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Obama picks NYC prosecutor Loretta Lynch to be next US Attorney General
By Luis E. Gomez, Associate Editor Vol. 20 President Barack Obama named federal prosecutor Loretta Lynch as his pick to be the next attorney general. The 55-year-old Lynch would be the first African-American woman to serve in the post. She is currently the top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, New York.Missouri Governor May Call National Guard Back to Ferguson
By Lauren Tortorella, Associate Editor Vol. 20 As Ferguson, and the world, awaits the grand jury’s decision on whether or not to charge officer Darren Wilson in the death of Michael Brown, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is considering calling up the Nation Guard. Gov. Nixon expects protests after the grand…Attorneys for Native Americans Ask Federal Judge to Dismiss Washington R*dskins’ Lawsuit
By Whitney Robinson, Associate Editor Vol. 20 On Friday, October 31, lawyers for the five Native American tribes fighting the Washington R*dskins over the team’s name and trademark protections asked a federal judge in Alexandria, VA to dismiss the team’s lawsuit against them. According to the attorneys for the Native…Jordan Davis’ Killer Sentenced to Life
By: Lauren Tortorella, Associate Editor Vol. 20 In November 2012, Michael Dunn shot and killed Jordan Davis, 17. Three other passengers were injured. Dunn shot the teenagers after an argument over loud music. Dunn was convicted of first-degree murder for shooting Davis, and three counts of attempted murder. On October…
In the News: Voter ID Laws
Over the last couple of weeks, the social justice and voting rights communities have been abuzz with the news that Judge Richard A. Posner, who famously held in 2007 that an Indiana voter ID law did not impose an undue burden on voters, has changed his mind. Laws requiring…Protecting Intangible Cultural Resources: Alternatives to Intellectual Property Law
Cultural resources can be defined as "the tangible and intangible effects of an individual or group of people that define their existence, and place them temporally and geographically in relation to their belief systems and their familial and political groups, providing meaning to their lives." The field of cultural resources includes tangible items, such as land, sacred sites, and religious and finerary objects. The field also includes intangible knowledge and customs, such as tribal names, symbols, stories, and ecological, ethnopharmacological, religious, or other traditional knowledge. The tangible cultural resources of tribes can fall under the protection of statutes such as the Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, 1990 (NAGPRA). The protection of intangible cultural resources, however, is less codified. The provision of legal protection for intangible cultural resources has focused almost entirely on either linking such protection to human rights or defining intangible culture as intellectual property (IP). Early work on defining intangible cultural resources as IP was conducted jointly by UNESCO and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which led to the Model Provisions for National Laws on the Protection of Expressions of Folklore Against Illicit Exploitation and Other Prejudicial Actions (1985). Work by WIPO continues today through its Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. This is complemented by a growing body of law, mostly in other countries, using property law to halt cultural appropriation from indigenous communities. However, as it stands, IP law, in general, may be a poor fit for tribes. This Comment explores alternatives that exist in the form of regulation of research and tort actions against researchers who violate these regulations. It is premised on the observation that one of the primary means by which culture has been appropriated from American Indian communities has been through social scientific research. Indians are among the most heavily studied groups in fields like medicine, public health, and, recently, genetics. Yet anthropology, more than any other discipline, has made American Indians the subjects of research.Revolutions in Local Democracy? Neighborhood Councils and Broadening Inclusion in the Local Political Process
Political marginalization of minorities and government corruption are two key factors that have led to the overwhelming decline and decay of America's major cities. Local governments must combat the historical entrenchment of these two evils in order to reverse the trend toward demise. Neighborhood councils may be the best structural changes to local government because they provide more meaningful opportunities for political engagement of minority groups, while also serving as an antidote to systemic corruption in local government. This Essay analyzes the problems plaguing local government in urban cities and explores how neighborhood councils may be able to help address them.The Abolition of the Death Penalty in New Jersey and Its Impact on Our Nation’s “Evolving Standards of Decency”
In 2007, New Jersey became the first state in over forty years to abolish the death penalty legislatively. Twenty-five years earlier, in 1982, New Jersey had followed a state-level trend by reinstating its death penalty. However, during the twenty-five years between reinstatement and abolition, New Jersey did not conduct a single execution. Instead, the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed numerous death penalty cases and consistently narrowed the class of cases eligible for the death penalty. This Note posits that the supreme court's narrowing of eligible cases was one of the factors that prevented executions from taking place in New Jersey. The Note further hypothesizes that this lack of executions created the policy space for legislative abolition. The Note then explores the effect that New Jersey's abolition might have on capital punishment in other states, as well as the potential influence of state-level abolition on the United States Supreme Court's evaluation of the constitutionality of the death penalty.A Race or a Nation? Cherokee National Identity and the Status of Freedmen’s Descendants
This Article examines the Cherokee Freedmen controversy to assess whether law and biology can function as sufficient models for crafting Cherokee identity at this crucial moment in the tribe's history. The author will argue that while law and biology are historically powerful frames for establishing tribal self-identity, they are inadequate to the task of determining who should enjoy national citizenship. The wise use of sovereignty, the author suggests, lies in creating a process of sustained dialogical engagement among all stakeholders in the definition of Cherokee citizenship on the question of Cherokee identity. This dialogue should ideally have been undertaken before the Nation moved to the political solution of a vote on tribal citizenship criteria. The exclusion of the Freedmen's descendants without such a dialogue may have high political and social costs to the Nation, its members, and its apparently former members. The dialogue this article proposes could be constructed along the lines suggested by sociologist Eva Garroutte, whose model of Radical Indigenism offers one means of considering these complex issues from within the Cherokee community itself.Constitutional Cash: Are Banks Guilty of Racial Profiling in Implementing the United States Patriot Act?
This Article begins by comparing the concerns of American racial profiling to current terrorism concerns. Part II is an overview of the Bank Secrecy Act and its role in privacy issues concerning bank customers (as the predecessor to the USA Patriot Act). Here, the value of traditional reporting devices, specifically CTRs and SARs used by banks to alert law enforcement to possible terrorist activities, are discussed and evaluated. The facts suggest these reports have been ineffective in identifying terrorists, and have not only greatly infringed upon First Amendment privacy rights, but also diminished the Fourth Amendment protection against warrant-less searches of American bank account holders. Although the Supreme Court has previously ruled on the Constitutionality of these issues, I suggest that they must now reexamine a decision which many always felt was illogical, but has become increasingly so in today's fear-driven environment. Part III explores the policies banks initiated to comply with Patriot Act I, and the possibility that those policies have contributed, to the racial profiling of certain individuals of, or mistaken for, being of Middle Eastern descent. Part IV is an analysis of some of the problems Patriot Act I created. Part V highlights the dangers of The Proposed Domestic Security Enhancement Act, also known as Patriot Act I. Part VI discusses the desperate need to pass the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA) and evaluates whether the changes in bank policy attributed to Patriot Act I and proposed Patriot Act II are essential to the government's ability to strengthen national security and root out terrorists in our midst, even though they compromise the financial privacy Americans expect and believe in. Finally, the Conclusion proposes several solutions to protect American Constitutional liberties, obtain the intelligence necessary to protect us from terrorism, while most importantly beginning the process of repairing the psyche of America.
