Juris Magazine - Winter 2011

Winter 2011

The Duquesne law school newsmagazine

: w a L n o Comm is s y l a An An edia of M eptions nc o c s i M

Table of Contents Letter from the Editor........................................................ 1 From the Halls.................................................................... 2 Meet Robin Connors!........................................................ 4 An Interview with Adrian Roe, Adjunct Professor.......... 5

JURIS STAFF 2011-2012

Law Clinics: A Hands-On Approach to Shaping Legal Education................................................... 6

Editor-in-Chief: Kiran K. Patel

Law in the Media: Myth or Reality?.................................. 8

Executive EditorS: Jeffrey Fromknecht Brandon R. Keller

Taking the CSI out of the Medical Examiner............. 9 The CSI Effect.............................................................11 Reality Check: DNA Exonerations............................12 The Nancy Grace Effect: How the Media Molds Public Perception of the Criminal Justice System....13 Female TV Lawyers: Ladies or Tramps?....................14 Life of a Sports Lawyer.....................................................16 A Career in Public Interest Law: A Reaction to the Financial Meltdown or Charitable Motivation?............18 Modern Technology: Protecting Privacy on the Net..........................................................................20 What Kind of Establishment Clause is Appropriate for Religion in an Age of Science?.............21 Juris_Blog.......................................................................25

Managing Associate Editor: Gabriela Steier Web Editor: Daniel J. McGrane Associate Editors: Jessel August Costa, III Bridget Daley Michael McGraw Nathan Ward

Staff Writers: Ashley Bozewski Marissa Cocciolone Jennifer Dickquist Dana M. Giallonardo Edward Hirshberg Jesse Krueger Tim Miller Alicia Nealon John Price Blog Writers: Andrea Capasso Gabrielle Carbonara Eric Donato Elizabeth Hall Jeffrey Kranking Jacob Levine Mary O'Rourke John Sembrat Jenna Smith Emily Shaffer Faculty advisors: Assistant Dean Ella Kwisnek Professor Tara L. Willke

Letter from the Editor New developments in knowledge, technology, and culture have brought about changes in many aspects of our society, including laws and the legal system.

Our vast and complex legal system permeates nearly every aspect of American life; it is only natural to wonder about Americans’ perception of our modern legal system.

This year’s theme Kiran K. Patel for Juris, the modern American’s perception of the legal system, grew organically among the public, exposing the people’s perceptions about the legal system and discussing how law can better meet our nation’s needs. Our arrival at this theme should not be surprising, given the public uproar over financial, political, and socioeconomic institutions, intensified by the recent Occupy Wall Street movement.

The modern American legal system has been molded through the collection of a vast quantity of verbiage about the history and content of America, and it is often difficult to understand how our legal system became such a jumbled entity. With 50 separate state governments and court hierarchies beneath the federal level, the American legal system is more complex than that of any other nation, and our country has more lawyers than any other by far. It is a monument to human ingenuity and social cooperation; however, the general public is not impressed with the system. In fact, most people consider it to be appallingly excessive.

Almost since the advent of television, legal scholars and practitioners alike have contemplated the impact of laworiented entertainment programming. Research suggests that a majority of people in the United States form much of their impressions and knowledge of our legal system based on what they see and hear in the media. As cultural products, television programs and images are conceived as reflections of society.

Consequently, during the last decade, scholars have begun investigating the impact of pop cultural representations of law, such as dramatic and reality shows, on the public. Legal fictions, such as the “CSI” effect and the Nancy Grace effect,

were spawned from this reflection theory. The “CSI” effect, for example, has been labeled a 13th juror, informing the layperson’s expectations and beliefs about the efficacy of the particular form of evidence and the conduct of trials.

We explored a variety of other legal issues affected by the media, mainly how women in law are perceived and how the media contributes to that perception; privacy on the Internet and the law’s constant struggle to keep up; and the Medical Examiner’s office and clearing up myths created by media.

Building on the public theme, we explored public interest law and its increasing popularity among law school graduates in addition to the importance of clinical work in law schools and its benefit to the public. Law school graduates are increasingly aware of the importance of public interest law and not just as a result of the economic downturn, but genuine desire to help people in need by providing them access to justice. Working in the public sector can be a valuable stepping stone to other career opportunities, much like clinical experiences in law school. As the world and the legal profession change, law schools must prepare the next generation to fulfill the roles as our advocates and leaders. Clinical work allows a student to gain a strong foundation in legal theory, learn the skills necessary for success in the changing legal profession, and gain awareness of their ethical and public service responsibilities.

These points represent only a few of the questions explored in this issue of Juris. As the media and other external factors continue to have an influence on the law, the public and their perceptions of the justice system will have a direct impact on our future. It is important to always explore the underlying legal issues and perspectives presented by these influences. By doing so, we can continue to grow both in our legal system and our nation.

Kiran K. Patel is the Editor-in-Chief of JURIS. He is a third-year law student at Duquesne University School of Law. He is also the Executive Research Editor of the Duquesne Business Law Journal and a member of the American Bar Association, American Intellectual Property Law Association, Pennsylvania Bar Association, Allegheny County Bar Association and the Bucks County Bar Association. His academic concentration is in international intellectual property law.

He works at the Civil and Family Justice Law Clinic in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas Pro Se Motions Program. Kiran received his Bachelor of Science degree with honors from Drexel University in Philadelphia majoring in biology and sociology, in May 2008. He can be reached at kiran.kanti.patel@gmail.com.

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From The

Halls

By John Price, Staff Writer This year is proving to be full of promise for the students and alumni of Duquesne University School of Law. It is amazing that since the first classes in 1911, Duquesne University School of Law continues to embody the long-standing traditions of excellence and service to the community through continued accomplishments and events every year.

Showcasing our law school’s proud and distinguished alumni, the Dedication of the Judges Wall on August 18 reminds us that over its 100-year history, Duquesne Law School alumni have proudly continued Duquesne’s emphasis on “justice and service to others.” This event was held to dedicate a permanent display in the law school in honor of those 136 Duquesne Law alumni who have served as judges on various state and federal courts throughout the country. During the dedication, the Hon. Ronald D. Castille, chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and the Hon. Michael E. McCarthy, Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas judge, made special remarks lauding the Law School.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia spoke to an excited crowd at Duquesne in September 2011 as part of the Law School’s Centennial weekend. The weekend was capped off by the Gala Centennial dinner and reception, where many alumni and supporters of the Law School filled the Duquesne Ballroom to celebrate the Law School’s 100th birthday.

Row 1: Stephanie Jones, Chris Bradley, Elizabeth Brokaw, Justice Antonin Scalia, Joseph Pometto, Bridget Daley, Brendan McKenna Row 2: Lara Rausch, Jonathan Curtis, Ryan Sayers, Ben Hantz, Ed Pollock, Andrew Stiffler, Tucker Bair, John Bonaccorsi, Amy Tardiff Row 3: Cassidy Miller, Devlin Fisher, Giambattista Patti, Peter Biscontini, John Price, Jim Dilmore, Krista Barron, Carolyn Slayton, Cathy Cartieri Mehl From left to right: Justice Ronald D. Castille, Dean Ken Gormley, University President Charles J. Dougherty, Ph.D., Hon. Michael E. McCarthy, and wall sponsor Paul J. Gitnik, Esq.

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This year has proven rewarding not only for our alumni, but also for our current students in providing assistance and service to others. Jonathan Steele, a third-year day student, was recently awarded first place at the American Bar Association Section of Litigation “Good Works Law Student” competition. The competition focuses on increasing access to justice. Jonathan envisioned an interactive website in which parents, teachers, and others could receive answers directly from special education experts. Being passionate about the concerns of special-needs children, Jonathan wanted a forum where these groups could access answers to both complex and simple legal questions.

Jonathan entered this competition with the hopes of receiving funds to bring his project to fruition. After registering, Jonathan was informed that he was selected as a finalist for the grand prize along with two other teams, one from Temple University Beasley School of Law and the other from Fordham University School of Law. Jonathan traveled to Dana Point, Calif., where he gave a two-minute presentation

about the website in front of 200 members of the American Bar Association’s Section of Litigation. Following an interview in California, the competition committee selected Jonathan as the grand prize winner, creating the opportunity for him to expand his website and pursue his career focus in special education. Further information regarding his website, The Student Advocate, can be found at www.thestudentadvocate.com.

