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White
No full textWhite is set in the Nebraska sandhills, a vast area of dunes covered with grass and incised by a number of rivers fed entirely by springs. The subtle beauty of the sandhills defies exaggeration. The principal protagonist of the story is Charles Hays (usually known as Chick) Moore, who serves as County Attorney in Hooker County, Nebraska. All of the settings and place names in the novel are real. Chick drives a red XK8 Jaguar convertible which he readily acknowledges as a concession to his vanity. As he approaches a young woman hitchhiking along Nebraska highway 2 east of Mullen, Nebraska she turns, sees the car and is obviously terrified. She runs away from the highway and directly in front of a coal train, to her grisly death. Murders occur, which are rare in the sparsely populated sandhills. The investigation ultimately reveals a white slave trade originating in a remote part of the sandhills. The novel takes us to Tuscany, Saudi Arabia, and back to the \u27hills.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1010/thumbnail.jp
Fox is framed: a Leo Maxwell mystery
No full textFaced with evidence of stunning prosecutorial misconduct, a San Francisco judge has ordered a new trial for the Maxwell brothers\u27 father, Lawrence, who was convicted of killing their mother twenty-one years before. A prison snitch soon turns up dead, with Lawrence the only suspect, and Leo teams up with hotshot attorney Nina Schuyler to defend Lawrence against murder charges both old and new. Working the streets while Nina handles the action in the courtroom, Leo is forced to confront the darkness at the center of his life as he follows a trail of corruption and danger that leads to the very steps of City Hall. A tense, twist-filled courtroom procedural, Fox Is Framed barrels toward an unexpected conclusion, as Leo struggles to do right both by the law and his blood; Winner of the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novelhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1021/thumbnail.jp
Brain Science and the Theory of Juvenile Mens Rea
Get PDFThe law has long recognized the distinction between adults and children A legally designated age determines who can vote exercise reproductive rights voluntarily discontinue their education buy alcohol or tobacco marry drive a car or obtain a tattoo The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld such agebased restrictions most recently constructing an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that bars the application of certain penalties to juvenile offenders and a Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that contemplates an adolescentbased standard of reasonableness for the Miranda v Arizona custody analysis In the cases of Roper v Simmons Graham v Florida Miller v Alabama and JDB v North Carolina the Court\u27s jurisprudence of youth relies on emerging neuroscience to confirm what the parents of any teenager have long suspected adolescents\u27 cognitive abilities and thought processes differ from their adult counterparts Children are different than adultsIn the cases of Roper Graham and Miller the Court recognized that brain development affects the legal construct of culpability and should accordingly affect punishment In the Roper case line the Court reasoned that without mature thought processes and cognitive abilities adolescents as a class fail to achieve the requisite level of culpability demonstrated in adult offenders As such juveniles were categorically spared the death penalty and in some instances a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole Likewise in JDB the Court concluded that the reasonableness of a juvenile defendant\u27s perception of custody under Miranda v Arizona must be ageappropriate The Court concluded that as a class adolescents had a different understanding of custodial status than adults Courts contemplating the validity of a perception of custody under Miranda had to account for this difference in their analysisTo date the Court has limited the application of this principle to punishment and consent analysis under Miranda The logic of the Court\u27s decisions however applies just as strongly to the application of substantive criminal law Likewise scholars writing in the field have limited the application of neuroscience to either the territory staked out by the Court or to objective mens rea standards alone The science however does not support such limitations Just as modern neuroscience counsels against the imposition of certain penalties on juvenile offenders and an adjustment of Miranda\u27s reasonableness analysis so it counsels toward a reconsideration of culpability as applied to juvenile offenders through the element of mens rea The failure to extend this jurisprudence of youth to every mental state element undermines the very role of mens rea as a mechanism to determine guil
Transcending Formalism and Functionalism in Separation-of-Powers Analysis: Reframing the Appointments Power after Noel Canning
Get PDFContemporary separation-of-powers theory and practice generally rely on two competing theories-formalism and functionalism-to frame and decide contested questions about the scope of each branch\u27s constitutional power and authority. In some areas, this dichotomy works reasonably well and possesses significant explanatory force. But the dichotomy\u27s utility is considerably less obvious in the context of the federal appointments process.
