By Raymond C.

Taxes are terrible. Nobody likes paying them. In the United States, it is estimated that $400 billion to $500 billion dollars worth of taxes go uncollected per year due to evasion and non-compliance. Another $100 billion gets lost through offshore banking. Ouch. These are eye-popping figures and would certainly go a long way to help solves some of the budget problems we are currently dealing with.

There is however one little problem, nobody seems to know how to deal with this problem of tax non-compliance. Here is a story that deserves some ridicule. On February 8th Harry Redknapp, the current coach for English soccer team Tottenham and Milan Mandaric, the owner of Sheffield Wednesday, were acquitted on charges of tax evasion after five years of investigation and court proceedings. The details of the case are pretty common for tax evasion trials; it involved a bank account in Monaco opened in the name of Redknapp’s dog, and Mandaric depositing a sum of money into said account, thus saving each party a small tax bill. Now here is the kicker, the amount at the center of this transaction is 189,000 pounds. Which, even taxed at 50%, quite high by any standard, comes out to a 94,500 pound tax charge plus some penalties. The cost of this five-year investigation? 8,000,000 pounds.

Sometimes the numbers just don’t add up. Ask yourself, in what circumstance would you, normality and sensibility presumed, spend $100 to seek a return of just 0.875 cents? Or rather, more generally, is justice worth pursuing at any cost?

Now, the argument for pursuing cases such as this one is the notoriety. Governments believe that ordinary people, like myself, will refrain from cheating the system because we see these cases play out on the news and famous people do sometimes go to prison. However, it might not be the right approach to combat tax evasion. The IRS has recently been very successful with infiltrating the UBS client side tax evasion system by turning one of the key bankers within the bank itself. The settlement forced UBS to turn over 4,450 names and eventually that number may increase to 10,000. It allows the IRS the access to enough information to prosecute a large number of Americans for skipping out on their taxes, in another word, a big payday for the IRS at a very minimal cost.

I believe this is the correct way to go about finding a solution to this issue and the correct way to spend our tax dollars.

By Raymond C.

On February 9th 2012, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved two new reactors at the Vogtle nuclear plant in Georgia. As controversies go, nuclear power plants are near the top of the list. This is especially so after an earthquake and tsunami caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan. This begs the obvious question, what is behind our commitment to this technology? Why are we messing with it? The answer, it seems, lies in our desire to become energy independent and to become more green.

The United States is the second highest consumer of energy in the world, at 19 percent of world energy demand, only recently losing the title to China in 2011. We are also the highest consumers of oil, at 21 percent of global demand. To satisfy this thirst for energy, the United States imported 11.4 million barrels of petroleum per day from 80 different countries in 2011, accounting for 45 percent of our consumption requirements. This heavy reliance on foreign oil is one of the main driving forces behind the energy policies of the Obama administration. In president Obama’s press release on March 21, 2012, he vowed to travel the country to promote his all-of-the-above energy strategy, highlighting the administration’s focus on “reducing our reliance on foreign oil, saving families and business money at the pump, and positioning the United States as the global leader in clean energy.” The message here seems very clear, the United States is fully committed to becoming energy independent as well as combating the problem of global warming.

While the focus of this all-of-the-above approach has been to increase domestic production of oil and natural gas, promote efficiency, and increase domestic renewable energy production, the administration also strongly supports nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is currently used around the world to generate electricity. The United State currently has 104 nuclear reactors producing more than 800 terawatts of electricity annually, accounting for 20 percent of the domestic electricity demand. As with other forms of electricity generation, there are both benefits and downsides to nuclear power. It is currently one of the more reliable and readily available clean energy technologies globally, but it is also one of the most dangerous. Its emissions are 50 to 100 times lower than fusel fuel and it provides consistent electricity, as oppose to renewables like wind and solar. On the other hand, the events at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan have provided ample evidence of its dangers.

The debate pits pollution and foreign dependence on coal and fossil fuels against the potential for radioactive catastrophe of nuclear power. The government current policies seem to stand on the side of nuclear power; the Energy Policy Act of 2005 provides plants with loan guarantees and tax benefits, the Department of Energy shares some of the costs of site development, and the cap-and-trade emission requirements all points to an alliance between the government and the nuclear power industry. I believe, though with certain reservations, it is the right step to take.