In October, the Student Bar Association hosted the 13th Annual Katie Westbrook Race Ipsa Loquitur 5k Walk & Run. The annual race is dedicated to the memory of Katie Westbrook, who, at the age of 13, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. Even from a very young age, Katie dreamed of one day becoming a lawyer. After her diagnosis, she contacted faculty members at Duquesne with the hopes of making her dream a reality. On June 3, 2001, just hours before Katie was to receive an honorary degree, she lost her battle with cancer at the age of 15. Katie touched the hearts of all privileged enough to meet her and showed how truly brave a young girl could be.

Devlin Fisher, president of the Student Bar Association, noted that the Katie Westbrook race is “one of the most important events” the Student Bar Association is involved in with respect to “directly benefiting law students.” All

proceeds are donated to the SBA Centennial Endowed Fund, with the goal of providing awards for law students who demonstrate the same “courage, charisma, and compassion” as Katie for the law profession. More information is available through the Student Bar Association’s web page, www.duq.edu/sba.

“You might not know this now, but you are making Pittsburgh history!” was the introductory welcome by Audrey J. Murrell, director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh School of Business and host of “The Great Case Competition.” Modeled after the popular TV series “The Amazing Race,” the competition was open to law, business and public policy students from seven schools.

Contestants answered complex ethical fact patterns and raced to different locations between the University of Pittsburgh’s law and business schools to submit their answers. Four of our thirdyear students beat 56 other contestants to the final challenge.

In the final round, Team “The Dukes” (Joseph D’Amico and

Mark Troyan) and “Team G&K” (Gabriela Steier and Kiran K. Patel) had 15 minutes to create a PowerPoint presentation and five minutes to present their take on ethical violations by the Lennar Corporation to an audience of professionals in the finance industry.

Kiran K. Patel told Juris that “Professor Ron Ricci encouraged us to participate,” and his team-partner Gabriela Steier continued, “and we wanted to make him proud.” Ricci, professor of law at the Duquesne University School of Law, was happy to see four of his students as finalists. The Dukes won the second prize ($1,500) and Team G&K the third prize ($500).

Bravo!

John M. Price is a Staff Writer for JURIS. He is currently the VicePresident of the Duquesne University School of Law Student Bar Association and will graduate in June 2013. Prior to law school, John attended The Pennsylvania State University, Smeal College of Business, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing. He can be reached at pricej1@duq.edu.

From left: The Great Case Competition, October 13, 2011, winners Mark Troyan (3L), Joseph D’Amico (3L), Kiran K. Patel (3L) and Gabriela Steier (3L).

Gabriela Steier is the Managing Associate Editor for JURIS, research assistant for Professor Jane C. Moriarty and author of several publications. Her academic concentration lies in food and health care law combined with international intellectual property and commercial law. She earned her Bachelor of Arts at Tufts University in Boston in 2007, with a major in English and a minor in studio art, and she will graduate from Duquesne University School of Law in June of 2012. She can be reached at gabi.steier@gmail.com.

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From The

Halls Meet Robin Connors!

By Dana Giallonardo, Staff Writer

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Coordinator of Student Organizations for the Law School

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Born and raised in Pittsburgh

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Earned her Business Communications degree from Duquesne University

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Currently working toward her Masters in Liberal Studies at Duquesne

Robin Connors, new Student Organizations Coordinator, is by no means new to Duquesne University. Prior to working at the Law School, Connors worked in the Student Accounts Office for over three years.

“I think Duquesne is in my blood. I love the university,” Connors said. “My father-in-law was here during the war years. He is the one who inspired me to come to Duquesne.

There is something special here. You can feel it when you walk on campus.”

Many students know Connors’ name because of the e-mail blasts she sends throughout the week, but few know that Connors is essentially the point-person for every student club or activity at the Law School. She is a liaison between the organizations, students and faculty and helps students in their respective organizations plan and execute events.

As for Connors’ future goals for student organizations at the Law School, she said, “I’d really like to see the student organizations get their day in the spotlight that they deserve, because they do amazing things.

“If any student has an idea for a new organization, they can certainly come to me and we can get something going if they want to start an organization that we don’t currently have,” she said.

For now, with a cheery disposition and genuine interest in helping students in their respective organizations, she urges students to get more involved.

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“My office is always open,” Connors said. “I would love to meet first-year students and let them know about the organizations that are available. I know we could match them with something.”

Dana Giallonardo is a Staff Writer for JURIS. She earned her undergraduate degree from Lehigh University in 2010, where she majored in Journalism, minored in Communications and Creative Writing, and was an Assistant Editor on the Brown and White student newspaper. Dana will graduate from Duquesne University School of Law in June of 2013. She can be reached at Giallonardod@duq.edu.

Robin Connors looks on as Cassidy MIller (4E), President of the Animal Law Society, receives a donation to support a no-kill animal shelter from Jeff Fromknecht (4E). Fromknecht and his cousin, Adam Causgrove, hosted a tailgate party this summer to raise funds for local charities.

An Interview with:

Adrian Roe,

Adjunct Professor

By Tim Miller, Staff Writer

The Duquesne University School of Law is home to a vast array of talented adjunct professors. These professors continue practicing throughout the Pittsburgh area. Yet they also take time from their busy schedules to teach a variety of courses at the law school. One of those professors, Adrian Roe, began working as an adjunct in 2009. He attended Johns Hopkins University and Boston University School of Law. Roe lives in a Pittsburgh suburb with his wife (who also is an attorney) and their three children.

How did you get involved in teaching at Duquesne University School of Law? When I first moved to Pittsburgh, in 1991, I worked as an associate at Mansmann Cindrich & Titus. A number of years later, I had handled several free speech cases, and Professor Gormley invited me to tell some “war stories” during a session of his First Amendment course. I spoke during a few classes taught by Dean Gormley and then had the opportunity to co-teach the Civil Rights Litigation Clinic with Acting Director Tracey McCants Lewis.

Can you give some details about the class you teach and why you teach it?

Both the U.S Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania have student practice rules. The courts allow students (who satisfy certain criteria and with the written consent of the client) to prepare and file papers, and actually appear in federal court, under the supervision of a licensed and duly admitted attorney. (Duquesne is one of the few law schools in the commonwealth that regularly receives appointments from the Third Circuit.)

The clinic gives the students firsthand experience in handling cases in federal court. The cases consist almost exclusively of prisoner civil rights or habeas corpus cases.

They pose a score of issues under the courts’ rules, and under the civil rights laws and federal Constitution. I tell the students on the first day of the class that a civil rights case is basically like any other case and that if they can learn to litigate a civil rights case they will have taken an important step in learning to litigate any other type of case.

Two students in the clinic have argued cases before three-judge panels of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Four other students have argued dispositive motions in federal district court. Last year most of the students in the clinic took or defended at least one deposition. All of the students have learned how to prepare and file a complex filing in federal court. I emphasize that the rules are the roadmap for a quality court filing and encourage the students to adhere strictly to the rules while trying to develop creative arguments.

What do you like most about teaching at the law school?

Working with the enthusiastic students. The vast majority of the students are totally “into” their cases. The enthusiasm for the cases cuts across ideological lines such that you will find liberal and conservative students working together to advocate for a prisoner’s rights.

What is your day job?

I am in private practice in Pittsburgh. My firm, Law Office of Adrian N. Roe P.C., is located in the Gulf Tower across the street from the federal courthouse. I typically represent plaintiffs in cases pending in federal court. Substantive areas of practice include class actions and, of course, civil rights.

Tim Miller is a fourth-year student at the Duquesne University School of Law and a Staff Writer for JURIS. He is a graduate of American University. He can be reached at millert1@duq.edu.

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Law Clinics:

A Hands-On Approach to Shaping Legal Education

By Marissa Cocciolone, Staff Writer Expectations for the first-year associate have changed. In today’s job market, newly minted lawyers need to hit the ground running, leaving new attorneys faced with a greater amount of responsibility than in previous eras. Because of this shift in expectations, an increasing number of law students participate in clinics to help them prepare for their first year as hired associates. Over the past few decades, clinics in law schools have transformed not only the caliber of students, but also the expectations of employers, all while maintaining the overarching goal: a balance of granting students experience while serving the public.

Clinical legal education has been a topic of interest among legal educators since 1910, but it wasn’t until the latter part of the 20th century that law clinics solidified their foothold in the academic world.1 From the 1960s to the 1990s, the combination of external funding, development of clinical teaching methodology and demands for social relevance in law schools gave rise to an upswing of clinical education programs in law schools across the country.2 Now, most firms look for experiential education on candidates’ resumes. Today’s hiring lawyers have an entirely different view on the meaning of experiential learning, partially because they are not far removed from academia. They understand the new methodology of developed clinics, and can appreciate how these institutions hone skills while providing a solid foundation of relevant knowledge.