The Supreme Court\u27s recent decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning crisply demonstrates the limitations of formalism and functionalism in resolving separation-of-powers questions that equally implicate text, structure, and historical practice. Moreover, Justice Breyer\u27s Noel Canning opinion deftly transcends the formalism-functionalism dichotomy even while relying on textual, structural, historical, and practical arguments drawn from both modes of separation-of-powers analysis. Noel Canning teaches that constitutional text, by itself, will not always yield clear or reliable answers to difficult separation-of-powers questions. The decision also highlights a serious shortcoming in formalist legal analysis: When the Constitution expressly vests conflicting powers in different branches as in the context of staffing the executive branch-purely formalist analysis will not suffice. Simply put, the Framers not only separated powers; they also blended them. In many important areas, the constitutional text does not clearly specify where one branch\u27s authority ends and another\u27s begins.
A workable account of the federal appointments process requires careful consideration of structure and practice, of original intent and appointments conventions developed over time, and of the conflicting textual imperatives of the Senate\u27s advice-and-consent power and of the unitary executive (understood in light of the President\u27s Article II take care duty). In order to develop an effective separation-of-powers jurisprudence, the federal courts must transcend the formalism-functionalism dichotomy in this important area of separation-of-powers theory and practice. More broadly, the shortcomings of the formalism-functionalism dichotomy in the context of appointments suggest the need to rethink the dichotomy more broadly as well
Bum rap
No full textA thriller --Cover; Linebacker-turned-lawyer Jake Lassiter must track down a witness--who is also being sought by the Russian mob--in order to help Victoria Lord exonerate her husband, who has been falsely arrested for murderhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1012/thumbnail.jp
Long hill home
No full textKelly Malloy is a wife, mother and successful lawyer whose world is shattered when she is brutally attacked while running along the banks of the Brandywine River. Chad McCloskey, a lonely teenage boy from a dysfunctional home, stumbles upon Kelly Malloy\u27s unconscious body immediately after the assault. He is falsely accused and imprisoned with dangerous felons, only because he tries to help her. Maria Hernandez, a young woman who emigrates illegally from Mexico is reluctantly thrust into the role of witness to the crime, putting her in jeopardy of deportation only week before she is to give birth to her child. Kelly, Chad and Maria all suffer adversity in the wake of the crime and discover that their lives and their fate are inextricably and permanently connectedhttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1017/thumbnail.jp
Corrupted
No full textBennie Rosato the founder of the Rosato & DiNunzio law firm hides her big heart beneath her tough-as-nails exterior and she doesn\u27t like to fail. Now a case from her past shows her how differently things might have turned out. Thirteen years ago, Bennie Rosato took on Jason Leftavick, a twelve-year-old boy who was sent to a juvenile detention center after fighting a class bully. Bennie couldn\u27t free Jason, and to this day it\u27s the case that haunts her. Jason has grown up in and out of juvenile prison, and his adulthood hasn\u27t been any easier. Bennie no longer represents those accused of murder, but when Jason is indicted for killing the same bully he fought with as a kid, she sees no choice but to represent him. She doesn\u27t know whether to believe his claims of innocence, but she knows she owes him for past failures -- of the law, of the juvenile justice system, and of herself. Forced to relive the darkest period of her life, Bennie will do everything in her power to get the truth, and justicehttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1020/thumbnail.jp
Allegiance: a novel
No full textServing as a Supreme Court law clerk during World War II, Caswell Cash Harrison investigates the suspicious death of a colleague that may be related to the debate within the U.S. government surrounding the imprisonment of thousands of Japanese Americanshttps://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2016/1019/thumbnail.jp
