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Criminal Law

Undue Burdens: Georgia’s Life Act and Its Disporportionate Impact on Women Experiencing Intimate Partner Violence

More than half of women in Georgia report experiencing some form of intimate partner violence (IPV) in their lifetime. Women experiencing IPV are not only at greater risk of unintended pregnancy, but those who do become pregnant often face more frequent and severe abuse, increasing their risk of miscarriage. Despite

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Penalty Box: The Eighth Amendment’s Role in the FBAR Penalties Game

A sharp disagreement has emerged among federal circuit courts regarding the application of the Eighth Amendment’s Excessive Fines Clause to penalties for failing to file a Foreign Bank Account Report (FBAR). This has created legal uncertainty for individuals with foreign financial interests. The resulting circuit split leads to disparate

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The Federal Death Penalty as a Sign of the Times

Scholars have been predicting the demise of the American death penalty for much of the twenty-first century. This prediction finds support in state-by-state abolition, reduced numbers of new death sentences, and continued reductions in the death row population. Despite significant movement away from the death penalty, the punishment remains stubbornly

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SB 185 - Penal Institutions

The Act prohibits the use of state funds or resources to provide genderaffirming medical care to incarcerated individuals. It bans funding for sex reassignment surgeries, hormone replacement therapy, and any cosmetic or prosthetic procedures intended to alter an inmate’s primary or secondary sex characteristics. The bill includes limited exceptions,

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HB 582 - Defenses to Criminal Prosecutions

The Act permits criminal defendants to introduce evidence that they are survivors of family violence, sexual abuse, or related trauma in support of a justification defense. It amends various Code sections to provide for the admissibility of such evidence, clarify the applicability of justification defenses, and establish evidentiary standards. The

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SB 79 - Controlled Substances

This Act amends various sections of Georgia’s criminal code. Three key changes are particularly noteworthy. First, the Act revises threshold amounts of fentanyl and related substances for the offenses of possessing, selling, distributing, manufacturing, and trafficking such substances. Second, the Act increases the penalties for such offenses. Lastly, the

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How to Start (or Stop) a War on Crime: A Conceptual Cookbook

Beginning in the early 1990s, the Executive Branch began an era of enforcement of federal firearms crime that was different in kind and degree from the prior seventy-five years. The federal crime policies of the 1990s and 2000s led to a significant increase both in the total number of federal

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Terrorism and Universal Jurisdiction: Opening a Pandora's Box?

The relationship between terrorism and international criminal law has provoked a good deal of discussion in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York City and at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A particularly challenging issue pertains to whether terrorism is an international crime

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