With experience in the public and private sectors, Duquesne University School of Law Dean Ken Gormley understands what current employers look for in potential new associates: “I think

you learn more about the courses if you see the connection with reality. Employers are going to want to see people who can assist them right away. The more a new associate is able to take some of the actual burden off of them, by being able to do some of the work, the more attractive that new associate is. And that has a direct relationship with the experience gained by a clinical legal education.”

Employers are not the only catalyst for the promotion of clinics. The American Bar Association is currently considering new standards that require all law schools to place greater emphasis on skills training. The ABA, like many employers, espouses the idea that students should graduate prepared to do practical things, and the ABA sees a deficit in that area. In response to this expected change, law schools across the nation have placed great emphasis on the development of their clinical legal programs, adding dozens of options.

Duquesne University’s Law Clinic has been in place for over two decades and, as the dean puts it, is “leading the pack” in the field of clinical legal experience. The mission of the clinic is to serve the community by providing good counsel, to train students in the actual practice of law and to promote the rewards of public service.

Tracey McCants Lewis, acting director of the Law Clinic at Duquesne, carries out this mission by challenging students to face real legal and social issues posed by impoverished clients.

“Students who take a clinic course graduate having practical experience in a wide variety of legal subject matters,” said Professor McCants Lewis. For example, students enrolled in the Bill of Rights Clinic seize the opportunity to visit federal court;

Photo: 2011 Summer Public Interest Fellowship Program (SPIF) Fellows and Public Interest Law Association (PILA) Award recipients.

Sponsored by the Law Clinic and PILA, recipients receive financial support for spending their summers working in the public interest. Row 1: Robert Hartley, Lauren Catalano, Estie Lynn Carlson, Ian Beitler, Rory Driscole, Joshua Gallo, Daniel Gleixner, Matthew Koning Row 2: Dominique Sciullo, Linda Postol, Amanda Ponzurick, Jenna Miller, Elsbeth Koefer 6

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not to observe, but to litigate. Over the past two years, students have presented oral argument before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals in their representation of federal prisoners who filed pro se federal civil rights claims.

Students who take advantage of the clinic have been able to land jobs as a result of their newfound practical skills. “A few years ago, one of our students secured a summer position with a law firm’s E-Discovery Group, based upon the experience she gained in the E-Discovery Simulation course offered in the Clinic,” Professor McCants Lewis stated. More recently, two students who had enrolled in the Unemployment Compensation Clinic were hired to defend unemployment compensation claims for a company as a result of their clinical experience.

One of the most significant moments for clinic students is when they have the opportunity to develop a professional relationship with a real client. As Professor McCants Lewis points out, “When students have an opportunity to sit across the table and look into the eyes of a client and hear their story firsthand, it makes a difference. There is empathy and understanding that their actions will have a direct impact on the life of that client.”

This clinical work pays off not only for law students, but for the Greater Pittsburgh community as a whole. “The students in our clinic help countless citizens who do not typically have access to legal services,” Professor McCants Lewis stated. For instance, students in the Unemployment Compensation Clinic assist people on a daily basis who are struggling financially after being terminated from their employment. The number of clients served by this clinic is remarkable. “Based upon the current economic climate,” Professor McCants Lewis noted, “the students in the Unemployment Compensation Clinic are on track to serve more than 90 clients this year.”

To ensure that students continue to make an impact through clinical education, the Law School approved measures to further encourage students to sign up. In the past, students were limited by the number of “non-traditional” credits they were permitted to take. Dean Gormley noted that by recently approving an increased allowance of those non-traditional credits, the law school has enabled students to do more clinical work.

“When students have an opportunity to sit across the table and look into the eyes of a client and hear their story firsthand, it makes a difference.”

– Tracy McCants Lewis

“The clinics are a perfect way to begin to get students used to the idea that serving others should be a part of what you do as a Duquesne Law graduate,” Dean Gormley explained. “Even if it doesn’t end up being your full-time work for the rest of your career, it should be a piece of your identity: serving others with one’s legal talents, others who are less fortunate, and who otherwise couldn’t afford to gain access to legal services.”

Excited for the clinic’s future, the dean concluded by saying, “The more we enable students to get hands-on experience while simultaneously learning the law and helping others, whether it be clients or the government as leaders in society, then we’re doing what we as lawyers are meant to do.”

Marissa Cocciolone is a Staff Writer for JURIS. She is also a representative for BarBri and a law clerk for Rewis & Yoder, P.C. Marissa earned her undergraduate degree at Washington & Jefferson College in 2009, where she majored in English and Professional Writing, and will graduate from Duquesne University School of Law in June of 2012. She can be reached at marissa.cocciolone@gmail.com.

1. Margaret Martin Barry, Jon C. Dubin and Peter A. Joy Clinical Education for This Millennium: The Third Wave, 7 Clinical L. Rev. 1, 12 (2000).

2. Id. at 17.

Bill of Rights, Civil Rights Litigation Clinic From left to right: Andrew Nagurney, Joseph Ferguson, Ian Beitler, Jordan Hettrich, Brandon Keller

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THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES ARE RATED

M FOR MISCONCEPTION: Welcome to the JURIS Channel, where the legal system is riveting and sexy; where the bad guys are thrown in the slammer and the good guys are freed by a George Clooney-esque lawyer with a breathtaking closing statement and a jaw line that could slice bread. Our medical examiners have badges, handguns, and 6-inch heels. Our newscasters play judge, jury, and executioner.

Do our public trials and legal pundits warp our perception of legal reality? Do our crime scene investigator shows infect jury pools by raising our expectations of crime scene evidence? Honestly, we don’t care. The viewers eat this stuff up, regardless of its truth. But for those of you who are curious, JURIS Channel presents the following articles on how the media affects your understanding of the legal system.

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e h t g n i k Ta e h t f o t CSI ou r e n i m a x E l a c i d e M

By Jennifer Dickquist, Staff Writer

Cue “Who Are You” by The Who. We all have seen the TV show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” along with its various spinoffs. In case you haven’t, these shows give the viewer a look at the world of crime scene investigations from the eyes of the police, the medical examiners, and lab technicians. Still, the question remains: How accurate are the depictions in these types of shows? I sat down with Dr. Karl Williams, the medical examiner in Allegheny County, to break down what actually happens in this medical examiner's office. While shows like “CSI” and “Law & Order” are entertaining, they are not always accurate.

Dr. Karl Williams, M.D., Allegheny County Medical Examiner

Myth #1: Money is no object.

False. When watching shows like “CSI” and “Law & Order,” the ME’s offices seem to have unlimited funds.

The technology is bigger and better, the salaries are larger, and hundreds of tests can be run on a single drop of blood. However, this is not the case. Most medical examiner offices are controlled and funded by the government. Funds are not unlimited. In fact, many of these offices are underfunded. Dr. Williams said that one of the biggest concerns in his office is the funding. The lack of funding makes it difficult to buy the expensive equipment that is necessary to perform some of the vital tests in an investigation. According to Department of Justice statistics, the mean operating budget for a county medical examiner officer was $715,000 in 2004. Since money is an object, unlimited tests cannot be run, huge staffs cannot be put together, and nobody is getting rich quick off the work that they do.

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Myth #2: Technology is state of the art.

True. Dr. Williams gave me a tour of the facilities and reported that the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office has the most up to date technology.

While this may not be true in more rural offices, the Allegheny County lab has stayed up on the newest technologies and tests that can be run. The lab has the ability to isolate DNA out of a mixed sample, which is a relatively young technology. Allegheny County maintains the newest equipment in order to perform these new, up-and-coming tests. The office has electronic microscopes with computers attached, the DNA machine and a toxicology machine. While the Allegheny County lab can perform the same tasks as a “CSI” TV lab, “CSI” does show some technology that does not exist. “CSI” shows the ability to inject samples directly into the machines in order to perform various tests. This, however, is not how it works. DNA and blood samples have to be placed into tubes or onto slides in order to get tested. Also, results are not instantaneous as the TV would like you to believe. While time is condensed on TV, toxicology results can take four to six weeks for an entire workup. The lab also gets 100 cases a week that need DNA tests. While the process is expedited by technology such as computers, you are still not going to get results by the end of the hour.

Myth #3: Fancy lab and fancy clothes.

False. While the lab is up to date, it is by no means fancy. In “CSI,” there are fancy touchscreen monitors and large 40-inch TVs everywhere. However, this is not the way the actual lab looks. There are no oversized monitors. Plain Dell desktops hooked up to various machines in order to document the results are the norm. There were no iPads or wireless remotes to enlarge samples and results on a jumbo-tron. The walls were white and the floor was white. There was nothing overly glamorous between the lab or the people. Most employees were dressed in business casual and nobody had on designer labels.

