Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

The Common Prosecutor, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

This symposium piece stems from the Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal’s Criminal Justice Symposium and my engagement with a panel of experts discussing wrongful convictions, pleas, and sentencing. The essay focuses on the role of prosecutors and contends that the system will improve only when more law school graduates of every race, religion, gender identity, background, ideology, ability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics serve as prosecutors. We have witnessed the rise of the “progressive prosecutor.” Now, we need to add more “common prosecutors.”

The homogeneity of prosecutors is well known and well documented. For example, as of October 2020, …

When Police Volunteer To Kill, Alexandra L. Klein

Scholarly Articles

The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of lethal injection, yet states continue to struggle with drug shortages and botched executions. Some states have authorized alternative methods of execution, including the firing squad. Utah, which has consistently carried out firing squad executions throughout its history, relies on police officers from the jurisdiction where the crime took place to volunteer to carry out these executions. This represents a plausible--and probable--method for other states in conducting firing squad executions.

Public and academic discussion of the firing squad has centered on questions of pain and suffering. It has not engaged with the consequences …

The Inequity Of Third-Party Bail Practices, Judge Patrick Carroll

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

For many criminal defendants, a common source of bail funds is their own family or friends. Such individuals typically assist in the expectation that if the defendant complies with court orders and satisfies all court appearances, their money will be returned to them. In revenue-motivated court systems, however, bail funds--even when owned by a third party--are often applied to the defendant's fines and court costs, resulting in the effective forfeiture of the friend or relative's money. This Article reviews the processes of third-party bonds, the risk that a third-party bond will be incorrectly identified as the defendant's asset, and the …

Passcodes, Protection, And Legal Practicality: The Necessity Of A Digital Fifth Amendment, Ethan Swierczewski

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

"Only To Have A Say In The Way He Dies": Bodily Autonomy And Methods Of Execution, Alexandra L. Klein

Scholarly Articles

Capital punishment is one of the most significant intrusions into a person's bodily autonomy; the state takes a person's life. Even though the state has stripped a person on death row of much of their autonomy and intends to kill them, removing all autonomy, a person sentenced to death may, in some circumstances, choose how they will die. While most states rely on a single method of execution, some states permit a condemned person to choose among two or more methods of execution. Constitutional challenges to methods of execution requires the challenger to demonstrate a substantial risk of severe pain …

Reimagining Public Safety, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, abolitionists were repeatedly asked to explain what they meant by “abolish the police”—the idea so seemingly foreign that its literal meaning evaded interviewers. The narrative rapidly turned to the abolitionists’ secondary proposals, as interviewers quickly jettisoned the idea of literally abolishing the police. What the incredulous journalists failed to see was that abolishing police and prisons is not aimed merely at eliminating the collateral consequences of other social ills. Abolitionists seek to build a society in which policing and incarceration are unnecessary. Rather than a society without a means of protecting public safety, …

The Common Prosecutor, Melanie D. Wilson

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This symposium piece stems from the Loyola University of Chicago Law Journal's Criminal Justice Symposium and my engagement with a panel of experts discussing wrongful convictions, pleas, and sentencing. The essay focuses on the role of prosecutors and contends that the system will improve only when more law school graduates of every race, religion, gender identity, background, ideology, ability, sexual orientation, and other characteristics serve as prosecutors. We have witnessed the rise of the “progressive prosecutor.” Now, we need to add more “common prosecutors.”

The homogeneity of prosecutors is well known and well documented. For example, as of October 2020, …

The Real Mccoy: Defining The Defendant’S Right To Autonomy In The Wake Of Mccoy V. Louisiana, Colin Miller

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Defense counsel, and not the defendant, has the power to make most decisions in a criminal case. Until recently, there were only four decisions reserved for the defendant: whether to (1) plead guilty, (2) waive the right to a jury trial, (3) testify, and (4) forgo an appeal. In McCoy v. Louisiana, the United States Supreme Court recently added a fifth decision reserved for the client: the right to autonomy, i.e., the right to decide on the objective of her defense. Under this right, a defendant can prevent her attorney from admitting her legal guilt at trial by preemptively objecting …

