Legal Studies Commons^™

Prison Libraries, Intellectual Freedom And Social Justice In Nigeria, Olusegun Adebayo Opesanwo, Oluyomi Abidemi Awofeso Phd

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper deployed a systematic review to examine prison libraries and intellectual freedom towards attaining social justice in Nigeria. Information resources used cover the periods of 2010 and 2020 to articulate the necessary development in prison libraries, intellectual freedom and social justice in Nigeria. Search engines such as Google scholar, Semantic Scholar, and RefSeek were used to retrieve information and through different queries yielded several results but very few of them were selected to fit in the study due to limited studies directed to address the focus of this study particularly in the Nigeria scenario. Information obtained were subjected to …

Dna Transfer And Persistence On Non-Porous Surfaces Submerged In Spring Water [Preliminary Study], Morgan L.. Korzik, Josep De Alcaraz-Fossoul, Michael S. Adamowicz, David San Pietro

Forensic Science: Faculty Publications

Submerged items are often thought to lack evidentiary value. However, previous studies have shown the ability to recover DNA from submerged porous items for upwards of six weeks. The crevices or interweaving fibers in porous items are thought to protect DNA from being washed away. It is hypothesized that, because non-porous surfaces do not have the same traits that might aid in DNA retention, then DNA quantities and the number of donor alleles recovered would decrease over longer submersion periods. Additionally, it is hypothesized that DNA quantity and the number of alleles would be negatively affected by flow conditions. Neat …

The Negative Impacts Of Border Patrol On The Mental Health Of Migrants, Breyana M. Newton

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

The research in this paper is a deep dive into the actions of Border Patrol on migrants and refugees and their effects on the individual. This includes impacts on mental health, child development, resettlement prevention, and racism and discrimination within border patrol itself. To understand all of this and how wide reaching all of this goes there needs to be a reflection on the history and policies of Border Patrol and the Government behind it.
The problem with patrolling our borders is that there are consequences on the U.S. as a nation and unintended consequences on those individuals migrating into …

Female Lawyers Don’T Need Pity; They Need A Paycheck, Meagan S. Bilodeau

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Whether it's pity or patronization female lawyers have often been criticized. They're visualized on the lower level of the patriarchal hierarchy system in the Hollywood courtroom. However, women that hold emotional intelligence don't need pity. Emotional intelligence encompasses how to set boundaries, stay motivated, hold healthy relationships inside and outside the courtroom, as well as maintain self-regulation. Through analysis of the biographical films Erin Brockovich, On the Basis of Sex, and The Mauritanian this study explores how extensively psychological resilience subfactors are depicted, proving whether or not female lawyers are emotionally prepared to succeed in their noteworthy cases.

A Precedent For Peace: The Role Of All Children Together In The Integration Of Northern Irish Schools, Sarah J. Kraus

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Established in County Down, Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, All Children Together was an organization comprised of both Protestant and Catholic parents who wished to see children from both denominations interact and be educated alongside one another. In 1981, the organization successfully established Lagan College, Northern Ireland’s very first school with a shared curriculum designed to accommodate children from both denominations. This work situates the organization within the greater context of the Troubles and examines the extent to which school integration played a role in Northern Irish community relations during a period of political and social upheaval.

Exposing Endo: Labor Abuse And Exploitation On Contractual Workers In The Philippines, Olivia M. Fisher

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

Article 281 states that workers must be put on a probationary period for 6 months of employment before receiving benefits. ENDO-contracting is the situation where corporations hire workers on 5 to 6-month contracts to avoid paying their workers benefits. This research will be conducted using qualitative data from past research publications, court cases, and interviewing anti-ENDO advocates. The historical summary will explain the origins of this law and how it has progressed into common labor practice. ENDO- contracting disproportionately affects the low-wage workforce and deprives them of regular employee benefits. The lack of these benefits has created poor working conditions …

Guns And Fatal Police Shootings: Accuracy Of Firearm Prevalence Proxies In A Panel Data Analysis, Corin Elmore

CMC Senior Theses

This paper explores the relationship between gun prevalence and fatal police shootings in the United States. Specifically, the study assesses the validity of using FSS (Firearm Suicides Per Total Suicides) as a proxy for gun prevalence. It examines whether FBI background check data can be a more reliable alternative. Through a panel data analysis, the study provides moderate evidence that FBI background check data performs better than FSS as a proxy for gun prevalence and that the relationship between firearm prevalence and fatal police shootings is positive. Additionally, the study finds that instrumenting FSS with background check data to account …

