​For this project, my partner and I selected to explain the Green Card application process. This in-depth process involves filling out numerous forms with personal information regarding one's ability to get a green card. This has the primary routes of through a family member, a business or employment opportunity, a refugee scenario, or a variety of other reasons (as specific as being an American Indian born in Canada). Perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in applying for a green card is determining the easiest route to citizenship depending on the specific eligibility requirements. The paperwork for this application was not very long, but would certainly be complex to someone of foreign nationality. If I could change this process, I would make the application much simpler and provide a method for persons to submit supplemental documentation to help humanize the process and remind the government employees that their decisions are regarding humans, not checkboxes on a paper. Most likely, this system began with such an easy process, but as numerous paths to citizenship have been released, the complication of eligibility requirements has quickly multiplied. Lastly, with regard to filling out the Green Card forms for the purpose of the project, I would use fake information to ensure that the information could be distributed and made available for the public without any privacy concerns.

Here's the link to the published flowchart 

Jason Davis and I decided to take on the task of filing for welfare, specifically cash and food assistance. In order to qualify for either of these, everyone in the household must be a citizen or at least allowed in the country as a permanent resident and have a social security number. Also, you need to show that you are either employed or are trying to be employed. Then, it all comes down to how much assistance you qualify for, which depends on your total income and how many dependents and disables are in the household. Welfare is only a temporary assistance, and before you are given any assistance you must fill out paperwork showing that you will work towards sustaining yourself after the welfare has run out. When trying to go through this task of learning about the process and making the flowchart, Jason and I focused on the paperwork at first. As soon as we realized that the paperwork doesn't actually explain anything clearly, I went digging into the website for Pennsylvania welfare and benefits. I found lists of the qualifications of the different types of welfare, and I went about connecting them. So, we finalized the flowchart and just finished up the paperwork. 

If anything, the paperwork was pretty straightforward, but tedious. It was all the expected questions about your demographics and your income. But, the only way you could really fill out this paperwork is if you had all your information in front of you on your utilities, health issuance, and information on every person in your household you are applying for. However, the paper work did come with explanation pages that outline certain information (which is why there seemed to be SO MUCH paperwork). If I really wanted to apply for welfare, going through the process of getting all that information and making sure it was all accurate would have taken a lot of resources. 

The most confusing part of this whole process is determining what kind of welfare you qualify for. Jason and I looked at the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families because our made-up person had a family with children. However, there is also General Assistance, and depending on how you stand with TANF and GA, you get certain benefits in food assistance (SNAP). If you don't qualify for TANF, you may qualify for GA. But, it doesn't make it exactly clear where the line is drawn. I figured out that the difference usually is that if the only reason you do not qualify for TANF is if you do not have any dependents or if it is because you are in certain circumstances where you cannot work (for a good reason), you could qualify for GA. It really isn't clear, so you would have to apply for both and just wait and see what you get. It was really frustrating. It needs to become more clear for people as to what they should actually apply for. 

So what have these systems become so frustrating and complex? I'm almost certain people went a little crazy with the "What if?" game. Going through the original paperwork, they might have seen a certain part and thought "What if this person is in the situation?" Obviously that part needed to change so it fit the needs of everyone applying. However, the people never went back into the systems after the What If game was played to see if they could simplify or make the different paths more distinct and clear. 

Click here for a published version with working links!

Along with Jeff Kessler, I chose the bureaucratic task of filing for a Green Card. There are various ways to get a Green Card – through family, through employment, as a refugee, and more. Each way has its own particular paperwork. Everything is made even more confusing when the person filing is currently outside the United States. Jeff and I filled out the paperwork required for getting a Green Card through a marriage, which was not particularly difficult. However, many of the other types of Green Card paperwork are not nearly as straightforward.

Jeff and I first made the flow chart, dividing up the various routes to a Green Card between the two of us. I worked on getting a Green Card through family members, which has, in itself, various sub-options. The paperwork had two parts, and so we split that up. I filled out the shorter post, and spent extra time making our flow chart colorful and well-formatted.

The system for getting a Green Card is convoluted at best. I think that this is because, as various situations arise, complexity is added from necessity – but no one ever takes the time to weed out the now-outdated complexities. Also, I think that there is a motivation to keep people from being able to easily gain access to the country. If I could, I would make the three main categories (family, employment, refugee) still separate, but within each have just a clearly defined process, instead of many sub-processes.

I enjoyed this process. I thought it was a valuable experience: waiting on line, figuring out paperwork, following link trails online to find steps are all things that I will certainly have to do as I interact with the government throughout my life. I also liked making the flow chart, because it was a cool, math-related challenge.

Constitutional Question

This case is about the interaction between government at the State level and at the Federal level. For this reason, it has to do with Article 4 and Amendment 10. Because it has to do with fairness of sentencing, it also is related to Amendment 7. Finally, the question is related to power in the judicial branch (the court system) and power in the executive branch (the prison system), and so it is a question of checks and balances.

The specific question is: If someone is charged with a state crime and a federal crime, and the state court has not yet determined a sentence, can the federal court order the federal sentence to be served consecutively to the not-yet-imposed state sentence?