Myth #4: The ME's office is tied to the police department.

False. On “CSI,” it seems as though the medical examiner’s office is within the police department or closely associated with the department. On “Law & Order: SVU” it looks like the ME’s office is in the

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The Firearm Reference Library Collection at the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office. There are over 400 guns in the collection, which are used for ballistic testing.

basement of the SVU office. However, this is not the case! Dr. Williams explained that the medical examiner’s office is completely independent of the police department and District Attorney’s office. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner is located in the Strip District, which is a number of blocks from the District Attorney and the courthouse. It is also not crawling with officers as typically portrayed on TV. Dr. Williams said that the ME’s office attempts to maintain an apolitical stance.

Funding does come from the federal government, which can make maintaining an apolitical stance difficult.

However, it is a goal of the ME’s office to provide objective analysis of crime scene data. The goal is to stick to the science and the facts.

Dr. Williams stated that this was not the case in the past. Medical examiners would get on the stand and base their results on the fact that they have been working in the field for 20 years. With the implementation of new technology, results have become objective, which allows the ME’s office to maintain its apolitical nature. In addition, greater governmental regulation, developed by the National Academy of Sciences, has helped to establish objective standards across the country.

Myth #5: Medical examiners go to all crime scenes.

False and True. A victim is found on “CSI.” The ME van comes flying up to the scene and all the lab technicians jump out of the truck with badges and guns at the ready. This part of “CSI” is incredibly inaccurate.

The medical examiner may or may not be present at a crime scene. The police department that is heading the investigation typically collects all the relevant evidence and brings it to the ME’s office after the scene is processed. The lab technicians do not have badges or guns that they carry around with them, and they typically do all their work inside the lab. While an ME can go to a crime scene if it is required, and do work in conjunction with the police department's investigation team, the real decisions are determined in the lab.

The

CSI

“Lawyers and judges worry with the forensic shows on television that juries expect there to be forensic evidence in any significant case . . .” said Duquesne School of Law Professor Kenneth Hirsh recently describing the CSI Effect in a local newspaper.1 The CSI Effect is a phenomenon named after the popular television show, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” by which crime and legal television programs, largely focused on elaborate forensic evidence, have increased the standard of proof that a prosecutor must present during trial to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.2 Debuting in 2000, “CSI” quickly became one of the most popular television shows in America. The show is a crime and legal drama focusing on the use of forensic science and anthropology to solve crimes and to bring criminals to television justice. The television program’s widespread viewership and depiction of seemingly realistic criminal and legal situations led some commentators to suggest that viewers were inclined to perceive the legal system differently than viewers who had not watched the series.

Several newspapers published articles alleging that a connection existed between the show and the way its viewers perceived evidence in the legal system, most notably as jurors. These news outlets suggested that jurors may have unrealistic expectations regarding evidence in criminal trials and postulated that jurors were more likely to have a reasonable doubt in the absence of forensic evidence presented on shows like “CSI.”3 In a recent study 79% of prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges surveyed believed the CSI effect to be real and to impact juries.4 This stands in contrast to empirical research, which tends to suggest the opposite.

Few scientific studies have actually linked the increase in popularity of crimes-solving shows with acquittal rates.5 Simon A. Cole and Rachel Dioso-Villa authors of Investigating the ‘CSI Effect’ Effect: Media and Litigation Crisis in Criminal Law suggest that inclusive within the CSI Effect are actually several types of smaller “effects.”

These smaller effects all describe ways in which programs like “CSI” may possibly affect various aspects of crime and law, from the initial criminal act to the resulting trial

Effect

By Ashley Bozewski, Staff Writer

A Medical Examiner’s Office employee analyzes ballistic evidence using a comparison microscope.

including: the strong prosecutor effect, and the weak prosecutor effect, among others.6 Such effects may alter various aspects of the justice system by influencing juror expectations, altering the way lawyers question potential jurors during voire dire, altering the perceived credibility of witnesses, and educating viewers on advancements in technology.

Cole and Dioso-Villa find that the CSI Effect most commonly referenced by the media is the Strong Prosecutor’s Effect. This subsection of the CSI Effect describes the effect of crime solving dramatic television shows to alter jurors’ behavior by increasing their expectations of evidence which leads to higher acquittal rates.7 While studies note a general increase in acquittals since “CSI” and similar programs gained popularity among viewers, Cole and Dioso-Villa suggest that acquittal rates have been rising since before such television programs ever hit viewers’ television screens.8 The CSI Effect describes an interesting, yet controversial, cultural phenomenon which should it exist may affect the way that jurors view evidence during trial, and therefore how evidence is presented. Accounting for the potential of the effect, the well-prepared attorney can try to counteract the effect.

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For example, Professor Hirsch notes that not all crimes result in police dusting for fingerprints and gathering DNA evidence for an investigation. Therefore, television watching-related bias a person may bring into the jury box, may be overcome by a prosecutor’s closing statement with reference to the requirements to establish each element of a crime and its existence in the issue at bar.

Ashley Bozewski is a fourth-year evening student. She is a 2008 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with degrees in Anthropology and Classics. Ashley can be reached at bozewskia@duq.edu.

1 KDKA Pittsburgh, Legal Expert: Casey Anthony Jurors Possibly Affected By ‘CSI Effect’. http://pittsburgh.cbslocal. com/2011/07/06/legal-expert-casey-anthony-jurors-possiblyaffected-by-csi-effect/ (July 6, 2011)

2 Simon A. Cole & Rachel Dioso-Villa, Investigating the ‘CSI Effect’: Media and Litigation Crisis in Criminal Law, 61 Stan.

L. Rev. 1335, 1336 (2009).

3 Tom R. Tyler, Viewing CSI and the Threshold of Guild: Managing Truth and Justice in Reality and Fiction, 115 Yale L.J. 1050, 1052 (2006).

4 Hon. Donald E. Shelton, Young S. Kim, and Gregg Barak, An Indirect-Effects Model of Mediated Adjudication: The CSI Myth, the Tech Effect, and Metropolitan Jurors’ Expectations for Scientific Evidence, 12 Vand. J. Entern. & Tech. 1, 42 (2009).

5 See Cole & Dioso-Villa, 61 Stan. L. Rev. at 1362-3.

6 Id. at 1343-4.

7 Tyler, 115 Yale L.J. at 1064.

8 Cole & Dioso-Villa, 61 Stan. L. Rev. at 1362-3 (2009).

Reality Check:

DNA Exonerations “[T]he most fundamental principle of American jurisprudence” is “that an innocent man not be punished for the crimes of another.”

These words from our Commonwealth’s Superior Court inspire Professor John Rago’s work both in and out of the classroom. In addition to founding the Post-Conviction DNA Project at Duquesne, Professor Rago chairs Pennsylvania’s Advisory Committee on Wrongful Convictions. In September 2011, the committee proposed legislation to the Senate Judiciary Committee with the goal of reducing wrongful convictions in Pennsylvania.

Among the committee’s proposed changes are amendments to Pennsylvania’s laws on post-conviction access to DNA testing for petitioners who maintain their innocence.

These changes include a clarification of a convict’s right to petition for DNA testing post-conviction and an elimination of the current time requirement for petitioners to access DNA testing if that testing could exonerate the petitioner.

According to the committee’s report, the ultimate goal of the proposed changes is to “allow courts to summarily dismiss frivolous and repetitive, successive petitions while authorizing them to adjudicate any petition to test DNA post-conviction if required in the interests of justice.”

Thus far, 11 convicts have been exonerated on the basis of DNA in Pennsylvania.

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By Brandon Keller, Executive Editor

Professor John Rago stands with Kirk Bloodsworth after his presentation to Rago’s Wrongful Convictions class.

Mr. Bloodsworth is the first death-row inmate exonerated

by DNA evidence in the United States. He spent nine years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

The Nancy Grace Effect: How the Media Molds Public Perception of the Criminal Justice System

By Nathan Ward, Associate Editor

“Somewhere out there, the devil is dancing tonight.”

Those are the words Nancy Grace used to open her HLN show following Casey Anthony’s acquittal of murder, an outcome Grace called a “stunning blow to justice.”

Grace was not alone, however, in her opinion that the system got it wrong. According to Rasmussen Reports, nearly nine out of 10 Americans are familiar with the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, and 61 percent of them believe Anthony is guilty of murder. So, how did the general public come to a conclusion so different from that of the 12 individuals responsible for deciding the outcome of this case?

