Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

Blame The Victim: How Mistreatment By The State Is Used To Legitimize Police Violence, Tamara Rice Lave

Articles

No abstract provided.

Defunding Police Agencies, Rick Su, Anthony O'Rourke, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

This Article contextualizes the police defunding movement and the backlash it has generated. The defunding movement emerged from the work of Black-led activists to reassert democratic control over policing and shift resources to social service agencies and other institutions serving community needs. In reaction, states have enacted anti-defunding bills checking local government reduction of law enforcement budgets. These anti-defunding measures continue a long tradition of state and federal control over local police spending, subverting local democratic control over police agencies. These limits include direct legal constraints on local police spending and indirect constraints through grants and authorization to collect fines, …

Brief Of Professor Brandon Hasbrouck As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Appellant: Bell V. Streeval, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The core question raised by this case is whether a federal prisoner serving an unconstitutional sentence can be foreclosed from post-conviction habeas relief by the gatekeeping provisions of § 2255. The Constitution answers that question in the negative through the Suspension Clause. “[F]reedom from unlawful restraint [i]s a fundamental precept of liberty,” and the writ of habeas corpus “a vital instrument to secure that freedom.” Boumediene, 553 U.S. at 739. The importance of the common law writ was such that the Framers specified that it could be suspended only in the most exigent circumstances. U.S. Const. art. I, § …

A Dog's Bark To Act As A Nark, Bailey R. Geller

Arkansas Law Review

This Comment therefore advocates for systemic reconsideration of dog scent lineups at trial. It will not claim that all dog scent lineups are flawless, particularly given the slipshod manner in which many are performed. But dog scent identifications are increasingly more valuable than our legal system currently acknowledges when they are properly conducted. They should be admissible.

Victims As Instruments, Rachel J. Wechsler

Washington Law Review

Crime victims are often instrumentalized within the criminal legal process in furtherance of state prosecutorial interests. This is a particularly salient issue concerning victims of gender-based violence (GBV) because victim testimony is typically considered essential for successful prosecution of these types of crimes. Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington, courts require declarants to be available for cross-examination on “testimonial” hearsay evidence. Consequently, criminal legal actors are further incentivized to employ highly coercive practices aimed at securing GBV victims’ participation in the criminal legal process as evidentiary tools. These practices include arresting and incarcerating victims …

Officer-Created Jeopardy And Reasonableness Reform: Rebuttable Presumption Of Unreasonableness Within 42 U.S.C. § 1983 Police Use Of Force Claims, Bryan Borodkin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note analyzes the current state of civil law surrounding police use of excessive force, highlighting the evolution of the “objective reasonableness” test employed in civil police use of force lawsuits brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This Note also discusses the role that social movements and surveillance technologies have played in furthering police accountability and shifting public opinion surrounding police use of force. After detailing this social and technological context, this Note addresses the numerous problems presented by the “objective reasonableness” test employed within civil police use of force cases, analyzing this problematic test from the perspective of both …

“Bang!”: Shotspotter Gunshot Detection Technology, Predictive Policing, And Measuring Terry’S Reach, Harvey Gee

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

ShotSpotter technology is a rapid identification and response system used in ninety American cities that is designed to detect gunshots and dispatch police. ShotSpotter is one of many powerful surveillance tools used by local police departments to purportedly help fight crime, but they often do so at the expense of infringing upon privacy rights and civil liberties. This Article expands the conversation about ShotSpotter technology considerably by examining the adjacent Fourth Amendment issues emanating from its use. For example, law enforcement increasingly relies on ShotSpotter to create reasonable suspicion where it does not exist. In practice, the use of ShotSpotter …

Cultural Identities And Territoriality In A Global Marketplace, J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Pathological Whiteness Of Prosecution, India Thusi

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Criminal law scholarship suffers from a Whiteness problem. While scholars appear to be increasingly concerned with the racial disparities within the criminal legal system, the scholarship’s focus tends to be on the marginalized communities and the various discriminatory outcomes they experience as a result of the system. Scholars frequently mention racial bias in the criminal legal system and mass incarceration, the lexical descendent of overcriminalization. However, the scholarship often fails to consider the roles Whiteness and White supremacy play as the underlying logics and norms driving much of the bias in the system.

