DISCOVERY presented by UW Law

Deep systemic issues leading to a culture of punishment in our criminal justice system often seal the fates of children who end up incarcerated. The case of Kimonti Carter, a model prisoner who grew up as a "baby gangster" in the redlined, 1990s neighborhoods of Tacoma, Washington, is a prototype for many others like him. Sentenced two months after his eighteenth birthday to a life without parole, Mr. Carter has transformed inmates' lives through education and his leadership of the Black Prisoners' Caucus. Though he is a counternarrative to his fate, he was viewed as irredeemable and charged as a "super predator."

Dr. Gilda Sheppard, an award-winning filmmaker whose documentary "Since I Been Down" highlights the redemption story of Kimonti Carter and our need for deep systemic change, recently screened the film for UW Law's Public Interest Law Association. Gilda is a member of the faculty at The Evergreen State College's Tacoma Program. She has taught sociology classes in Washington state prisons for over a decade.

In this episode, Dr. Sheppard tells us how "Since I Been Down" creates much-needed discussion around systemic change for children and a call to revisit state sentencing laws. Dr. Sheppard also appeals to the hope and healing which comes with prison-initiated programs.

Public interest attorneys are charged with advancing justice for all, but according to Washington Supreme Court Justice G. Helen Whitener, the practice of public interest law has lost its focus since the 1960s. Solving the intersecting inequities that face underrepresented communities requires that we reckon with our history and commit to creating new solutions together.

Justice Whitener was appointed by Governor Inslee to the Washington State Supreme Court in April 2020 and retained by voters in November 2020. Honored by the American Bar Association with the 2022 Stonewall Award, Justice Whitener uses her lived experiences as a multiple minority to continually raise awareness of matters of race, justice and equity and act as a voice for marginalized communities. In April 2022, Justice G. Helen Whitener gave opening remarks at UW Law's Public Interest Law Association gala in support of the theme, "Personal Identity in Public Interest Law: How Me Becomes We."

In this episode, Justice Whitener shares her poetry and wisdom on the importance of transcending the biases and stereotypes that come with labels, unlocking our individual and collective potential by creating action plans for our dreams, and developing a new movement to solve old problems, so we can move forward as a society.

On March 19, 2022, the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission held a second vote regarding a proposed spring bear hunting season, this time deciding 5-4 against the seasonal hunt, after a 4-4 vote in November 2021. Before the March vote, Washington's spring bear hunt was just one of eight in the nation allowed by state environmental agencies. The controversial vote has brought concerns to the surface by both hunters and conservationists.

Claire Davis, managing partner of Animal & Earth Advocates and president of Washington Wildlife First, recently spoke with UW Law students as part of the school's Social Justice Tuesday series. A former journalist turned attorney, Claire brings public interest litigation on behalf of animals and wildlife.

In this episode, Claire Davis explains why the spring bear hunt is a symbolic issue for wildlife policy reform, particularly in that it does not reflect the values and ethics of most of the 7.7 million residents of Washington state, less than 3 percent of whom hunts overall.

The U.S. Supreme Court has endorsed companies' ability to block class actions through mandatory individual arbitration clauses. A recent policy-based critique balances the purely legal, doctrinal perspective of class actions by examining issues through the lens of economics. Depending on circumstances surrounding the interests of consumers, investors and employees, some class actions maximize social welfare whereas others reduce it and actually promote harmful business practices.

Dr. Albert H. Choi, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Law, co-authored an update on the subject by addressing class action lawsuits from an economics perspective. A recent speaker in UW Law's 1L Perspectives course, Dr. Choi's research is published in many top economics and law journals. He is the current co-editor of the American Law and Economics Review.

In this episode, we speak with Dr. Choi about why we should critique class action waivers on a case-by-case basis. He tells us about new unresolved issues, including those which surfaced during the pandemic, and identifies future challenges for legal scholarship.

As the result of a broad societal shift recognizing the injuries of violence, it's been said that we live in an "age of trauma." Emotional trauma has fueled legal and policy social justice reforms in the three key social justice movements of our time: #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo, and climate change. However, trauma-centered advocacy and social justice can have negative implications.

Noa Ben-Asher, LLB, LLM, JSD, has taught torts; family law; and gender, sexuality and the law at Pace University in New York since 2009. They hold the 2021-2023 James D. Hopkins Professorship, which recognizes a faculty member for outstanding scholarship and teaching.

In this episode, Professor Ben-Asher warns that, even as we have advanced our understanding of trauma as a modern characteristic of our times, we are in danger of overlooking structural solutions to broader social injustice. They suggest that litigators and laymen alike should take caution in using trauma as the framework for justice as it perpetuates wounded identities and limits our legal and social imagination.

Exploring space involves launching satellites which create debris. The international community is working on the process of debris mitigation and traffic coordination to avoid interference and future collisions. Though technical regulations exist, there are no binding regulations nor enforcement mechanism in space. Information sharing and data collection, particularly from as many sources as possible, are critical to heightening space situational awareness and reducing the potential for conflict in space.

P.J. Blount, J.D., LL.M., M.S., Ph.D., is a lecturer in law at Cardiff University in the UK and executive secretary of the International Institute of Space Law. He has published and presented widely on space security law and has given expert testimony on space traffic management before the U.S. Congress.

As the fourth season of the Discovery podcast takes off, Dr. Blount addresses the challenges of international law and geopolitical tensions in creating a sustainable space environment and explains why space traffic management is a future-oriented idea. He shares his hopes for future communication and data collection among states, as well as de-escalation of competitive interests, so that we can all benefit as a global community from space as a precious resource.

In 2020, the United States held its first presidential election in a pandemic. It was expected that nationwide voting by mail would cause issues, but few expected a partisan fight over access to voting during a pandemic.

Elisabeth Frost is a partner at Perkins Coie, which has the oldest political law department in the country. She specializes in litigation that involves the political practice.

On this episode, she discusses the election and the role lawyers must play in safeguarding American democracy in the immediate fight against voter suppression.

Since George Floyd's murder this past summer, dozens of bills have been introduced at the Washington Legislature intending to increase accountability and transparency among police forces.

ACLU of Washington attorney Enoka Herat has worked on many of them, including two landmark pieces of legislation that address police tactics and use of force.

On this episode, she talks about the ways in which activism shaped the state's current legislative agenda, and she discusses roles lawyers play in abolishing police violence through work at the legislative level.

Over the past four years, members of America's business community have taken increasingly stronger steps in opposition of divisive policies, actions and rhetoric of the Trump presidency. That footfall became heaviest following the 2020 election and Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.

Now with states across the country seeking to enact more restrictive voter suppression laws, Professor Jeffery Sonnenfeld discusses the history of corporate social responsibility in America and the sky-high expectations of corporations to serve as leaders for social change.

Yakama Nation v. Klickitat County involves a dispute that dates back 150 years and encompasses issues central to Tribal sovereignty in Washington state.

Revolving around the status of tract of land on the Yakama Reservation's southern boundary, the case calls in to play a legal framework that has been a pillar of U.S. Indian law for centuries.

When you throw ​in a SCOTUS ruling with major potential implications, the conversation gets even more complicated.

On a new episode of DISCOVERY, attorney Ethan Jones joins UW Law to discuss current issues, their history and potential outcomes as the case makes its way through the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.