By Marisa Winoker

In 1987, Michael Morton was convicted of brutally murdering his wife and sentenced to life in prison.  Yet, after serving near twenty-five years behind bars, Morton has recently been released; DNA testing has proved that another man, an already convicted felon, is responsible for the murder.

Morton is thankful that he was not on death row because it gave the Innocence Project “time to do their thing.”  The Innocence Project is “dedicated to proving the innocence of wrongly convicted people through the use of DNA testing, and to reforming the criminal justice systems to prevent future injustice.”

After District Judge Sid Harle set Morton free, he stated: “You have my apologies . . . We do not have a perfect system of justice, but we have the best system of justice in the world.”  How could an apology ever justify the system’s inexcusable failure?  How could this apology ever make Morton whole again?  Not only did Morton lose twenty-five years of his life, but more importantly lost something that can never be repaired: his dignity.  Not to mention, he lost his wife and eventually “lost” his son.  At the age of twelve, Morton’s son was adopted by a relative; at the age of eighteen, Morton’s son told him that he would be taking his adopted parents’ last name.  This, Morton says, is when he hit rock bottom.

As Professor Thane Rosenbaum states: “we live in a world that only recognizes harm in the physical realm but there is so much harm that that involves the spiritual realm.”  Professor Rosenbaum suggests that denying someone dignity is a type of spiritual death.  This spiritual death, he says, is irreplaceable.  So, while Morton is still alive physically, a part of him has died.  This death took place over the course of many years while imprisoned.  In a 60 minutes segment entitled ”Evidence of Innocence,” Morton states: “My first cell I could stretch out my arms and before my elbows locked, I was touchin’ both walls. And you got two grown men in there. The food’s abysmal. You’re never alone. The system controls every part of your life.” In response, the reporter asks: “Its soul destroying?”  Morton then states: “Yeah. It eats at you kind of like a rust.” With this in mind, how can the state ever compensate Morton for the pain he has suffered?  While Morton will receive nearly $80,000 for every year he served behind bars, no amount of money can repair the emotional distress he has suffered.

Although Morton is now a free man, “the jury responsible for convicting [him] had never known that [at the time of his trial], state prosecutors possessed both physical and eyewitness evidence leading to another suspect.”  Allegations have been made that the lead prosecutor in the case, who is currently a Texas Judge, knew of the evidence that could have proved Morton’s innocence but concealed it from the defense.  This evidence was a police report, “in which [Morton’s mother-in-law] told investigators that her 3-year-old grandson Eric had witnessed the murder and described to her in detail how he saw a “monster” with a “big moustache” kill his mother.”

A prosecutor’s role is to seek justice, yet ironically in this case, the exact opposite was achieved.  It is quite possible here that the prosecutor was seeking nothing more than a victory.  According to Professor Rosenbaum, “there is no greater spiritual crime than to deny a truth” but ultimately the “truth will always come out”.  In most instances, I agree with Professor Rosenbaum in that the truth will prevail but what about the innocent men and women that remain behind bars that might never experience the same fate as Michael Morton?

By S.S.

The Book of Mormon is the new hit Broadway musical
from the creators of the hit TV Show, South Park, Matt Stone and Trey
Parker. The play is the story of two young Mormons who are sent
together on their mission to Uganda, and hilarity ensues. The Book of
Mormon won 9 awards at last year’s Tony Awards and has received
overwhelmingly positive reviews. I have been lucky enough to see this
wonderful play since it opened last year, twice. What you get with the
Book of Mormon, after you take away all the jokes and cursing, is a
lesson about the power of religion, how it can be used correctly, and
how it can be used incorrectly.

The Book of Mormon, to put it so crudely, is about one
Mormon, Elder Price, learning that maybe everything he’s been told to
believe his whole life isn’t true, and the other, Elder Cunningham,
learning that it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you can
stop people from raping babies and cutting of women’s clitorises.

Two songs from the play show this sharp contrast
between good religion and bad religion. When the two main characters
meet their fellow missionaries, they are greeted with a nice song
called, “Turn It Off.” This song is about “a nifty little Mormon
trick,” which involves repressing your feelings about everything from
a sibling’s death to seeing your father beat your mother to
homosexuality.  This song symbolizes everything that is wrong with
religion and how it can be used to judge people and hide immoral
behavior.

