Alabama Law Scholarly Commons - The University of Alabama
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Time to Heal: Trauma\u27s Impact on Rape & Sexual Assault Statutes of Limitations
Full text linkShort statutes of limitations for sex crimes ask the impossible of many vic- tims: report the crime before they have recovered from the trauma. Perpetra- tors go free as a direct result of the injury they caused. Nearly a third of victims of rape and sexual assaulthave PTSD during their lifetimes. PTSD is associated with three symptoms pertinent to reporting a crime: avoidance cop- ing (avoidingdistressing thoughts, feelings, or reminders of the attack), disso- ciative amnesia (forgetting important or all aspects of the attack), and depression. These symptoms all affect a victim\u27s psychological ability to report a crime before a short statute of limitations runs. This Article summarizes and critiques the current state of statutes of limita- tions across the country for rape, forcible rape, and sexual assault. In many states, the statute of limitations is shockingly short. No state tolls limitations periods for trauma-induced reporting delay, but every state should. In fact, given the rates of PTSD among victims and the associated symptoms, this Article advocates for extending statutes of limitations in all cases to ten years for rape and sexual assault and abolishing limitationperiods for forcible rape. These changes will give victims more time to heal from the trauma inflicted on them, allowing victims to report when they are ready, and will help ensure that attackers will not escape punishment because of the trauma they inflicte
The Credibility Effect: Defamation Law and Audiences
Full text linkWhat should be the legal response to false statements? In the context of defamation law, courts try to set a standard that balances the interests of speakers and their potential targets. This article empirically demonstrates an unappreciated effect of such decisions on third parties: a credibility effect. Using a series of lab experiments, I find that defamation law makes individuals more trusting of reports from various media. This credibility effect is desirable when the report is true but can lead to unintended consequences in the case of misinformation. In particular, the credibility effect is shown to cast a stigma on innocent targets who choose not to file lawsuits. The existence of the credibility effect calls for different balances than are currently employed in defamation law; challenges the vindication justification; and, more broadly, illustrates the limits of policies intended to fight misinformation
Disarmament Is Good, but What We Need Now Is Arms Control
Full text linkThis article aims to correct a number of misconceptions held by both scholars and activists about the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and international nuclear weapons law generally. It first reviews the development of international law related to nuclear weapons, and provides a novel taxonomy of legal obligations divided into three substantive categories. It then examines the TPNW within that taxonomy, and considers how it should be understood to fit within this legal context. It concludes that the TPNW is essentially a nuclear disarmament treaty. While it should be welcomed as a contribution to nuclear disarmament law, it should not be confused with nuclear arms control treaties, which are distinct in role and purpose. The article concludes that at the current moment of crisis in nuclear arms control law, a refocusing of attention is needed to conclude a successor treaty to New START, which is due to expire in 2026
The Public Voice of the Defender
Full text linkFor decades police and prosecutors have controlled the public narrative about criminal law. The news landscape features salacious stories of violent crimes while ignoring the more mundane but far more prevalent minor cases that clog the court dockets. Defenders, faced with overwhelming caseloads and fear that speaking out may harm their clients, have largely ceded the opportunity to offer a counternarrative based on what they see every day. Defenders tell each other about the overuse of pretrial detention, intensive pressure to plead guilty, overzealous prosecutors, cycles of violence, and rampant constitutional violations-all of which inflict severe harm on defendants and their loved ones. But defenders rarely show the public the world they inhabit.
