies to help others in distress.

Bans With No Bite: Why Racial Profiling Bans Are Unable To Create Racial Justice In Policing, Rebecca Yin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Trauma: Community Of Color Exposure To The Criminal Justice System As An Adverse Childhood Experience, André Douglas Pond Cummings, Todd J. Clark, Caleb Gregory Conrad, Amy Dunn Johnson

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unshackled: Stories Of Redemption Among Serious Youth Offenders, Julie E. Mcconnell

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

In a series of decisions concerning child defendants, the United States Supreme

Court has embraced the understanding, based on adolescent brain

development, that the legal system must recognize children are different than

adults concerning criminal culpability and sentencing. That recognition, culminating

in Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana, led to the opportunity

for thousands of individuals across the country, initially sentenced

to death-in-prison sentences when they were minors, to gain a meaningful

opportunity for release. These cases permanently banned mandatory life sentences

for children. In Virginia, the legislature now allows reconsideration

of these cases through hearings before the parole …

Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0

Washington Law Review

RACE & WASHINGTON’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

EDITOR’S NOTE

As Editors-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review, Gonzaga Law Review, and Seattle University Law Review, we represent the flagship legal academic publications of each law school in Washington State. Our publications last joined together to publish the findings of the first Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System in 2011/12. A decade later, we are honored to join once again to present the findings of Task Force 2.0. Law journals have enabled generations of legal professionals to introduce, vet, and distribute new ideas, critiques of existing legal structures, and reflections …

The Democratizing Potential Of Algorithms?, Ngozi Okidegbe

Faculty Scholarship

Jurisdictions are increasingly embracing the use of pretrial risk assessment algorithms as a solution to the problem of mass pretrial incarceration. Conversations about the use of pretrial algorithms in legal scholarship have tended to focus on their opacity, determinativeness, reliability, validity, or their (in)ability to reduce high rates of incarceration as well as racial and socioeconomic disparities within the pretrial system. This Article breaks from this tendency, examining these algorithms from a democratization of criminal law perspective. Using this framework, it points out that currently employed algorithms are exclusionary of the viewpoints and values of the racially marginalized communities most …

Resolving The Anders Dilemmas: How & Why Texas Should Abandon The Anders Procedure, Michael J. Ritter

St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics

When an indigent defendant has a right to counsel for an appeal, and counsel believes the appeal is wholly frivolous, Texas has adopted the Anders v. California procedure that permits counsel to withdraw from representation and argue to the appellate court why their client’s appeal is wholly frivolous. This Article argues that, either by a change to the disciplinary rules or by judicial decision, Texas should abandon the Anders procedure as other states have. Doing so will promote the integrity of the right to counsel, avoid numerous conflicts and dilemmas created by the Anders procedure, and advance judicial efficiency and …

Movement Constitutionalism, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The white supremacy at the heart of the American criminal legal system works to control Black, Brown, and poor people through mass incarceration. Poverty and incarceration act in a vicious circle, with reactionaries mounting a desperate defense against any attempt to mitigate economic exploitation or carceral violence. Ending the cycle will require replacing this inequitable system with the life- and liberty-affirming institutions of abolition democracy. The path to abolition democracy is arduous, but abolitionists can press for change through what I coin “movement constitutionalism.” Movement constitutionalism is the process by which grassroots abolitionist movements shift—through demands and in solidarity with …

On Lenity: What Justice Gorsuch Didn’T Say, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

This Essay was first published online at 108 Va. L. Rev. Online 239 (2022).

Facially neutral doctrines create racially disparate outcomes. Increasingly, legal academia and mainstream commentators recognize that this is by design. The rise of this colorblind racism in Supreme Court jurisprudence parallels the rise of the War on Drugs as a political response to the Civil Rights Movement. But, to date, no member of the Supreme Court has acknowledged the reality of this majestic inequality of the law. Instead, the Court itself has been complicit in upholding facially neutral doctrines when confronted with the racial disparities they create. …

Liberty And Justice For All?: A Pathfinder On The Use Of Lyrics As Evidence In Civil And Criminal Trial, Stephanie Washington

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.