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The Indelible Flaws of Conviction Integrity Units
No full textConviction Integrity Units within prosecutors’ offices have doubled in number over the last 10 years. Leaders of the innocence movement initially praised these units, believing they were necessary for the future of innocence work given their unique access to discovery, and scholars hoped Conviction Integrity Units would lead prosecutors away from fighting against claims of innocence to sincere and open review of wrongful convictions. But, as Conviction Integrity Units proliferated, the question of whether prosecutors can fulfill the mandate of these offices and conduct thorough review of their colleagues’ work has received insufficient inquiry, particularly given that official misconduct continues to be a leading cause of wrongful convictions.
This Article is the first to conduct in‑depth analysis of multiple Conviction Integrity Units and evaluate their efficacy. By analyzing three separate units in jurisdictions with the highest rates of wrongful convictions, this Article reveals that legitimate claims of innocence are often rejected and response to scandal is insufficient and slow when time is of the essence. In so doing, it lays out an inherent framework of flaws articulating why Conviction Integrity Units are not functioning as the reform many had hoped. They suffer from a lack of transparency and inconsistency in leadership that can frustrate even the best intentions. They inappropriately rely on self‑policing prone to bias to fix ethical violations of the past while those in charge of the units are still engaging in prosecutorial misconduct in the present.
This Article shows that Conviction Integrity Units operate under the guise of a legal reform while truly functioning as a cloak of legitimacy for prosecutors and the criminal legal system. Exonerations provide a veneer of successful operation, regardless of whether the state played a meaningful role. They encourage the misperception that deeply rooted systemic problems are a deviation from the status quo, caused by single bad actors and fixable by singular exonerations. They fail to provide adequate remedies for past harm, thereby failing to change current practices and prevent the same acts from occurring in the future. Conviction Integrity Units therefore perpetuate the criminal legal system’s inherent flaws. Misplaced reliance on them causes harm to individuals seeking review of their innocence claims and condones the causes of wrongful convictions they aim to undo
Rules of the Game: Lessons from Sports to Understand Antitrust Law’s Fairness Foundations
No full textTraditionally, courts and practitioners assert that the antitrust laws are simply about protecting competition, not competitors. In essence, these parties perceive competition to be inherently desirable, rather than recognizing that it can be beneficial or harmful depending on its intensity and scope. As a result of this mistaken belief, courts hold that certain conduct is legal under the antitrust laws simply because they determine it to be procompetitive, while conduct deemed anticompetitive is condemned. Courts seldom provide definitive boundaries to this pro-competition trope and instead assert it as if it were a well-established truism and universal societal good.
Without details regarding what specific kind of competition the antitrust laws should promote or condemn, confusing situations arise, such as when a firm purposefully deceives its competitors to obtain a monopoly, but its actions are not seen as rising to the level of an antitrust violation. The confusion is exacerbated when the courts treat conduct that appears fundamentally unfair as procompetitive, or even hypercompetitive, therefore allowing it. Using fairness as a foundational principle would curtail much of the uncertainty that is currently infused into the antitrust jurisprudence.
In this Article, we describe how sports provide a solid, though admittedly incomplete, reference point to refine and conceptualize the contours of the antitrust law’s intrinsic notions of fairness. For too long, the lack of a definitive definition of competition has plagued antitrust law. A more detailed definition of what constitutes fair competition would help antitrust enforcers and judges determine which competitive strategies and tactics should be prohibited or encouraged under the antitrust laws. With a more precise definition, the goals and purpose of the antitrust laws would become much more explicit, ultimately structuring the economy in the way Congress desired
Brief of Amici Curiae Children\u27s Rights Scholars and Advocates in Support of Appellants\u27 Opening Brief: \u3cem\u3eLighthiser v. Trump\u3c/em\u3e
No full textFor decades, constitutional doctrine has recognized that children possess enforceable constitutional rights and that their developmental, physical, and social differences from adults are important considerations in constitutional analysis. Courts may not impute adult capacities, privileges, or political agency to children when determining whether their rights may be vindicated, leaving them no democratic mechanism to alleviate their injuries.
The district court’s dismissal of the youth plaintiffs’ claims rests on precisely that error. Although the court recognized that the children alleged concrete, severe, and escalating harms caused by the challenged executive actions, it concluded that relief must come from the political branches or the electorate. That conclusion misunderstands redressability and the judiciary’s role in a constitutional system structured to protect individual liberty—especially for those excluded from democratic power
Stealth Consolidation: Healthcare’s Process of Quietly Dodging Antitrust Enforcement
No full textThe healthcare industry has become highly concentrated due to increased rates of consolidation. Mergers and acquisitions among healthcare providers have become extremely common, making dominant hospital systems the norm. When healthcare provider markets are highly concentrated, competition deteriorates, leaving patients to suffer the consequences: higher prices for lower quality care.