This Article examines the ways that Whiteness …

Remarks, Andrea Dennis

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Over the course of one week, the Michigan Journal of Law Reform presented its annual Symposium, this year titled Reimagining Police Surveillance: Protecting Activism and Ending Technologies of Oppression. During this week, the Journal explored complicated questions surrounding the expansion of police surveillance technologies, including how police and federal agencies utilize their extensive resources to identify and surveil public protest, the ways in which technology employed by police is often flawed and disparately impacts people of color, and potential reforms of police surveillance technology. Before delving into these complicated questions, I presented remarks on the history of police surveillance …

Deprogramming Bias: Expanding The Exclusionary Rule To Pretextual Traffic Stop Using Data From Autonomous Vehicle And Drive-Assistance Technology, Joe Hillman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As autonomous vehicles become more commonplace and roads become safer, this new technology provides an opportunity for courts to reconsider the constitutional rationale of modern search and seizure law. The Supreme Court should allow drivers to use evidence of police officer conduct relative to their vehicle’s technological capabilities to argue that a traffic stop was pretextual, meaning they were stopped for reasons other than their supposed violation. Additionally, the Court should expand the exclusionary rule to forbid the use of evidence extracted after a pretextual stop. The Court should retain some exceptions to the expanded exclusionary rule, such as when …

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

Michigan Law Review

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 …

The Prison Litigation Reform Act Exhaustion Requirement: How A Legislative Decision From 1996 Is Controlling Covid-19 Conditions Inside Correctional Facilities, And What Can Be Done To Fix It, Hannah E. Mirzoeff

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Can Islamic Law Principles Regarding Settlement Of Criminal Disputes Solve The Problem Of The U.S. Mass Incarceration?, Amin R. Yacoub, Becky Briggs

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The mass incarceration crisis in the United States (US) remains a vexing issue to this day. Although the US incarcerated population has decreased by twenty-five percent amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the US remains a leading country in the number of incarcerated people per capita. Focusing on Islamic law principles governing settlement in criminal cases, the rehabilitative approach of the Icelandic criminal justice model, and the powerful role of prosecutors in serving justice, this research argues that integrating settlement and mediation into the prosecutorial proceedings will significantly reduce mass incarceration in the US.

Disposable Immigrants: The Reality Of Sexual Assault In Immigration Detention Centers, Valerie Gisel Zarate

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming.

Rotten Social Background And Mass Incarceration: Who Is A Victim?, Steven Zeidman

Brooklyn Law Review

Despite the theoretical right to be heard at different junctures in the criminal legal system, in practice, the right is unsecured for many accused and convicted of various offenses. Criminal defendants are rarely heard at trial, upon sentencing, or at parole board interviews to determine eligibility for release. Consequently, these individuals are not able to offer explanations for their behavior. This is particularly harmful given the role that “severe environmental deprivation” or, sometimes controversially referred to as “rotten social background,” plays in criminal behavior. Research now indicates that societal shortcomings, including a lack of healthcare, education, and employment opportunities, combined …

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 …

Which Police Departments Make Black Lives Matter, Which Don’T, And Why Don’T Most Social Scientists Care?, Robert Anthony Maranto, Wilfred Reilly, Patrick Wolf, Mattie Harris

Education Reform Faculty and Graduate Students Publications

In part via skillful use of social media, Black Lives Matter (BLM) has become among the most influential social movements of the past half century, with support across racial lines, and considerable financial backing (Fisher, 2019). Will this translate into public policy reforms which save Black lives? After all, higher education is a key institutional backer of BLM, and a considerable literature dating back decades (e.g., Lindblom & Cohen, 1979) casts doubt on the effectiveness of social science in solving social problems, for numerous reasons. Often, the best social science is simple counting. This paper makes two unique contributions. First, …

Public Safety Presence And Response In Campus Housing: Using Restorative Justice Interventions To Mitigate Harm And Restore Trust In The Residential Community, Sydney Pidgeon

M.A. in Higher Education Leadership: Action Research Projects

In the wake of social unrest and demands of police reform (Childress et al., 2020; Davidson, 2020; Rogers & Gravelle, 2020), institutions of higher education have a unique opportunity to model a system of campus safety that mitigates harm and restores trust. This research explores the complex relationship between campus safety officers and residential life staff and student leaders at a mid-sized private institution and implements restorative justice interventions to rebuild trust between the two populations. This research created an intervention framework that improved the ongoing partnership between the Office of Residential Life and Department of Public Safety and facilitated …