Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Ohio University, 2024, Business Administration

The purpose of this research is to examine the existing cyberharassment laws around the world and identify common themes that can enhance protections for the more than 50% of American adults who have experienced cyberharassment in their lifetimes. Dealing with the practical limitations of examining every country's law and the intent to benefit Americans, this qualitative analysis dissects the cyberharassment laws of two countries from each continent selected using criteria that allow for cross-examination with U.S. cyberharassment laws. The criteria used for selection incorporate population, power, influence, and unique regulatory factors not currently present in other countries. Through the evaluation of scholarly research and existing cyberharassment legislation, the coding system used in this analysis grew to include four categories of codes: Initiation, Factors Required by Law, Penalties, and Cyber-specific. By exploring these various approaches to solving the crisis of cyberharassment, this study works to explore additional considerations for online platforms that may revolutionize the way Americans interact with social media and ever-advancing technology. Included in this discussion are the unique factors that the United States specifically must consider when attempting to address cybercrimes like cyberharassment, including the First Amendment and American judiciary, corporate sovereignty, and cyber liberties, among others.

Bachelor of Arts, Miami University, 2005, College of Arts and Sciences - Philosophy

This thesis examines the nature of ordinary claims and the nature of normativity to better understand how a law acts as a norm for citizens. In particular, Philip Soper's discussion of the ‘Law's Claim to Justice' as the minimal normative claim of the law is investigated. The discussion follows Robert Brandom's philosophy of language and Christine Korsgaard's moral philosophy in analyzing normativity and claims-making. Ultimately, the sophistication of Soper's treatment is revealed, as his perspectives on normativity and claims bear certain affinities to those expounded by Brandom and Korsgaard. Furthermore, Korsgaard's discussion of morality as it relates to normativity leads the discussion to a similar inquiry into the relationship between the law's morality and normativity. The conclusion briefly draws out the implications of these discussions for egoism and Kant's claim to taste.

Bachelor of Arts, Ohio University, 2024, Political Science

This thesis critically examines the fate of administrative governance, focusing on the Supreme Court's jurisprudence on legislative delegation to the executive branch. The strengthening Major Questions Doctrine (MQD) inspires this examination, a recent legal principle that negates delegations of economically or politically significant regulatory power when Congress does not speak clearly enough to satisfy the Court. The MQD exemplifies the tension between rigid adherence to the separation of powers and the practical governance demands of an ever-changing society.

Bachelor of Arts, Walsh University, 2022, Honors

Over the past few years, the nationwide protests over the long-standing plague of racism in our country, most recently manifested in the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, have placed our nation before a “fork in the road.” We stand on the precipice of monumental change or devastating regression in the area of race relations within our nation. This has been most vivid in the relationship between law enforcement and the African American community. What comes next between these two parties will depend on how law enforcement responds to the cries of the people in these affected communities. Historically, particularly in African American communities, there has been an intimate connection between social movements and sensitives to injustice and faith. At the same time, there appears to be a decreasing appreciation of faith among law enforcement officers. If the disparity between the attitude towards faith by law enforcement and the significance of faith in communities of color continues to increase, it will undoubtedly lead to more tension between these two communities. I hypothesize that reconciliation between law enforcement and African American communities can be achieved through the inclusion of religious literacy in the training and formation of law enforcement officers. As a disclaimer, it is important to understand that the building of trust and the reparation of relationships is an effort that requires the cooperation of both sides. This means that there has to be a willingness and an understanding from both law enforcement and communities of color for any real difference to be made. It is also important to recognize that this is not a “black versus white” issue, this is an issue that affects society as a whole. This understanding will be made present throughout this research, but the primary focus will be on the inclusion of religious literacy in the formation of law enforcement officers.