For one thing, there were two very different sources shaping these conflicting opinions. The jury saw all the evidence presented in this case, heard weeks of testimony, and witnessed firsthand the tactics and strategies of both the prosecution and defense teams, before concluding there was reasonable doubt that Anthony was guilty of murder. The American public, for the most part, based its opinion on the endless sensationalized coverage on multiple cable news shows, and none more than the Grace’s show.

Grace’s brash outspokenness on criminal justice matters was formed long before Casey Anthony became a household name. It started when, as Grace claims, she became a victim of crime after her fiance was murdered while she was a 19-year-old undergrad at a Georgia university. This led to a drastic change in career paths, from English professor to felony prosecutor and crusader for victims’ rights.

Her prosecutorial record, while at a 100 percent success rate at trial, was not blemish-free. The Supreme Court of Georgia twice commented negatively on her conduct in overturning her convictions, noting in one case that she exceeded the latitude given to closing arguments by drawing comparisons to unrelated murder and rape cases. In another, they chastised her

for demonstrating borderline illegal conduct and an inexcusable disregard for the notions of due process and fairness. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals also admonished her for playing fast and loose with her ethical duties in knowingly using false testimony from a police witness. It appears this very behavior was carried over to Grace’s television persona.

Numerous legal analysts and commentators have criticized Grace’s “guilty until proven innocent” judge-and-jury style for the way it erodes the public’s respect for the criminal justice system. Some of the cases Grace has covered have proven that criticism justified. Richard Ricci was one man “convicted” in the court of Nancy Grace. In 2002, he was a prime suspect in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. Grace repeatedly stated her certainty of his guilt, based solely on his criminal record and his past work on the Smart’s home. She additionally proclaimed Ricci’s girlfriend guilty of covering up his “crime.” Two other individuals were ultimately convicted of the kidnapping, and Ricci died before his name was cleared.

Grace was also vehement in her certainty that members of the Duke University lacrosse team gang-raped Crystal Mangum in 2006. On show after show, Grace declared as fact whatever

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story District Attorney Mike Nifong said to be true, despite the glaring holes in the case. She even berated a guest’s suggestion that the evidence was flimsy and created reasonable doubt as something out of Nazi Germany. However, when the charges were eventually dropped and the story was proven false, a substitute host aired that news. Grace has never mentioned the case again.

Even so, no story has received more play on Grace’s show than that of Casey Anthony. For three years, Grace provided endless commentary on the guilt of the woman she proclaimed “Tot Mom.” And for those who would doubt the impact of that coverage on the American public, the numbers speak for themselves. The ratings for HLN in the month of June, at the height of the trial, put the network in second place among cable news. It was the highest ratings in the history of the channel.

They even made a serious prime-time challenge to Fox News, the No. 1 cable news network, in the coveted 25–54 age group.

In contrast, HLN’s ratings just before the start of the trial in May were mired in a double-digit slump.

Defense attorneys have begun to take notice. Attorneys Nareg Gourjian and Edward Chernoff argued in Los Angeles Superior Court that the jury in the Dr. Conrad Murray trial should have been sequestered from the danger of sensationalized media coverage of the trial, singling out Grace’s “character assassination” during the Casey Anthony saga. In responding to the idea that her show would bias a jury, Grace stated, “I guess that makes us, umm … the good guys!” Those who believe in a fair criminal justice system, one where a defendant is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, might see things otherwise.

Nathan Ward is an Associate Editor of JURIS. He is also a certified legal intern in the Duquesne Law School Bill of Rights Clinic and a law clerk at Burns White, LLC. A magna cum laude graduate of Point Park University with a B.A. in English, Nathan spent time in the advertising and tech industries before entering law school. He will graduate from the Duquesne University School of Law in 2012 and can be reached at natejward@gmail.com.

Female TV Lawyers:

Ladies or Tramps?

By Gabriela Steier, Managing Associate Editor

In one word: Neither! They are only entertainers.

Female lawyers on TV are interesting because they are stylized and rehearsed exaggerations played by famous actresses, either as darling and ditsy, or sexy and sly caricatures of women. But no one would want to be represented in court by Elle Woods!

Society’s confidence in lawyers is known to be on a downward slope. Could it be based on a wrong impression people get from TV lawyers? To restore some of the confidence in the legal profession, I will debunk the top three female TV lawyer myths.

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TV Myth # 1: They are pretty, skinny ladies who win cases by turning heads. A little outdated but excellent example is Ally McBeal (Calista Flockhart) in the fictional Boston law firm Cage and Fisch. The sexy attorney finds herself distressed about love and dating during work breaks in the firm’s restroom. But, did she ever really work on the show? Compare the new twist on female lawyer caricatures in the show “Drop Dead Diva” starring Jane (Brooke Elliott), a ditsy model in the body of a chubby lawyer.

Jane is not a gorgeous vamp, but she is still consumed by love and dating. Like Ally McBeal, she is never really working on the show either. But the truth is, female lawyers must balance their private lives and work a whole lot! They invest many hours of research into the one moment-to-shine in court. Or better, many long days of transactional work and intense strategic planning pass for every moment they spend in court — if any — and we do not see that preparation on TV.

TV Myth # 2: Female law professors are mean snobs. Picture Professor Stromwell (Holland Taylor) at Harvard Law School, challenging Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) during a socratic lecture in “Legally Blonde.” In reality, female law professors are not those uptight elderly ladies with pearl chokers we see on TV. They are experienced, highly educated women of strong character. Our own Rona Kaufman Kitchen, assistant professor at Duquesne University School of Law, is a true role model for her students — a brilliant, accomplished and elegant lady with high professional standards. She told Juris that “there is not enough diversity on TV, so female lawyers quickly become caricatures.” Professor Kitchen illustrated the flip side of the ditsy sexy lawyer on TV with Carly Fiorini, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard. To this day, casebooks portray Fiorini as a “sly, powerful bitch,” which, according to Professor Kitchen, is a common but incorrect TV myth of female lawyers. “Diversity eliminates caricatures,” suggests Professor Kitchen. We hope that TV producers will listen to her carefully.

TV Myth # 3: Female judges are indecisive scatterbrains. Think of actress Sherri Shepherd as the all but impartial female judge on “Hot in Cleveland,” with a crush on a hot dimwitted male defense attorney. Contrast her to Amy Brenneman, the family court judge in “Judging Amy,” a divorced, heartbroken mother who still lives at home. Those believable TV judges make halfhazardous rulings in family court, while they cannot align their own private dramas. It is nothing but natural then that TV

viewers lose faith in the justice system. From my own experience as an intern for a female judge of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in Pittsburgh, I know they are admirable working mothers, who master the art of balancing career with family life.

As Professor Kitchen pointed out, the glass ceiling and maternal wall theories hold true, and yet we begin to see characterizations of women overcoming those hurdles. There is more to a female lawyer than a girly pushover or a ruthless careerist. One of the few TV lawyers who teaches us differently is the darling and elegant mother of five, Clair Olivia Hanks-Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) on “The Cosby Show,” and even Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) on “Sex and City,” stepping up against sexist male colleagues. Let us hope that new generations of female TV lawyers will reveal increasingly competent and reliable role models of strong character, who can restore the viewers’ faith in our profession.

Gabriela Steier is the managing associate Editor for JURIS, research assistant for Professor Jane C. Moriarty and author of several publications. Her academic concentration is food and health care law combined with international intellectual property and commercial law. She earned her bachelor of arts at Tufts University in Boston in 2007, with a major in English and a minor in studio art, and she will graduate from Duquesne University School of Law in June of 2012.

She can be reached at gabi.steier@gmail.com.

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Life of a

Sports Lawyer

By Daniel McGrane, Web Editor

As a local kid, Pittsburgher Larry Silverman would wear a small glove on the baseball diamond because Pittsburgh legend Bill Mazeroski wore a small glove as well. An infielder, Silverman would try to mimic Mazeroski’s motions in turning double plays. It wasn’t just Maz, though; he would show up hours early to games for the chance to watch Roberto Clemente shag popups in right field.

“To see him out there make the most routine things look so easy, so graceful,” Silverman said, “it was really something.

He was such a great player — he had a cannon for an arm, but also just to see the way his neck would turn to follow a fly ball ... it was special.”

But to assume that Silverman went to bed every night with dreams of drafting contracts for his hometown team would be a stretch.

“This was never a goal for me because there wasn’t a job,” Silverman said. “Sure, I was a lifelong baseball fan, fan of the Pirates, but the position didn’t exist.”

