University of Arkansas at Little Rock
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Arkansas Practice Materials: A Selective Annotated Bibliography
Get PDFWhether you are a legal professional or a novice legal researcher, this annotated bibliography of Arkansas practice materials provides current and relevant state-specific information about available resources. The bibliography integrates online and print resources, grouped by topic rather than format. Each source is annotated with helpful information.
Detailed information about primary legal materials such as court cases, statutes and administrative regulations is included. Information about secondary sources such as treatises, practice manuals, forms, and websites, is also covered.
It is organized in five main sections: Primary Materials, Government Resources, State Specific Resources, General Jurisprudence, and Practice Materials by Topic
Amicus Curiae Brief: Private For Profit Incarceration Violates the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution
Get PDFThe Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution outlawed chattel slavery in the United States following a violent Civil War and a chilling era of slavery conducted primarily in the nation’s southern states. In passing this Amendment, Congress included a clause that excepted a certain population from this general prohibition, namely, prisoners. In what has become known as the “punishment clause,” Section I of the Thirteenth Amendment states explicitly “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” U.S. Const. amend. XIII (emphasis added). Amici here argue that the Thirteenth Amendment intended to end private chattel slavery, full stop; the Thirteenth Amendment’s punishment clause was never intended to support, enable or promulgate private, for-profit re-enslavement of American citizens.
Despite this intention of the Thirteenth Amendment to end private for-profit chattel slavery, the punishment clause has regrettably evolved into a loophole that has allowed and continues to allow American prisoners to be re-enslaved by private parties and corporations for money. Southern states in the 1800 and 1900s discovered ways to avoid this prohibition by enacting laws that bastardized the punishment clause, allowing re-enslavement of newly freed Black Americans. This re-enslavement by private profit centers took the form of southern state Black Codes and Convict Leasing. Today, in the 21st century, this private profit center re-enslavement has taken the form of private corporations like CoreCivic, the GEO Group, and others usurping the government function of citizen incarceration and are maximizing profits from the bodies of prisoners and the prison labor that these prisoners engage. Both Black Codes and Convict Leasing violated the Thirteenth Amendment (as evidenced by Congressional prohibitions through later legislation, like the Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875).
Today, this bastardization of the punishment clause continues, through the likes of private, for-profit prison corporations that treat prisoners as commodities and profit from their often-free labor in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Private prison corporations violate the Thirteenth Amendment by enslaving prisoners for profits.
Amici note here that the Amended Complaint plainly states Thirteenth Amendment claims in the alternative: First, that the prohibition of slavery is absolute; and Second, that private slavery is prohibited. This amicus curiae brief provides historical context for the Court’s consideration of primarily the second claim; i.e., that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits private slavery as punishment for a crime. Notwithstanding this, the state defendant argues in its Response Brief that the punishment clause strips all Thirteenth Amendment rights from prisoners, thereby sanctioning the practice of re-enslavement which sounds in chattel slavery and convict leasing. This reading of the punishment clause however, is not consistent with the historical context in which the Thirteenth Amendment was enacted nor is it coherent when compared to the intent, purpose, tone and prose from which the Thirteenth Amendment language was crafted, as demonstrated below. In fact, events before and after the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment demonstrate that the punishment clause language was understood to allow for public prison labor, not for the reintroduction of private slavery, the end of which was the very aim of the abolition amendment.
When confronted with two inconsistent interpretations of the punishment clause language, one supported by the state defendant arguing that the punishment clause strips all Thirteenth Amendment protections from prisoners and the other supported by plaintiffs and Amici arguing that the punishment clause was to allow for public prison labor, most likely temporarily, and not for the re-enslavement of freed Black Americans, the interpretation supported by history, intent, logic, and nearly all historians, including legal historians, should prevail. The Courts (and Congress) must recognize this truth and close the punishment clause loophole by staying true to the Thirteenth Amendment’s prohibition of private chattel slavery through ending for-profit incarceration
Yazzie v. Hobbs: The 2020 Election and Voting by Mail On- and Off-reservation in Arizona
Get PDFDuring the 2020 election, voting by mail was touted as a way to safely vote from home and avoid the risks of contracting COVID-19. While voting by mail is definitely safer than in-person voting, it also assumes that all citizens have equal access to the mail services needed for voting by mail. Lawyers, acting on behalf of Navajo plaintiffs in Arizona, argued in Yazzie et al. v. Hobbs (2020) that voters living on the Navajo Nation faced impermissible barriers in accessing voting by mail. They provided evidence showing there was limited mail service on the reservation and that mail delivery times were much longer than in a number of off-reservation communities. Arizona District Court Judge G. Murray Snow denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction, concluding that there was not sufficient evidence showing a disparate burden, as required by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. He suggested that disparities in access and delivery times might be due to rurality rather than discrimination against a protected class. In this Article, we delve deeper into the evidence presented by the plaintiffs and then provide new evidence, showing disparities between access and delivery times on the reservation and those in off-reservation locations, including the most rural areas of the same counties
Business Judgment Rule or Due Diligence? How to Reduce Vicarious Liability for SPAC Directors and Officers
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Think Again: The Thought Crime Doctrine and the Limits of Criminal Law
Get PDFAccording to the thought crime doctrine, neither beliefs nor intentions may be subject to criminal punishment. The doctrine is widely endorsed, but puzzling in its scope. Beliefs have a free speech credential: they play a straightforward role in the sincere exchange of ideas. Moreover, they are harmless, in the specific sense that they do not aim at action and so not at lawbreaking. But intentions are otherwise. They do not necessarily further the exchange of ideas and they may aim at wrongful, illegal conduct.
So why should the thought crime doctrine categorically protect them in addition to beliefs? Why not allow the criminalization of at least some intentions, such as those that aim at criminal wrongdoing? The going answers to this question are unsatisfying because they do not identify any moral reason to protect intentions per se.
I argue that there is such a reason based in the importance of thinking. My argument has two premises. The first is that persons have a fundamental moral interest in thinking. The second is that thinking partly consists in believing and intending whatever one takes to be warranted, even if it\u27s not. Hence, persons have a moral interest in their beliefs and intentions, whether they are true and laudable or false and odious. The thought crime doctrine is the sound legal recognition of this interest
The Contract Interpretation Policy Debate: A Primer
Get PDFContract interpretation is one of the most significant areas of commercial law. As a result, there is an extensive academic and judicial debate over the optimal method for construing agreements. Throughout this exchange, scholars and courts have advanced a wide array of conceptual, theoretical, and empirical arguments in support of the two primary schools of interpretation— textualism and contextualism—as well as various hybrid positions. This Essay is intended to serve as a primer on those arguments
Post-Grillo: New Family Mediation Protections and Revised Dangers
Get PDFUntil Professor Trina Grillo’s article warned readers of its process dangers, the family mediation process was viewed as a positive antidote to extensive and costly litigation and as a valuable opportunity for families to work together informally to resolve their custody, support, and property issues. Grillo, an academic and a practicing mediator, asserted that family mediation was not living up to its potential, that mediators hurt women and minorities by mandating participation without lawyers, and that its use created a false sense of empowerment. She was concerned that some mediators were not neutral, failed to focus on clients’ individual needs, and were unable or unwilling to deal with women’s emotions, especially reasonable anger and frustration.
Grillo’s article was a major rebuke of family court mediation and sparked positive change, especially in how mediation programs screen cases for participation. This comment examines how some important issues from her article have been addressedand how other concerns remain