Law and Society Commons^™

Criminal Laws On Sex Work And Hiv Transmission: Mapping The Laws, Considering The Consequence, Sienna Baskin, Aziza Ahmed, Anna Forbes

Faculty Scholarship

Lawmakers historically justify the mobilization of criminal laws on prostitution and HIV as a means of controlling the spread of disease. Over time, however, public health research has conclusively demonstrated that criminal laws on prostitution and HIV significantly impede the ability of sex workers to access services and to live without the stigma and blame associated with being a transmitter of HIV. In turn, mainstream public health approaches to sex work and HIV emphasize decriminalization as a way to improve the lives of sex workers in need of care, treatment, and services. Our current legal system, which criminalizes both prostitution …

Overcoming The Great Forgetting: A Comment On Fishkin And Forbath, Jedediah S. Purdy

Faculty Scholarship

Fishkin and Forbath’s (F&F’s) manuscript is a project of recovery. It portrays the present as a time marked by a “Great Forgetting” of a tradition of constitutional political economy. F&F name what has been forgotten the “democracy of opportunity” tradition. Recovering it would mean again treating the following three principles as linked elements at the core of our Constitution: (1) an anti-oligarchy principle that works to prevent wealth from producing grossly unequal political power; (2) a commitment to a broad middle class with secure, respected work; and (3) a principle of inclusion that opens participation in both citizenship and the …

Young Adulthood As A Transitional Legal Category: Science, Social Change, And Justice Policy, Elizabeth S. Scott, Richard J. Bonnie, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, much attention has focused on developmental brain research and its implications for the regulation of crime. Public and policy interest has been directed primarily toward juveniles. In light of recent research, courts and legislatures increasingly have rejected the punitive response of the 1990s and embraced a developmental approach to young offenders. Of particular importance in propelling this trend has been the framework offered by the U.S. Supreme Court in a series of Eighth Amendment opinions that have rejected harsh adult sentences for juveniles. These decisions, supported by adolescent brain research, rested on two empirically based principles: …

Confronting Power In Public Law, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

In his important and provocative Foreword, Professor Daryl Levinson criticizes American constitutional law for failing to attend sufficiently to questions of power, which he defines as “the ability to effect substantive policy outcomes by influencing what the government will or will not do.” As Levinson details, structural constitutional law has focused on how power is distributed among governmental institutions. It has not consistently or adequately considered how power is – or should be – distributed among social groups. Ultimately, Levinson suggests that the narrow focus of separation of powers law and theory on “equalizing the power of government institutions” lacks …

Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that the increasingly prevalent critiques of the War on Drugs apply to other areas of criminal law. To highlight the broader relevance of these critiques, the Article uses as its test case the criminal regulation of gun possession. The Article identifies and distills three lines of drug-war criticism, and argues that they apply to possessory gun crimes in much the same way that they apply to drug crimes. Specifically, the Article focuses on: (1) race- and class-based critiques; (2) concerns about police and prosecutorial power; and (3) worries about the social costs of mass incarceration. Scholars have …

Impunity For The Incorrigible Psychopath?: Neurobiological Abnormalities Do Not Exempt Psychopaths From Criminal Responsibility, Shanée Brown

Scholarly Works

Current research slowly unveils the mystery of the psychopath and his or her criminal behavior. Psychopathy is a developmental disorder defined by antisocial behavior and deficits in emotional responsiveness. This disorder results in both instrumental and reactive aggression. Instrumental aggression is also referred to as predatory or proactive aggression. Elevated levels of instrumental aggression distinguish psychopathy from other psychiatric disorders. Reactive aggression occurs as an impulsive reaction to a threatening or frustrating event. Instrumental aggression, on the other hand, involves purposeful behavior to achieve a desired goal (e.g., mugging to obtain money). Calculation or willful deliberation accompanies instrumental aggression. Unlike …

Black Contemporary Social Movements, Resource Mobilization, And Black Musical Activism, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

In the last few years a grassroots social movement has emerged from the Black community. This movement aims to eliminate police and vigilante violence against Blacks nationwide. Blacks in America have long been subjected to this violence, and the issue has recently captured the country’s attention. Multiple groups are pressing for change, including Ferguson Action, Black Lives Matter, Say Her Name, and the leaderless social media effort organized by DeRay McKesson and Johnetta Elzie, to name a few. These fledgling activist groups have already experienced some success, garnering public attention and government response. As it currently stands, this nascent civil-rights …

