Georgetown University Law Center

About: Georgetown University Law Center is a based out in . It is known for research contribution in the topics: Supreme court & Public health. The organization has 585 authors who have published 2488 publications receiving 36650 citations. The organization is also known as: Georgetown Law & GULC.

A Plea for Funds: Using Padilla , Lafler , and Frye to Increase Public Defender Resources

Abstract: In the same way that the Court revolutionized the criminal justice world with its ruling in Gideon, Padilla, Lafler, and Frye might also radically change the criminal justice landscape. This Article will attempt to answer the following question: if there is a solution for the ever-growing case load of the public defender and the crisis of indigent defense, can Padilla, Lafler, and Frye be a significant part of the solution?This Article will proceed by examining whether these three opinions create a bar too high for most public defender offices to meet. It also seeks to suggest the kinds of changes needed for public defender offices to meet these basic requirements. To do so, I will begin in Part II by discussing guilty pleas in general. I will then describe the legal landscape prior to Padilla, Lafler, and Frye in Part III, and discuss the three cases themselves and their ramifications in Part IV. In Part V, I will then introduce the requirements for effective assistance of counsel, and describe the best practices for public defenders to use during plea bargaining. In Part VI, I will discuss the problem of the overburdened public defender office. Finally, in Part VII, I will conclude by addressing how overburdened public defender offices might employ these cases to help ease their case loads.

Prioritization and Mutualization: Clearinghouses and the Redundancy of the Bankruptcy Safe Harbors

Abstract: This Essay argues for the repeal of the bankruptcy safe harbors for financial contracts because they are redundant systemic risk safeguards. Most systemically important types of financial contracts now clear through clearinghouses. Clearinghouses are a superior method to the safe harbors for protecting the liquidity of systemically important money substitutes and do not subordinate bankruptcy policy concerns to systemic risk concerns. Clearinghouses are a better guaranty against systemic disruption than the safe harbors because they can absorb the losses caused by insolvencies and fire sales due to their deep capital and lack of leverage. Moreover, clearinghouses reduce systemic risk by forcing internalization of systemic externalities on the finance industry through loss mutualization. This reduces the industries incentive to engage in excessively risky transactions. And, in the event that losses overwhelm clearinghouses, they are technically and politically easier to bail out than individual firm when the safe harbors prove inadequate. Accordingly, this Essay argues for the safe harbors to be replaced with a clearing mandate only for those types of highly liquid financial contracts that serve as money substitutes.

A Thought Experiment

Abstract: Herewith, Justice Antonin Scalia's long lost dissenting opinion in Brown v. Board of Education.

Information Failure and the U.S. Mortgage Crisis

Abstract: This paper argues that during the housing bubble, housing finance markets failed to price risk correctly because of information failure caused by the complexity and heterogeneity of private-label mortgage-backed securities and structured finance products. Addressing the informational problems with mortgage securitization is critical not just for avoiding future housing bubbles but for rebuilding American housing finance. The continued availability of the long-term fixed-rate mortgage, which has been the bedrock of American homeownership since the Depression, depends on the continued viability of securitization. The paper proposes that mortgage securitization and origination be standardized as a way of reducing complexity and heterogeneity in order to rebuild a sustainable, stable housing finance market based around the long-term fixed-rate mortgage.