Unincorporating Qualified Immunity, Teressa Ravenell

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Scholars, judges, activists, and policymakers alike have criticized the doctrine of qualified immunity, which emerged in Pierson v. Ray to shield government actors from monetary liability in a wide range of suits filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, derived from the Civil Rights Act of 1871. These criticisms have ranged from the practical to the principled, but they largely ignore the question of statutory interpretation: is it valid to read § 1983, which makes no mention of any defense or immunity, as incorporating a qualified defense for government officials who acted in good faith and with probable cause? The Court …

The Prosecutor In The Mirror: Conviction Integrity Units And Brady Claims, Lissa Griffin, Daisy Mason

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a due process obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence that is material to guilt or punishment. The failure to fulfill this duty is particularly insidious because it bears directly on both whether an innocent defendant may have been convicted as well as on whether the adjudicatory process was fair. The failure to disclose exculpatory evidence has been characterized as “epidemic” and has been documented to have made a major, outsized contribution in cases that resulted in exonerations. It is not surprising, then, that conviction integrity units in prosecutor’s offices …

Senseless Sentencing: The Uneven Application Of The Career Offender Guidelines, Christopher Ethan Watts

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Federal appellate courts are currently split on the definition of “controlled substance” in the career offender guideline, with one side using federal law to define the phrase, and the other side allowing standalone state law offenses to trigger the guideline. Allowing state law to define the phrase allows countless substances Congress never intended to penalize to be able to trigger one of the most severe penalties in the Sentencing Guidelines. This Note assesses the landscape of the circuit split and analyzes the arguments for and against federally defining “controlled substance offense.” This Note then proposes a novel way to resolve …

As Fires Blaze Through California, Could They Blaze A New Path For Incarcerated Individuals: A Model For Back-End Abolition, Jacquelyn Kelsey Arnold

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note provides a critique on the current system of prison labor through the lens of the California wildfires and the lack of inmate labor due to early release in the wake of COVID-19. This Note provides an overview of the relevant history of the Thirteenth Amendment, contextualizes mass incarceration as a product of the “War on Drugs” in the United States, and consequently, discusses the significant and dramatic expansion of the prison industrial complex and the use of prison labor as a growing source of production labor. It concludes with a recommendation for a provisional back-end abolition model that …

The Case For Pattern-Or-Practice Investigations Against District Attorney's Office, Rory Fleming

University of San Francisco Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ransomware Warfare: Exploring Global And Private Negotiations To Help U.S. Victims Respond To The Threat, Karina Nad

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

By weaponizing technology, now more than ever before, cybercriminals are transforming the cyberworld into their new hunting ground. Almost daily, news headlines alert us to a new malicious cyber threat or major data breach. The evolution of cybercrime has created a malicious online environment, or "malspace," that is now inhabited by hacker groups and espionage units from all over the world. As a global concern, the use of powerful online capabilities by hacker groups has led to the "militarization" of cyberspace. Closer to home, critical infrastructure, valuable personal data, and access to medical care has been compromised at alarming rates …

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

Seattle University Law Review

This report is an update on the 2011 Preliminary Report on Race and Washington’s Criminal Justice System. This update does not include as context the history of race discrimination in Washington, and readers are encouraged to view the 2011 report for its brief historical overview.14 The 2011 report began with that historical overview because the criminal justice system does not exist in a vacuum. Instead, it exists as part of a legal system that for decades actively managed and controlled where people could live, work, recreate, and even be buried.