Identifying The Main Causes For Support Of Crime Control Theater Forms, And Understanding How To Correct The Public’S Perception, Erisjames M. Elliott

CMC Senior Theses

Much research has been completed on the forms of crime control theater (CCT), and the impact that the existence of CCT laws have on society. Research on CCT laws has shown that they are definitively unsuccessful in providing the safety they were created to provide. This thesis will utilize completed research to explain the main psychological phenomena holding people back from decreasing their support for CCT laws. It will also describe proven methods of correcting misinformation in order to change the perceptions of people who support crime control theater laws, and provide suggestions for how research should be continued.

Extralegal Bias In The United States Military In Sexual Assault Cases, Taylor F. Blackston

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

By evaluating the case recommendations following a preliminary hearing from military sexual assault cases from fiscal years 2016-2018, this study aims to assess whether or not extralegal factors are influencing decisions of case recommendations of assigned convening authorities. Using secondary data from the Department of Defense’s annual reports on sexual assault in the United States military (n=5,171), this study aims to answer the following questions: Do extralegal factors contribute to convening authorities’ recommendations following Article 32 hearings? If so, what extralegal factors contribute to convening authority's decision on non-judicial hearing recommendations? The results of the following analyses identified several extralegal …

Dental Floss, Calculus, And Jail: Solutions For Fermi Questions, October 2023, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dental Floss, Calculus, And Jail, John Adam

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Feature Extraction Of Footwear Impression Images For Quality Assessment, Alexandra Hill

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Forensic footwear impression analysis is a valuable tool in criminal investigations. Extracting useful features from images of footwear impressions is a critical step in this process. However, the quality of these images can vary widely, making feature extraction challenging. In order to give a quality assessment rating to a footwear impression image, the image should first be analyzed to extract features from the impression. In this paper, we present a method to extract features from a 2D grayscale footwear impression image. A Hierarchical Grid Model implementation has been adapted from use on a 3D dataset to assist in finding features, …

Assessment Of Acquisition, Retention, And Evolution Of Randomly Acquired Characteristics With Wear, Nathaniel Weston

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The recovery of known-source shoes for the purpose of comparison to crime scene impressions often occurs with a temporal lag. During this passage of time, the outsole can be altered due to continued wear. These changes may impact forensically relevant characteristics of use known as randomly acquired characteristics (RACs). Continued wear may cause the formation of new RACs, cause RACs to undergo some degree of geometric change, and/or lead to the loss of formerly existing RACs. Consequently, the correspondence between a test impression from a known mated shoe with continued wear and a questioned impression with less wear deposited at …

The Latina Experiences Of Intimate Partner Violence In The Rio Grande Valley, Lucas Enrique Espinoza, Luis Enrique Espinoza, Rosalva Resendiz, Georgina Villegas-Montenegro

Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a severe public health and criminal justice issue that disproportionately affects women more than men. This sought to explore Latina experiences of IPV in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV). Twelve Latina IPV survivors from the RGV, ages 24 to 40 years old, were interviewed using purposive and snowball sampling methods. Several primary themes were discovered: types of abuse; perceived reasons for the abuse; education and economic insecurity; why stay or leave an abusive relationship; the criminal justice system’s role; and self blaming. All participants (n = 12) were college educated and endured IPV victimization at …

Lessons Learned In Prison, Daniel Keating

Scholarship@WashULaw

One way that I have tried to stay fresh as a teacher through the decades is to periodically force myself outside of my teaching comfort zone by trying something completely different. Sometimes these initiatives will end up being a one-time experiment. That was the case a little over ten years ago when I decided to teach a new course (Contracts) in a new format (online, but well before Zoom had become commonplace). Other times, my teaching experiment will prove to be more than just a frolic and detour, as was true eight years ago when I began offering a free …

After The Criminal Justice System, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

