Comment

Violence and Contact: Interpreting “Physical Force” in the Lautenberg Amendment

John M. Skakun III

BA 2005, University of Notre Dame; JD 2008, The University of Chicago

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In 1996, Congress passed the Lautenberg Amendment to prevent domestic violence shooting deaths. The Lautenberg Amendment works the same way as the felon-in-possession law: any individual who has previously been convicted of a qualifying predicate crime is prohibited from possessing a gun. For the felon-in-possession law, any felony is a predicate offense. For the Lautenberg Amendment, “misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence” are predicate offenses; any crime that “has, as an element, the use . . . of physical force” qualifies as a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. A circuit split has recently developed over what conduct constitutes the use of “physical force” for the purposes of the Lautenberg Amendment.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Criminal Law

Comment

85.3

Righting Categorical Wrongs: A Holistic Solution to Rule 8(a)’s Same-or-Similar-Character Prong

Matthew Deates

BA 2012, University of Minnesota; JD Candidate 2018, The University of Chicago Law School

I would like to thank Professor Alison Siegler for introducing me to the law on joinder. This Comment would not exist without her guidance and support. I would also like to thank the talented editors of the Law Review for their helpful comments and suggestions.

A criminal defendant is charged with wire fraud in violation of 18 USC § 1343. As he and his defense attorney prepare for trial, the US Attorney’s Office notifies him that there is reason to believe he has previously committed bankruptcy fraud in violation of 18 USC § 152.

Criminal Law

Article

85.3

Rethinking Family-Court Prosecutors: Elected and Agency Prosecutors and Prosecutorial Discretion in Juvenile Delinquency and Child Protection Cases

Josh Gupta-Kagan

Assistant Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law

The author would like to thank Albertina Antognini, Annette Appell, Elizabeth Chambliss, Martin Guggenheim, Avni Gupta-Kagan, Clare Huntington, Cortney Lollar, Adrian Smith, Robin Walker-Sterling, and participants in a faculty workshop at the University of Kentucky College of Law and Duke Law School’s 2015 conference on civil rights, “The Present and Future of Civil Rights Movements: Race and Reform in 21st Century America,” for thoughtful comments on earlier drafts. The author would like to thank Joni Gerrity for excellent research assistance.

The law and the academy have long recognized criminal prosecutors’ immense power, especially the power to determine which cases to prosecute and which not to. Less attention has been focused on related issues in juvenile delinquency and child protection cases litigated in state family courts.

Children and Families Criminal Law

Essay

Dupes and Losers in Mail Fraud

Thomas J. Miles

Professor of Law, The University of Chicago Law School

The author thanks James G. Hein, Jr and Richard H. McAdams for helpful comments. This Essay was written for a festschrift honoring Judge Frank H. Easterbrook’s twenty-five years on the Seventh Circuit.

Criminal Law