BC Law Magazine Summer 2019
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Boston College Law School Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School Boston College Law School Magazine Summer 7-1-2019 BC Law Magazine Summer 2019 Boston College Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclsm Part of the Legal Education Commons Recommended Citation Boston College Law School, "BC Law Magazine Summer 2019" (2019). Boston College Law School Magazine. 54. https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclsm/54 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law School Magazine by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PLUS GLOBAL ENGAGEMENT Unbound BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINE A Radical View SUMMER 2019 of Citizenship BC.EDU/BCLAWMAGAZINE EMPLOYMENT LAW Goodbye 9 to 5 Why Worklife Will Never Be the Same Again PROFILE Miami Nice A Cuban Girl Who Made It in America THE INNOCENCE WHISPERERS What Does It Take to Free the Wrongly Convicted? Intuition Is Part of It. So Are Incisive Legal Minds. But at BC Law There Is Also Something More, A Special Collaboration Among Lawyers, Students, and the Gifted Adjunct Professor Charlotte Whitmore, Who Together Work to Solve Stubborn Cases. Omar Martinez’s Story Shows Us How. BC Law Magazine MIAMI NICE Teresa Valdes-Fauli Weintraub ’79 likes to quote her mother about her narrow escape from Cuba. My mother always told us: “Don’t look back. Don’t say ‘poor me.’ We have our freedom and we’re moving forward.” Page 30 Photograph by SONYA REVELL Contents SUMMER 2019 VOLUME 27 / NUMBER 2 Clockwise, from top left, Dimitry Kochenov redefines citizenship; Nicole Horberg Decter ’01 talks about labor law; Professor Stephen Koh joins BC Law faculty; the transformation of employment. 18 Features 34 22 The Innocence Whisperers Adjunct Charlotte Whit- more has a gift for freeing the wrongly convicted. But she doesn’t do it alone. Her 20 talent is in knowing how to assist a team of students and colleagues through a labyrinthine criminal justice system where too many innocent people have lost their way. With the team’s help, Omar Marti- nez found his way out. By Chad Konecky 9 30 From Prosperity to Foremost 10 Impact A BC Law-related Esquire Peril and Back Again 2 In Limine From the Editor. team threads a legal needle 40 Generations The Hackers— The remarkable life journey to bring a deportee home. Michael ’78 and Jamie ’13. of the Cuban girl born 3 For the Record Teresa Valdes-Fauli. Updates and contributors. 12 Candid Alex Bou-Rhodes ’19. 41 Class Notes By Katharine Whittemore 4 Behind the Columns 14 Faculty Scholarship 46 Alumni News Uzbekistan points the way Professor Shu-Yi Oei James V. Menno ’86; John 34 to saying no to tyranny. detects flaws in tax law’s T. Montgomery ’75; Marian The Dignity of Work By Dean Vincent Rougeau rulemaking process. Ryan ’79; Thomas Carey ’65. (Is That Even a Thing Anymore?) 16 In the Field 50 Click Law Day and In a shapeshifting employ- Docket Laura Twomey ’97, Rob Commencement 2019. ment environment, experts 6 In Brief Correcting the Weber ’92 , and four other sort out what to worry false narratives of global alumni on the job. 52 Advancing Excellence about and what to hope for. migration; 1978 film opens By Jane Whitehead old wounds; George Casey’s 18 Brainstorm 55 The 2018-2019 war and peace; missing Dean Vincent Rougeau and Giving Report On the Cover Adjunct Professor mailbox trial begins; elec- Dimitry Kochenov. Charlotte Whitmore and Lauren tion experts shine a light 68 In Closing A legal remedy Rossman ’19, with recently freed Christopher “Omar” Martinez. on ‘dark money’; Professor 20 Evidence The transforma- for incarcerated kids. Photograph by Joshua Dalsimer. Steven Koh. tion of employment. Lauren Koster ’19 Photographs, clockwise from top left, DIANA LEVINE; MATT KALINOWSKI; courtesy, COLUMBIA LAW; JAMES STEINBERG Summer 2019 BC LAW MAGAZINE 1 IN LIMINE Foremost Still in the Dark name, the First Step Act, is a reminder that describe a circumstance that never should getting the laws of the land right has, and will have occurred in the first place. According to Ages of Criminal continue to be, a long, slow slog to true justice. the National Registry of Exonerations, 1,600 Justice Reform For every day, week, month, and year that people have been exonerated in the United goes by without full accountability for the States since 1989; that includes pardons, dis- Why, in the 21st century, is the consequences of outdated, inadequate, and missals, acquittals, and the like. American justice system still failing broken policies and laws, the lives of those That number is stunning, when even one so many people? Things certainly trapped in the system are damaged. We’re is too many. How does the most advanced began to look better over the past year as talking human beings here. For all the hue and nation in the world justify a justice system reform efforts resulted in a host of new state cry among some Americans for the sanctity that, in this circumstance at least, feels like laws and in the most important federal legisla- of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a throwback to the Dark Ages, when a person tion on the issue in years. But the measure’s it seems the national will has yet to catch up could be locked in a dungeon and the key care- with that principled call for human dignity. lessly tossed away? These sorrowful thoughts are brought to It is hard to square Martinez’s warm and mind by the subject of our cover story, a man optimistic demeanor with the attitudes one named Christopher “Omar” Martinez (“The would expect from a man who endured the Innocence Whisperers,” page 22). Imprisoned cruelties and debasements of unjustifiable in his early twenties for murder, he spent incarceration. Somehow, though, with the help nearly two decades behind bars. Thanks to an of his faith, his fundamental amiability, and intensive investigation by the Boston College his restored belief in the “good” in others and Innocence Program, together with a collab- in the rule of law, he seems to have reconciled orative group of advocacy organizations and his past with the future he now hopes to live individuals, he walked out of a courtroom in and the difference he hopes to make. April a free man. That’s how all of humanity should behave. Martinez got lucky, in a manner of speak- VICKI SANDERS, Editor ing, but imagine saying such a thing to [email protected] CONNECT Update your contact information BC Law Magazine The alumni volunteers serve on their Reunion Judging Oral Advocacy Competi- fund provide immediate financial to stay in touch with BC Law. To magazine is published twice a year, Committee. Committees begin tions Hundreds of students partici- support for many of BC Law’s most learn of ways to help build our in January and June. Contact editor forming the winter prior to the re- pate in four in-house competitions: important needs. Key funding priorities community, volunteer, or support Vicki Sanders at [email protected] union weekend, and members spend Negotiations (early autumn), Mock have included financial aid, public inter- the school, contact BC Law’s or 617-552-2873 for printed editions approximately two hours per month Trial (late autumn), Client Counseling est summer stipends, post-graduate advancement office: or to share news items, press releases, on committee work. (late winter), and Moot Court (spring). fellowships, and faculty research grants. letters to the editor, or class notes. Alumni from all career areas are Email: [email protected] Ambassador Program Law firm needed to judge these competitions. 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Drinan, leagues are doing professionally, read classmates informed, engaged, and Program matches first-year students scholars are selected each academic SJ, who served as dean of BC Law, about the latest events on campus, invested in BC Law’s future success.