In Colorado v. Connelly the Supreme Court held that police misconduct is necessary for an inadmissible confession. Since the Connelly decision, courts and scholars have framed the admissibility of a confession in terms of whether it successfully deters future police misconduct. As a result, the admissibility of a confession turns largely on whether U.S. police acted poorly, and only after overcoming this threshold have courts considered factors pointing to the reliability and voluntariness of the confession. In the international context, this translates into the routine and almost mechanic admission of confessions—even when there is clear indication that the confession is coerced or unreliable. Confessions obtained by foreign officers seldom meet the Connelly threshold because the United States has neither the ability, nor the goal, of controlling foreign police conduct. In light of the international context, courts should reexamine the Connelly test, which is not in line with the fundamental ideals of justice and fairness that the U.S. Constitution protects. Courts should tailor a test focused on the reliability of the confession in order to protect the defendant’s fundamental rights.

Professor 'Abdallahi Na'im argues that there can be no conflict between religion and the state because religion and politics are part of different normative orders, and thus it is not conceivable that a conflict can arise between them. I argue that Na'im's solution to the problematic relationship of religion to state shares the same conceptual terrain as separationism in American constitutional law, a position which has grown increasingly untenable as a result of the increasing religious pluralism in the United States and the expansion of the government into areas of life in a manner that would have been inconceivable even one hundred years ago. More importantly, revealed religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam provide their adherents with their own conceptions of justice that sometimes do conflict with the results of secular lawmaking. I argue that instead of seeking a further separation of religion from the state, on the grounds that the former is irrelev...

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service ("FMCS"), an independent agency of the U.S. government with over a half-century of conflict management and institutional-development experience, is a valuable resource in U.S. efforts to prevent armed conflict and build the foundations for lasting security in the U.S. and around the world. Given the urgency and complexity of this challenge, the United States

In the past few years drug and alcohol-exposed infants have added significantly to the tidal wave of neglect cases sweeping over the family courts. Large urban courts report staggering increases in their juvenile and family dockets. For example, the New York City Family ...