Master of Science in Criminal Justice, Youngstown State University, 2020, Department of Criminal Justice and Consumer Sciences

Racial disparities in law enforcement have been a point of contention since their origin in the middle of the 19th Century. Employment in law enforcement has frequently shown discriminatory treatment to females, minorities and other ethnic groups due to its white-male dominated, paramilitary origin. Deviation from this paramilitary structure has caused more widespread discrimination, prejudice, and racism. This thesis will examine the amount of racial disparity present in a selection of Ohio law enforcement. There have been many advances in minority employment but minorities are still underrepresented in law enforcement. There are still minority communities that don't see diversity in their police departments, courts, and correctional facilities. Data will be used from the 2016 Bureau of Justice Statistics survey, and the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) database and information on six Local Police Departments in Ohio, namely Akron, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Steubenville. Statistics from the Pew Research Center and the Census Bureau will also be used to pull statistics from local police departments and their numbers of minorities amongst the ranks. This research will cover the hiring and the promotional processes that often disqualifies minorities. It will also proffer a solution that will allow for a more nondiscriminatory process.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2019, Higher Education

Do any law school involvement activities influence law student self-reported gains in writing skills? With Alexander Astin's Involvement Theory and I-E-O model as frameworks, this quantitative dissertation sought to answer this question. This study used a dataset containing survey responses from 3,803 full-time, third-year law students to the 2018 Law School Survey of Student Engagement (LSSSE). A blocked form of stepwise linear regression determined which independent variables related to law school involvement activities had a statistically significant impact on the dependent variable of law student self-reported gains in writing skills. The results showed that fifteen variables had a statistically significant relationship to student self-reported gains in writing skills. This dissertation has both academic and practical significance. It builds upon the limited number of studies analyzing law students' perceptions of their writing skills, dissertations utilizing LSSSE data, and research extending Astin's Involvement Theory and I-E-O model to legal education. Its findings can be used by law schools to help law students develop their writing skills before they graduate, since good writing is critical to bar exam passage and new lawyers' success early in the practice of law.

PHD, Kent State University, 2018, College of Public Health

At any given moment an estimated 11% of drivers are using some form of electronic device as noted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (Pickrell & KC, 2009). In 2014, distracted driving related accidents produced an estimated 431,000 injuries and 3,179 fatalities nationwide with 404 of these fatalities directly associated with cell phone use (USDOT, 2016). Ohio, like the rest of the country, has had its share of injuries and fatalities associated with distracted driving. However, unlike other states, Ohio does not have a primarily enforced distracted driving ban for all drivers. Ohio legislators passed a secondary enforcement distracted driving ban for adult drivers and primary enforcement distracted driving ban for underage drivers. An attempt to explore which distracted driving text ban law type (primary or secondary) has a larger impact on injuries and fatalities as a result of automobile accidents was the goal of this study. To understand this, a direct comparison between primary and secondary enforcement law types was analyzed pre- and post-law implementation between Ohio and Pennsylvania using the Fatality Analysis Reporting System from 2010 through 2016. Texting while driving was not a significant factor in the rate of injuries and fatalities for Ohio and Pennsylvania. However, Ohio's secondarily enforced texting while driving ban seems ineffective at curbing increasing fatalities and injuries throughout the time period analyzed with an overall increase of 1.38%. Pennsylvania's injury and fatality rate was only insignificantly and marginally lower throughout the same time period with a primarily enforced texting while driving ban at 4.35%. It appears that just placing approved legislation on the books with the lack of enforceability or priority for enforcement is an issue that many states are facing. In order for injuries and fatalities to be reduced, the law must be consistently and effectively upheld by all members of law enforcement with (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts in Psychology, Cleveland State University, 2014, College of Sciences and Health Professions

This study examined 200 personal statements of male, female, White, and African-American law school applicants to better understand how applicants use impression management to gain admission to law school. Data showed significant differences in how males compared to females and Whites compared to African-Americans use impression management in their law school personal statements. The research found African-Americans discussed personal motivation more often than did White applicants. White females and African-American males more frequently utilized conditions of motivation, gender or race, and personal story to demonstrate their capability to succeed in law school despite generally lower academic indicators. Females had more experience in the law than males. Males discussed red flags and used name dropping significantly more than females. In order to avoid missed opportunities for minority law school applicants to “sell themselves” to admission officers, law school admission offices, pre-law advisors, and the legal profession must clearly state what factors beyond the Law School Admission Test and undergraduate grade point average are necessary to be successful in law school.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2011, Higher Education