That all changed in early 2002 when then General Manager David Littlefield decided to bring on a lawyer full-time. Coming over from the Florida Marlins, Littlefield was used to having an attorney in-house to help with day-to-day baseball operations as well as some more intricate issues, like player salary negotiations. While working at Dickie McCamey and Chilcote, Silverman, a 1978 Duquesne University School of Law graduate, had experience handling arbitration cases with the Pirates since the 1993 season. After a few interviews, he was in and began serving as the club’s senior vice president and general counsel.

The position had Silverman dealing with some of the sexier aspects that make a baseball team run, like negotiations with agents and participating in charity events with players. For the most part, though, he says his job was, essentially, just like any other corporate law position.

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His wide range of work and the issues involved therein have him dealing with everyone from the maintenance and grounds crews to signing bands to play after the games.

“I work with every contract from the $500 a band gets for playing in a suite after a game to the millions of dollar contracts for the television deals,” he said.

“I get to touch everything,” Silverman said. “We have over 300 non-baseball employees and, as the only lawyer, I get to work with almost everyone. Some people you might not see for weeks but then it will be for two, three days in a row.”

Being hands-on with so many people and so many different aspects of the Pirates organization is something that Silverman says helps to break up any monotony that can come along with being a lawyer. The nature of the position, though, breeds apprehension among his coworkers.

“Lawyers are often seen as the bad guys,” Silverman said.

“It’s amazing to see people tense up when they’re around me.

But when we’re able to work it out, and I’m able to say yes to certain things, that can feel pretty good.”

One such issue where he finds it necessary to say “no” is guarding the team’s intellectual property. With the proliferation of bootlegged materials floating around the Strip District, it should come as no surprise that the issue of intellectual property protection comes up fairly often. Specifically, one situation that has come to Silverman’s attention in the past year called for quick action. This involved an image of rapper Wiz Khalifa adorned in Pirates gear, drugs and weapons; this has to be immediately thwarted.

“With Wiz, [the seller] didn’t ask permission to use the logo and he probably wouldn’t have gotten it even if he had,” Silverman said. “Major League Baseball does a great job of protecting their brand. A lot of times they end up taking care of it.”

Silverman admits that, even though he is working a job he really enjoys, it is not immune to dry spells and ruts.

“There’ll be days when it can just drag but then, you know, you look around and see all the pictures, where you are,” he said.

“It doesn’t happen often. But if the team’s on an eight-game losing streak, you still have to show up for work.

“In a lot of ways it’s just like a typical corporation,” he added. “But General Motors can make a profit, not lay anyone off and make money for their shareholders, and everyone will agree it’s a good year. With us, you can do everything right but if the team loses 100 games, the season’s a failure.”

Although the Pirates are coming off their 19th consecutive losing season, Silverman admitted that 2011 was a pretty fun year and time to be with the team. “[Center-fielder Andrew] McCutchen’s one of those players,” Silverman said, in reference to the mention of baseball legends like Clemente and Mazeroski. “[McCutchen]’s exciting.

You kind of get that feeling that any moment that this could be the highlight play.”

It is apparent that the fan in him has not faded over the years.

“The first year I was hired on I went down to Florida with my brothers,” Silverman said. “I knew I was going to have a parking spot but when we pulled up, here I had one with my name on it. Everybody thought that that was pretty cool. But when I got out, I realized I was parked right next to Mazeroski’s spot. So there I was having my brother take a picture of me— not by my spot but by Maz’s! I’m not even sure that was his car.”

Daniel McGrane is the Web Editor of JURIS. He is in his third year at Duquesne University School of Law. He is a research assistant at the Duquesne Center for Legal Information and a law clerk at Edgar Snyder & Associates. Daniel earned his undergraduate degree in Journalism at the University of South Dakota. He will graduate from Duquesne in June and can be reached at daniel.mcgrane@ gmail.com.

Since the writing of this article, Silverman and the Pirates have parted ways. Silverman remains a sports law instructor at both Duquesne University School of Law and the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

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Law students used to think of public interest lawyers as hippies. Now, they are known as “employed.”

A Career in Public Interest Law:

A Reaction to the Financial Meltdown or Charitable Motivation?

By Alicia Nealon, Staff Writer

“Why did you go to law school?”

It is a question every law graduate has faced in some variation beginning before he or she entered the hallowed halls of law school and continuing throughout his or her career. While most can answer this broad question with an equally broad response such as “I wanted to develop my analytical thinking, strengthen my writing skills and develop legal skills,” the most honest answer would probably be “to get a job.” And a growing number of law school graduates are choosing to get this coveted job in public interest law.

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Often heralded as the area of practice where the law meets social action, public interest law seeks to further interests shared by the entire public or significant segments of it. The practice of public interest law includes government positions or non-profit firms.

A field of law focused on the advancement of the public good, rather than commercial or personal gain, naturally begs the question: What is the draw to an area of law that has notoriously low salaries and even sparser resources?

Although once a stereotypical “fall-back” area of practice, in recent years, public interest law has developed into a prominent and sought-after area of employment.

According to a recent article in the National Law Journal, more law school graduates are choosing public interest careers, with an increase from 2.1% in 1990 to 6.7% in 2010.

These figures come from the National Association for Law Placement1.

At first glance, one might easily explain these statistics by simply blaming the economic downturn. With a bad economy, the bigger firms cannot hire, so surely one can work as a public defender or an attorney at legal aid for a few years before securing a corner office in a high-rise building. This explanation, however, would be wrong.

Ed Steveson, attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services in Pittsburgh, believes that the economy has not pushed public interest work as a fall-back option to a big firm job. Instead, the economy has pushed law students to enter law school with a poignant and focused passion for public advocacy. “In the wake of the economic downturn, people have seen their friends, families and neighbors lose everything. Often, the only people willing and able to save their homes from foreclosures or fight for unemployment compensation after they have been laid off are lawyers working for free in public interest groups.”

He explains, “When the victims are those you love, the work of public interest attorneys becomes paramount.”

Due to their increasing popularity, public interest law jobs are highly competitive. Director of Career Services at Duquesne Law School Maria Comas explained that employers in public interest require prior experience in the field.

“Employers look for law graduates to show a commitment to public advocacy during, if not before, law school.”

While law students who forge a career in public interest law expect their law degrees to provide more than monetary compensation, lending institutions still expect their payments.

Although motivated by the importance of their work rather than the zeroes of their paycheck, more often than not, law school graduates who initially pursue public interest law are eventually forced to forego these careers because of the burden of their student loan debt.

As a response to these developments, law schools and the government started programs and endowments aimed at minimizing the debt that graduates accrue to pay for law school.

First, many law schools have loan repayment assistance programs (LRAPs), which pay off a portion of the monthly loan payments of attorneys practicing in public interest jobs. The William B. Billock LRAP at Duquesne University

School of Law, named for the late 1938 Law School graduate who served as vice president of Gulf Oil and represented the company as head of industrial relations, is a $1.4 million endowment meant to encourage pursuit of careers in nonprofit public interest law or in local, state or federal government. Applicants to the loan repayment assistance program must meet three criteria: 1) employment in a qualifying public interest law position 2) a maximum of $45,000 in adjusted gross income, and 3) outstanding law school debt. The maximum amount an applicant can receive at this time is $5,000 a year. Recent recipients include Rev. Ernie Poland, Jr., pastor of Keyser Presbyterian Church in Keyser, West Virginia, and director of Justice For All Legal Services; Nicole Wetherton, a 2006 Duquesne graduate who works in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office; and Nicole Scialabba, previously a staff attorney with Neighborhood Legal Services in Pittsburgh.

Second, the federal College Cost Reduction and Access Act (CCRAA) of 2007 has the potential to take a large portion of the debt burden off of attorneys who pursue long-term careers in public interest law. Essentially, this legislation allows public interest lawyers to have a major portion of their federal education loan debt forgiven after 10 years of full-time work in the public interest. This legislation, like LRAPs, prevents debt from limiting professional options after law school.

While it used to be that those who answered the question “Why did you go to law school” with “to become a public interest lawyer” were perceived as either self-righteous do-gooders or big firm attorneys-in-waiting, recent law school graduating classes have shown that the perception of public interest law is changing to reflect its true intention and value. As the economy continues to affect all citizens of every economic background, public interest lawyers are at the front lines helping Americans find security in the midst of financial upheaval.

Alicia Nealon is a staff writer for JURIS. She is also a Duquesne University School of Law student ambassador and an intern at Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellot, LLC. Alicia earned her undergraduate degree at St. Joseph’s University in 2010, where she majored in English, and will graduate from Duquesne University School of Law in June of 2013. She can be reached at alicia.nealon@ gmail.com.