Later in the play, Elder Cunningham is left to try to
bring the local Ugandans to the Church all by himself, through the
song “Making Things Up Again.” After an initial failure to relate the
story of The Book of Mormon to the Ugandans, one of the locals gets up
and walks away, saying he is going off “to rape a baby.” Not wanting
this terrible thing to happen, Elder Cunningham makes up stories,
combining elements of The Book of Mormon, Star Wars and Lord of the
Rings, and the villagers’ actual problems, saying it is forbidden to
do things like rape babies and cut off women’s clitorises. This is the
essence of the play and the message I took out of it; it does not
matter how crazy the stories you believe are, as long as it gets you
to do the right thing (the argument between moral relativism and
universal morality and how you define what the “right thing” is is a
completely different issue).

The message of The Book of Mormon all comes together
during the play’s climax (minor spoiler alert). After the villagers
learn they will not be accepted into the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, Nabalungi, the female lead, is disappointed she
will not be able to go to the magical city she had been told about in
these stories, Sal Tlay Ka Citi (Salt Lake City). After expressing her
sadness to the other villagers, they all laugh at Nabalungi for
believing that Sal Tlay Ka Citi and all the other stories Elder
Cunningham told were real. They said Sal Tlay Ka Citi is not a real
place, but a place that resides within each of us, a place that sets
us on the right path in life. The villagers knew the stories were all
made up, but it made them happy and got them to do what is right, like
any good religion should.

By D.G.

“Summertime… and the livin’ is easy.” These are the opening lyrics
to the Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess.” After having watched it, I want
my money back! I sat for two hours as the cast embodied stereotypical
images of African-Americans all over the stage. Every possible
stereotypical image of African-Americans you could imagine was there
on the stage. And they suffered from hardships one assumes plagues
all African-Americans: drug abuse, poverty, and violence.

The story takes place in Catfish Row, a fictitious town in South
Carolina.  It is a tale of an African-American woman who is torn
between a host of men.  First, there’s Crown–her abusive and
possessive lover, who commits murder in opening segments of the story.
Then, there’s Porgy–a crippled beggar who falls in love with her
and struggles to save her from her old ways. Porgy also resorts to
murder later in the story.  And finally, there’s Sportin’ Life–a
drug dealer that’s determined to have Bess accompany him to the big
city, all the while supplying her drug habit.

It is important to discuss some of the history and background behind
the story. The story was based on the novel, “Porgy,” written by
DuBose Heyward–a white man from South Carolina. George and Ira
Gershwin, along with Heyward, adopted the novel into “Porgy and Bess,”
the opera.

Essentially, “[i]t’s a story of “black life” penned by a white
Southerner, scored by a New York Jewish composer, written in dialect
(cartoonish, by today’s standards) and containing strong whiffs of
well-intentioned paternalism, tourism, and exoticism.”  In other
words, it is a story about African-Americans created entirely by and
through the lens of white people. This is problematic for a number of
reasons. First, there are obvious problems that arise when an
outsider attempts to give his take on a community and culture that he
is not qualified to comment on. The result in this case: the
characters are nothing more than stereotypical caricatures of
African-Americans with no real depth. Isn’t art and music supposed to
be uplifting and enriching? Shouldn’t the experience of “Porgy and
Bess” be one that elevates understanding of the African-American
experience in South Carolina? Instead of being a celebration of
African-American music and life, it is nothing more than a
misrepresentation that reinforces stereotypical depictions of
African-Americans.

I understand that “Porgy and Bess” was ahead of its time. I
understand that it provided African-Americans an opportunity to
perform on Broadway. But all of this was done at whose expense? Many
consider “Porgy and Bess” to be one of Broadway’s greatest. I, on the
other hand, find it extremely offensive.

On April 22nd’s episode of “The Good Wife,” the characters of the firm
Lockhart & Gardner are asked to represent a judge who is being
investigated for misconduct during his days as a prosecutor.
Specifically, he prosecuted a man for killing his wife, only to have
DNA evidence exonerate the convicted murderer 22 years later. This
episode was filled with scenes and dialogue exploiting the injustices
of Chicago’s (and America’s) just legal system. For instance, the
accused judge displays no remorse for his actions of prosecuting an
innocent man. Rather, he explains his actions away as being what any
prosecutor would do in the same situation with the same evidence.
And, truthfully, he’s probably right. Moreover, Alicia Florrick (the
show’s protagonist) and the other attorneys working on the case
convince their client that the only way he is going to be able to get
past the charges of judicial misconduct is if he shifts blame to his
co-prosecutor in the case, even though it is made clear that the
co-prosecutor did nothing wrong at the time.

