Law and Society Commons^™

Legislating Courts, Michael Pollack

UMKC Law Review

Judges are ordinarily thought of as deciders of a specific sort: people who apply the rule of law to resolve disagreements between the parties appearing before them. But in every state, judges do far more. They are charged by state statutory or constitutional law with a range of quasi-administrative, quasi-legislative, and quasi-executive law enforcement functions. These roles raise a number of theoretical and practical concerns. In many states, though, legislatures have gone even further. They have either wholly delegated significant policymaking power to state court judges or have sat idle while those judges have assumed the mantle of functions that …

The Model Law Enforcement Officer And Other First Responder's Deflection Act: A National Blueprint For Creating Successful Deflection Programs Across The Country, Marc Consalo

UMKC Law Review

The idea of finding alternatives to the traditional approach of arresting, prosecuting, and punishing an individual for criminal behavior in the hopes it will deter future illegal conduct is not new. In 1947, the Judicial Conference of the United States met to make recommendations for the first diversion programs focusing on youthful offenders. Approximately fifteen years later, states began to explore diversion as an option for some adult lawbreakers.

The birth of diversion generated a novel approach to addressing criminal activity. However, before any individual could participate in a diversion program, law enforcement arrested the person which imposed a host …

Building A Successful Team In A Problem-Solving Court: The Western District Of Missouri Model, Carie Allen, Stephen R. Bough, Lajuana Counts, Arthur Diaz, Jeffrey Mccarther, Katie Meister, James Parker

UMKC Law Review

Problem-solving courts work. We know that reentry programs and intensive supervision programs like drug courts are effective alternatives to incarceration that reduce recidivism. For example, the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri's Reentry Court has an 85.7% success rate for graduates, meaning they complete their term of supervised release without any new charges. A reduction of recidivism means hefty savings of tax-payer dollars. More importantly, successful problem-solving courts mean people engage in their communities, raise families, work productive jobs, and pay taxes.

Courts and legislators and executive branches around the country are increasingly turning to problem …

Kansas City Municipal Court's Domestic Violence Court Programming, Courtney A. Wachal, Gerald Sorensen, Jenna Phelps, Nephateri Hill

UMKC Law Review

The Kansas City Municipal Domestic Violence Court identifies cases as domestic violence if they involve intimate partner violence, violations of protective order, interfamily violence, or cases where there is a child witness. This court manages a large caseload of domestic violence violations that vary widely in the severity of the charges and the levels of violence.

The Kansas City Municipal Domestic Violence Court has prioritized their probation resources by focusing services on those cases that are most in need of supervision and on those cases most likely to be receptive to services. This article will discuss The Compliance Docket and …

The Ideology Of Press Freedom, Hannah Bloch-Wehba

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers a critical account of the law of press freedom. American law and political culture laud the press as an institution that plays a vital role in democracy: guarding against corruption, facilitating self-governance, and advocating for free expression. These democratic functions provide justification for the law of press freedom, which defends the media’s autonomy and shields the press from outside interference.

But the dominant accounts of the press’s democratic role are only partly accurate. The law of press freedom is grounded in large part in journalism’s professional commitments to objectivity, public service, and autonomy. These idealized characterizations, flawed …

Re-Evaluating Gpt-4’S Bar Exam Performance, Eric H. Martinez

Faculty Scholarship

Perhaps the most widely touted of GPT-4’s at-launch, zero-shot capabilities has been its reported 90th-percentile performance on the Uniform Bar Exam. This paper begins by investigating the methodological challenges in documenting and verifying the 90th-percentile claim, presenting four sets of findings that indicate that OpenAI’s estimates of GPT-4’s UBE percentile are overinflated. First, although GPT-4’s UBE score nears the 90th percentile when examining approximate conversions from February administrations of the Illinois Bar Exam, these estimates are heavily skewed towards repeat test-takers who failed the July administration and score significantly lower than the general test-taking population. Second, data from a recent …

Outcome Reasons And Process Reasons In Normative Constitutional Theory, Lawrence B. Solum

Faculty Scholarship

Constitutional theory is a mess. Disagreements about originalism and living constitutionalism have become intractable. Constitutional theorists make some arguments that seem clearly fallacious and advance proposals that are pie in the sky. One of the reasons for the mess is an overreliance by constitutional theorists on “outcome reasons,” justifications that rely on the theorist’s beliefs about what outcomes are good and what outcomes are bad. This outcome-drive approach is exemplified by the so-called “canonical cases” argument, which evaluates positions in normative constitutional theory on the basis of its counterfactual implications for a handful of prior decisions of the Supreme Court. …

Aligning The Stars: Institutional Convergence As Social Change, Raymond H. Brescia

Fordham Law Review

In a democracy, in which the legal and constitutional systems should reflect popular will and individual and collective self-determination are the engines through which those systems are realized, what are the means by which individuals, organizations, and social movements might bring about meaningful and sustainable social change that makes that society more just, more inclusive, and more equitable? A common understanding of how social change happens, and who can bring about that change, is represented in an oft-quoted phrase, attributed to Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world: Indeed, it is the …

Addressing Educational Inequality In The United States: A Comparative Approach To The European System, Yi-Sheng Liu

Marquette Benefits and Social Welfare Law Review

This study compares educational inequality in the U.S. and Europe. Utilizing a comparative approach based on the Positive Obligations of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, we expand on social contexts and objective facts to address how the U.S responds to educational inequality issues in contemporary constitutional interpretation (digital transformation and disparity, for example). We examine emerging issues in social change and expectations and discuss the rationale for constitutional legal norms to explain how these contribute to constitutional change. We suggest that the nation’s confrontation with educational inequality should be guided by …