Facts of the Case

In 2006, Monroe Setser, of Texas, was sentenced to five years of probation for possession of methamphetamine. A year later, he pleaded guilty to a federal charge of possession of 50 or more grams of methamphetamine, with intent to distribute. The crime was also an offense in the state of Texas, and so the federal court knew that Setser's possession charge could lead to a state sentence – not to mention to a revocation of his probation. Because of this, the federal court wanted to decide how all of those hypothetical sentences would interact. They decided that Setser's federal sentence would be served after any sentence that the state gave for the earlier possession crime, but at the same time as any sentence imposed for the 2007 possession-and-intent-to-sell crime.

The state court then sentenced Setser. For the 2006 crime, they revoked his parole and gave him five years in prison, and for the 2007 crime they gave him 10 years in prison. They ordered those two sentences to be served at the same time.

In 2010, he was paroled from the state crime and transferred to the federal prison system. The federal sentence was not shortened at all from time spent serving the state sentences.

Setser said that the court should not have the right to decide how his sentences were to be served, and so he appealed the federal sentence. The United States actually agrees with Setser, so the court appointed a man named Evan Young to argue the case against him.

Summary of the Arguments before the SCOTUS

Setser argued with that the prison system should have the right to decide how his sentences are to be served, and not the federal court. His argument is based on 18 U.S.C. §3584(a), a law which states that:

"If multiple terms of imprisonment are imposed on a defendant at the same time, or if a term of imprisonment is imposed on a defendant who is already subject to an undischarged term of imprisonment, the terms may run concurrently or consecutively… Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at the same time run concurrently unless the court orders or the statute mandates that the terms are to run consecutively. Multiple terms of imprisonment imposed at different times run consecutively unless the court orders that the terms are to run concurrently."

His main argument is that, because his own circumstance does not fall under the specific cases outlined in the law, the judge of the federal court should not be able to decide how his sentences were to be served. Instead, he argues, the federal prison system should decide that matter at the end of his state term. He also states that, before that particular section was enacted, the Bureau of Prisons had the power to make sentences run at the same time – and so, since the statute does not apply to his particular case, the Bureau of Prisons should still have that right.

The counterargument is that the statute is a way of giving more power to courts, not specifying when they have power. In both of the situations outlined by the statute, the judge is allowed to decide whether to overwrite the default – so, even though Setser's particular case is not included in those situations, the judge should still be able to say how the sentences should be served.

Predictions on the outcome

The United States actually agrees with Setser. This makes me believe that the Supreme Court is likely to yield that the federal court did, indeed, make a mistake in specifying how Setser should serve his various sentences, even before the state sentences were decided.

SOURCE:

Michael Dimino, Argument preview: Court to consider run-on sentences, SCOTUSblog (Nov. 23, 2011, 3:00 PM), http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/11/argument-preview-court-to-consider-run-on-sentences/

Click here to see the published flow chart. 


The task my partner and I selected was to complete an international adoption using the Hague Convention, which is the more strictly regulated process for adoption. To complete an adoption, we needed to first select the country we wanted our child from, and the adoption service that would direct us to the specific programs in the country. After this, a lot of paperwork ensued: forms 1-800 and 1-800-a and applications for Visas and passports. To complete the adoption, we needed to be "interviewed" by the consul of the country and only if they approve and issue our child's visa, could the adoption be complete. 

Fortunately, the paperwork was straightforward, requiring similar information on every form such as our names, date of birth, current address and phone numbers. However, if we were to actually submit these papers, the difficulties would become evident through the restrictions for adoptive parents like the number of years they have been married or their ages. Each service requires something different and without approval for each step, a couple could potentially go through multiple adoptive services and countries before finally completing adoption.

The only thing I would change about this process is the redundant paperwork. As I said earlier, most of the forms required very similar information and to save time and space, the forms could be combined. This would allow the process to run faster and smoother. If this process were real, there would also be a lot of back and forth between the country and the couple that could be less chaotic if this turned into one big meeting where all of the child's information and the couple's information forms are exchanged at once. However, as far as bureaucratic processes go, this one is more straightforward than most. The only reason the process is slow and careful is because of what's on the line is this process goes wrong. If couples could easily walk into an adoption agency and pick a child, there would be a lot of unhappy children with poorly educated parents. 

My partner, Mathew Scuderi, and I chose to represent the process of filing for divorce in a flowchart. While marriage is an act that binds two people together in matrimony, binding in a legal domestic relationship, a divorce works to separate and officially terminate a marriage. 

The process of filing for divorce is a very tedious one. You start out by filing your divorce complaint (which consists of filing out four forms that ask you personal information about yourself, your spouse, and your relationship with the later.) After this you must take these forms to the family court 1133 Chestnut St. to receive a court term and number for your claim. You must pay a filing fee of $303.48 to file your complaint. If you feel like you will not be able to afford paying this fee, you can try to fill out the In Forma Pauperis form, which requests that your filing fee be waived. After you have received your court term and number, you must “serve” your spouse by giving them a copy of the complaint that you filed at the family court- this basically just lets your spouse know that you want a divorce. They must then sign a paper that states that they received the divorce complaint, so that you can “prove your service” (or prove that you have notified your spouse about your intent to divorce) before you present your complaint in court. After you have “proved your service,” you must complete several other papers that prove that you have permission from your spouse to file for divorce and that line everything up for the court trial date. In the end, once all of your papers have been reviewed, you will receive a paper in the mail, documenting your divorce. 