The Discretionary Death Penalty For Drug Couriers In Singapore: Four Challenges, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In 2012, Singapore amended its Misuse of Drugs to give courts hearing capital drug trafficking cases the discretion to replace the default death penalty with life imprisonment and caning, provided that the accused person can show that he was merely a drug courier and the prosecution certifies that he had substantively assisted the authorities in disrupting drug trafficking activities. The Singapore High Court and Court of Appeal have since made important pronouncements on the 2012 amendments, but several challenges remain: first, whether the privilege against self-incrimination has been further eroded; secondly, whether an accused person can invoke the statutory relief …

The State Courts Centre For Dispute Resolution: Serving The Society With Quality Dispute Resolution Services, Dorcas Quek Anderson

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Court Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”) has its origins in a 1994 pilot project in the Subordinate Courts (as it was known then) to have selected District Judges assist in resolving civil disputes using ADR processes. Within two decades, Court ADR has been extended to the entire gamut of cases filed in court, including civil claims, minor criminal offences and family disputes. Court ADR services, which have been known as “Court Dispute Resolution”, have become integral to the delivery of justice in the State Courts. As the Honourable The Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon has observed, ADR has been promoted as the …

Competing For Refugees: A Market-Based Solution To A Humanitarian Crisis, Joseph Blocher, Mitu Gulati

Faculty Scholarship

The current refugee crisis demands novel legal solutions, and new ways of summoning the political will to implement them. As a matter of national incentives, the goal must be to design mechanisms that discourage countries of origin from creating refugees, and encourage host countries to welcome them. One way to achieve this would be to recognize that persecuted refugee groups have a financial claim against their countries of origin, and that this claim can be traded to host nations in exchange for acceptance. Modifications to the international apparatus would be necessary, but the basic legal elements of this proposal already …

The Duty Of Responsible Administration And The Problem Of Police Accountability, Charles F. Sabel, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

Many contemporary civil rights claims arise from institutional activity that, while troubling, is neither malicious nor egregiously reckless. When law-makers find themselves unable to produce substantive rules for such activity, they often turn to regulating the actors’ exercise of discretion. The consequence is an emerging duty of responsible administration that requires managers to actively assess the effects of their conduct on civil rights values and to make reasonable efforts to mitigate harm to protected groups. This doctrinal evolution partially but imperfectly converges with an increasing emphasis in public administration on the need to reassess routines in the light of changing …

G2i Knowledge Brief: A Knowledge Brief Of The Macarthur Foundation Research Network On Law And Neuroscience, David L. Faigman, Anthony Wagner, Richard J. Bonnie, Bj Casey, Andre Davis, Morris B. Hoffman, Owen D. Jones, Read Montague, Stephen J. Morse, Marcus E. Raichle, Jennifer A. Richeson, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg, Kim Taylor-Thompson, Gideon Yaffe

Faculty Scholarship

Courts are daily confronted with admissibility issues – such as in cases involving neuroscientific testimony – that sometimes involve both the existence of a general phenomenon (i.e., “G”) and the question of whether a particular case represents a specific instance of that general phenomenon (i.e., “i”).

Unfortunately, courts have yet to carefully consider the implications of “G2i” for their admissibility decisions. In some areas, courts limit an expert’s testimony to the general phenomenon. They insist that whether the case at hand is an instance of that phenomenon is exclusively a jury question, and thus not an appropriate subject of expert …

Criminal Labor Law, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article examines a recent rise in suits brought against unions under criminal statutes. By looking at the long history of criminal regulation of labor, the Article argues that these suits represent an attack on the theoretical underpinnings of post-New Deal U.S. labor law and an attempt to revive a nineteenth century conception of unions as extortionate criminal conspiracies. The Article further argues that this criminal turn is reflective of a broader contemporary preference for finding criminal solutions to social and economic problems. In a moment of political gridlock, parties seeking regulation increasingly do so via criminal statute. In this …

Law, Religion, And The Purpose Of The University, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

This brief essay explores the relationship between law, religion, and the university. Religion asks the fundamental questions of human existence. Law is the means through which we impose our beliefs on our fellow citizens. The particulars of law and religion expose the differences among us. We respond to those differences with chaos, control, or coexistence. Coexistence requires tolerance, humility, and patience, and it requires institutions to habituate these practices within us. It is not clear that this country presently has such institutions, but if we are discover them among us, the university is one possible contender. The people, place, and …

What Are Tax Havens And Why Are They Bad?, Conor Clarke

Scholarship@WashULaw

This essay reviews Gabriel Zucman's The Hidden Wealth of Nations: The Scourge of Tax Havens. Zucman's important new book brings clarity to a confusing subject -- but occasionally does so at the expense of nuance. My review has three goals. First, I summarize and appraise Zucman's central findings, and re-estimate his revenue-loss totals for the United States using tax-rate assumptions that I believe are more realistic. Second, I position Zucman's findings against the backdrop of the wider literatures on tax havens and inequality, and attempt to answer the two questions in this essay's title. Third, I comment on Zucman's call …

