Articles by jlppadmin

March 9, 2020 0

Strictly Speaking: The Argument for Holding States Strictly Liable in Wrongful Conviction Suits

(Source)   The wrongfully convicted are an oft overlooked demographic of the American population because society views wrongful convictions as rarely occurring. But in fact, the numbers are quite staggering. The number of people exonerated in the last 30 years due to actual innocence? 2,500. The combined number of years unnecessarily spent in prison? 22,315. But the percentage of exonerees who ever receive compensation for wrongful imprisonment? Only 39%. Despite the American legal system resting on the fundamental principle of holding people liable for injuries inflicted onto others, fifteen jurisdictions within the United States lack statutory protections that allow the wrongfully convicted to seek civil remedies for the years lost due to their illegitimate imprisonment caused at the hands of the state. However, even in states that do statutorily provide compensation to the wrongfully convicted, it has become common practice for prosecutors to effectively coerce inmates into waiving their right to sue for damages in exchange for a sooner release date. For instance, in 2016, Jimmy Dennis, a man who spent twenty-five years on death row for a crime he did not commit, was offered an immediate release from prison so long as he pled no contest to third-degree murder. [read more]
March 7, 2020 0

Ignoring Policy, History, and Humanity: ICE Continues to Deport Veterans

(Source) In November 2019, a group of non-citizen veterans of the United States Military (military) celebrated Veterans Day in Mexico. Many of these individuals enlisted in the military after President George W. Bush signed an executive order fast-tracking citizenship for individuals willing to serve. However, they never officially became citizens and continue to remain vulnerable to deportation. Now, they remain in exile within the Deported Veterans Support House—a safe haven for non-citizen veterans who have been deported. It is common for non-citizens to join the military with the expectation of receiving naturalization. In fact, since the Revolutionary War, legal permanent residents are eligible to enlist, with roughly 35,000 non-citizens serving active duty. Since October 2001, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has naturalized 129,587 members of the military. If an individual meets all of the requirements of either section 328 (One Year of Military Service During Peacetime) or section 329 (Military Service During Hostilities) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), they are eligible for naturalization. By naturalizing through military service, individuals experience shorter residency requirements, no state-of-residence requirement, and waived application fees. Usually, if a non-citizen service member has received an honorable discharge, they are eligible for citizenship. [read more]
March 3, 2020 0

Do Not Access – Is Law Enforcement Access to Commercial DNA Databases a Substantial Privacy Concern?

(Source) The use of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) as an investigative tool for law enforcement has become, “if not exactly routine, very much normalized.” The normalization is in large part due to law enforcement’s use of FGG to identify and arrest the Golden State Killer. The April 2018 arrest gained national recognition, and subsequently, so did the police’s use of FGG as an investigative tool to narrow in on suspects. Forensic genetic genealogy has immense potential to serve as an investigative tool for law enforcement. The technique helps investigators “reduce the size of the haystack” by identifying the suspect’s family—making it that much more probable to find the needle. In the case of the Golden State Killer, law enforcement used GEDmatch, a public website that produces possible familial matches based on users’ genetic profiles. The site allows users to upload genetic profiles from third parties (such as 23andme and Ancestry.com), which is how law enforcement uploaded a DNA profile of the suspect from the Golden State Killer case. GEDmatch produced a partial match to the DNA profile, uploaded under a fake name, which led law enforcement to a distant relative. By narrowing down the possible suspect pool to one family [read more]
February 28, 2020 0

Student Loans: An Evolving Balancing Act of Public and Private Lenders

(Source)   As the political circuit heats up, politicians have acknowledged the public’s growing concern for the student debt crisis. The issue has taken center stage, especially among millennial voters, as collective student debt in the United States has hit $1.5 trillion—becoming one of the largest consumer debt categories. The rise of student debt parallels the skyrocketing cost of education in the U.S. as student lending practices and educational costs create a perpetuating cycle of increasing fees. It is important to look back at the policy choices behind student lending practices in the U.S. to understand the current system. Arguably, the public lending practices that have allowed the drastic increase in educational costs were essential to mitigate other negative externalities.   The Path to Direct Lending: Ensuring Non-Discriminatory Education at Lower Costs In attempts to develop a nationwide student loan program in 1965, Congress established the Federal Family Education Loan (“FFEL”) program. Non-discriminatorily guaranteeing student loans served as the program’s cornerstone as long as students were eligible for the program. This was Congress’s attempt to “even the playing field” for students of different socioeconomic statuses. Before FFEL, students would have to turn to the private market for student loans, limiting [read more]
February 24, 2020 0

An Examination of Compensation Following Wrongful Convictions

(Source) As mass incarceration continues to plague the United States criminal justice system, improved technology and evidence-gathering techniques seek to identify and exonerate the wrongfully convicted. Those accused of a crime may be wrongfully convicted for a variety of reasons such as eyewitness misidentifications, coerced false confessions, faulty forensics science, incompetent public defenders, and suppression of important evidence by prosecuting attorneys. Organizations such as The Innocence Project have been instrumental in helping to uncover cases of previous wrongful convictions. The increase in exonerations such as with the Central Park 5 (recently renamed the Exonerated 5) brings into focus the issue of compensation for errors in convictions that result in an innocent person time in prison for crimes he or she did not commit. In order to properly examine the issue, it is necessary to first evaluate the current system that is in place on the federal and state levels. In 2004, Congress passed the Justice for All Act which guarantees individuals exonerated of federal crimes $50,000 for every year they spent in prison and $100,000 for every year they spent on death row. This Act specifically delineates the federal compensation scheme; however, from state to state, the exonerated individuals do [read more]
February 13, 2020 0

Policy Reflection: Should We Affirm Affirmative Action?