Since the 1960s, the “criminal justice system” has operated as the common label for a vast web of actors and institutions. But, as critiques of mass incarceration have entered the mainstream, academics, activists, and advocates increasingly have stopped referring to the “criminal justice system.” Instead, they have opted for critical labels—the criminal legal system, the criminal punishment system, the prison industrial complex, etc. What does this re-labeling accomplish? Does this change in language matter to broader efforts at criminal justice reform or abolition? Or, does an emphasis on labels and language distract from substantive engagement with the injustices of contemporary …

“Progressive” Prosecutors And “Proper” Punishments, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

After decades of relative inattention to prosecutorial elections, academics and activists recently have focused on “progressive prosecutors” as a promising avenue for criminal justice reform. That said, the growing literature on progressive prosecutors reflects little clarity about what makes a prosecutor “progressive.” Recent campaigns suggest disparate visions of how to operationalize “progressive prosecution.” In this chapter, I describe four ideal types of progressive prosecutor: (1) the progressive who prosecutes, (2) the proceduralist prosecutor, (3) the prosecutorial progressive, and (4) the anti-carceral prosecutor. Looking to sentencing policy as a case study, I examine how these different ideal types illustrate different visions …

Prosecuting The Crisis, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

Over the past decade, activists and academics have celebrated the rise of the so-called “progressive prosecutor” movement. District attorney candidates—often former public defenders or civil rights lawyers—have promised to use prosecutorial discretion to address the injustices of the criminal system. A proliferation of such campaigns, and the electoral successes of some of these candidates have raised questions about progressive prosecution: what does it actually mean to be a progressive prosecutor? Does progressive prosecution work? Do progressive candidates follow through on campaign promises? And, how enthusiastic should defense attorneys, reformers, and critics of the carceral state be about progressive prosecution? The …

Space Law As Twenty-First Century International Law, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

Space law’s current moment reflects international law’s current moment. That is, lawmaking processes aimed at updating international space law for the commercial space age reveal three larger themes about international lawmaking in the twenty-first century. These themes are: (a) evolutive lawmaking efforts by states; (b) the parallel development of laws in different fora by different actors; and (c) interpretive entrepreneurship by private actors. The themes are interrelated. They offer one story—but not the only possible story—about how international law develops when multilateral cooperation is out of reach. Together, the themes forecast a more pluralist international legal future, demanding new forms …

The Pledging World Order, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

There is an emerging world order characterized by unilateral pledges within a legal or “legal-ish” architecture of commitments. The pledging world order has materialized in the international legal response to climate change and in other diverse sites. It crosses and blurs the public-private divide. It erodes distinctions between multilateralism and localism, law and not-law, and progress and stasis. It is both a symptom of and a contributor to the dismantling of the Westphalian and postwar orders. Its report card is mixed: While pledging can be highly ineffective as a legal technology, the pledging world order may respond to some legitimacy …

Industry Groups In International Governance: A Framework For Reform, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

The Sustainable Development Goals and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights encourage engaging with businesses as partners in important global governance agendas. Indeed, many international organizations are now partnering with business groups to secure funding and private sector engagement. At the same time, reforms at the World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization and others seek to restrain the dangers of mission distortion and capture by business groups. Shareholders at major multinational oil and gas companies also recognize these dangers and seek to rein in lobbying that is at odds with the goals of the Paris Climate …

Punishment Externalities And The Prison Tax, Sheldon Evans

Scholarship@WashULaw

Punishment as a social institution has failed to live up to the quixotic ideals of theory and has descended into the practice of mass incarceration, which is one of the defining failures of this generation. Scholars have traditionally studied punishment and incarceration as parts of a social transaction between the criminal offender, whose crime imposes a cost to society, and the state that ensures the offender repays this debt by correcting past harms and preventing future offenses. But if crime has a cost that must be repaid by the offender, punishment also has a cost that must be repaid by …

Privatizing International Governance, Melissa (M.J.) Durkee

Scholarship@WashULaw

Public-private partnerships of all kinds are increasingly common in the international system. Since United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s launch of the Global Compact in 2000, the United Nations has increasingly opened up to business entities. Now, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Compact, and the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights all encourage engaging with business entities as partners in developing and executing global governance agendas. These partnerships are seen by some as indispensable to sustainable development, international business regulation, climate change mitigation, and other global governance agendas. At the same time, UN climate change bodies have been criticized …

Comments Of The Cordell Institute On Ai Accountability, Neil M. Richards, Woodrow Hartzog, Jordan Francis

Scholarship@WashULaw

These comments are a response to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's 2023 request for comment on AI accountability (AI Accountability RFC, NTIA–2023–0005).

