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Neglected Discovery
Get PDFIn recent decades, many states have expanded discovery in criminal cases. These reforms were designed to make the criminal process fairer and more efficient. The success of these changes, however, depends on whether defense attorneys actually use the new discovery opportunities to represent their clients more effectively. Records from digital evidence platforms reveal that defense attorneys sometimes fail to carry out their professional duty to review discovery. Analyzing a novel dataset we obtained from digital evidence platforms used in Texas, we found that defense attorneys never accessed any available electronic discovery in a substantial number of felony cases between 2018 and 2020. We also found that the access rate varied by county, year, offense type, attorney category, attorney experience, and file type.
To better understand when and why attorneys neglect the available discovery, we supplemented the analysis of digital platform data with interviews of more than three dozen Texas criminal defense attorneys. We learned that defense attorneys were aware that many of their peers fail to review discovery in felony criminal cases. Our interviewees identified several explanations for the failure to access evidence. These include a lack of technological skills and support; the overwhelming volume of digital discovery; the client’s desire for fast resolution of the case; the lesser gravity of some cases; high caseloads; low compensation; and, in some cases, simple lack of diligence. We consider the implications of these attorney practices for ineffective assistance of counsel litigation, effective supervision of defense attorneys, and criminal law reform
Fragmented Bodies
Get PDFThrough Memory Webs and fragmented ceramic vessels, I express what it feels like to grow up living in a biracial body. I utilize mixed media to emulate a mixed-race experience. My Memory Webs are fashioned by painting on scraps of canvas and attaching them with crocheted wire and ribbon to speak to how my memory has impacted my identity. My fragmented ceramic vessels are cut up and stitched back together to represent disjointedness and un-belonging. All of my work is contextualized through the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and what the Monster may represent for people of color. I also discuss contemporary artist influences and a variety of childhood memories. My art serves as a vehicle both for understanding my struggles with identity and as a way to heal from my painful experiences. I have created a visual vocabulary over the last two years of artmaking and experimentation that stems from monstrosity, quilting, kintsugi, personal narration, and defining identity versus identifiers. I address how I begin with a struggle with identity, use art-making to address the issue, and what I have concluded as a result
Best Practices: Enhancing Narrative Communication Through Environmental Shifts
Get PDFThe purpose of this research is to integrate traditional storytelling methods with environmental shifts to test the effectiveness in enhancing player immersion and narrative communication. The researcher created a custom single-player level in Fallout 4, which tasks players with investigating a case and finding out the truth of the quest’s narrative with the help of environmental shifts. The researcher collected data on the effectiveness of their researched, environmental shift best practices by observing testers’ playtests and their subsequent understanding of the story
Plenty Good Room: Using Negro Spirituals to Bridge the Racial Divide
Get PDFIn 2020, the United States experienced a global pandemic and the murder of Mr. George Floyd. With the murder of Floyd, many churches were confronted with the racial divide in the United States. This thesis is a response of one community, the Prince of Peace Catholic Church in Plano, Texas. Using the folk song of Black Americans, namely the Negro Spirituals, as the foundation of an ethical-theological framework, this thesis poses one way for addressing the anti-Black structure prevalent in the Catholic Church in the United States of America. This work progresses from despair to hope, addressing the link between the institution of Slavery and the Negro Spirituals, providing an overview of Catholic documents on racism and reconciliation, and illustrating a theology of accompaniment championed by Pope Francis, to provide strategies on addressing the racial divide
Deformation Mapping and Modeling of the Aleutian Volcanoes with InSAR and Numerical Models
Get PDFSurface deformation mapping is an essential component for comprehensive monitoring of volcanic activities, serving as a vital tool for discerning crucial insights into magma dynamics, storage, and migration for accurate hazard forecasting, assessment, and mitigation. However, monitoring of the volcanic deformation across the Aleutian volcanic arc is usually limited by the lack of terrestrial sensors deployed due to their remote locations and hostile environmental conditions, necessitating alternative methodologies for data acquisition and analysis.