(Source)   “Life is a marathon, but minority runners often start the race from further back than do whites.” Do you agree or disagree with this quote? How about in the context of higher education? It is no secret that increasing diversity in higher education is a goal for many educational institutions. Affirmative action is one of the main avenues for institutions to strive to achieve this goal. Affirmative action refers to policies that stem from the idea that certain disadvantaged groups should receive preferential treatment based on race and sex. It has been a long-time practice in the higher education admissions process to use affirmative action to help those disadvantaged groups progress educationally and professionally. There are varying views on whether we should consider affirmative action as a form of discrimination, as well as whether it is an unfair practice. Those in favor of affirmative action believe that it helps to ensure that minorities and women have equal access to a college education. Advocates make the argument that this practice benefits campuses and universities because all students will learn “to interact with and respect people who are different from you, skills that are essential to living and working in [read more]
February 13, 2020 0

Leaving the Kids Table: Giving Labor a More Prominent Place at the Bargaining Table

(Source)   Since the late 1950’s the National Labor Relations Act has not seen any significant changes, allowing laws that were meant to govern a very different time period to remain as the bedrock of collective bargaining. Today, unionization rates demonstrate the challenges that unions are facing, with only 10.5% of the American workforce being represented by unions. It is time to approach collective bargaining from a new vantage point, in order to strengthen workers’ voices and ensure a more equal balance of power between labor and management.  One concept that has begun to gain national attention during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries is the idea of sectoral bargaining.  As more candidates support sectoral bargaining and push to reimagine the system under which workers collectively bargaining with their employers, a strong case can be made for a drastic change to federal labor laws.  Following in the footsteps of many other industrialized nations, sectoral bargaining would enhance political and economic equality, while giving labor a more prominent seat at the negotiation table. Sectoral bargaining allows workers to bargain with employers within an entire industry, while also allowing elected officials to have a seat at the bargaining table.  Workers choose a union [read more]
January 31, 2020 0

National Labor Relations Board Gives Graduate Student Unions Whiplash

(Source)   As the unionization rate in America continues to decline, union leadership has been searching for new industries, groups, and workplaces in which they might have success with unionization campaigns.  One sector of employees that unions have been exploring is graduate students.  While the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has swapped positions on allowing graduate students to organize over the last few decades, unions have continued to work towards ensuring that teaching assistants and research assistants have the opportunity for their voices to be heard through the collective bargaining process.  Graduate students face a variety of issues in the workplace.  As students struggle to grade papers, teach classes, perform research, and ensure the education of undergraduate students is fulfilling, the working conditions are rarely ideal.  Although compensated, many have argued that graduate students performing this type of work are only performing part of their academic duty, which allows them to graduate with their degrees.  Yet, graduate students are hard-working employees, who are employed by the universities that they attend to perform specific job functions. Recently, the NLRB, under the Trump administration, has sought to codify a new regulation that would recognize graduate students as students rather than actual employees; [read more]
January 31, 2020 0

Student-Athletes Getting #Sponsored?: A Look at the NCAA’s Vote to Modernize Name, Image, and Likeness Bylaws

(Source)   On Tuesday, October 29, the governing board of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) voted unanimously to begin the process of “modernizing” their bylaws to allow student-athletes the opportunity to benefit monetarily from the use of their name, image, and likeness. The decision comes after years of discussion by NCAA officials and the formation of an official “working group” to evaluate the issue in May of this year. Recent legislative pressure from numerous states likely forced the NCAA’s hand in making this decision. On September 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom passed SB 206, the “Fair Pay to Play Act,” which directly contradicts the current bylaws of NCAA by allowing college student-athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness. New York, Illinois, and Florida have proposed similar legislation and more than a dozen states have expressed interest in creating similar laws in recent months. This state-by-state approach not only complicates and confuses the NCAA’s application of its own rules and exceptions for member universities, it brings about concerns related to fund distribution, recruiting, and sponsorship. Additionally, some of the proposed legislation threatens to blur the line between collegiate and professional programs. The NCAA’s decision to amend its [read more]
January 31, 2020 0

Proposed New York Legislation Could Be A Novel Way To Address The Decline In Local Journalism

(Source)   More than 1,300 communities in the US have totally lost local news coverage, according to a University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism study from late 2018. This nationwide decline in local journalism hit two New York State legislators close to home when Verizon announced that it was closing the doors on Fios1, a “hyper-local” network that covers the Hudson Valley, Long Island, and New Jersey. This move by Verizon will not only leave constituents without local TV news, it will also cause 150 of the network’s employees to lose their jobs. In response to this, Senator Kevin Thomas (D-Levittown) and Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti (D-Westchester) introduced Senate Bill S6784 and Assembly Bill A8662, which would require any cable company operating in the state to carry an independently produced local news channel. The bills define “local news channel” as “a channel which is dedicated to the category of locally produced programming, including but not limited to, news, weather and public affairs programming.” Additionally, the bills specify that the channel must be independently produced, and do not allow for providers to rebroadcast another local news station. This would require providers to create new news stations if they are [read more]

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