Archive for February 2022
We Finally (Kind of) Understand COVID – What Does That Mean at the Voting Booth?
February 1, 2022
By Rob Grimsley* When the Coronavirus first went viral, most Americans agreed that public spaces needed to be shut down in order to slow the spread and begin to understand what we were dealing with. However, as 2020 was an election year, there was soon speculation as to how to handle voting. Traditionally, voting had…
Continue ReadingChoice or Coercion? How the Push to Avoid Formal Foster Care Has Contributed to the Creation of a Dangerous Hidden Foster Care System
February 2, 2022
By Sydnie Peterson* Family units will often come into contact with child protective agencies when they are at their most vulnerable and in crisis. This was the case for Brian Hogan, whose first experience with local child protective agencies occurred after his wife experienced a heart attack and was sent to a hospital approximately two…
Continue ReadingAre New York’s Bail and Discovery Reforms in Renewed Danger?
February 9, 2022
By Kenneth Cooper* Tracking the status of these New York procedural reforms in particular (one increasing discovery obligations and the other reducing the use of cash bail in pretrial services) can shed further insight into how other attempts at reform, perhaps more substantive in nature, may play out.
Continue ReadingBlack Name Discrimination: An Issue You Know With a History You Have Yet to Hear
February 19, 2022
by Develyn Mistriotti* “‘Georgie, how’d you feel when you walked off Master Howell’s place for the first time?’”. . . “‘Like a man,’ he said. . . . ‘I don’t need to tell you this, or maybe I do, because they have always favored you in a particular way. . . . I now rise…
Continue ReadingReview of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis
February 23, 2022
Andrew Biddison* Criminal law is a required course in law school. As a survey course, there is often a tight focus on black letter law. Unfortunately, this focus ensures that many students—and especially those who choose not to specialize in this area of law—will finish their legal education without an informed understanding of the state…
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