My PhD study aims at precisely mapping the crustal deformation for the Aleutian volcanoes and tracking the evolution of the magmatic system with Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) and numerical deformation modeling. Advanced timeseries InSAR algorithms are applied to three cases: Okmok, Makushin, and western and central Aleutian. Deformation history since the 2008 eruption at Okmok mapped with PSInSAR unveils several successive inflation episodes with time-dependent rates. Finite Element Models (FEM) updated with Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) find the timeseries deformation can be well explained by a spherical source with temporally steady location about 3.5 km beneath the central caldera, with cumulative volume change about from 2008 to 2021.
Deformation mapped from SAR data collected across platforms have detected multiple inflation/deflation cycles characterized by temporally varying rates at Makushin volcano from 2004 to 2021. Inverse models of the crustal deformation suggest a Mogi source located to the northeast of the caldera at a depth ~6 km Beneath Sea Level (BSL). A shallow secondary deformation located to the southeast of the volcano, with rates about half that of the main deformation is also identified. A volatile intrusion/degassing dominated plumbing system is preferred by the inflation/deflation cycles with distinct magnitudes and lifetimes.
A new timeseries InSAR framework is developed based on the geocoded unwrapped interferograms produced from Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) system. Deformation histories for volcanoes in the western and central Aleutian are retrieved with this framework with Sentinel-1 imageries from 2015 to 2021. Various deformation patterns associated with different volcanic processes have been detected and used to track the evolution of volcanic systems. New deformation patterns are observed from Tanaga, Great Sitkin and Yunaska volcano. Overall higher magmatism, which may be attributed to spatial variation in tectonic environments, is identified in the central Aleutian.
To investigate the discrepancy between magmatic sources derived from geodetic deformation and the ones inferred from seismic tomography at Okmok, several numerical magma reservoir models are constructed and analyzed. The single reservoir model with magmatic chamber characterized by low P and S wave velocity (Vp and Vs) and moderate P to S wave velocity (Vp/Vs) ratio produce crustal deformation that fits the geodetic observations better than the distributed reservoir model with magma chambers represented by high Vp and Vp/Vs ratio and low Vs, which likely reconcile the geodetic deformation and seismic tomography observations and highlights the necessity of joint interpretation of geophysical observations over regions with complicated volcanic environments
The Geology And Geochemistry Of The Western Iron Ore Group Greenstone Belt, Singhbhum Craton, Eastern India
Get PDFThis thesis presents new data on the origin of the Western Iron Ore Group (W-IOG), a Paleoarchean succession deposited on sialic rocks of the Singhbhum Craton. U-Pb ages from zircons from a tuff overlying the Lower Shales just below a banded iron formation (BIF) pin the age of the section to 3.39 Ga. Unconformably overlying the whole IOG section is the Darjing Group, which contains the Birtola Sandstone (on the basis of this work, now estimated to be 2.35 Ga). The lack of penetrative deformation and low-grade metamorphism makes these rocks excellent subjects for combined radiogenic and stable isotope studies. Data on the W-IOG constrain the development of earth systems operating during the Archean into the Proterozoic (4.0-2.4 Gyr). 143Nd/144Nd isotopes for basal Lower Lava greenstones suggest a whole-rock isochron with an apparent age of 3.42 ± 0.14 Ga exhibiting perhaps the highest positive initial εNd (εNd = +5.7 ± 2.5) observed thus far for an Archean greenstone, and suggesting it is a possible remnant of early Earth differentiation. The initial εNd of 2.7 at 2.65 Ga for the Upper Lava (i.e., 3 εNd units lower than the greenstones of the Lower Lava) might reflect the cumulative effect of recycling of less Light Rare Earth Element (LREE) depleted sediments into the mantle by subduction processes. The Lower Lava and the Lower Shale plot on a common whole-rock 143Nd/144Nd versus147Sm/144Nd line. When combined with REE data, this indicates that the provenance for the Lower Shale is from mafic rocks similar to the underlying Lower Lava, perhaps a subaerial constructional pile of mafic rocks (i.e., the Lower Lava). Lower Shale rocks are rich in iron (avg. 18 Fe2O3 wt.