Book Review: Madam Secretary

Review of Madeline Albright\u27s Memoir

Book Review: Forensic Linguistics

Review of John Gibbons\u27 text Forensic Linguistic

Entrapment and the Problem of Deterring Police Misconduct

Many the states currently use a version of the entrapment defense known as the “objective test,” which focuses solely on the extent of police overreaching in the case, and seeks to deter police misconduct by acquitting the defendant. Acquitting defendants as a means of deterring undercover police misconduct, however, is a public policy fraught with problems, and these problems have not been adequately addressed in the literature to date. This article applies the insights of modern deterrence theory to wrongful activity by police in undercover operations. In doing so, three general problems emerge. First, the objective test relies on an indirect or inverted form of deterrence, where the wrongdoer’s punishment consists entirely of a benefit or windfall conferred on a third party, the defendant. It is uncertain how such indirect deterrence factors into the decisionmaking process of police. Second, the objective test breaks down at the individual level. Individual officers may be pursuing less noble ends than the ultimate conviction of an arrestee, in which case the intended deterrence is inoperative. Third, and most significant, entrapment is not a constitutional defense, unlike the exclusionary rules, and therefore does not trigger the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine; this allows even conscientious police to risk a successful entrapment defense being raised by the accused, if there is the potential for “greater payoffs” in the form of discovering evidence of other crimes, deterring members of a criminal conspiracy, or incriminating third parties

Smart Guns, the Law, and the Second Amendment

Smart guns, which originally meant personalized guns that only the owner could fire, had a false start as a promising new technology several years ago. Nevertheless, policymakers have shown renewed interest in the wake of highly publicized incidents of gun violence, as well as advances in technology. The first generation of smart guns foundered on problems with the reliability of the technology, as well as a legislative misstep that would have banned all other guns as soon as smart guns appeared in the retail market. This proposal triggered massive boycotts of certain manufacturers and dealers and a subsequent abandonment of the project by the gun industry overall. Newer technologies, however, such as improved biometric grip identifiers, precision-guided rifles that rarely miss, blockchain or “glockchain” automated tracking, and optical scopes that send videos to smartphones, have revived interest in smart gun products. At least one state in 2019 (New Jersey) passed carefully drafted legislation promoting the introduction of personalized guns, while another (Arizona) passed legislation discouraging the adoption of digital ledgering technology for firearms. In addition, some leading candidates in the 2020 primary advocated for smart guns as a solution to gun violence. This paper will explore the emerging second-generation smart gun technology, its potential for adoption by the military, law enforcement, and civilian markets, and the realistic prospects for improvements in safety or reduction in gun violence. This discussion will include the disconnect between policy agendas regarding firearm safety and technological enhancements driven by current consumer demand—and the murky moral assumptions that undergird bot

Book Review: Analysis of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

First book review of Marco Olsen\u27s treatise, Analysis of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutant

Revisiting the Original Congressional Debates About the Second Amendment

Many scholars and courts have written about the historical background of the Second Amendment, either to emphasize its connection to state level citizen militias or to argue that the Amendment protects an individual right to own and carry guns for self-defense. While many authors have mentioned the original congressional debates about the Second Amendment, the literature is missing a thorough, point-by-point analysis of those debates, situating each statement in Congress within the context of the speaker’s background and political stances on issues overlapping with the right to keep and bear arms. This Article attempts to fill this gap by providing a methodical discussion of each comment or argument made in Congress when the Second Amendment was under consideration. This discussion addresses how each of the congressmen’s comments connect to public statements made by the same members of Congress in the months that followed on related topics: taxation and public debt related to militias, the supply of available firearms and their legal status as private or public property, the institution of slavery, westward expansion, and especially the complications for each of these issues posed by the Quakers, who became the center of attention during the debates about the Second Amendment. These original congressional debates have taken on more importance following the Supreme Court’s recent holding that courts should decide Second Amendment challenges based on historical evidence from the years immediately preceding and following ratification. While this Article does not take a position on current litigation over modern firearm regulations, the discussion here can offer courts and commentators new insights into the original public meaning of the Second Amendment