Throughout American history, the government has used U.S. citizenship and immigration law to protect privileged groups from less privileged ones, using citizenship as a “legitimate” proxy for otherwise invidious, and often unconstitutional, discrimination on the basis of race. While racial discrimination is rarely legally acceptable today, profiling on the basis of citizenship is still largely unchecked, and has in fact arguably increased in the wake of the September 11...
In October of 1956, my twelve year old newly adopted orphan babysitter, Janet Cash and I were staying the night alone on my uncles northern California ranch. During the night, we were attacked by three men, two of them were us navy sailors. Janet was beaten and gang raped by the three men throughout the night, and I was tortured and assaulted. In the morning, Janet was taken to an area called the flats and viciously murdered by the two us navy sailors. They then buried Janet in a clandestine...
A look at the contemporary crisis in U.S. jails with recommendations for improving and protecting the dignity of inmates [b][/b]Twelve million Americans go through the U.S. jail system on an annual basis. Jails, which differ significantly from prisons, are designed to house inmates for short amounts of time, and are often occupied by large populations of legally innocent people waiting for a trial. Jails often have deplorable sanitary conditions, and there are countless records of inmates being...
Texas has created more constitutional law than any other state. In any classroom nationwide, any basic constitutional law course can be taught using nothing but Texas cases. That, however, understates the history and politics behind the cases. Beyond representing all doctrinal areas of constitutional law, Texas cases deal with the major issues of the nation. Leading legal scholar and Supreme Court historian Lucas A. Powe, Jr., charts the rich and pervasive development of Texas-inspired...
The topic of American conservatism is especially timely—and perhaps volatile. Is there what might be termed an “exceptional” form of conservatism that is characteristically American, in contrast to conservatisms found in other countries? Are views that are identified in the United States as conservative necessarily congruent with what political theorists might classify under that label? Or does much American conservatism almost necessarily reflect the distinctly...
“I remember the four words that repeatedly scrolled across my mind after the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City. ‘Please don’t be Muslims, please don’t be Muslims.’ The four words I whispered to myself on 9/11 reverberated through the mind of every Muslim American that day and every day after.… Our fear, and the collective breath or brace for the hateful backlash that ensued, symbolize the existential...
As I write this, the nation is still reeling from multiple shocks in July 2016. First, as the month began, came yet two more videotaped incidents of police shooting to death black arrestees after many other such widely-publicized incidents over the previous several years. The day after the Fourth of July holiday, disturbing footage went viral of Baton Rouge police outside a convenience store firing repeatedly at 37-year-old Alton Sterling while two white policemen already had Sterling pinned...
Since the fall of communism, laissez-faire capitalism has experienced renewed popularity. Flush with victory, the United States has embraced a particularly narrow and single-minded definition of capitalism and aggressively exported it worldwide. The defining trait of this brand of capitalism is an unwavering reverence for the icons of the market. Although promoted as a laissez-faire form of capitalism, it actually reflects the very evils of selfishness and greed by entrepreneurs that concerned...
Winner of the American Society of Criminology 2015 Michael J. Hindelang Book Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution to Research in Criminology Since the mid-1990s, the fast-growing suburb of Amherst, NY has been voted by numerous publications as one of the safest places to live in America. Yet, like many of America’s seemingly idyllic suburbs, Amherst is by no means without crime—especially when it comes to adolescents. In America’s Safest City, noted...
When all parties involved in the construction process fully understand their roles and are able to anticipate potential points of conflict, disputes and delays will be minimised. The Employer’s and Engineer’s Guide to the FIDIC Conditions of Contract sets out the essential administrative requirements of a FIDIC based contract by reference to the FIDIC 1999 Red Book. The obligations and duties of the Employer and the Engineer are identified and discussed. Potential pitfalls are highlighted and...
World famous author and former police lieutenant T.M.Drake struggles with an agonizing literary dry spell after his wife's fatal bout with cancer in 1998. Now a widower in July of 2002, he battles with life itself, as well as the business of composition. Not a creative sentence on paper for months. That is, until Friday night, when neighbor Nicole Banks dies in a fiery explosion at her home one block down the street. The result of defective plumbing? Lana Sands, her workmate at a local...