Members of communities impacted by race disproportionality in Washington’s criminal …

Ending The Discriminatory Pretrial Incarceration Of People With Disabilities: Liability Under The Americans With Disabilities Act And The Rehabilitation Act, Margo Schlanger, Elizabeth Jordan, Roxana Moussavian

Articles

Our federal, state, and local governments lock up hundreds of thousands of people at a time—millions over the course of a year—to ensure their appearance at a pending criminal or immigration proceeding. This type of pretrial incarceration—a term we use to cover both pretrial criminal detention and immigration detention prior to finalization of a removal order—can be very harmful. It disrupts the work and family lives of those detained, harms their health, interferes with their defense, and imposes pressure on them to forego their trial rights and accede to the government’s charges in an effort to abbreviate time behind bars. …

Prosecutorial Nonenforcement And Residual Criminalization, Justin Murray

Publications

In recent years a small but influential group of locally elected prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform have openly refused to enforce various criminal laws—laws prohibiting marijuana possession, sentencing enhancements, laws authorizing the death penalty, and much more—because they see those laws as unjust and incompatible with core reform objectives. Condemned by many on the political right for allegedly usurping the legislature’s lawmaking role and praised by many on the left for bypassing dysfunctional state legislatures in favor of local solutions, these prosecutorial nonenforcement policies are commonly said to have the same effect as nullifying, or even repealing, the laws …

Race In Washington’S Juvenile Legal System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0 Juvenile Justice Subcommittee

Seattle University Law Review

Part I of this report provides the core work of the subcommittee and is intended to function as a stand-alone document, expressed in youth- friendly language, that sets forth: (1) the youth-articulated goals for systemic change to the juvenile legal system; (2) a narrative of how the system currently works and the harms caused; and (3) the change needed to bring about the youth-articulated goals for systemic change. This document is intended to be a youth-centered blueprint for change—a tool for community advocates, a framework for policy makers, and a call-in to the many institutional actors to center the leadership …

Prosecutorial Supervisions Of The Implementation Of Anti-Torture Legislation: An Analysis Of International Law And National Legislation, Barno Kadirova

ProAcademy

This article examines the analysis of national legislation and international law on the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, international standards, principles of responsibility and the improvement of prosecutorial control over the implementation of anti-torture legislation. In addition, the role of prosecutorial oversight in the prevention of torture is based on the views of legal scholars and practitioners, as well as appeals to the prosecutor's office by the Prosecutor General's Office about illegal actions by law enforcement officers and torture by the Supreme Court. Information on criminal cases on torture is provided. The author …

Procedural Order Of Carrying Out Expertise On Criminal Cases, Istam Rustamovich Astanov

ProAcademy

Production of expertise on a scene in parallel with its survey in most cases is impossible for the reasons of procedural character: inspection of a scene is, as a rule, performed before initiation of legal proceedings that doesn't allow the investigator before making decision on its excitement to appoint expertise. At the same time to reveal signs of a crime and to fix traces it according to law requirements sometimes happens it is simply impossible without carrying out expert research. It was the cause of statement by us of a question of possibility of purpose of expertise before initiation of …

Legal Nature, Historical Developments Of Expertise And Comparative Analysis Of The Legislation Of Foreign Countries, Astanov Istam Rustamovich, Astanov Shuxrat Rustamovich

ProAcademy

This article is About expertise on criminal affairs is the separate give special status a type of the expertise, different carrying out research from the person possessing special knowledge. Expertise on criminal affairs differs from other types of expertise by that it is appointed and carried out according to strictly and precisely established Code of criminal procedure rather. The part second of article 153 Criminal Procedure Code of Moldova, devote interrogation the expert, consolidates norm on which it is forbidden to make interrogation before submission of the expert opinion and its studying. Fixing of such rule in part the second …

Due Process In Prison Disciplinary Hearings: How The “Some Evidence” Standard Of Proof Violates The Constitution, Emily Parker

Washington Law Review

Prison disciplinary hearings have wide-reaching impacts on an incarcerated individual’s liberty. A sanction following a guilty finding is a consequence that stems from hearings and goes beyond mere punishment. Guilty findings for serious infractions, like a positive result on a drug test, can often result in a substantial increase in prison time. Before the government deprives an incarcerated individual of their liberty interest in a shorter sentence, it must provide minimum due process. However, an individual can be found guilty of serious infractions in Washington State prison disciplinary hearings under the “some evidence” standard of proof—a standard that allows for …

