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Criminal Procedure

Brooklyn Law School

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“A Tale Of National Disgrace”: Applying The Doctrine Of Unconscionability To Establish The Impermissibility Of Secret Non-Prosecution Agreements, Denna Fraley May 2024

“A Tale Of National Disgrace”: Applying The Doctrine Of Unconscionability To Establish The Impermissibility Of Secret Non-Prosecution Agreements, Denna Fraley

Journal of Law and Policy

Crime victims are directly harmed by crime and therefore have a stake in, and should be treated as individual participants in the criminal justice process. In recognition of this, Congress passed the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA”) in 2004 to enumerate specific rights afforded to crime victims, including the rights to confer with the prosecutor in the case, to be heard at public court proceedings involving a plea or sentencing, to be informed in a timely manner of a plea bargain or deferred prosecution agreement, and to be treated with fairness and respect. Whether the CVRA extends these rights to …


Reforming Prior Conviction Impeachment, Anna Roberts, Julia Simon-Kerr Mar 2023

Reforming Prior Conviction Impeachment, Anna Roberts, Julia Simon-Kerr

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Criminal Terms, Anna Roberts Jan 2023

Criminal Terms, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Defense Counsel's Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts Jul 2022

Defense Counsel's Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Slaying The Serpents: Why Alternative Intervention Is Necessary To Protect Those In Mental Health Crisis From The State-Created Danger “Snake Pit”, Kathleen Giunta Jun 2022

Slaying The Serpents: Why Alternative Intervention Is Necessary To Protect Those In Mental Health Crisis From The State-Created Danger “Snake Pit”, Kathleen Giunta

Journal of Law and Policy

The Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and ongoing reports of police brutality around the United States sparked extensive debate over qualified immunity and the legal protections that prevent police accountability. Individuals experiencing mental health crises are especially vulnerable to police violence, since police officers lack the requisite skills and knowledge to provide effective crisis support during mental health emergencies. Although the state-created danger doctrine was created by the courts as an exception to qualified immunity, it is so rarely applied that individuals harmed or even killed by police are left without legal remedy. This Note explores qualified immunity and …


Parole, Victim Impact Evidence, And Race, Alexis Karteron May 2022

Parole, Victim Impact Evidence, And Race, Alexis Karteron

Brooklyn Law Review

Parole offers the possibility of release for a substantial number of incarcerated people in the United States, the world’s largest jailer, but is seriously understudied. In particular, the role of victims and race in the parole decision-making process deserves attention. Decades of research has shown that the “race-of-victim effect” leads to more punitive sentences when white victimhood is at issue. In the parole context, the ubiquity of victim impact statements and the emotional responses they trigger raise the likelihood that the “race-of-victim effect” plagues parole decision-making as well. This essay calls for greater data collection and scrutiny into the role …


Giving Meaning To The Apostrophe In Victim[’]S Rights, Margaret Garvin May 2022

Giving Meaning To The Apostrophe In Victim[’]S Rights, Margaret Garvin

Brooklyn Law Review

There is a lack of consistency in how courts interpret the use or placement of an apostrophe on “victim.” While this may seem like a minor grammatical or typological error, it has a tremendous effect on victim’s rights, as it virtually erases the victim due to the confusion over the ownership of said rights. This essay analyzes how the placement of the apostrophe, in cases dealing with subpoenas duces tecum, have led courts to interpret victim rights in multiple ways, but all with the same outcome—excluding the actual victim from consideration. This causes the actual victims, even when the court …


Defense Counsel’S Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts May 2022

Defense Counsel’S Cross Purposes: Prior Conviction Impeachment Of Prosecution Witnesses, Anna Roberts

Brooklyn Law Review

A broad scholarly coalition supports the prohibition or diminution of the impeachment of criminal defendants with their convictions. Yet scholars should pay more attention to the flipside arrangement: impeachment of prosecution witnesses by defense counsel. First, because those engaged in reform efforts need to resolve the competing interests: constitutional arguments on behalf of the defense, but, on the other hand, concerns about a tool that (regardless of the nature of the witness) risks reinforcing biases and stereotypes. Second, because the impossibility of adequate resolution is itself important to note. Whether one considers the conflicting values of rule-makers deciding whether to …


Foreword: The Role Of The “Victim” In The Criminal Legal System, Kate Mogulescu May 2022

Foreword: The Role Of The “Victim” In The Criminal Legal System, Kate Mogulescu

Brooklyn Law Review

On September 24, 2021, the Brooklyn Law Review brought together scholars looking at the role of the “victim” in the criminal legal system. Of consideration were the following questions: Who is labeled a victim and how does that impact outcomes and process? Where does the issue of victimization emerge, how is it received and what should the system’s response be? Who gets a voice? And when? Does the existing victim-offender binary further exacerbate a criminal legal system build on misogyny, xenophobia, and white supremacy? The series of articles and essays that make up this issue reflect the symposium’s multidimensional discussion …


Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning May 2022

Protecting The Constitution While Protecting Victims: Challenges To Pro Se Cross-Examination, Katharine L. Manning

Brooklyn Law Review

Defendants have constitutional rights to cross-examine witnesses and to represent themselves. But when these rights are combined, they can have devastating effects on crime victims. All too often, defendants use the rights in a last-ditch effort to harass, bully, and intimidate the crime’s victims, sometimes leading to a dismissal of charges altogether, as victims withdraw their testimony to avoid personal cross-examination by the defendant. It does not have to be this way. Numerous courts have allowed standby counsel to conduct cross-examination of the victim within constitutional constraints. This article explores the limitations courts have imposed on pro se cross-examination to …


