| Human
Rights: Can They Stay? Asylum Law & the Victims
of Gender-Based Violence
Victims of domestic violence in developing nations frequently go
unprotected by their governments due to cultural beliefs and customary
law that give men significant freedom in relation to the treatment of
their wives and other female relatives. One method immigration lawyers
have used in an attempt to gain asylum for these individuals is to classify
victims of domestic violence as a "social group", a status that
provides them protection under international law as interpreted by U.S.
Federal courts. The challenge in defining victims of domestic violence
as a social group is that such a group must be readily identifiable as
having a similar background, habit, or social status, such as a common
culture, political viewpoint, and lifestyle. Moreover, those critical
of granting victims of domestic violence “social group” status
express concern that broadening its definition will result in a massive
increase in claims for asylum by a class of people whose experiences are
difficult to uniformly classify and verify. This panel will examine whether
victims of domestic violence can and should be granted asylum status,
and if so, how the law should be interpreted to include them. Additionally,
the panel will explore the potential negative consequences of such an
understanding of asylum rights and discuss how they might be mitigated.
PANELISTS:
Karen Musalo, Resident Scholar, University of California,
Hastings College of Law; Director, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies
Molly Groom, Chief, Refugee and Asylum Law Division,
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security
David Martin, Warner-Booker Distinguished Professor of
International Law, Class of 1963 Research Professor, University of Virginia
School of Law
MODERATOR:
Deena
Hurwitz, Director, Human Rights Program & International Human
Rights Law Clinic, University of Virginia School of Law
* * *
Political
Law: Judicial Election Campaigns: Free Speech, Public
Dollars, and the Role of Judges
Three out of every four U.S. states employ some variety of judicial election
to fill the seats on their supreme courts. In recent years, the campaigns
surrounding these judicial elections have become increasingly expensive:
the 2004 race for a seat on the Illinois Supreme Court saw the two candidates
spend almost $9 million combined, the most ever spent on a state judicial
campaign. These increased expenditures have also often been paired with
a decrease in civility, with the elections of judges—who are presumed
to be impartial—at times devolving into ideological battles funded
by outside interest groups. In defense of these campaign practices, candidates
and their supporters have relied on the principle of free speech and,
in doing so, challenged the presumption that judges must necessarily be
impartial. Some states have turned to public funding of judicial election
races in an attempt to counter this trend. This panel will discuss whether
public funding of judicial elections is the solution to these developments.
As well, it will consider what restraints, if any, should be placed on
public funds made available to candidates in judicial campaigns and how
such restraints might conflict with the principle of free speech.
PANELISTS:
Roy Schotland, Professor of Law, Georgetown University
Law Center
Jesse Rutledge, Director of Communications, Justice at
Stake
Judge John M. Tyson, North Carolina Court of Appeals
MODERATOR:
Lillian BeVier, John S. Shannon Distinguished Professor
of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
* * *
Labor
& Employment: The Government's "Fair Pay"
Plan for Overtime: How Will Low-Income Workers Be Affected?
In August 2004, new federal regulations governing the compensation of
overtime work came into effect. This policy, dubbed the "Fair Pay"
plan by the government, has changed the classification system that determines
which workers are eligible for overtime pay. Many labor advocates warn
that the changes will adversely impact low-income workers, estimating
that as many as 8 million workers will lose their overtime pay once the
new system is fully implemented. By contrast, the government maintains
that the policy will in actuality serve to expand overtime pay protection
for workers in the lower and middle income brackets. This panel will examine
the perceived problems and/or policy that the new standards are intended
to address and discuss how well the new system will meet those goals.
Primarily, though, this panel will seek to answer the question as to whether
the new standards are likely to help or harm low-income workers.