Digital Privacy Rights And Cloud Act Agreements, Tim Cochrane

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

The United States (US) and United Kingdom (UK) will soon bring into force a new international law enforcement data sharing ‘CLOUD Act agreement’ (US-UK Agreement), the first of its kind under the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act 2018 (CLOUD Act). These agreements enable law enforcement in one state to directly request data from service providers based in the other state. They respond to long-standing concerns with the main mechanism for obtaining overseas data, mutual legal assistance (MLA). The US and UK claim the US-UK Agreement will significantly speed up data access relative to MLA while “respecting privacy and …

War & The Constitution: Chemical Agents And The Rights Of Protestors, Yomidalys GüIchardo Morel

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contemporary Trends In Combating Transnational Financial Crimes, Khamzaev Dilaver

ProAcademy

In the article, the author highlights the lack of effective law enforcement in the field of combating transnational financial crimes as an existing problem in this area. This conclusion was made based on an analysis of the views and opinions of representatives of legal science and practitioners in this field, as well as the reporting documents of mutual assessments for compliance with international standards of Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) systems of the participating states of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF). The author, dividing the ways of improving the effectiveness of the implementation …

On The Organization Of The Pro Curatorial Organs In China And Its Reform Of The Internal Institutions, Ji Meijun

ProAcademy

The organizational structure of Chinese prosecutor’s organs reflects country’s historical traditions and legal system, and thus it clearly differentiates from other jurisdiction in the world, especially the jurisdictions of the common law legal system. The article starts with the constitutional grounds for prosecutor’s activities, and focuses on the major developments in the structure and powers of Chinese prosecutor’s Organs. The changes are analysed that took place with the creation of the National Supervisory Commission, when the power of investigation of duty crimes of the prosecutor’s organs has been taken away. The prosecutorial agencies and the courts belong to different power …

Beyond Bail, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

From the proliferation of community bail funds to the implementation of new risk assessment tools to the limitation and even eradication of money bail, reform movements have altered the landscape of pretrial detention. Yet little attention has been paid to the emerging reality of a post-money bail world. With monetary bail an unavailable or disfavored option, courts have come to rely increasingly on non-monetary conditions of release. These non-monetary conditions can be problematic for many of the same reasons that money bail is problematic and can inject additional bias into the pretrial system.

In theory, non-monetary conditions offer increased opportunities …

Corruption And Its Manifestations In The Field Of Public Education At The Present Stage Of Development Of The Republic Of Uzbekistan, Abdullayeva Malikabonu Erkin Qizi

ProAcademy

The article deals with the concept and signs of corruption in national and international legislation. Based on the analysis of legal definitions of the concept of corruption, lists of acts of corruption in conjunction with the provisions of the most significant international legal acts that laid the foundations for understanding corruption, an attempt is made to determine the list and content of essential features of this social and legal phenomenon. As significant signs of corruption, the author singled out: social harm (danger), sphere of existence, subject of corruption, subjects, use by the subject of corruption of official (official) powers or …

"Send Freedom House!": A Study In Police Abolition, Tiffany Yang

Washington Law Review

Sparked by the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the 2020 uprisings accelerated a momentum of abolitionist organizing that demands the defunding and dismantling of policing infrastructures. Although a growing body of legal scholarship recognizes abolitionist frameworks when examining conventional proposals for reform, critics mistakenly continue to disregard police abolition as an unrealistic solution. This Essay helps dispel this myth of “impracticality” and illustrates the pragmatism of abolition by identifying a community-driven effort that achieved a meaningful reduction in policing we now take for granted. I detail the history of the Freedom House Ambulance Service, a Black civilian …

Cyberterrorism And The Public Safety Exception To Miranda, Mitch Snyder

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Cyberattacks against U.S. targets are becoming increasingly common. To effectively combat these attacks, law enforcement officers need the tools to respond to and prevent cyberattacks before they can occur.

In recent years, hackers have launched cyberattacks against infrastructural targets such as power grids, oil and gas distribution computer systems, and telecommunications networks. Cyberattacks have also targeted U.S. government websites, including the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Department of Treasury. Recently, a cyberattack against SolarWinds, a Texas-based I.T. company, compromised the computer and network systems of federal, state, and local governments; critical infrastructure entities; and other private sector organizations. …