Filling out the paper work was extremely tedious and repetitive. They asked for several pieces of information more than once. My partner could not help me the whole course of the working period because of some complications that came up, so it was difficult to fill out the forms without his input. 

The process of getting a divorce is a long and tedious one. It takes time and patience. If I could change anything about the process of divorce, it would be minimizing the amount of paperwork that people have to fill out to get a divorce. The main steps to getting a divorce are to fill out the initial complaint, "serve" your spouse, fill out some other papers of information, getting your spouse’s consent to go through with the divorce, and finalizing the divorce. I would eliminate the parts of these forms where several requests for the same information are asked for, so that whoever wants to file for divorce would only have to fill out their information once. I also could not find the divorce forms on the internet, which made the process of mock filing for divorce harder than it needed to be. I would make the filing process easier by mandating that the divorce forms be posted to the internet on the family court’s webpage of the Philadelphia city council's website. These modifications would eliminate some of the stress of filing out the paper work for this process. 

I feel like the process is so long and tedious because the judge needs to know the history of the couple’s relationship before he can grant them divorce. He also needs to take into account how many people are dependent on the two parties and what things property they can divide. Basically, I these forms are needed in order to get the whole story of the former relationship and their income, property, etc. This way the judge will know what changes to make to the individual couples’ fiscal records (in regards to money, housing, and other things of that nature). I also think that this process takes a long time in order to give the spouses enough time to think through the divorce; they need to make sure they want to go through with this. 

On our flowchart, you will notice that near the middle-bottom part of the visual, there is a big block of text. I tried to break this block up into several pieces, but did not have enough space in my chart for another box. I used a separate lucid chart account from the one that our school provides for us, therefore, I could only have a limited amount of blocks in the chart.

Here is the link to our flowchart. 

(I had some issues with lucidchart. I apologize for the inconvenience. I will fix this later.)

In the Smith vs. Cain case there were two main questions: 1) Whether there is a reasonable probability that the outcome of Smith's trial would have been different but for Brady and Giglio/Napue errors 2) whether the state courts violated the Due Process Clause by rejecting Smith's Brady and Giglio/Napue claims​
Smith vs. Cain originally takes place in New Orleans and it about the Orleans parish prosecutors with holding evidence to a case involving five murders that Juan Smith apparently committed. The prosecutors withheld material evidence and smith is arguing that it was an unfair trial because the 5th and 14th amendments says that the prosecutor has to show the evidence to the defendant. This gets supreme court attention because with holding evidence has been a reoccurring event for the Orleans parish prosecutors and having the defenders having an unfair trial is also a violation of the 6th amendment. It happened with the cases Brady vs. Maryland, Kyles vs. Whitley, and Connick vs. Thompson. The prosecution did say that they didn't give the evidence and that it was a harmless error but it was witness statements which became inconsistent as the trial went on which is actually pretty important for the trial.

I think that the court will give Smith another trial because it sounds like the court hates the Orleans Parish prosecutors so they would probably be very happy to spite them even though Smith was convicted for murdering five people.

On November 8th, many people hit the voting booths to elect new local officials. Joining them at many booths around the nation, were lobbyist. In an effort to give a spark to the movement, education reform supporters like Michael Petrill of the Fordham institute visited the polls to try and gain support.

This has been a active year for education reform lobbyist, with the recent rise in charter school funding, discourse in congressional budgeting agreements, and growing concern of America's education race. An example of some of these committees are the 'Democrats for Education Reform" or "Stand For Children", who recently spent over $75,000 each on their respective campaigns. The groups most recently expressed their policies to the Denver School Board earlier this month. Denver teacher's union president Henry Roman expressed concern over the issue, saying "its becoming high stakes" when you have "groups out their that can write checks for tens of thousands of dollars".

On the contrary, there are a number of different political figures on the state level that has expressed urgency regarding education reform. In 2011, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie outlined a new agenda regarding education budgeting and curriculum reform. Other politicians in city councils in cities like New Orleans and Nashville have pushed for large scale reform, but federal acts like No Child Left Behind still linger in the mist of the argument.

Because it is such a wide scale lobbying topic, it is difficult to pinpoint specific officials to reach out to. In my research, there are many examples of politicians that are fighting on both sides of this battle. Locally, State Rep. Ronald G. Waters is a good example of someone who has advocated for the Philadelphia Community is his efforts with the Dream Act , Kensington CAPA school, and the There Ought To Be A Law contest (along with Sen. Anthony Williams). The city council of Philadelphia has recently funneled more money into after-school programs in an effort to keep more students in school. However, it will be interesting to see how this evolves with the recent elections.