Dialectic UCLA Law Review · Season 6: Introduction Welcome to Dialectic Season 6, Law, Media, and Social Advocacy.
When Does Questioning Related to Immigration Status Constitute a Miranda Interrogation?
Abstract This Essay puts forward a two-element argument that noncitizen defendants can use to establish that they have been interrogated for Miranda purposes when they have been questioned about their immigration status by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. I examine the briefing and decision in one defendant’s case to illustrate why this two-element argument matters, and why it...
Pandemic Possibilities: Rethinking Measures of Merit
Abstract The impact of the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States beginning in winter 2020 has simultaneously laid bare vast chasms of inequality in education and created a crisis in which radical reforms have become possible almost overnight. Schools, colleges and universities have dramatically changed how they admit, assess, and support their students; for example, the University...
Killing Due Process: Double Jeopardy, White Supremacy and Gang Prosecutions
Abstract The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution holds that no person shall be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offense. Read plainly, a person cannot be tried or punished more than once for a single crime. Yet in recent decades, as legislatures have expanded the prosecutorial state with weapons designed to punish more criminal defendants more harshly, the U.S. Supreme...
Introduction: Jailhouse Lawyering
Jailhouse lawyering has a long and radical tradition in the American prison system, and for decades, it has been recognized and protected by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Johnson v. Avery,[1] the Court struck down Tennessee’s restrictions on jailhouse lawyering because “it is fundamental that access of prisoners to the courts for the purpose of presenting their complaints may not be denied or...
Barriers to Jailhouse Lawyering
Abstract Jailhouse lawyers face unreasonable barriers to have their constitutional claims heard post-conviction. Courts, without adequate regard for the physical limitations inherent behind bars, place procedures over justice. *** They say that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. When you are poor and incarcerated, you often have no choice. Your right to appointment of...
Broken Systems: Function by Design
Abstract This Essay traces the roots of the criminal legal and immigration systems and explains my personal journey through these systems, as well as what I have observed about how they operate today. These systems are rooted in British and colonial laws, as well as Puritanism. The remnants of these practices still affect our systems today and show us that they are not broken but working...
Applying for Compassionate Release as a Pro Se Litigant
Abstract This Essay describes the importance of exhaustion of administrative remedies to filing petitions for compassionate release as a pro se litigant. The exhaustion requirement has traditionally functioned as a barrier to filing petitions in federal court. It can often take months or over a year to fulfill the exhaustion requirement, which means that people seeking compassionate release are...