Responding to NTIA’s recent inquiry into AI assurance and accountability, we offer two main arguments regarding the importance of substantive legal protections. First, a myopic focus on concepts of transparency, bias mitigation, and ethics (for which procedural compliance efforts such as audits, assessments, and certifications are proxies) is insufficient when it comes to the design and implementation of accountable AI systems. We call rules built around transparency and bias mitigation “AI half-measures,” because they provide the appearance …

Are Lawyers’ Case Selection Decisions Biased? A Field Experiment On Access To Justice, Jens Frankenreiter, Michael A. Livermore

Scholarship@WashULaw

The attorney-client relationship is pivotal in providing access to courts. This paper presents results from a large-scale field experiment exploring how demographic information (encoded in potential clients’ names) affects how attorneys respond to initial inquiries in private injury cases. On the basis of prior literature, we hypothesize that race is a significant factor, but we also explore race and gender interactions. We find that ostensibly Black or Hispanic inquirers receive fewer responses than ostensibly White inquirers, a result largely driven by preferential treatment of White female inquirers. The racial disparities are larger than those previously documented in contexts such as …

Removal Rehashed Legal History: Response, Andrea Scoseria Katz, Noah A. Rosenblum

Scholarship@WashULaw

We are grateful to the Harvard Law Review Forum for the chance to respond in these pages to The Executive Power of Removal. In this new piece, Professors Aditya Bamzai and Saikrishna Bangalore Prakash aim to persuade readers that the President’s power to remove executive officers is exclusive and nondefeasible; textually mandated; and a matter of common assent at the time of the Founding.

There are high hurdles to proving this argument, and this piece fails to scale them. There is little evidence for any of these separate contentions, whether we look to the Constitution’s text or the history …

What Issues Are Fair Game In Moore V. United States?, Conor Clarke

Scholarship@WashULaw

On December 5th, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Moore v. United States, a constitutional challenge to the mandatory repatriation tax (“MRT”) in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The case raises basic questions about the scope of Congress’s taxing power, and has the potential to reshape and limit federal taxation. (Ben Silver had a nice summary of the complicated constitutional and statutory background last week, and I’ve also written about the case elsewhere. Rather than rehash those details, I will assume some basic familiarity with the case in what I say below.

Expert Governance Of Online Speech, Brenda Dvoskin

Scholarship@WashULaw

In a world of fundamental disagreements about how social media companies should govern speech, it is striking that nearly everyone agrees that online speech governance should be based on human rights. The human rights project for content moderation proposes that social media platforms align their own internal speech policies with international human rights law (IHRL). It seeks, I argue, a system of expert governance: one in which a corporate technocracy applies a set of exogenous principles imagined as objective and global. Ultimately, this governance model shifts power to experts under the illusion of empowering the people.

To support these claims, …

The Judicial Assault On The Administrative State Regulating Upheavals In The Securities Markets And Boardrooms, Joel Seligman

Scholarship@WashULaw

The most substantial change in the United States Government has been the extraordinary growth and increased complexity of the United States Government itself. George Washington initially was President of a country with a population of about four million, eleven States, and three Cabinet Departments (State, Treasury, and War). Washington’s Government had no standing army, no Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, and no programs addressing the environment, labor, or health. In 1791, the Treasury Department had approximately 500 employees, the War Department had 12, the State Department, 8.

Today, the National Government has twenty-four Cabinet members. In 2023, there are 2.89 …

First Amendment Scrutiny: Realigning First Amendment Doctrine Around Government Interests, John D. Inazu

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article proposes a simpler way to frame judicial analysis of First Amendment claims: a government restriction on First Amendment expression or action must advance a compelling interest through narrowly tailored means and must not excessively burden the expression or action relative to the interest advanced. The test thus has three prongs: (1) compelling interest; (2) narrow tailoring; and (3) proportionality.

Part I explores how current First Amendment doctrine too often minimizes or ignores a meaningful assessment of the government’s purported interest in limiting First Amendment liberties. Part II shows how First Amendment inquiry is further confused by threshold inquiries …