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Mothers in the Margins: Addressing the Consequences of Criminal Records for Young Mothers of Color
Get PDFAs young women pull ahead of young men in higher education, the wage gap narrows, and young men continue to be arrested and incarcerated at higher rates than young women, there has been much discussion at the policy level and in the media regarding the need to concentrate resources on men and boys. President Barack Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper and “Responsible Fatherhood” initiatives typify this shift.
As legal aid lawyers who represent youth, many of whom have been involved in the juvenile and criminal legal systems, we are pulled into the debate and asked to answer with increasing frequency: “What about the boys?” While young men of color certainly face discrimination and hardships that are worthy of attention, any conversation about the impact of mass incarceration on communities of color that ignores the voices and experiences of young women of color is inherently misguided
Comments: When Psychology Answers Constitutional Questions: The Eighth Amendment and Juvenile Sentencing
Get PDFWhile weighing whether or not to turn himself in for murder and surrender to prison, a 23-year-old law student questions the high premium placed on imprisonment as a rehabilitative measure. After finally submitting to imprisonment, however, Rodion Raskolnikov comes to understand the value of atoning for his crimes and how his punishment correlates with societal justice. The balance struck between an appropriate amount of suffering and society’s need for justice is at the heart of Raskolnikov’s character development.
Despite Raskolnikov’s imprisonment and accompanying character transformation, one important question remains unanswered by Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel: at what point does a punishment become excessive when compared to the nature of the crime and the culpability of the offender? Although Raskolnikov is ultimately grateful for his imprisonment since it provided him the opportunity to repay his debt to society, his all-consuming fear of a punitively lengthy prison sentence prevented him from confessing for months after committing murder. When considering the modern implications of the novel, some scholars have argued that, if Raskolnikov were alive in the United States today, he would still be imprisoned due to the unforgiving nature of the American penal system. These scholars argue that American prisons have abandoned the concept of rehabilitating offenders, and instead, simply resort to locking up criminals indefinitely
The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition
No full textDuring the Dark Ages and the Renaissance, Europe’s monarchs often resorted to torture and executions. The pain inflicted by instruments of torture—from the thumbscrew and the rack to the Inquisition’s tools of torment—was eclipsed only by horrific methods of execution, from breaking on the wheel and crucifixion to drawing and quartering and burning at the stake. The English “Bloody Code” made more than 200 crimes punishable by death, and judicial torture—expressly authorized by law and used to extract confessions—permeated continental European legal systems. Judges regularly imposed death sentences and other harsh corporal punishments, from the stocks and the pillory, to branding and ear cropping, to lashes at public whipping posts.
In the Enlightenment, jurists and writers questioned the efficacy of torture and capital punishment. In 1764, the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria—the father of the world’s anti–death penalty movement—condemned both practices. And Montesquieu, like Beccaria and others, concluded that any punishment that goes beyond absolute necessity is tyrannical. Traditionally, torture and executions have been viewed in separate legal silos, with countries renouncing acts of torture while simultaneously using capital punishment. The UN Convention Against Torture strictly prohibits physical or psychological torture; not even war or threat of war can be invoked to justify it. But under the guise of “lawful sanctions,” some countries continue to carry out executions even though they bear the indicia of torture.
In The Death Penalty as Torture, Prof. John Bessler argues that death sentences and executions are medieval relics. In a world in which “mock” or simulated executions, as well as a host of other non-lethal acts, are already considered to be torturous, he contends that death sentences and executions should be classified under the rubric of torture. Unlike in the Middle Ages, penitentiaries—one of the products of the Enlightenment—now exist throughout the globe to house violent offenders. With the rise of life without parole sentences, and with more than four of five nations no longer using executions, The Death Penalty as Torture calls for the recognition of a peremptory, international law norm against the death penalty’s use.https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/fac_books/1103/thumbnail.jp
Voting Realism
Get PDFSince Shelby County v. Holder, the country has grown accustomed to life without the full strength of the Voting Rights Act. Efforts to restore Section 4 have been met with calls to ignore race conscious remedies and employ race neutral remedies for modern day voting rights violations. In this new normal, the country should adopt “voting realism” as the new approach to ensuring that law and reality work to address these new millennium methods of voter discrimination
Restoring the Legitimacy of Private Antitrust Enforcement
Get PDFThis is a draft chapter from the American Antitrust Institute\u27s 2017 recommendations to the 45th President of the United States. It contains a brief but well-deserved defense of the benefits of private antitrust enforcement and a critique of the claims that private enforcement in the United States is excessive, that it leads to overdeterrence, and that the courts are plagued with widespread frivolous antitrust lawsuits. It also offer a number of specific recommendations for the new administration to implement in the private antitrust enforcement area, including:
* Educate the courts, the public, and federal and state legislatures about the virtues of vigorous private antitrust enforcement, including how it compensates victims and deters anticompetitive conduct.
* Actively support efforts by the European Union and other foreign jurisdictions to develop effective private rights of action.
* Encourage states without effective Illinois Brick legislation to adopt strong and comprehensive legislation.
* Support and encourage the formulation of antitrust jury instructions written in language that juries can understand.
* Undertake a comprehensive study into why so few victims of antitrust violations receive full compensation for their losses. A recent study shows that victims of collusion received only a median of 37% and a mean of 66% of the overcharges they paid to illegal cartels in private damages actions. Why weren’t their recoveries closer to the 300% recovery Congress intended? This chapter contains specific recommendations that address this problem
Sacred Cows, Holy Wars: Verities and Vagaries in Deciding What\u27s Kosher and What\u27s Not
No full textAll religions have their sacred cows and holy wars. None are more colorful or intriguing than what goes on in the burgeoning world of kosher food supervision. This book tells a colorful tale of religion, politics, and filthy lucre to present a spellbinding picture of canons and curiosities as well as a sobering examination of the limitations of law, the vagaries of religious disputes, and the verities of business ethics. From intrigues in the abattoirs to brawls in the boardrooms and shenanigans in the supermarkets, here is a compelling chronicle that should be of interest to readers regardless of their faiths or food preferences.https://scholarworks.law.ubalt.edu/fac_books/1104/thumbnail.jp
The Impacts of Allowing Cities to Have Standing Against Predatory Lenders Under the Fair Housing Act
Get PDFWhat the Fraction: A Divisive Look into the Necessary Revisions to the Department of Interior’s Fractionated Land Buy-Back Program Amongst Diminishing Funding
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Child Rights Trending: Accommodating Children with Disabilities in the Global Human Rights Framework and US Foreign Policy
Get PDFThis Article proceeds in three parts. Following the introduction, Part I analyzes the concept of child rights as applied to children with disabilities in instruments antecedent to the CRPD. It goes on to examine the treatment of children with disabilities in the CRC and in the text of the CRPD. In so doing, it exposes the significant conceptual shift in how children with disabilities are characterized as agents and holders of rights in the CRPD, in contrast to prior articulations. Part II explains how this new framework is used to expose and address major human rights issues that face children with disabilities globally. These include tackling the stigma and resulting discrimination experienced by children with disabilities, and the legal responses, closing the education gap, addressing the campaign to end institutionalization and placement in orphanages, detention of unaccompanied minors and various travel bans that impact children with disabilities and their families, and egregious abuses that are insufficiently addressed by international fact-finders.
Both the CRC and the CRPD are impacting awareness of major children\u27s rights challenges and prompt action by States to redress human rights wrongs. Part III reviews the current status of these two treaties in the United States and considers the relevance of, and potential for full participation in the future