The literature on student academic success of law students is limited to mostly single institution studies, and as such, a nationwide, multi-institutional empirical study of the factors that predict student academic success is greatly needed by higher education scholars, law school admission officers, faculty, and administrators. This dissertation analyzed what effect, if any, undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores, in addition to environmental variables, has on cumulative law school GPA among full-time third-year law students in the United States responding to the 2008 Law School Survey of Student Engagement. A regression analysis revealed five input measures, one between-college characteristic, and fifteen environmental measures were significant predictors of cumulative law school GPA among third-year law students (n=1,756). The intended outcomes of the dissertation are twofold. First, law school faculty and administrators can use this information to promote student involvement that has been shown through this dissertation to influence students' GPA, which is well known in the legal education environment to be critical in the internship and job search process. Second, future studies of law students and other fields of professional education are encouraged to examine what role, if any, student involvement has on outcomes.

PHD, Kent State University, 2010, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Political Science

As advancements in mobility and communication technology significantly changed policing strategies in the twentieth century, recent advancements in analytical technology have the most potential to drive contemporary strategic innovation in policing organizations. The crime analysis function is essential to the implementation of innovations including problem-oriented, intelligence-led, and homeland security policing strategies. A robust analytical function is necessary for policing agencies to culturally and structurally transition from reactive and incident-driven organizations to proactive and mission-driven organizations. Although policing strategies that provide an alternative to the standard model of policing receive a considerable amount of scholarly attention, implementation of the analytical function required to institutionalize innovative strategies has only recently come under examination. This study poses three questions in examining the implementation of crime analysis in Ohio police departments. First, has crime analysis emerged in Ohio police departments? Second, has crime analysis been institutionalized in Ohio police departments? Finally, what type(s) of crime analysis is implemented in Ohio police departments? Data used in this study come from a survey administered to all municipal police departments in Ohio and interviews with chiefs of police. The data indicate low analytical capacity in Ohio police departments and poor understanding of crime analysis by policing executives. The absence of substantial analytical infrastructure, databases, distribution, and interpretive processes in Ohio police departments inhibits the implementation of strategic alternatives to the standard model of policing.

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2008, History

This study attempts to fill a gap in the historiography on the formation of American copyright law by exploring the specific historical nature of print culture in the late eighteenth-century which directly influenced copyright's development. Those who campaigned for copyright protection espoused its broad nationalistic implications in the wake of a socially and politically disruptive revolution, and its eventual legislative design recognized a distinct tension between private interests and the public sphere as it embodied the pervasive republican values of the early national period. This examination seeks to clarify how the conceptual architecture of copyright was initially framed in the United States in order to more insightfully and constructively address the question of the continued utility of its function established by historical precedent. The first chapter of this study argues that the earliest calls for copyright legislation in the United States immediately after the Revolution were inextricably intertwined with the efforts to construct a distinctly American national identity. As the dictates of print-capitalism were quickly becoming institutionalized, prominent copyright advocates argued that copyright was necessary both to protect the indigenous American authorial class and their labors from the widespread practice of literary piracy and to encourage others to participate in the craft of authorship. They argued provocatively – and successfully – that copyright laws would indeed serve as declarations of cultural independence from Britain, and would help establish America's cultural parity with the greatest powers in the world. Whereas colonial printmen played the most critical role in shaping American identity throughout the 1760s and 1770s by producing a deluge of literature in opposition to parliamentary imperial policies, I argue that the calls for copyright laws in the post-revolutionary period were an attempt by American intellectual writers to establ (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, Case Western Reserve University, 2023, Sociology