Loose Ends In Singapore Equal Protection Doctrine, Wei Yao, Kenny Chng

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A trilogy of landmark Singapore Court of Appeal decisions has defined the landscape of constitutional equal protection doctrine in Singapore: Lim Meng Suang, Syed Suhail and Tan Seng Kee. While this trio of cases has laid the doctrinal foundation for the constitutional right to equality in Singapore, three loose ends remain for clarification. First, what is the relationship between the legal tests articulated in Syed Suhail and Lim Meng Suang? Second, what is the relationship between both steps in the Syed Suhail test? Third, what is the distinction between the Syed Suhail test and the common law judicial review ground …

The Uncertain Future Of Tourism On Migrating Barrier Islands: How And Why The Outer Banks Of North Carolina Should Adjust To Growing Threats, Lillian Coward

William & Mary Law Review

Erosion, storms, and the migration of the barrier islands that comprise the Outer Banks themselves are not new. The rising seas that have resulted from climate change have merely exacerbated what has always occurred. What is new, however, is the economic havoc that natural processes and disasters alike can wreak on the islands. Today, because climate change has accelerated natural island migration, individuals, local governments, and the federal government alike have a lot to lose in the fight against the tides.

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This Note will evaluate a variety of potential solutions to the problems that pose nearly existential threats to …

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions: Deinstitutionalization And Mass Incarceration Nation, Corinna Barrett Lain

William & Mary Law Review

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and our failed implementation of deinstitutionalization in the 1970s is a prime example of the point. In this symposium contribution—a response to Jeffrey Bellin’s book Mass Incarceration Nation—I offer a historical account of deinstitutionalization of state mental hospitals, tracing how severely mentally ill patients were discharged from state hospitals and eventually made their way back to secure beds, but in our nation’s jails and prisons instead. Mental health and mass incarceration are not separate crises, I argue, but rather interconnected problems with an interconnected past that require …

Community Responsive Public Defense, Alexis Hoag-Fordjour

Fordham Law Review

This colloquium asks us to consider how social change is influencing the legal profession and the legal profession’s response. This Essay applies these questions to organizing around criminal injustice and the response from public defenders. This Essay surfaces the work of four innovative indigent defense organizations that are engaged with and duty-bound to the communities they represent. I call this “community responsive public defense,” which is a distinct model of indigent defense whereby public defenders look to their clients and their clients’ communities to help shape advocacy, strategy, and representation.

Methodologically, this Essay relies primarily on qualitative interviews with leaders …

Symposium Introduction: The Volume Problem, Jeffrey Bellin

William & Mary Law Review

Introduction to the 2024 William & Mary Law Review symposium, "Understanding and Responding to Mass Incarceration."

Transformasi Dan Marginalisasi Masyarakat Adat: Suku Ata Modo Di Tengah Hegemoni Pengembangan Pariwisata Taman Nasional Komodo (Transformation And Marginalization Of Indigenous Communities: The Ata Modo Tribe's Experience Amidst The Hegemony Of Komodo National Park Tourism Development), Arif Putra Pratama, Avicenna Elang Chandra, Noor Risa Isnanto, An Nuur Khairune Nisa

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

The massive development of tourism in Komodo National Park (KNP) has had a signi;icant impact on the local community there, in this case the Ata Modo Tribe. This tribe is a local tribe that has remained silent for a long time and was formed on Komodo Island long before the Komodo National Park was established. They have also lived side by side with the endangered Komodo dragon for decades and tried to maintain their culture and customs amidst the existence of KNP tourism development. This research tries to answer what cultural potential is still maintained by the Ata Modo Tribe, …

Perbandingan Pengaturan Kuota Pemilihan Perempuan Dan Kondisi Keterwakilan Perempuan Di Parlemen: Studi Kasus Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Dan Finlandia (A Comparison Study Of The Quotas And Conditions For Women's Representation In Parliament In Indonesia, Timor-Leste, And Finland), Ramadhanya Elwinne Huzaima Sibarani

The Indonesian Journal of Socio-Legal Studies

Women’s representation in parliament is an important aspect of improving gender equality in a country. As of the 2019 parliamentary elections, women’s representation in the Parliament of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR RI) has only reached 21.4%. This figure is far below Timor-Leste and Finland, which respectively have 40% and 47% women’s representation. To increase the number of women’s representation in parliament, there is a concept called women's electoral quota. This study attempts to compare how women’s electoral quotas are regulated in Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and Finland. In addition, this study also reviews the condition of women’s representation in the parliaments …

Mapping Land Ownership As Part Of The Caste Census Could Uncover Key Patterns About Power, Resources, Sudheesh Rc

Popular Media

Extract:

Land remains the most important asset for Indians, but at the same time, ownership is highly skewed by caste.... Caste censuses can reveal crucial patterns in how power in India is enmeshed in land. Most importantly, the caste census has the potential to bring land reform back to political agendas.

Inclusive Legal Education: Navigating Faculty-Deib Collaborations: Integrating Doctrine & Diversity Speaker Series, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Conferences, Lectures & Events

No abstract provided.

Gray Areas In Green Claims: Why Greenwashing Regulation Needs An Overhaul, Valerie J. Peterson

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Pest Or Guest, Friend Or Foe? Reframing The "Hard Look" Doctrine's Role In Environmental Pesticide Policy, James J. Burke

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.