Date of Publication: Fall 2020
Articles:
Michael McGuinness, Prosecution, Deportation, and the MS-13: Recent Administrations’ Unwise Approach to Combatting Gang Violence
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Abstract: The Trump Administration, like other recent presidential administrations, has implemented a two-pronged strategy to eradicate the violent street gang known as the MS-13: (1) aggressive prosecution of MS-13 members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), and (2) large-scale deportation of Central American immigrants from the United States. This Paper argues that this plan will fail and may even fuel the MS-13’s growth. Because RICO was designed to dismantle the hierarchical Mafia organization, it will be ineffective in combatting the MS-13, a decentralized street gang. Further, strict immigration policies fuel a vicious cycle of deportation and illegal immigration between the United States and Northern Triangle countries (El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras), strengthening the gang. This paper argues instead that the best way to halt the MS-13’s spread is through the implementation of lenient immigration policies, particularly asylum law, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”), and Temporary Protected Status (“TPS”).
Erin Luibrand, The Death of the Entrapment Defense: How the Entrapment Defense Has Evolved in Federal Terrorism Cases to the Point of Extinction in the Post 9/11 Era
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Abstract: United States District Judge Colleen McMahon stated “I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition” before sentencing each of the four men to twenty-five years in prison.
Investigative reporter Trevor Aaronson reports that more than 50% of terror threats in the United States are manufactured by the government and carried out by FBI agents, making the FBI responsible for conceiving and financing more terrorist plots in the United States than any other organization terrorist or otherwise. Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, there have been 938 individuals prosecuted by the United States government for terrorism-related offenses. Out of those 938 individuals, 608 defendants have pleaded guilty, 198 were found guilty, 3 were acquitted and 4 had their charges dropped or dismissed. Those individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses often used the defense of entrapment, but not one has yet to succeed in a single federal terrorism case.
Ryan T. Cannon, Reconceptualizing Burglary: An Analysis of the Use of Burglary as a Criminal Enhancement
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Introduction: This article will contribute such an assessment by comparing burglary as a location aggravator with another location aggravator adopted by jurisdictions across the United States as part of “Drug Free School Zone” legislation. Part II briefly reviews the historical shift of burglary from a narrow, discrete crime to an amorphous and expansive one. Part III describes how burglary, when used as a sentence enhancement, affects the punishments that criminal defendants face. Part IV explores location aggravators under “Drug Free School Zone” laws. Finally, part V offers a critical assessment of burglary when used as a sentence enhancement.
Joline Desruisseaux, Nurturing Poisonous Trees: How the “New & Distinct Crime” Exception Destroys the Essence of Exclusion
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Introduction: This paper argues that the “new and distinct crime” exception has become an unconstitutional loophole that allows police officers to circumvent the Fourth Amendment. As this paper will show, even modern Supreme Court cases establishing broad exceptions such as Utah v. Strieff and Kentucky v. King do not save the constitutionality of this noncompliant hybrid exception.
Eli Jones, The Inherent Implicit Racism in Capital Crime Jury Deliberation
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Introduction: A look at the state of capital punishment in the United States reveals a troubling pattern of severe racial disparity among those who are given the ultimate sanction by the state. Black inmates make up a gravely disproportionate amount of the population currently on death row nationwide, consisting of 41.56% of the total death row population. A racial disparity amongst death row convictions and executions has been noted before, as the Court included this point in its reasoning for striking down the death penalty as violating the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments in Furman v. Georgia. This seeming win against capital punishment, spearheaded largely by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, was short-lived, as the Court affirmed in Gregg v. Georgia four years later that capital punishment is constitutional so long as there are procedural safeguards and guidance for juries in imposing the death penalty. As capital punishment entered a new era in the United States post-Gregg, the historic disparities emerged once again, with multiple scholars noting a resurgence of racial disparities in death sentencing defined by procedural safeguards based on both the victim of the homicide, and, to a lesser extent, the race of the defendant.