PANELISTS:
Baldwin Robertson, Associate, Woodley & McGillivary;
Counsel, International Association of Fire Fighters & AFL-CIO's Working
America
Shulamit Kahn, Associate Professor, Finance and Economics
Department, Boston University School of Management
Alfred Robinson, Acting Administrator, U.S. Dept. of
Labor, Wage and Hour Division
MODERATOR:
J.H. “Rip” Verkerke, Professor of Law, Thomas
F. Bergin Teaching Professor, University of Virginia School of Law; Director,
Program for Employment and Labor Law Studies
* * *
Mental
Health Law:
Addressing Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System: Evaluating the
Success of Mental Health Courts
Developed in the late 1990s, mental health courts arose in response to
studies showing that while over 16% of all inmates in U.S. prisons and
jails have a mental illness, correctional facilities often provide grossly
inadequate treatment for these individuals. In their typical form, mental
health courts hear cases involving people diagnosed with a mental illness
and charged with non-violent crimes, and provide the defendant with a
court-mandated treatment program as an alternative to incarceration. Recent
passage of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act
has provided additional momentum for the establishment of mental health
courts across the country. Yet despite their popularity among lawmakers,
mental health courts have received less uniform acceptance from consumers
and advocates, many of whom claim that these courts serve to further stigmatize
persons with mental illnesses. Moreover, critics maintain that mental
health courts can often result in forced treatment, including unwelcome
medication. This panel will explore the various forms that mental health
courts have taken and examine how they work in practice. Chiefly, however,
this panel will consider the civil liberty and public safety interests
that communities must weigh when designing and implementing mental health
courts.
PANELISTS:
George W. Pratt, Executive Director, Norfolk Community
Services Board
Tammy Seltzer, Senior Staff Attorney, Bazelon Center
for Mental Health Law
Ron Honberg, National Director for Policy & Legal
Affairs, National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI)
Cynthia Power, President, Virginia Organization of Consumers
Asserting Leadership (VOCAL)
MODERATOR:
Thomas Hafemeister, Associate Professor of Law, University
of Virginia School of Law; Director of Legal Studies, Institute of Law,
Psychiatry, and Public Policy
* * *
Race
& the Law: (Re)Examining Slavery Reparations
Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Law
Both academic scholarship and actual litigation are increasingly addressing
the question of whether reparations should be made available for the descendants
of American slaves. Among the issues currently being explored are whether
reparations are morally justified and legally achievable, and if so, under
what theory: corrective justice, distributive justice, or unjust enrichment?
As well, debates continue as to whether reparations should come from the
federal government, state and local governments, and/or private corporations,
and, regardless of their source, what form they should take: monetary
payments, educational trust funds, affirmative action, subsidized home
loans, or others. This panel will seek to shed light on these issues as
well as others that surround the on-going debate on slavery reparations.
PANELISTS:
Adrienne D. Davis, Reef C. Ivey II Research Professor
of Law, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Law
K. Lawrie Balfour, Assistant Professor, Woodrow Wilson
Department of Politics, University of Virginia
MODERATOR:
Kim Forde-Mazrui, Professor of Law, Thurgood Marshall
Research Professor, University of Virginia School of Law; Director, Center
for the Study of Race and Law
* * *
Religion
& the Law: Faith Based Initiatives: How Do They
Work and Do We Even Want Them?
With the reelection of President Bush, the effort to create government
partnerships with faith and community-based social service providers is
expected to continue, if not increase in intensity, building upon the
foundation laid during the administration's first term. However, the administration’s
commitment to providing federal funding for these initiatives has prompted
significant concern over the constitutionality of such measures. In light
of the increasing emphasis being placed on faith-based initiatives, this
panel will explore how these kinds of programs may offer a unique and
effective social benefit to those in need of such services, while simultaneously
questioning how constitutional jurisprudence concerning the separation
of church and state should govern their operation and funding.
PANELISTS:
Ryan Streeter, Director, Center for Faith- and Community-Based
Initiatives, U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
Richard Katskee, Assistant Legal Director, Americans
United for Separation of Church and State
Melissa Rogers, Visiting Professor of Religion and Public
Policy, Wake Forest University Divinity School; Founding Executive Director,
Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life
MODERATOR:
Richard Schragger, Associate Professor of Law, University
of Virginia School of Law
* * *
Environmental
Law: Mountaintop Removal Mining: Energy Strategy or
Environmental Tragedy?