1 Karen Sloan, Do-Gooders Thrive- Public Service Jobs See a Spike in Popularity and Prestige, The National Law Journal, (June 27, 2011; accessed September 27, 2011) <http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202498493590& slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1>

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Modern Technology

Protecting Privacy on the Net

By Jesse Krueger, Staff Writer The Kodak Moment — the fuel and fodder for grandparents and scrapbookers everywhere — was a major concern for Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis in the year 1890.

Brandeis and legal scholar Samuel D. Warren worried that the instant photograph would “invade the sacred precincts of private and domestic life,” as they wrote in their groundbreaking Harvard Law Review article “The Right to Privacy” — in which they tried to define the amorphous right that defies definition to this day.

Social media, most prominently Facebook, whose never-ending cycle of updates and improvements seems to continually erode the private life of the individual, is the latest progenitor of privacy concerns. According to its website, Facebook currently boasts over 800 million active users, who post over 25 billion pieces of content per month, whether in the form of photographs, status updates or online messages. Such rampant exhibitionism begs the question of whether our very conception of privacy has changed in the digital world.

If one observes the flood of “Twittergation”(as the media has affectionately dubbed social media-based litigation), it becomes clear that our idea of privacy has not changed, but rather the lengths to which we must go to protect it have. In a time where applications allow you to easily see where someone is via FourSquare, what they’re watching via GetGlue and for whom they’re voting via Obama Clock, the need for proactive protection is paramount. The public demand for private information is growing exponentially. It is estimated that over 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human resource professionals conduct online research into potential hires. Seventy percent of U.S. employers have rejected an applicant because of something found online, according to Jeffrey Rosen, professor of law at George Washington University.

Rosen suggests that most applicants don’t even realize what information is out there, despite having supplied most of it themselves. In a New York Times article from 2010 headlined, “The Internet means the end of forgetting,” Rosen argues that because the internet never forgets, the disclosure of private information is much more hazardous than it has been in the

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past — a fact that people are, more often than not, learning the hard way.

What once existed as cautionary tales about the dangers of excessive disclosure online have become daily concerns for many citizens; Rosen tells anecdotes about bars that require you to sign a disclosure agreement promising not to reveal the happenings within via social media, and employers and universities that are increasingly adopting policies to govern how their employees and students behave online.

Meanwhile, legislators, social scientists and technology gurus are scrambling to catch up with the rapidly evolving technology, but it is increasingly unclear what form any prospective protection will take. Creative solutions abound, ranging from the creation of programs that automatically terminate digital data after a certain amount of time (called “digital forgetting”) to social programs modeled on the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which allow you to claim reputation bankruptcy periodically and delete all personal information about yourself from the web. Entrepreneurs are even creating businesses based around protecting their clients’ online reputations by creating and promoting websites that positively impact the client.

The harsh reality is that people demand privacy in their personal and professional lives, while still wishing to maintain a separate online presence. As advances in technology and online services continue to make that less and less likely, Americans are being forced to make their privacy a priority and to continue to hope that the privacy laws evolve to stem the tide of transparency and allow everyone the best of both worlds.

Jesse Krueger is a third-year law student and a Staff Writer for JURIS. He also serves as a senior staff member and case note Editor for the Duquesne Business Law Journal. Jesse graduated from Washington & Jefferson College in 2009 with a B.A. in English and French with an emphasis on professional writing. Currently, he is pursuing an M.B.A. in International Business from Salem International University in addition to his studies at Duquesne. He can be reached at kruegerjj0330@gmail.com.

What Kind of Establishment Clause is Appropriate for Religion in an Age of Science?

By Bruce Ledewitz, Professor of Law Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no secret that religious liberals and secular non believers tend to support government neutrality toward religion and a rather strict separation of church and state. I would like to suggest that, beyond a certain institutional separation of church and state, the separation position is premised upon a prescientific view of religion, really a supernatural view. But the kind of religion suitable to a scientific age cannot be so readily separated from political life.

Between the founding era and 1947, the year that Everson v. Board of Education was decided, the tension between

supposed limits on religion in the Constitution versus the presence of religion in American public life was not resolved or even really addressed in the courts. Surprisingly, given this lack of prior case law, Justice Hugo Blackâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s majority opinion in Everson announced a full-blown judicial commitment to government neutrality toward religion and the wall of separation between church and state. Although the actual holding in the case was a 5-4 decision allowing government provision of transportation for students in private religious schools, the opinionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s proclamation of neutrality and separation spoke for the entire Court.

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The period since Everson has been Given all this upheaval, the question marked by ebb and flow in the Supreme of what kind of Establishment Clause is Court’s willingness to redeem the promise appropriate for religion in an age of science of government neutrality toward religion. is an open one.

The Court has swung wildly from reaffirWe face a fundamental and substanmation of neutrality in 2000 in Santa Fe tive disagreement about the meaning Independent School Dist. v. Doe to approval of the Establishment Clause, which of large-scale public vouchers for support of has, unfortunately, become a disagreereligious private schools just two years later ment about the nature of America. in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris. The Court There is a surprising and destrucsplit almost evenly in 2005 over two sets tive consensus among American legal of Ten Commandments displays, upholdthinkers that we face an either/or ing one and striking down another, by 5-4 decision point concerning America’s basic Professor Bruce Ledewitz margins on the same day. While five justices identity. Here is how Ronald Dworkin, perstrongly reaffirmed government neutrality between religion haps our leading liberal constitutional theorist, described the and irreligion, Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking for himself issue in his book, Is Democracy Possible Here?: and two other justices, advocated constitutional acceptance of Should we be a religious nation, collectively committed “public acknowledgment of the Creator.” Increasingly, the to values of faith and worship, but with tolerance for Court’s deep divisions over the meaning of the Establishment Clause have manifested in techniques of avoiding deciding religious minorities including nonbelievers? Or should anything, on the ground of lack of standing. we be a nation committed to thoroughly secular governAs a result of all this, I tell my students that there ment but with tolerance and accommodation for people is no agreed-upon interpretation of the meaning of the of religious faith? A religious nation that tolerates nonEstablishment Clause. It is doubtful that a majority on the Court would reaffirm Everson’s language today.

At the same time that the meaning of the Establishment Clause is in disarray in the courts, religion in American public life is increasingly the subject of political and social controversy. There is the resurgence of religion both in America and in the world, as attested by works such as God is Back by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge.

Conversely, there is the astounding recent growth in secularism and religious non-affiliation, especially among the young, as testified to in recent opinion polls culminating in the rise of Christopher Hitchens and the other New Atheists and leading to President Obama’s electrifying acknowledgment of nonbelief in his 2008 inaugural address.

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belief? Or a secular nation that tolerates religion?

Justice Scalia absolutely agrees that this is the question, finding it represents a fundamental divide for our nation.

Scalia wrote in his dissent in the Ten Commandments case, “[I]n the context of public acknowledgments of God, there are legitimate competing interests: On the one hand, the interest of that minority in not feeling ‘excluded’; but on the other, the interest of the overwhelming majority of religious believers in being able to give God thanks and supplication as a people, and with respect to our national endeavors. Our national tradition has resolved that conflict in favor of the majority.”

Scalia, like Dworkin, sees no room for common ground.

I have to say that I hope Dworkin and Scalia are both wrong. Any attempt to actually answer the Dworkin/Scalia question about America’s identity — which amounts to asking whose side you are on — would be extremely destructive of political and social community in the United States.

And I think they are wrong, because the relationship between religion and political life is much more nuanced than they admit. That recognition of connection between religion and politics is the link between my work on the Establishment Clause and the underlying project of the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science.

The conceptualization of religion and public life as separate is reminiscent of two of the four ways of relating religion and science contained in Ian Barbour’s Gifford Lectures, Religion in an Age of Science. Religion and public life would have to be either in conflict or at least independent of each other to have this kind of separation of church and state. The conflict model is reflected in Augustine’s City of God, especially as the distinction of church and state came down to us through the image of separating the garden of the church from the wilderness of the world, as in Roger Williams.

The independence model is implied by suggestions that religion is private while government is public. Religion is eternal whereas politics is contingent.

The call for government neutrality toward religion is premised on one of these two modes of relating religion and public life — conflict or independence. But, as Barbour points

out with regard to religion and science, the relationships of conflict and independence are narrow and limited.

In Scalia’s case, in which religion is brought into public life, so that the biblical commandments of God are given political force and policy is judged by the will of that Creator God, we have Barbour’s third category relating religion and science — dialogue between religion and political life.