While I couldn’t help but laugh to myself as I noticed all of these
digs at the legal system by the show’s writers, what interested me the
most in the episode was the character of the judge presiding over the
judicial misconduct hearing. In his entrance to the courtroom, he
tells the attorneys and defendant that he is new to this type of
proceeding and that they can refer to him as “Murph” instead of “Your
Honor.” After this statement, the defendant turns to his counsel and
says something along the lines of, “This guy is a moron.” Ironically,
however, it turns out that Murph is anything but. In fact, he is
portrayed as the only character in the legal system who actually cares
about getting the story out. Throughout the hearing, he cuts the
attorneys off and asks the witnesses his own questions, which are much
more pointed and get to the point the attorneys had been getting at in
a round-about way. Furthermore, he constantly tells counsel to stop
objecting and let the witness tell his or her story. He even
approaches the defendant directly and asks him questions, despite the
fact that the defendant never took the stand.

I found this dynamic extremely interesting because the very person who
is deemed a “moron” by his peers in the legal system is actually the
only person in the whole affair who is on a mission to find the truth.
I can’t help but think that this entire episode was about the
inadequacies of the legal system and immorality of the lawyers and
judges who promote (and attempt to circumvent) such a system. “The
Good Wife” often deals with the moral issues defense attorneys working
for a prestigious firm face in their professional lives, and I thought
that this episode pointed out the immorality inherent in the legal
system exceptionally well.

By Jennifer S. Kang

Feminist jurisprudence has long criticized the (allegedly) objective
“rational actor” model of individual behavior, rejecting the
neoclassical “myth of autonomy” and instead asserting contrary
“realities” of “inevitable dependence” and “inevitable derivative
dependence.” Feminist thinkers like Martha Fineman point out how
liberal “veil of ignorance” theories of distributive justice like John
Rawls’ A Theory of Justice, for example, fail to account for the fact
that (1) all individuals are inevitably dependent for significant
parts of our lives (i.e., in infancy, childhood, old-age, times of
sickness) and (2) consequently, those who care for the inevitably
dependent (predominantly women in most societies) thereby become
inevitably derivatively dependent, in the sense that they are unable
or less able to support themselves as a result. Susan Moller Okin
similarly complains that the structure of our basic sociopolitical
legal and economic institutions simply assume that “someone other than
their participants is taking care of the young, the old, the sick, and
even the participants’ own daily needs.”

Western schools of feminist thought largely share the same basic
assumption as liberal theories – namely, that all social value
judgments are (and should be) made by self-interested, autonomous
individuals; and they ultimately argue for equal access (and pay) to
private sector employment, coupled with the commodification of
domestic work, as the only solution to such gendered inequality.
According to these feminists, women – who were historically “forced”
to undertake unpaid work in the home by the “stronger sex” – continue
to do more than their fair share despite readily available
alternatives today merely because our social institutions continue to
reinforce certain inequitable norms about societal gender roles. In
other words, such gendered social norms account for the objectively
“irrational” (or perhaps even “lazy” or “wasteful” or “passive”)
behavior of women who choose to work in the home instead of obtaining
gainful employment and farming the work out to other paid laborers.
Western feminists’ emphasis on the inherent “irrationality” of staying
in the home ultimately stems from their fear that legitimizing
gendered differences will merely sustain women’s social inequality
(i.e., keep us down, in the home, by continuing to brainwash us into
thinking that we belong there).

In an interesting twist, however, other “cultural” feminists
complained that such liberal policy platforms are inherently (Western)
biased and consequently leave-out many women who may make meaningful,
rational choices to stay home based on their own “communal”
conceptions of self. They draw upon modern social psychology, like
Carol Gilligan’s famous conception of the distinctly feminine “ethic
of care,” to argue that a woman’s decision to raise her own children,
for example, can be explained by something more intrinsic (to herself)
than the distortive effects of inequitable social norms. In other
words, the problem is not that women undertake a disproportionate
amount of domestic work, but rather that the value of such work is not
formally recognized, protected, or encouraged. Cultural feminists
like Katherine Donovan would prefer to celebrate and protect women’s
differences, rather than to emphasize a (phenomenologically misguided)
commitment to “sameness,” which inherently makes “man the superior
standard.”

By Daniel B.

