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Preserving The Futures Of Young Offenders: A Proposal For Federal Juvenile Expungement Legislation, Amelia Tadanier

William & Mary Law Review

Picture a sixteen-year-old named Sam. Perhaps this person reminds you of yourself as a teenager. Now imagine that Sam has made a terrible mistake and is arrested for cocaine possession. Perhaps they got the drugs from another kid at school or from a family member. But now Sam has a federal criminal record, which is likely to stick with them for life.

[...]

This Note argues that federal courts should have the power to expunge juvenile records in cases like Sam’s. It advocates for legislation granting federal courts the power to expunge the criminal records of offenders who were under …

Sentencing In An Era Of Plea Bargains, Jeffrey Bellin, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Publications

The literature offers inconsistent answers to a question that is foundational to criminal law: Who imposes sentences? Traditional narratives place sentencing responsibility in the hands of the judge. Yet, in a country where 95% of criminal convictions come from guilty pleas (not trials), modern American scholars center prosecutors—who control plea terms—as the deciders of punishment. This Article highlights and seeks to resolve the tension between these conflicting narratives by charting the pathways by which sentences are determined in a system dominated by plea bargains.

After reviewing the empirical literature on sentence variation, examining state and federal plea-bargaining rules and doctrines, …

Understanding Mass Incarceration In The Us Is The First Step To Reducing A Swollen Prison Population, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Shaky Science: Shaken Baby Syndrome And Its Disproportionate Impact On False Convictions Of Women Of Color, Shae A. Woodburn

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is a controversial diagnosis and an even more controversial basis for conviction. The syndrome is questioned by scientists and doctors who have yet to come to a consensus on its diagnosis. Courts have permitted SBS evidence to be admitted in criminal trials, and many people have been convicted solely on the basis of this controversial diagnosis. This Note seeks to analyze the history of SBS, the conflicts in the medical and scientific community, standards of evidence that permit its admission in court, and how all of these factors converge in a way that disproportionately impacts women …

The Politics Of The Criminal Enforcement Of The U.S. Clean Air Act, Joshua Ozymy, Melissa Jarrell Ozymy

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

Criminal prosecution has always existed in a political context. Democratic and Republican presidents have treated environmental regulation very differently over time and this may have a profound effect on how the criminal enforcement of air pollution laws has proceeded in the United States both historically and in the future. There was enough of a bipartisan consensus to allow the institutionalization of resources for the policing and prosecution of air pollution crimes that began in the 1980s and lasted until the early 1990s, where criminal investigators and specialized prosecutors were hired; institutionalized places for these operations to specialize and collaborate were …

The Imagined Juror: How Hypothetical Juries Influence Federal Prosecutors (Book Review), Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Neuroscience And Criminal Justice: Time For A "Copernican Revolution"?, John S. Callender

William & Mary Law Review

The main purpose of this Article is to argue for a fundamental change in the conceptual orientation of criminal justice: from one based on concepts such as free will, desert, and moral responsibility, to one based on empirical science. The Article describes research in behavioral genetics, acquired brain injuries, and psychological traumatization in relation to criminality. This research has reached a level of development at which the traditional approach to criminality is no longer tenable and should be discarded. I argue that mental health legislation provides a model that could be adapted and applied to offenders.

How Experts Have Dominated The Neuroscience Narrative In Criminal Cases For Twelve Decades: A Warning For The Future, Deborah W. Denno

William & Mary Law Review

Phineas Gage, the man who survived impalement by a rod through his head in 1848, is considered “one of the great medical curiosities of all time.” While expert accounts of Gage's post-accident personality changes are often wildly damning and distorted, recent research shows that Gage mostly thrived, despite his trauma. Studying past cases such as Gage’s helps us imagine—and prepare for—a future of law and neuroscience in which scientific debates over the brain’s functions remain fiery, and experts divisively control how we characterize brain-injured defendants.

This Article examines how experts have long dominated the neuroscience narrative in U.S. criminal cases, …

Using Burdens Of Proof To Allocate The Risk Of Error When Assessing Developmental Maturity Of Youthful Offenders, David L. Faigman, Kelsey Geiser

William & Mary Law Review

Behavioral and neuroscientific research provides a relatively clear window into the timing of developmental maturity from adolescence to early adulthood. We know with considerable confidence that, on average, sixteen-year-olds are less developmentally mature than nineteen-year-olds, who are less developmentally mature than twenty-three-year-olds, who are less developmentally mature than twenty-six-year-olds. However, in the context of a given case, the question presented might be whether a particular seventeen-year-old defendant convicted of murder is “developmentally mature enough” that a sentence of life without parole can be constitutionally imposed on him or her. While developmental maturity can be accurately measured in group data, it …

Nohwere, Peter A. Alces, Robert M. Sapolsky

William & Mary Law Review

Imagine the frustration of Samuel Butler’s protagonist, Higgs, with the strange society he encounters in Erewhon:

"Was there nothing which I could say to make them feel that the constitution of a person’s body was a thing over which he or she had had at any rate no initial control whatever, while the mind was a perfectly different thing, and capable of being created anew and directed according to the pleasure of its possessor? Could I never bring them to see that while habits of mind and character were entirely independent of initial mental force and early education, the body …

Curing Corrective Rape: Socio-Legal Perspectives On Sexual Violence Against Black Lesbians In South Africa, Waruguru Gaitho

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

Corrective rape can be defined as a hate crime that entails the rape of any member of a group that does not conform to gender or sexual orientation norms, where the motive of the perpetrator is to “correct” the individual, fundamentally combining gender-based violence and homophobic violence. In the South African context, these biases intersect with systemic racism, producing a disproportionate impact on Black, queer, womxn. While the legal framework has evolved to better address sexual violence crimes, Black lesbians remain prone to falling through the legal cracks, and South African society continues to sanction the homophobia and misogyny that …

Increasing Accountability For Rape In Liberia: The Need For A Forensic System To Increase The Success Rates Of Prosecution, Pela Boker Wilson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

The need for a fully functioning forensic system has been identified by the Liberian government and international partners, but it has not been addressed. This Article argues that despite a robust framework put in place to create accountability for rape, Liberia needs a system of collecting and processing forensic evidence to increase the success rate of prosecutions that currently fail due to the inadequacy of non-forensic evidence.

Relieved Of All Punishment By Human Hands: The Status Of International Criminal Convictions, Dorothy M. Canevari

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Opioid Doctors: Is Losing Your License A Sufficient Penalty For Dealing Drugs?, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Imagine that a medical board revokes a doctor's license both because he has been peddling thousands of pills of opioids and also because he was caught with a few grams of cocaine. The doctor is a family physician, not a pain management specialist. Yet, during a one-year period he wrote more than 4,000 prescriptions for opioids--roughly eighteen scripts per day. Patients came from multiple states and from hundreds of miles away to get oxycodone prescriptions. And the doctor prescribed large quantities of opioids--up to 240 pills per month--to patients with no record of previously needing narcotic painkillers. Both federal and …

Trauma And Memory In The Prosecution Of Sexual Assault, Cynthia V. Ward

Faculty Publications

Part I of this article traces the history of the recovered memory movement in the criminal prosecution of sexual assault, discussing some prominent cases and their consequences for wrongly convicted defendants. Part II asks why the criminal law was so vulnerable to claims of sexual assault, and other violent crimes, that were often wildly improbable on their face. The article concludes that the structure of recovered memory theory had the effect of disabling checks in the criminal process which are designed to prevent unjust convictions. Part III applies that conclusion to the theory of Trauma-informed Investigation (TII) and the "Neurobiology …

The Case Against Prosecuting Refugees, Evan J. Criddle

Faculty Publications

Within the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice has pledged to prosecute asylum-seekers who enter the United States outside an official port of entry without inspection. This practice has contributed to mass incarceration and family separation at the U.S.–Mexico border, and it has prevented bona fide refugees from accessing relief in immigration court. Yet, federal judges have taken refugee prosecution in stride, assuming that refugees, like other foreign migrants, are subject to the full force of American criminal justice if they skirt domestic border controls. This assumption is gravely mistaken.

This Article shows that Congress has not authorized …

Professor Jeffrey Bellin: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Jeffrey Bellin

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

Paying For The Privilege Of Punishment: Reinterpreting Excessive Fines Clause Doctrine To Allow State Prisoners To Seek Relief From Pay-To-Stay Fees, Kristen M. Haight

William & Mary Law Review

Across the country, the criminal justice system is becoming both more private and more expensive. Some prison systems have come to rely on private contractors for electronic monitoring, probation, pretrial services, and incarceration services. At the same time, criminal justice fees are exploding, including fees charged to inmates for their “room and board” while in prison. These fees, sometimes called “pay-to-stay,” are imposed at the state and county level, and how they are applied varies widely. Some take into account inmates’ ability to pay the fees, or the effect on their families. Some do not. Some only apply to prisoners …

Tasing The Constitution: Conducted Electrical Weapons, Other Forceful Arrest Means, And The Validity Of Subsequent Constitutional Rights Waivers, Andreas Kuersten

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Conducted electrical weapons (CEWs)—the most famous and widely used of which are offered under the TASER brand—are ubiquitous tools of law enforcement, carried by the vast majority of law enforcement officers and routinely deployed. These devices subdue targets by coursing electric current through their bodies, thereby causing individuals to collapse as their muscles involuntarily contract. Yet this method of operation has raised concerns—voiced by researchers, advocates, and criminal defendants alike—that CEWs influence cognitive capacity in addition to muscle function as electric current potentially transits through the brain via the central nervous system. In the context of an arrest, this implicates …

