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Graffiti, Speech, and Crime
Get PDFGraffiti resides at the uncomfortable intersection of criminal law and free speech rhetoric It is not the shout of revolution to the gathered protesting masses or the political pamphlet flung from a 1920s window Graffiti is not the obscenerenderedpoliticaljacketed protest of war or a flag set aflame in the name of reclaiming patriotism It is an illicit scrawl It is damage and defiance rolled into one from the moment of its creation Graffiti is a crimebrbrUnlike more celebrated examples of free speech graffiti earns no safe harbor from the First Amendment When asked to choose between the tag that appears in the middle of the night on someone else\u27s property and the possibility that the tag might enjoy an embedded meaning First Amendment jurisprudence does not wax philosophical about the values of equality or democracy or the utility of a free marketplace of ideas Under criminal law graffiti is regulated as a property offense or nuisance offense based on the damage it causes with no consideration of the message it containsbrbrThis Article argues that this rote calculation is wrong While graffiti undoubtedly damages the property to which it is attached to ignore the communicative component of graffiti is to ignore its role as a medium for the most marginalized of voices From MeToo to Black Lives Matter to youth in occupied territories to those that resist occupation graffiti lays claim to a power and purpose that cannot be realized in other more bounded speech forums Accordingly this Article proposes a speechbased affirmative defense to graffiti crimes This defense would not be an automatic getoutofjailfree card Rather it would permit jurors to consider the expressive value of graffiti in their deliberations It would allow the men and women who bear witness to the graffiti and the damage it may cause in their own communities to make the ultimate decision whether a criminal sanction is appropriate or whether it is speech worth savin
After Anna
No full textDr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti, and for the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn\u27t seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she\u27s even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she\u27d lost forever, her only daughter Anna. Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they would never have guessed that everything would go wrong, and so quickly. Anna turns out to be a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules, though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at the trouble brewing in a once-perfect marriage and home. Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna\u27s murder may have been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imaginedhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2019/1018/thumbnail.jp
The boat people
No full textA debut novel about a thirty-five-year-old Sri Lankan refugee who has survived the harrowing experiences of civil war, a prison camp, and a perilous ocean voyage to Canada--but his journey has only begun, as he and his young son navigate the morass of the refugee system -- Provided by publisherhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2019/1001/thumbnail.jp
An Engineered Injustice
No full textWhen a passenger train derails in North Philadelphia with fatal results, idealistic criminal defense attorney Vaughn Coburn takes on the most personal case of his young career. The surviving engineer is his cousin Eddy, and when Eddy asks Vaughn to defend him, he can\u27t help but accept. Vaughn has a debt to repay, for he and his cousin share an old secret--one that changed both their lives forever. As blame for the wreck zeros in on Eddy, Vaughn realizes there\u27s more to this case than meets the eye. Seeking the truth behind the crash, he finds himself the target of malicious attorneys, corrupt railroad men, and a mob boss whose son perished in the accident and wants nothing less than cold-blooded revenge. With the help of his ex-con private investigator and an old flame who works for the competition, Vaughn struggles to defeat powerful forces--and to escape his own past built on secrets and lieshttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2019/1014/thumbnail.jp
Juror #3
No full textStruggling young attorney Ruby Bozarth defends a man she passionately believes to be innocent in a first murder trial that could make or break her career, only to discover that the case is affected by a juror\u27s shocking secrethttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2019/1016/thumbnail.jp
The Constitutional Marriage of Personality and Impersonality: Office, Honor, and the Oath Book Review Symposium: Settled versus Right: A Theory of Precedent
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