The problem with Scalia’s position is that it attempts to freeze a history of Christian hegemony and apply it without modification to the current, vastly changed pluralist American context. The Creator God of the Bible is not the future of American political life. Scalia’s dialogue is too narrow and limited to be useful.

Much more fruitful and healthy is Barbour’s fourth category of relating science and religion, that of integration, which Barbour identified with various forms of natural and process theology. In the mode of integration between religion and politics, we would not have to be choosing so divisively between the secular and the religious in public life. We would not have to answer the Dworkin/Scalia question.

But what would such integration of religion and politics look like? One form of integration has been known for a long time in American politics as civil religion. American sociologist Robert Bellah popularized Rousseau’s term, civil religion, in his 1970 book, Beyond Belief. Bellah argued that the use of the word “God” on public occasions means that “the will of the people is not itself the criterion of right and wrong. There is a higher criterion in terms of which this will can be judged; it is possible that the people may be wrong.”

Bellah’s understanding of the political and public use of “God” is not much different from the use of “Creator” in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

Naturally, some religious people treat that language as an argument for the existence of God. But that is not a fair reading. The existence of God was not an issue at the time of the Revolution.

Rather, the Declaration was making a

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political point about the nature of rights. Rights do not come from men — that is, not from the king or Parliament. And thus, as Bellah said of right and wrong, no positive political power has the authority to revoke rights with which all human beings are endowed. This was the major point of the Declaration of Independence.

This kind of integration of religion and politics does not demean either realm. It does not baptize the economic/political status quo as good, nor does it undermine the sectarian and orthodox uses of religious imagery. The religious believer continues to have her own understanding of religious imagery that secularists need not share. Government use of religious imagery in this integrative sense thus allows us to be both religious and secular without having to choose one predominant national identity.

What I have tried to do in my new book, Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism, is promote such integration of religion and politics as a way of combating materialism, relativism and even nihilism in American secularism.

The close relationship of separation of church and state and values relativism was sharply stated in Lee v.

Weisman, the case that prohibited prayer at public high school graduations as a violation of the Establishment Clause. Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion saw in prohibited prayer an assertion of the objectivity of values. He seemed, dangerously in my view, to restrict commitment to the objectivity of values to religion. Kennedy wrote,

We are asked to recognize the existence of a practice of nonsectarian prayer, prayer within the embrace of what is known as the Judeo-Christian tradition. … If

What I mean by an integration of religion and politics is not a theocratic commitment to any particular set of policies thought to be demanded by this or that religious tradition.

I mean precisely what Kennedy seems to call religious — a commitment to ethics and morality that transcends human invention. I don’t think that a secular society can be healthy without a strong commitment to that kind of ethics and morality.

I admit that it is a kind of faith that justice is real. It is a kind of faith that can be expressed, among other ways, by a public display of the Ten Commandments. It is a kind of faith that reality is trustworthy and that faith can be expressed, among other ways, by a national motto stating “In God We Trust.”

Religious imagery has always contained claims that transcend any simply sectarian meaning. Religious imagery has always been integrative of public universal values as well as sectarian purely religious claims. While government cannot and should not judge among any theological disputes, government may certainly assert and even establish this higher law tradition. Doing so does not establish religion; it recommits us to a basic American faith. And it is a faith entirely consistent with the role of religion in an age of science.

common ground can be defined which permits once conflicting faiths to express the shared conviction that there is an ethic and a morality which transcend human invention, the sense of community and purpose sought by all decent societies might be advanced. But though the First Amendment does not allow the government to stifle prayers which aspire to these ends, neither does it permit the government to undertake that task for itself.

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Bruce Ledewitz has taught at Duquesne Law School since 1980. He was secretary to the National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, 1985-1990. He has written widely in both legal journals and national media such as The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune and is a regular contributor to Religion Dispatches and Huffington Post. His latest book is Church, State, and the Crisis in American Secularism, which was published in 2011 by Indiana University Press. His earlier books, Hallowed Secularism: Theory, Belief, and Practice (Palgrave Macmillan 2009) and American Religious Democracy: Coming to Terms with the End of Secular Politics (Praeger 2007), have been widely discussed and reviewed. A version of these remarks was presented at the 2011 Conference of The Institute on Religion in an Age of Science.

Juris_Blog, the Official Blog of the Duquesne University School of Law Newsmagazine By soliciting contributions from the Law School at large and implementing a new design, JURIS_Blog is helping shape the Juris of tomorrow. More content, more current, more Juris@duquesnejurismagazine.blogspot.com.

The Islamic Defense to Murder – Does Shari’ah Law Justify “Honor Killings”?

By Jessel Costa, Associate Editor Over the course of the last decade, U.S. American interest in – or perhaps more accurately, U.S. American suspicion of – the Islamic religion has been piqued. As is often the case, this hunger for information has been fed by myth and conjecture more than by factual analysis, and has ultimately given way to numerous misconceptions regarding Muslim citizens.

Some of the most far-fetched and widespread misconceptions regarding Islam concern the treatment of women within the religion; specifically, the idea pervades that Shari’ah can be used as a means to legally justify the killing of “dishonorable” female family members.

Guantanamo Bay detainees remain in legal limbo

By Eric Donato, Blogger “The orders that I signed today should send an unmistakable signal that our actions in defense of liberty will be just as our cause, and that we, the people, will uphold our fundamental values as vigilantly as we protect our security,” President Obama announced in January 2009 during the signing ceremony for his executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay military detention facility.

“Once again, America’s moral example must be the bedrock and the beacon of our global leadership.”

Over two years later the facility remains open, housing 171 inmates according to an ongoing analysis by NPR and The New York Times. Crippled by delays, administrative setbacks, Congressional opposition and, ultimately, acquiescence by the president, closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp doesn’t look likely in the near future.

But how did this impasse come to be, and what does it mean for the men imprisoned at the camp who are still waiting – some for over nine years – to have their day in court?

New charges shed light on prison abuse

By Jenna Smith, Blogger Sodomy. Rape. Hate. Shanks. These are all of the words that come to mind when I think of the HBO series “Oz.” “Oz” is about a fictional group of prisoners in Oswald State Correctional Facility, a maximumsecurity prison whose location is unknown for the entirety of the series.

The plot centers on the prisoners housed in “Emerald City,” nicknamed “Em City” by the prisoners. The inmates comprise of different groups: the “Homeboys” (the African Americans), the Muslims, the “Wiseguys” (the Italians), the Latinos, the Irish, the Aryans, the Bikers, the Gays, etc. – the list goes on. The show follows the struggles these inmates face while in prison, highlighting the social and racial tension between the different groups. The inmates fight amongst themselves over anything and everything: the illicit drug trade they run, the kitchen duties they are assigned, which new inmate will suffer the fate of being sodomized his first night in confinement, so forth and so on. While all of this is going on, the corrections officers turn a blind eye, or worse, become involved. Some of the officers help to run the drug trade; others help to set up prisoner-on-prisoner violence and killings; others have wanted and unwanted sexual relationships with the inmates. I am a big fan of this series and I truly feel it provides a lot of insight into the dynamics of our country’s prison system. However, I thought while watching the show, many of the events that take place are so overly dramatized and unrealistic. A corrections officer surely could never involve his or herself in such unsavory and illegal behavior?

Proposed legislation in Mexico may fundamentally alter the institution of marriage

By Emily Shaffer, Blogger “Fifty percent of all marriages in America end in divorce.” Okay, so Americans aren’t that bad. The divorce rate is actually going down, meaning this statement is no longer true (by a 9% difference). In proportion to this drop in the divorce rate however, it’s evident that the marriage rate in America is also going down because more American couples are living together without getting married. Though this isn’t the traditional way of doing things, considering the even higher divorce rate in Mexico City and its proposed legislation, it might be the smarter way.

For those of you who haven’t heard, lawmakers in Mexico City are proposing a two-year marriage contract in lieu of a normal marriage license so residents would be able to marry for a two-year trial term before committing to each other for life. Mexican lawmakers expect a vote on this by the end of the year, and expect the new legislation to reduce Mexico City’s current divorce rate of eight out of 10 marriages.

This new legislation would require the two-year signees to attend discussions on conflict resolution and division of assets in the event that they go their separate ways after the two-year period. If the couples decide to remain together, they may sign an official marriage license or renew the contract. The Catholic Church and Catholic Community in Mexico City are obviously opposed to this liberal proposal, calling it “irresponsible and immoral.” wint e r 2 0 1 1

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