Acknowledgment of harm caused and storytelling are two important remedies that can help to heal victims andsociety after the perpetration of a genocide. A Cambodian war crimestribunal recently released courtroom apologies made by Kaing GuekEav, one of the perpetrators of the Khmer Rouge’s campaign ofgenocide in the 1970s. European media sources report that Eav, aKhmer Rouge jailer, made “statements of apology” and acknowledgedthe harm he had caused during the Cambodian genocide.
Increasingly, apologies andacknowledgments are being looked to as a remedy for victims. Suchstatements provide not only some measure of remedy to victims butalso act to deter similar acts from taking place in the future. RadioNetherlands Worldwide wrote that this period in Cambodian history isstill largely overlooked in school text books. Therefore, the legalsystem can act to mend the deficiencies in areas of this countrieseducational system by spreading the history of past atrocities.
Such publicization of apologies andacknowledgments helps to provide a better understanding of the harmcaused but sometimes this is not enough. Some organizations havelooked to victim testimonials to provide a fuller picture of harmfulevents. Victim testimonials allow victims tell their story in orderto gain some spiritual comfort in being heard and validated.
One organization that has recentlyexpanded efforts to publicize testimony from victims of genocide inCambodia and other areas is the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. Whileits Cambodian efforts appear to still be preliminary, on April 5ththe institute announced that it would be adding 400 new witnessvideos detailing atrocities committed during the 1915-1923 Armeniangenocide to its already extensive collection composed mostly ofHolocaust testimonials. One of their stated goals, making thesevictim testimonials available to the public, acts to complementperpetrator apologies and acknowledgments by providing a morecomplete picture of any given atrocity.

By Ben Falk

President Bill Clinton’s administration is remembered for balancing the budget, meeting a hostile Congress with a strong hand, and presiding over a period of unprecedented economic expansion and growth. But leading the country out of a recession and into growth is merely a portion of what he accomplished during his time in the White House.

President Clinton’s successes were not merely limited to economic policy. He negotiated a peace agreement between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, stopped Slobodan Milosevic’s brutal genocide in Kosovo, normalized relations with Vietnam, and signed the African Growth and Opportunity Act. These foreign policy successes, helped set-up what could be President Clinton’s most lasting legacy: the work of the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative.

The William J. Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) are arguably the high-water mark of any post presidency.  Through his Foundation and CGI, President Clinton has fostered sustainable programs worldwide focused on economic empowerment, education, environment and energy, health systems, and nutrition.

Now, President Clinton will be getting back to his law-professor roots (yes, he did start out as a law professor at the University of Arkansas) by speaking to the Forum on Law, Culture and Society at Fordham Law. Come join the Forum for what will no doubt be a fascinating conversation with one of the most accomplished and interesting Americans.

By Luis Arriaga

I would like to discuss briefly about the Mexican criminal justice system. As in
other justice systems in Latin America, Mexico’s criminal justice system has
been designed and modified not to guarantee the human rights of its population
but rather to create a profitable environment for powerful actors to
defend their
property, their political interests, and most of all their position of power. In
Mexico, two concrete examples come to mind today. One is a practice called
arraigo, which is a form of pre-charge detention in which police can detain a
person for up to 80 days without having evidence to charge the person of any
crime. In other words, the authorities arrest and imprison you to give them
the chance to find a reason to have arrested you in the first place. Aside from
the many reports of brutal torture applied to people detained under arraigo in
military bases and other facilities, the mere existence of this
practice is one of
the greatest affronts imaginable to the presumption of innocence.

The second example is the criminalization of social movements and social
protest in Mexico. The definitions of “organized crime” and several specific
categories of crime are so broad in our criminal justice system that they permit
the arbitrary arrest of local leaders who organize to protest peacefully against
injustice and to defend the human rights of their communities – those who in
solidarity with their fellow humans seek to respond to the clamor for equality
and justice. Once an authority decides to accuse an activist of fabricated
crimes, the entire system is weighted against them, with every step of the
process bent on convicting the person of whatever arbitrary accusation is made
by those wearing the uniform of the State.

As a result of this system, Mexico’s prisons are not filled with the
country’s most
dangerous criminals, but rather with Mexico’s poor, reproducing and deepening
the inequality that characterizes Mexican society.

The clamor for justice and human rights transcends the borders of States and
is understood across languages. Once we commit ourselves to change our
reality by acting with conviction, we find that we are capable of
constructing just
societies in which it is possible to live with dignity.