The federal antitrust agencies tasked with preserving competition have failed to combat the consolidation trends that are plaguing the healthcare industry. Vertical consolidation between hospitals and physician groups has especially gone unchecked. The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, a federal antitrust law, requires merging parties to give the agencies pre-merger notice. This law, however, requires notice of only the largest transactions. Because most vertical hospital-physician acquisitions are too small to require reporting, hospitals and hospital systems can conduct several acquisitions without drawing attention from the antitrust enforcement agencies. As a result, hospital systems are able to gradually and quietly amass market power, thereby obtaining the leverage to increase prices, reduce innovation, and offer lower quality care. This is the process of “stealth consolidation.”
This Note examines the types of mergers and acquisitions that occur between healthcare providers. It then explains why antitrust enforcement in this industry has been insufficient and how acquiring parties have been able to successfully pull off stealth consolidation. This Note concludes by providing methods to address stealth consolidation and preserve patients’ access to affordable, quality healthcare
Election Law
No full textThis is the first year the University of Richmond Law Review has surveyed recent developments in Virginia’s campaign and election laws since 2015. Since then, Virginia’s voting and election statutes have changed significantly, making it one of the most accessible states to vote in, although the campaign finance regulatory framework remains relatively weak. This Article provides a general overview of the state of the law governing (1) campaign finance; (2) voter access and list maintenance; (3) election systems and administration; and (4) redistricting, focusing on significant updates in the past two decades
Tokyo IMT: Another Sequel to a Prequel, in The Character of International Law: A Festschrift for Rob Cryer (Emma J. Breeze, Mark Drumbl, Gerry Simpson & Marianne Wade eds., 2025)
No full textProfessor Robert Cryer was a foundational voice in modern international criminal law. This book celebrates his character, his life, his work, and his influence.
The book is a Festschrift of love and admiration to a voice that is dearly missed. Fittingly, the book also continues to voice the many conversations that Rob started. It thereby doubles as a critical examination of the life of international law.
The book constellates 17 expertly-authored chapters nurtured by four editors through five distinctive sections, each of which reflects on the character of international law. These sections, presented as acts, are: discipline and borders, (re)imagination and continuity, violence and reckoning, acoustics and storytelling, and friendship and kindness.
A wide gamut of touchpoints dovetails into a beautifully eclectic medley. These include criminal law, the law of war, music and harm, gender-based violence, nuclear weapons and artificial intelligence, law after war, the crime of aggression, drones and targets, the domestication of international law, and the role of law in inter-state relations. The book journeys to many places, including Japan, Bosnia and Ukraine, while reflecting on the role of teaching and mentorship in the life of international law.https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/fac_books/1210/thumbnail.jp
\u3cem\u3eDobbs\u3c/em\u3e and the New Doctrine of \u3cem\u3eStare Decisis\u3c/em\u3e
No full textAlongside the historic and troubling annulment of the half-century-old Substantive Due Process right to abortion, Dobbs produced another significant outcome. To get its substantive constitutional law result, the Court’s majority also had to reconceive—and significantly weaken—the doctrine of stare decisis. This was necessary because, following Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the constitutional right to abortion largely depended on respect for precedent as the basis for its survival. To overturn Roe, the Dobbs majority had to blast through the established practice of precedent and articulate a new doctrine of stare decisis. It seems that precedent was meant to be the last (jurisprudential) casualty of America’s long-running abortion war. This Article outlines the new doctrine of stare decisis that emerged from the majority’s tectonic ruling in Dobbs
Book Review, Jens Meierhenrich, The Violence of Law: The Formation and Deformation of Gacaca Courts in Rwanda (2024).
No full textIn The Violence of Law, Jens Meierhenrich—currently professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science—offers a detailed, erudite, and encyclopedic analysis of the gacaca system
Book Review, Rumyana van Ark et al., Children’s Rights, ‘Foreign Fighters’, Counter-Terrorism: Children of Nowhere (2024)
No full textThe focus of Children’s Rights, ‘Foreign Fighters’, Counter-Terrorism: Children of Nowhere is on foreign fighters who join terrorist groups, ISIS, and other entities engaged in armed conflict in Syria and Iraq. Counterterrorism measures, and the threats of terrorist attacks, have triggered a degradation and distortion of law. I have noted this following the 9/11 attacks and the concomitant refusal to treat children associated with terrorist groups as protected child soldiers. Whereas child soldiers in distant African conflicts are largely seen in the centers of global power as ‘faultless, passive victims’ of a pathological society, child terrorists taken as disruptive of Western security interests are seen as delinquent, incorrigible, and baleful threats to a salutary security order
Introductory Remarks - Mitchell
No full texthttps://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/scholarcelebration2025/1010/thumbnail.jp