From sequels and spin-offs to physical merchandise, copyright and trademark law together give a creative work’s owner exclusive control over a range of derivative products. This Article argues that, under the right conditions, that control can tilt artistic investment away from standalone works and toward the ones that are most likely to generate future derivatives. It explores this phenomenon...
As helpful as new forms of centralized data collection might be for investigators, there remains a critical open issue: the systems were not designed to identify the exculpatory and impeaching material prosecutors are required to disclose under Brady v. Maryland. This Article is the first to examine the design flaw at the core of the intelligence-driven prosecution model – a flaw that creates a...
Abstract If a police officer pulls a person over for running a stop sign, the Fourth Amendment clearly applies. But if he sexually assaults a person in her home, in a noninvestigative setting, it generally does not. A substantive due process test—whether the officer’s conduct “shocks the conscience”—controls instead. This means more constitutional protection for officers and less for victims...
Abstract This Article takes immigration federalism “all-the-way-down” by focusing on two counties in Southern California—Los Angeles County and Orange County—to consider the role that subfederal governmental entities play in immigration enforcement. Part I synthesizes the existing literature on immigration federalism with particular attention to the role of sublocal, local, county and regional...
Abstract The influence of race on the administration of capital punishment had a major role in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Furman v. Georgia to invalidate death penalty statutes across the United States. To avoid discriminatory and capricious application of capital punishment, the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment requires legislatures to narrow the scope of capital...
Abstract Two historical episodes have indelibly influenced the development of Latinx identity and sense of belonging in the United States. During the Great Depression, state and local governments, with the support of the U.S. government, repatriated approximately one million persons of Mexican ancestry, including many U.S. citizen children and immigrant parents, to Mexico. Similarly, in 1954, the...
Abstract In Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the execution of a person with intellectual disability violates the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. After more than a decade of Atkins litigation, we perceived there to be a substantial risk that race influences intellectual disability—and consequently, life and death—determinations. Due to the difficulty of...
Abstract By the 1950s, the criminal justice system had long combined with other systems, institutions, and individuals to target all the residents of East LA—particularly Mexicans—as criminals. In equating Mexicans with criminality, these networked forces and actors regarded and treated these residents as exceptions—as morally requiring and legally meriting authoritarian rather than...
Abstract Contradicting widespread belief, scholarly research has confirmed that Mexican American (Latino/a/x) communities have lower levels of homicide than expected, given their high levels of economic disadvantage, residential instability, and rapid population change. But scholars are just beginning to explore the various social dynamics underlying this relationship at the community level for...
Abstract U.S. Highway 99 is often coined the Golden State Highway and the Main Street of California. The road originally extended from the U.S.–Mexico border all the way to the Oregon border while passing through the Central Valley. When you travel along this route, you pass a little over half of all California prisons. By using U.S. Highway 99 as an entry point, this Article is a topographical...
Abstract This Article builds upon literature on immigration surveillance, border control, and policing to explore the role of interoperable information systems and data sharing practices in the social control of immigrants from Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. Based upon an analysis of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents and statistical data, this Article examines two DHS...
Abstract The National Registry of Exonerations (the Registry) reports all known exonerations in the United States since 1989. Of the more than 2,400 exonerated defendants currently in the database, 281 are classified as Latinx. In many ways, their cases resemble those of other exonerees. The same factors that produced false convictions of non-Latinx defendants—including mistaken eyewitness...
Abstract Some recent state and federal sentencing studies have turned up an interesting puzzle: Contrary to a prominent sociological group threat theory, Latinx defendants seem to be punished most harshly relative to white defendants in court jurisdictions where Latinx populations are smallest. In this Article, we briefly review literature on punishment disparities between Latinx and white...
Abstract As the twenty-first century progresses, the influence of race, ethnicity, gender, and class in crime and punishment continues to be a pressing and polemic issue. With various antisocial control movements taking place, particularly in response to the Trump administration, the nature of crime and punishment is once again being redefined nationally and abroad. As in the past, this new...