Since the 1980s, the Appalachian coal mining industry has increasingly
relied on a controversial process, popularly known as “mountaintop
removal,” to obtain coal at a cost competitive with other energy
sources. While mountaintop removal is similar to the traditional strip-mining
method, its unprecedented scale and capacity to alter the physical landscape
has attracted public criticism from both local and national environmental
groups. The legal battle to interpret the regulations and statutes governing
mountaintop removal has been particularly contentious because it straddles
the transition between the Clinton and Bush Administrations and emblemizes
their divergent philosophies of environmental protection. In 1999, federal
regulators appeared to be on the verge of shutting down mountaintop removal
as a violation of the Clean Water Act. Today, the pendulum has swung the
other way, as rule adjustments promulgated by the new administration and
a victory before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals have affirmed the
position of the mining interests. While critics of mountaintop removal
suggest that an improperly motivated subversion of the regulatory process
has been at play, advocates see nothing more than the harmonization of
environmental regulations with current interpretation of their statutory
basis. This panel will examine what should be the proper bounds of executive
discretion in shaping the environmental regulations affecting mountaintop
removal, in light of the current judicial understanding of the underlying
statutes. As well, the panel will discuss whether, based on the delineation
of those bounds, mountaintop removal mining violates the relevant underlying
statutes.
PANELISTS:
Joe Lovett, Executive Director, Appalachian Center for
the Economy & the Environment
Blair Gardner, Associate, Jackson Kelly PLLC; former
Assistant General Counsel, Arch Coal, Inc.
MODERATOR:
Jonathan Cannon, Professor of Law, University of Virginia
School of Law; Director, Center for Environmental Studies
* * *
Freedom
of Speech: The Empty Chair: When Reporters Won’t
Talk
In recent months, reporters from all types of media have come under
increasing attack for refusing to reveal their confidential sources. At
least one reporter has been held in contempt of court, and the status
of several others swings in the balance as their cases continue to be
litigated. In each of these cases, reporters have cited the need to promise
confidentiality to sensitive sources as a key to obtaining vital information
of public importance. In response, law enforcement has pointed to the
public safety interest in knowing who is disclosing sensitive information,
particularly where criminal activity may be involved. In the context of
this resulting conflict of interest, this panel will examine whether reporters
should be legally compelled to disclose their sources and under what circumstances.
PANELISTS:
Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director, Reporters Committee
for Freedom of the Press
John G. Douglass, Professor, University of Richmond School
of Law
Jon Zug, Assistant Commonwealth Attorney, Commonwealth
of Virginia
MODERATOR:
Robert O’Neil, Professor of Law, University of
Virginia School of Law; Director, Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection
of Free Expression
* * *
Juvenile
Law: Father, I Cannot Tell a Lie: Juvenile Capacity
for Confession
In recent years, the ability of juveniles to fully comprehend their 5th
Amendment rights and provide reliable information to law enforcement while
under interrogation has been increasingly questioned. This scrutiny comes
on the heels of a number of wrongful convictions of juveniles, each of
which rested largely on evidence obtained from a confession later proved
to be false. In response, child advocates have argued for the employment
of a stricter definition of voluntariness for juvenile confession, and
the discontinuation of the use of adult interrogation tactics on juveniles.
Law enforcement and many courts, however, have noted that the application
of such standards would be overly burdensome and expensive for law enforcement,
and thus interfere with their chief function: the protection of the community.
Using the Lee Boyd Malvo case as a model, this panel will examine the
considerations that should inform the creation of a standard for both
juvenile voluntariness and juvenile interrogation.
PANELISTS:
Elaine Cassel, Attorney; Chair, ABA Behavioral Sciences
Committee; Professor of Law, Concord University School of Law
Brad J. Garrett, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation;
Chief Interrogator, Lee Boyd Malvo
Dewey
G. Cornell, Clinical Psychologist & Professor of Education,
Curry School of Education, University of Virginia; Director, University
of Virginia Youth Violence Project
MODERATOR:
Andy Block, Director, JustChildren Program, Legal Aid
Justice Center
* * *
Government
Regulation: From Golden Handcuffs to Real Handcuffs:
Corporate Corruption in the 21st Century
PANELISTS:
Stephen M. Byers, Partner, Crowell & Moring, White
Collar Defense Practice Group
Doug Paul, Branch Chief, Division of Enforcement, U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission
MODERATOR:
Anup
Malani, Associate Professor of Law, University of Virginia School
of Law; Associate Professor, Health Evaluation Sciences Department, University
of Virginia Medical School
Questions
about the Conference should be directed
to Ryan Almstead (rta3j@virginia.edu)
or Stephanie Johnson (slj2w@virginia.edu).
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