In 2018, 5,313 Cleveland households received eviction judgments with a scheduled set-out date. These litigants found themselves faced with a ruling legally allowing them to be forcibly removed from their home as early as seven days from their court date. Eviction as a social problem has re-emerged in both public discourse and academia. Yet this “eviction crisis” is not new, and scholars have extensively documented how eviction processes severely harm dwellers. Missing is research critically examining how powerful judicial institutions shape litigant trajectories. This dissertation is an extended case method study of Cleveland Municipal Court – Housing Division (Cleveland Housing Court). Established in 1980, Cleveland Housing Court is a special-purpose court, unique in its exclusive jurisdiction and proclaimed “problem-solving” within the civil eviction realm. Contrasting previous assumptions of civil courts as passive institutions, this work systematically documents the occurrence of formalized eviction in Cleveland utilizing participant observation and analysis of archived court records between 2016 and early 2020. This work sought to (1) understand the formal eviction process, (2) document experiences of litigants and court personnel, and (3) explore if and how court actions reproduced owner privileges, refuted dweller exploitation, or mitigated against negative consequences imposed on litigants. In focusing on this court, this research sought to recognize how everyday practices resulting in the mass removal of Clevelanders from their homes were justified, routinized, and perpetuated by this judicial institution, questioning if there is room within powerful, bureaucratic structures of the state such as this for liberation and change. Ultimately, I found that Cleveland Housing Court has nearly perfected procedural justice to a point where dwellers blamed only themselves for their predicament and judicial staff continued to reproduce inequality. This is done unde (open full item for complete abstract)

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2022, Philosophy

One may think that the extent of the relationship between law and ethics is exhausted by the two leading legal theories: Positivism and Natural Law Theory. On the one hand, Positivism is the family of theories that are committed to a conceptual separation between legal and ethical norms. On the other hand, Natural Law Theories are committed to a more robust relationship between legal and ethical norms, this relationship can be (roughly) characterized by the ancient slogan “Unjust laws are not laws”. However, as Mehmet Demiray has argued, Immanuel Kant's legal philosophy constitutes an alternative to both Positivism and Natural Law Theory by locating the normativity of law wholly inherent to the concept of Recht. The essence of the Kantian alternative is that the concept of a legal person i.e., an individual with the innate right to freedom (the right to set and pursue ends independently from the choices of others), delimits the legal domain. As such, I argue that Kant's legal philosophy provides the ground for a substantive conception of the rule of law. In brief, the innate right that is constitutive of legal personality both constrains and justifies the coercive means a state may employ in achieving its purpose. That is, the innate right to freedom discards those legal norms which are inconsistent with external freedom in accordance with a universal law e.g., a norm that subjected some to a condition of slavery or serfdom. Moreover, the innate right to freedom justifies those norms which are consistent with external freedom in accordance with a universal law e.g., the norm that laws be publicly promulgated. Because the innate right to freedom is distinct from any comprehensive ethical or religious doctrine, the coercive force characteristic of law and the substantive requirements of the rule of law are given a normatively non-arbitrary justification. Or so, at least, I argue.

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2021, Medicine: Biostatistics (Environmental Health)

Newcomb Benford's Law (NBL) is a mathematical theorem used as a detection technique to reveal accounting fraud, election fraud, manipulated health data, and even social media bots. Several studies have already applied NBL to detect misreported data of COVID-19. Benford's Law predicts that the first significant digit on the leftmost side of numbers in real-life data is distributed between all possible 1 to 9 digits approximately as in LOG(1 + 1/digit) so that low digits occur much more frequently than high digits in the first place. In this research, we are focusing on Benford's Law and its ramifications, especially in the context of COVID-19 infections and deaths. Benford's Law has been used successfully to check the veracity of data generated. Many countries publish numbers of infection cases on a daily basis. One primary question is to ask whether the published is genuine. We will use Benford's Law to settle the question. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) became the primary concern in numerous fields around the globe. The data which is analyzed in this research come from the “Data on COVID-19 (coronavirus) by Our World in Data” To compare these data sets with Benford's Law, the aggregated frequencies of the first significant digits (1–9) for each category. We built and ran a Shiny application with the Benford package in R. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) is a measure of deviation. Lower value implies greater adherence to Benford's Law. We find these countries' infections don't match the distribution expected in Benford's Law against the finding of Koch & Okamura, 2020 that mention the Chinese report are genuine. On the other hand, countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, the United Kingdom, and the United States are more likely to follow Benford's Law

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2021, Political Science (Arts and Sciences)