%, n = 7) and with diachronous sedimentation could be the proto-ore for the BIF. The spread in iron isotope ratios (-0.693 ≤ δ56Fe ≤ 1.735 ‰) suggests the oxidation of iron may have been biologically mediated 3.4 billion-years ago. The Upper Shales share a common line with Singhbhum’s granitic basement (with an apparent age of 3.36 ± 0.09), implying that these iron-poor shales formed primarily from the unroofing of subvolcanic granitic basement. New zircon U-Pb, Lu/Hf and 18O/16O along with the d18O of host rock sandstones of the Birtola Formation demonstrates that mantle-like zircon d18O values are consistent with source regions that have been affected by the addition of subducted recycled crustal Hf. If so, the additions would have been in proposrtions implying significant refertilization of the MASH source regions that are the presumed igneous source for the Birtola Sandstone. Using the D18O quartz-zircon, forward modelling of the d18O values of the quartz from the zircons and zircons from the quartz distributions are consistent with temperatures of silicic extrusive rock magmatic temperatures. Some low 18O Archean zircons (d18O18O of the IOG greenstone succession requires surface temperatures more consistent with the faint early Sun. The climate implications and the evidence of recycling down into the mantle all suggest plate tectonics in the early Earth
\u3cem\u3eStudents for Fair Admissions\u3c/em\u3e Through the Lens of Interest-Convergence Theory: Reality, Perception, and Fear
Get PDFIn two cases, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina (SFFA), the Supreme Court held that Harvard and UNC violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in their use of race in their admissions process. This Article examines the SFFA decision through the lens of interest-convergence theory.
This Article is novel in three respects. It is the first article to explain the SFFA decision in-depth. The opaqueness of the decision has led to significant confusion between commentators, scholars, and universities about the impact of the decision. I conclude that the SFFA decision overturned prior precedent and ended affirmative action in higher education, no matter how carefully crafted the race-conscious admission plan. I also conclude that universities will not be able to ignore the decision, or use race-neutral alternatives, to maintain a critical mass of minority students.
Second, this Article is the first to explain the SFFA outcome using interest-convergence theory. I break down the separate interests of Black,[1] Hispanic,[2] White,[3] and Asian-Americans.[4] I find that Black and Hispanic interests remain served by race-conscious admission policies, but that shifting racial demographics and political power dynamics changed the decades-long White interest in supporting affirmative action. I further find that Asian-Americans have an interest in maintaining affirmative action, but that the SFFA outcome aligned with White interests because it permitted universities to continue “negative action” against Asian-Americans in favor of White students.
Third, this Article is the first to explain how the perceptions of White Americans about policies that benefit minorities overrides the significant benefits they receive from diverse educational environments. I conclude that the longstanding and concrete benefits that White students receive from a critical mass of minority students on campus has become less important than the perceived threat of such admission policies to the current societal hierarchy. I conclude that interest-convergence theory explains why the Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent and university admission practices: it served the perceived interests of White Americans.
[1] I use the commonly followed practice of capitalizing the term Black. See Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Comment, Roberts’s Revisions: A Narratological Reading of the Affirmative Action Cases, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 192, 195 n.20 (2023) (explaining history and reasons for using the term “Black”).
[2] I use the term Hispanic, instead of Latinx, because the Supreme Court used that racial category in the SFFA decision and UNC and Harvard use that racial category in their admissions policies. Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll. (SFFA), 600 U.S. 181, 216 (2023). Latinx is a narrower term that refers to a person with origins from anywhere in Latin America. William Alexander, Ask the OEDI: Hispanic, Latino, Latina, Latinx—Which is Best?, Duke Univ. Sch. Med. (Sept. 8, 2022), https://medschool.duke.edu/blog/ask-oedi-hispanic-latino-latina-latinx-which-best [https://perma.cc/WY4B-6UXR].
[3] I will capitalize White because putting it in lowercase affirms that Whiteness is the norm when other racial categories are capitalized. Kristen Mack and John Palfrey, Capitalizing Black and White: Grammatical Justice and Equity, MacArthur Found. (Aug. 26, 2020), https://www.macfound.org/press/perspectives/capitalizing-black-and-white-grammaticaljustice-and-equity [https://perma.cc/V9E2-ANWT].
[4] I use the term Asian-American because the Supreme Court used the racial category in the SFFA decision and UNC and Harvard use the racial category in their admissions policies. See SFFA, 600 U.S. at 216
