Volume 46, Issue 2

In the United States, so-called “rape shield” laws date back to the 1970s. These laws limit the type of evidence a criminal defendant may introduce with respect to an alleged victim in criminal sexual conduct cases. The purpose of such laws is to afford criminal sexual conduct victims “heightened protection against surprise, harassment, and unnecessary…

Mass incarceration, lengthy probationary periods, unreachable bail amounts, and felony criminal records feed the machine of our criminal justice system. The system is not broken; the assembly line of arrest, charge, conviction, and imprisonment is doing exactly what it was built to do. But this inherited system is a plague upon the cornerstone of the…

Both adults and youth who commit sex crimes may be mandated to register in their community as sex offenders. Depending on the laws governing the jurisdiction and the type of crime committed, a youth who commits a sex crime could be labeled a sex offender for the rest of their life. As minority youth, including…

“The ultimate promise of technology is to make us master of a world that we command by the push of a button.” As technology continues to develop at an exponential rate, eventually it will give humans the power to “eras[e] the boundary between the virtual world and the real-world.” Traditionally, there are two types of…

There may not be a more mysterious term in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence than “purpose.” In this context, purpose is generically defined as the reason or reasons an officer took certain action. It is understandable that courts would elect to focus heavily on an officer’s purpose. If we wish to deter bad actors and promote an…

In 2017, the Minnesota Legislature enacted statute section 171.177, which required blood and urine tests to determine blood alcohol concentrations be supported by a valid search warrant. Under this statute, drivers subjected to a warranted chemical test may lawfully refuse to submit fluid samples and thwart the administration of the chemical test. Thus, drivers suspected…