This thesis examines the “Indian problem” throughout successive eras of federal Indian law and policy, beginning with the pre-constitutional era and continuing through the allotment and assimilation era. Using an interdisciplinary theoretical framework, I attempt to deploy concepts from several bodies of literature in an effort to demonstrate the relationality of systems of oppression that are present in settler societies such as the United States. I hope to show that settler colonialism is not a single system of domination and dispossession, but rather comprises multiple systems of power, including capitalism, orientalism, and white supremacy. Thus, this thesis is a broad project of intersectionality that analyses simultaneously along lines of race, settler colonialism, and capitalism. My interdisciplinary theoretical approach also attempts to draw together theories of relational formations of race, settler colonialism, and racial capitalism to understand how the “Indian problem” is produced, maintained, and regenerated throughout the epochs of Indian law and policy that I examine. I argue that the “Indian problem” is produced through a knowledge production that rationalizes native dispossession in service of the interests of the United States and its white settlers. Here, I draw on Edward Said's post-colonial theory of orientalism and situate it within the context of settler colonialism to demonstrate how such knowledge produces the “Indian problem” and informs the various policy, military, legal, and religious “solutions” to the “problem” that the United States enacts. I conclude that the “Indian problem” will never be “solved” because it is not a real problem. Rather, the “Indian problem” and its various “solutions” are constructed at historical and contemporary moments in furtherance of U.S. governmental interests, and in service to whiteness, at any particular period. This is what constitutes the ongoing-ness of settler colonialism and dispossession in the Uni (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2020, Philosophy (Arts and Sciences)

In the course of formulating the free will defense in his book, The Nature of Necessity, Alvin Plantinga contends that God knows counterfactuals of human freedom and thus possesses what is commonly called “middle knowledge.” My aim in this thesis is to show that the principal justification Plantinga gives for middle knowledge fails. Specifically, I note that Plantinga's intuitive case for middle knowledge tacitly assumes that the law of distribution holds for counterfactuals of freedom. I then draw on the modal semantics of David Lewis to argue that one ought to recognize that there might be ties in similarity among possible worlds and that the law of distribution, consequently, does not hold for counterfactuals of freedom. Finally, I complete my criticism of Plantinga's intuitive case by contending that the possible worlds relevant to determining the truth value of counterfactuals of freedom are very much among the sorts of possible worlds likely to allow for such ties.

Artium Baccalaureus (AB), Ohio University, 2018, History

The thesis analyzes the role of the Islamic legal system and the juridical climate of 9th century Cordoba in the manifestation of a group of Christian martyrs known as the Martyrs of Cordoba in the 850s. It argues that, alongside the strong sociocultural changes Cordoban Christians experienced in the 850s, the Islamic legal system of al-Andalus (Islamic Iberia) buttressed a sociopolitical order that prompted and suppressed many of Cordoba's martyrs. It also closely analyzes the sources for the Cordoban martyrdoms, authored primarily by Eulogius and Albar of Cordoba, and their anti-Islamic and anti-assimilationist stances in order to separate their polemical construction of the martyr narratives from the martyrs' actual lived experiences. Through a close investigation of a handful of key martyrs, the thesis presents how Islamic legal rulings on apostasy, blasphemy, and interfaith marriages all variedly brought Christians into the qadi's court and provided them with the necessary tools to achieve their martyrdoms. The close interconnection between al-Andalus' legal system and the emir's administration consequently transformed the martyrdoms into cases of clear social dissent through their religious and legal assaults on Cordoba's sociopolitical order.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2017, History

Historians of nineteenth-century temperance reform are quick to elevate Neal Dow and the 1851 Maine Law as the example of antebellum prohibition efforts. While Maine's first-in-the-nation ban on the manufacturing and selling of liquors was unique, it was anything but prohibitive. The law, complete with exceptions and limited consequences, operated more like a tax on those engaged in the practice and that was only if prosecutors and judges did not nullify the law themselves. As a result, characterizations of the Maine Law as prohibitory and Dow as the father of prohibition in Maine deserve critique. Through an examination of newspapers, judicial records, petitions, and the legislative record, one finds that the temperance reform narrative in Maine is much more complex. Mainers of dispersed geographic, socio-economic, political, and religious backgrounds grappled with what, if any, role the state should play in pursuing moral improvement. This work decenters the prohibition narrative away from Dow and focuses on the multifaceted causes of and reasons for the Maine Law's rise and failure. As a consequence, the statewide temperance effort, including the conflicting views within it on “the drink,” receives deserved attention.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1980, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1966, Graduate School