Is Retribution Worth the Cost?

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb discusses the four purported goals of the criminal justice system—deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation—and argues that retribution may preclude rehabilitation. Colb considers whether restorative justice—wherein a victim has a conversation with the offender and talks about what he did to her and why it was wrong—might better serve the rehabilitative purpose than long prison sentences do.

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The Other Epidemic

KATHRYN ROBB

Kathryn Robb, executive director of CHILD USAdvocacy, comments on a public-health crisis that is getting relatively less attention right now: the scourge of child sex abuse. To address this crisis, Robb calls for greater public awareness, stronger laws protecting children, and legislative action

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ING Bank, N.V. v. Bulk Finland M/V, No. 9691577

Docket: 19-30418

Opinion Date: March 24, 2020

Judge: Jerry Edwin Smith

Areas of Law: Admiralty & Maritime Law

Bomin filed suit asserting an in rem claim for a maritime lien against a ship to which it supplied fuel bunkers under a contract with one of the affiliates of O.W. Bunker. The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to ING and DryLog. The court held that Bomin did not have a maritime lien, because it was not acting on the orders of either the vessel's owners or their authorized agent when it supplied the fuel.

Voss v. Goode

Docket: 19-20167

Opinion Date: March 24, 2020

Judge: Stephen Andrew Higginson

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on plaintiff's claim of false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment against a sheriff's office deputy. Plaintiff's claim arose from a deputy's visit to plaintiff's house to check on the welfare of her daughter, who had expressed suicidal thoughts. The court held that the deputy may justify the arrest by showing probable cause for any crime, and that probable cause existed to arrest plaintiff for interference with public duties in light of the prevailing law at the time of the arrest. In this case, probable cause existed to arrest plaintiff after plaintiff instructed her child to physically disobey an officer and the child complied.