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Defense Use of Digital Discovery in Criminal Cases: A Quantitative Analysis
No full textRecent criminal court reforms have required prosecutors to provide defense attorneys with broader and earlier discovery of evidence. For these discovery reforms to fulfill their aims of improved fairness and efficiency, defense attorneys must take advantage of the evidence disclosed by the prosecution. Prior studies suggest, however, that a range of factors, including low pay and high caseloads, impede effective defense representation in general. If similar factors hinder defense attorneys from reviewing discovery, discovery reforms would fail to meet their goals, and defendants would receive substandard representation. The recent adoption of digital evidence platforms by local jurisdictions allows us to study whether defense attorneys consistently fulfill their duty to review discovery. Analyzing data from digital evidence platforms used in felony cases in four Texas counties between 2018 and 2020, we examine whether and when defense attorneys fail to access evidence disclosed by the prosecution. We find that a substantial number of defense attorneys never access the discovery. The access rate varies by county, offense seriousness, attorney category, attorney experience, and file type. Drawing on review of prior scholarship and Bayesian analysis of the data, we discuss plausible interpretations of these variations
Texas, Delaware, and the New Controller Primacy
No full textIn January 2024, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, Inc., initiated the process of moving Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas, citing concerns over Delaware corporate law. The move sparked discussions about the dominance of Delaware corporate law and its recent rulings, with critics accusing Court of Chancery judges of favoring shareholder interests over controller innovation and managerial discretion.
The shift away from Delaware is set against a backdrop of increasing judicial scrutiny in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where plaintiffs have recently seen successes in litigation against controlling shareholders, corporate directors, and officers. Concerns over Delaware’s evolving legal landscape have prompted other corporations led by controlling shareholders, including TripAdvisor, Inc., The Trade Desk, Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc., and Trump Media & Technology Group, to consider reincorporation elsewhere. Despite Delaware’s long-standing status as the preferred state for corporate governance due to its well-established case law and judicial expertise, recent legislative battles and judicial decisions have introduced the possibility of more scrutiny for controller transactions.
Texas, while historically not a hub for corporate incorporations, has emerged as a potential alternative due to its business-friendly environment and the recent establishment of specialized business courts. However, Texas lacks the robust body of corporate case law that Delaware offers. The move by Tesla and the broader conversation around Texas corporate law suggest an emerging shift where businesses may seek to shape corporate governance frameworks more favorable to managerial control, potentially establishing a new “controller primacy” model. Legislative developments in early 2025 in both Texas and Delaware signal an ongoing competition between the two states to attract corporate incorporations, raising questions about whether they are racing to the top or the bottom in corporate governance. However, the Texas legislature’s move in May 2025 to allow listed corporations to bar derivative suits from almost all shareholders, an opportunity that the Tesla board immediately seized upon, seems to set a new bar in defending against shareholder suits
The Legality of Nuclear-Weapons Sharing Arrangements under International Law: United States-NATO and Russia-Belarus
No full textThis Essay argues that certain nuclear sharing agreements between nuclear and non-nuclear powers are legal under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This topic is highly important as Russia has announced its stationing of nuclear weapons in Belarus and Belarus has signaled its intent to use them
A 2.1 GS/S 2-CHANNEL PIPELINE-SAR ADC WITH SPEED-ENHANCED BOOTSTRAP SWITCH AND LOW-LATENCY SAR LOGIC
No full textThis dissertation introduces a 12-bit 2-channel interleaved Pipelined Successive Approximation Register (Pipelined-SAR) Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) capable of operating at 2.1 GS/s. A speedenhanced bootstrap switch that enhances the sampling speed is featured so that the overall speed bottleneck of the 3-stage pipelined SAR structure can be alleviated. In addition, an innovative SAR logic structure, compatible with multiple comparators in a loop-unrolled fashion, is presented. N/P MOS unbalanced sizing technique is implemented in SAR logic to further reduce the propagation delay of both the clocking path and the Capacitive Digital-to-Analog Converter (CDAC) driving path. This work exploits the circuits architectures and design techniques and tradeoffs to achieve multi-Giga sampling frequency without interleaving a large number of channels. Implemented in a 28 nm CMOS process, the ADC achieves an SNDR of 59.1 dB and an SFDR of 76.1 dB at the Nyquist input operating at 2.1 GS/s. With 17.5 mW power consumption at a 0.9 V power supply, it achieves a Walden FOM of 11.4 fj/conv.-step and a Schreier FOM of 166.9 dB