The "Victim-Perpetrator" Dilemma: The Role Of State Safe Harbor Laws In Creating A Presumption Of Coercion For Human Trafficking Victims, Matthew Myatt

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Justice Begins Before Trial: How To Nudge Inaccurate Pretrial Rulings Using Behavioral Law And Economic Theory And Uniform Commercial Laws, Michael Gentithes

William & Mary Law Review

Injustice in criminal cases often takes root before trial begins. Overworked criminal judges must resolve difficult pretrial evidentiary issues that determine the charges the State will take to trial and the range of sentences the defendant will face. Wrong decisions on these issues often lead to wrongful convictions. As behavioral law and economic theory suggests, judges who are cognitively busy and receive little feedback on these topics from appellate courts rely upon intuition, rather than deliberative reasoning, to resolve these questions. This leads to inconsistent rulings, which prosecutors exploit to expand the scope of evidentiary exceptions that almost always disfavor …

Why Rape Should Be A Federal Crime, Donald A. Dripps

William & Mary Law Review

Sexual assault remains at high levels despite decades of legal reforms. The recent wave of accusations against public figures signals both the persistence of the problem and a new political climate for addressing it. The Article argues that Congress should make forcible rape a federal crime, to the limits of the Commerce Clause. This would bring federal assets to the fight against rape by redirecting them from enforcement of possessory crimes. The simple statutory proposal might be accompanied by a more ambitious reorganization of the Justice Department to include a Bureau of Violent Crimes. Replies are offered to objections based …

"Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Shorter": An Analysis Of Lenient Sentencing For Female Sex Offenders In The United States, Deborah Goodwin

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Convincing Ethical Prosecutors That Their Profession Has A Brady Problem, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

In recent decades, both the media and legal scholars have documented the widespread problem of prosecutors failing to disclose favorable evidence to the defense – so called Brady violations. Despite all of this documentation however, many ethical prosecutors reject the notion that the criminal justice system has a Brady problem. These prosecutors – ethical lawyers who themselves have not been accused of misconduct – believe that the scope of the Brady problem is exaggerated. Why do ethical prosecutors downplay the evidence that some of their colleagues have committed serious errors?

This essay, in honor of Professor Bennett Gershman, points to …

Human Rights In International Criminal Proceedings—The Impact Of The Judgment Of The Kosovo Specialist Chambers Of 26 April 2017, Göran Sluiter

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

By their very nature, international criminal tribunals will in their operation impact individual rights, such as the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial. Without a constitution and without a history in developing due process norms, international criminal tribunals have to provide for instant incorporation of human rights in their respective criminal proceedings.

However, the circumstances under which international criminal tribunals are established are often complex, while at the same time their creation is considered to be a matter of urgency. As a result, there may not always be sufficient attention to human rights law’s position and …

Prosecuting Poverty, Criminalizing Care, Wendy A. Bach

William & Mary Law Review

In 2013, state legislators sitting at the heart of America’s opiate epidemic created the crime of fetal assault. Although they offered a fairly standard series of criminologic rationales to justify the legislation, they also posited that the creation of this crime was a precondition to secure treatment (or care) resources for women addicted to opiates. This extraordinary supposition—that criminalizing conduct creates a road to care—is an outgrowth of three interlinked socio-legal trends: the building of the carceral state, the criminalization of poverty, and the rapid growth, since the late 1980s, of a new generation of problem-solving courts. Framed in this …

Criminal-Justice Apps: A Modest Step Toward Democratizing The Criminal Process, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

International Criminal Court Comes Of Age, Nancy Amoury Combs

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Right To Counsel In Criminal Cases: Still A National Crisis?, Mary Sue Backus, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

In 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright dramatically changed the landscape of criminal justice with its mandate that poor criminal defendants be entitled to legal representation funded by the government. As scholars and practitioners have noted repeatedly over more than fifty years, states have generally failed to provide the equal access Gideon promised. This Article revisits the questions raised by the authors over a decade ago when they asserted that a genuine national crisis exists regarding the right to counsel in criminal cases for poor people. Sadly, despite a few isolated instances where litigation has sparked some progress, the issues remain the …

Prosecutorial Dismissals As Teachable Moments (And Databases) For The Police, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

The criminal justice process typically begins when the police make a warrantless arrest. Although police usually do a good job of bringing in the “right” cases, they do make mistakes. Officers sometimes arrest suspects even though there is no evidence to prove an essential element of the crime. Police also conduct unlawful searches and interrogations. And officers make arrests in marginal cases—schoolyard fights are a good example—in which prosecutors do not think a criminal conviction is appropriate. Accordingly, prosecutors regularly dismiss cases after police have made warrantless arrests and suspects have sat in jail for days, or even weeks. In …