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In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Canopy Forum continues our commitment to produce expert analysis for the broader community of digital consumers: citizens, scholars, lawyers, clergy, journalists, policy makers, and more. We've collected our recent content reflecting on the current public health crisis.
“Conviction: A Series on Criminal Law and Religion”Matthew P. Cavedon “conviction (n) 1: the act or process of finding a person guilty of a crime especially in a court of law 2a:a strong persuasion or belief” Canopy Forum is an online publication on the intersection of law and religion, and Conviction is Canopy Forum’s ongoing series…
“Freedom” by Marko Lovric / Pixabay In October 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill meant to ban the use of for-profit, private detention facilities, phasing out existing detention facilities entirely by 2028. Already contested by means of a complaint filed by GEO Group, a private prison management corporation, and a lawsuit filed by…
“Candle and Police Tape” by Tony Webster / Flickr / CC-BY-2.0 On May 5, 2020, the American public gained access to a unique, but also familiar video. Unique in that the name of this victim was Ahmaud Arbery, but familiar in the content depicted, a black man being killed for the sole fact that his…
As COVID-19 tightens its lethal grip on the globe, a palpable tension emerges between the authority of governmental officials in every state in the U.S. who have issued guidelines limiting social interactions to preserve the public health while recognizing religious exemptions, and individual rights to freedom of religion. Lawsuits in the United States have challenged…
This is the final installment of a three-part essay, offering a radical proposal for how ethical prosecutors ought to approach sentencing recommendations for non-violent criminal offenders, given the often dangerous and abusive conditions that exist in many American prisons. This perspective is informed by Jewish law’s complex history and jurisprudence criticizing cooperation with unjust legal…
This is the second part of a three-part essay offering a radical proposal for how ethical prosecutors ought to approach sentencing recommendations for non-violent criminal offenders given the often dangerous and abusive conditions that exist in many American prisons. This perspective is informed by Jewish law’s complex history and jurisprudence criticizing cooperation with unjust legal…
This is the first part of a three-part essay offering a radical proposal for how ethical prosecutors ought to approach sentencing recommendations for non-violent criminal offenders given the often dangerous and abusive conditions that exist in many American prisons. This perspective is informed by Jewish law’s complex history and jurisprudence criticizing cooperation with unjust legal…
Albrecht begins her very fine study with a methodological introduction, a summary of the various pre-modern views of territoriality in Islam, and an overview of various Islamic views on territoriality in the modern period. Part Two, the modern period, is the main focus of her work. There, Albrecht distinguishes four typologies for understanding the geo-religious…
In a 2016 article in the American Journal of Law and Medicine, George Annas developed four guiding principles, which he argued could helpfully chart a broad health and human rights response to the spread of infections that threaten public safety. First, he suggested that prevention should be the primary goal when formulating public policy responses…
Congressman Clay Higgins, representing Louisiana’s Third Congressional District, recently drew attention for his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. First, the congressman addressed a letter to Louisiana’s Governor John Bel Edwards decrying and denouncing restrictions on group gatherings as a violation of freedoms of religion and assembly under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Then,…