One Last Word On The Blackstone Principle, Daniel Epps

Scholarship@WashULaw

In "The Consequences of Error in Criminal Justice," I analyzed and critiqued the "Blackstone principle" — shorthand for the common intuition that a criminal justice system should strive to minimize false convictions, even at the expense of creating more false acquittals and more total errors overall. Joel Johnson's "Benefits of Error in Criminal Justice" is a thoughtful and well-crafted response to my article. In this short reply, I offer some thoughts on Johnson’s arguments, while also addressing two other recent responses by Laura Appleman and by John Bronsteen and Jonathan Masur. While I use this opportunity to clarify and defend …

Can A Little Representation Be A Dangerous Thing?, Colleen F. Shanahan, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark

Faculty Scholarship

Access to justice interventions that provide a little representation, including nonlawyer representation and various forms of limited legal services, may be valuable solutions for low- and middle-income Americans. However, a thoughtful approach to improving access to justice efforts should recognize that a little representation may have risks. In particular, one potential risk of a little representation is that while it provides assistance with a discrete legal need in a specific moment, the nature of the assistance is incompatible with challenging the law. As a result, individual litigants do not have the benefit of legal challenges in their own cases and …

Backlash Against International Courts In West, East And Southern Africa: Causes And Consequences, Karen J. Alter, James T. Gathii, Laurence R. Helfer

Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction of three similarly-situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial rulings. In West Africa, when the ECOWAS Court upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in the Gambia, that country’s political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints. The other member states ultimately defeated the Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed in its efforts to eliminate the EACJ and to remove some of its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the member states agreed to …

Race, Class, And Access To Civil Justice, Sara Sternberg Greene

Faculty Scholarship

After many years of inattention, policymakers are now focused on troubling statistics indicating that members of poor and minority groups are less likely than their higher-income counterparts to seek help when they experience a civil justice problem. Indeed, roughly three-quarters of the poor do not seek legal help when they experience a civil justice problem, and inaction is even more pronounced among poor blacks. Past work on access to civil justice largely relies on unconfirmed assumptions about the behavior patterns and needs of those experiencing civil justice problems. At a time when increased attention and resources are being devoted to …

(Mis)Recognizing Polygamy, Kerry Abrams

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Essential Monroe Freedman, In Four Works, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Can Dna Be Speech?, Jorge R. Roig

Scholarly Works

DNA is generally regarded as the basic building block of life itself. In the most fundamental sense, DNA is nothing more than a chemical compound, albeit a very complex and peculiar one. DNA is an information-carrying molecule. The specific sequence of base pairs contained in a DNA molecule carries with it genetic information, and encodes for the creation of particular proteins. When taken as a whole, the DNA contained in a single human cell is a complete blueprint and instruction manual for the creation of that human being. In this article we discuss myriad current and developing ways in which …

Taking Dignity Seriously: Excavating The Backdrop Of The Eighth Amendment, Meghan J. Ryan

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The U.S. punishment system is in turmoil. We have a historically unprecedented number of offenders in prison, and our prisoners are serving longer sentences than in any other country. States are surreptitiously experimenting with formulas for lethal injection cocktails, and some prisoners are suffering from botched executions. Despite this tumult, the Eighth Amendment of our Constitution does place limits on the punishments that may be imposed and how they may be implemented. The difficulty, though, is that the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence is a bit of a mess. The Court has been consistent in stating that a focus on …

Collaborative Academic Library Digital Collections Post- Cambridge University Press, Hathitrust And Google Decisions On Fair Use, Michelle M. Wu

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Academic libraries face numerous stressors as they seek to meet the needs of their users through technological advances while adhering to copyright laws. This paper seeks to explore one specific proposal to balance these interests, the impact of recent decisions on its viability, and the copyright challenges that remain after these decisions.

The Political Implications Of Felon Disenfranchisement Laws In The United States, Katharine G. Connaughton

CMC Senior Theses

This empirical study analyzes the political implications for presidential election outcomes that stem from varying felon disenfranchisement laws within the United States. In the past decade incarceration rates have drastically increased, consequently augmenting the disenfranchised population. This paper focuses on presidential election outcomes and state political party majorities in the election years 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012. I use demographic characteristics to calibrate assumptions for voter turnout and political party choice among the disenfranchised populations within each state. I then apply these voting populations to historical election outcomes and find that three state political party outcomes change, as well as …