That approach hasn\u27t stopped the carceral state from ballooning over the past fifty years; public defense budgets remain paltry, and clients suffer from too much law and too little justice in a system that disregards and dehumanizes them. This Article encourages defenders to go on the offensive, to seek transformative change toward a more just legal system. It builds on social media literature to and analyzes how defenders can strategically use social networking sites to add their expertise to ongoing public debates about crime and criminal justice policy. As the new existing efforts suggest, social media enables defenders to widely share the routine injustices they observe and to engage with local grassroots organizations to build coalitions. Defenders\u27 strategic use of social media won\u27t change policies overnight, but we are hopeful that it will augment public support for defenders and their clients and build power to transform the criminal legal landscape over decades
Opening a Federal Reserve Account
Full text linkTo open bank accounts, new customers provide personal information and make a deposit. Within a few minutes (or perhaps a few days), new customers get access to payment services. For many years, the process financial institutions used to open accounts at FederalReserve Banks was similar. Eligible banks filled out a one-page form and within a week received an account allowing them access to the FederalReserve\u27s payment systems. Recently, however, Federal Reserve Banks have spent years considering account requests from novel banks.
This Article examines the Federal Reserve\u27s process for evaluating requests for accounts. Using interviews, court documents, and other sources, it analyzes recent account requests from a cannabis credit union, a narrow bank, a public bank, a cryptocurrency custody bank, and a trust company. These requests reveal a lack of transparency and consistency. Most district Federal Reserve Banks do not explain how institutions should apply for accounts. It is not clear who decides whether to open the account. While the Federal Reserve Banks all evaluate risk associated with accounts and payments, the twelve Reserve Banks may not have the same risk tolerances. Decisions may be inconsistent. Even getting a decision can take years. Unfortunately, the Federal Reserve\u27s recently adopted guidelines, which consist primarily of a risk identification framework, do not fix these problems.
Congress should require that the Federal Reserve adopt public procedures describing how account applications are received and processed. These procedures should clarify the roles of the Reserve Banks and the Federal Reserve Board. To ensure that applicants are treated fairly and consistently, the FederalReserve should publicly disclose information about accountholders, account requests, and account decision
Policing Protest: Speech, Space, Crime, and the Jury
Full text linkSpeech is more than just an individual right-it can serve as a catalyst for democratically driven revolution and reform, particularly for minority or marginalized positions. In the past decade, the nation has experienced a rise in mass protests. However, dissent and disobedience in the form of such protests is not without consequences. While the First Amendment promises broad rights of speech and assembly, these rights are not absolute. Criminal law regularly curtails such rights - either by directly regulating speech as speech or by imposing incidental burdens on speech as it seeks to promote other state interests. This Feature examines how criminal statutes and ordinances adversely affect marginalized or dissenting speech. Despite their general classification as constitutionally permissible time, place, and manner restrictions, this Feature concludes that enforcement of such statutes contributes to a subordinating First Amendment landscape, disproportionately burdening some speakers and some messages more than others.
To address these concerns, this Feature makes two critical normative claims. First, scholars and courts alike have failed to prioritize access to spaces properly. This, in turn, carries a second normative claim: the current consideration of access to space as a forum of speech ignores the reality that presence, at times, is the message. To force a speaker to an alternative forum through the enforcement of criminal law is effectively to regulate the message out of existence. Finally, this Feature proposes a novel First Amendment defense when criminal charges implicate the defendant\u27s speech activity. This proposed defense provides a mechanism to vindicate the overlooked First Amendment consequences of such charges and empower citizen jurors to engage in community-based decision-making about the value of speech
At the Nexus of Antitrust & Consumer Protection
Full text linkThis Essay uses Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act to examine the theoretical and practical relationship between antitrust and consumer protection law. It argues that, since roughly 1980, there has been a hegemonic neoliberal framework, one that has in recent years been challenged by an emerging moral economy framework. The neoliberal framework conceptualizes antitrust as preventing firms from conspiring to throttle output, with a focus primarily on consumers\u27 interests in low prices, and consumer protection as making consumers informed, rational, and able to switch between competitors with relatively low cost. The moral economy framework conceptualizes both areas of law as aiming to prevent powerful players from using their power to manipulate conditions in their favor and away from a more general (though contested) notion of the public interest. Implications of each view for the application of Section 5 are explored, with attention to the case law surrounding each area of doctrine