What Are Victim Impact Statements For?, Susan A. Bandes May 2022

What Are Victim Impact Statements For?, Susan A. Bandes

Brooklyn Law Review

In Payne v. Tennessee, the US Supreme Court upheld the admission of victim impact statements (VIS) on the ground that they provide valuable information to the sentencer. In the three decades since, two additional rationales for VIS have become ascendant: most prominently, a therapeutic rationale, and more recently, a public education rationale. In this article, I expand upon my critiques of the informational and therapeutic rationales in light of a growing body of empirical evidence about how VIS affect both sentencers and crime victims. Focusing on the powerful and viral VIS delivered at the Larry Nassar guilty plea hearings and …


The Color Of Justice, Alexis Hoag Apr 2022

The Color Of Justice, Alexis Hoag

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Read Thyself, Alice Ristroph Jan 2022

Read Thyself, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Mental Illness In The Criminal Justice System: Erasing The Stigma On A Global Scale, Jennifer Rabbino Dec 2021

Mental Illness In The Criminal Justice System: Erasing The Stigma On A Global Scale, Jennifer Rabbino

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

Mental illness has long been misunderstood and severely stigmatized worldwide. For several hundred years, rather than offering prompt and proper treatment, most countries treated mental illness by isolating patients from society. Moreover, that ill treatment remains to this day, with over 90% of the developing world's population living with a mental illness completely untreated and legal systems the world over struggling with how best to treat mentally ill defendants fairly. This Note will scrutinize and compare the treatment of the mentally ill defendants in Western and African nations. It will then focus on the legal systems in Uganda and Ghana …


The End Of Liberty, Adam J. Kolber Oct 2021

The End Of Liberty, Adam J. Kolber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Victims, Right?, Anna Roberts Jul 2021

Victims, Right?, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Police Reform Through A Power Lens, Jocelyn Simonson Feb 2021

Police Reform Through A Power Lens, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Curriculum Of The Carceral State, Alice Ristroph Oct 2020

The Curriculum Of The Carceral State, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Prosecuting Misconduct: New York’S Creation Of A Watchdog Commission, Danielle Robinson Jun 2020

Prosecuting Misconduct: New York’S Creation Of A Watchdog Commission, Danielle Robinson

Brooklyn Law Review

Prosecutors play an integral role in America’s inherently adversarial criminal justice system and thus have a significant impact on the individual liberties of accused citizens. Therefore, they have long since been subject to continuous scrutiny by the public, which in turn leads to criticism of state legislatures for not addressing the issue. The state of New York attempted to meet this challenge of prosecutorial misconduct head-on as part of a multi-pronged criminal justice reform agenda with the creation of a first-in-the-nation commission on prosecutorial conduct (CPC). At this point in time, the CPC has been held unconstitutional. This note will …


Convictions As Guilt, Anna Roberts May 2020

Convictions As Guilt, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


An Intellectual History Of Mass Incarceration, Alice Ristroph Oct 2019

An Intellectual History Of Mass Incarceration, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Introducing Disruptive Technology To Criminal Sanctions: Punishment By Computer Monitoring To Enhance Sentencing Fairness And Efficiency, Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter Jun 2019

Introducing Disruptive Technology To Criminal Sanctions: Punishment By Computer Monitoring To Enhance Sentencing Fairness And Efficiency, Mirko Bagaric, Dan Hunter

Brooklyn Law Review

The United States criminal justice system is the most punitive on earth. The total correctional population is nearly seven million, equating to a staggering one in thirty-eight adults. Most of the correctional population comprises offenders who are on parole or probation, and a high portion of these defendants who are on parole or probation reoffend during the sanction period. There has been a growing consensus among lawmakers and the wider community that reforms need to be implemented to reduce the cost of criminal sanctions and to improve their effectiveness. For example, the United States Sentencing Commission has recently proposed an …


Give Me Liberty Or Give Me . . . Alternatives?: Ending Cash Bail And Its Impact On Pretrial Incarceration, Muhammad B. Sardar Jun 2019

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me . . . Alternatives?: Ending Cash Bail And Its Impact On Pretrial Incarceration, Muhammad B. Sardar

Brooklyn Law Review

Every day in the United States, thousands of pretrial defendants are imprisoned due to their inability to afford bail. These individuals have not been convicted of an offense, yet are incarcerated for the crime of being poor. Pretrial incarceration wreaks havoc both on the individual detainee and society at large. Pretrial detainees are more likely to plead guilty, receive higher sentences, and face grave future economic prospects. The cash bail system in particular disproportionately affects racial minorities, furthering the already racially disparate outcomes inherent in the U.S. criminal justice system. From a societal perspective, the increased rate of incarceration due …


Reducing Recidivism Or Misclassifying Offenders?: How Implementing Risk And Needs Assessment In The Federal Prison System Will Perpetuate Racial Bias, Rachel Dibenedetto May 2019

Reducing Recidivism Or Misclassifying Offenders?: How Implementing Risk And Needs Assessment In The Federal Prison System Will Perpetuate Racial Bias, Rachel Dibenedetto

Journal of Law and Policy

Your Honor, I understand the appeal of using this sentencing software, EVALUATE. I do. It appears to be efficient, precise, immune to emotion and lapses in logic. It seems fair and unbiased, so shouldn’t we attempt to be fair and unbiased in evaluating whether it actually works? 32, 19, 34 . . . 32% is the federal recidivism rate. 19%? 19% is the recidivism rate of defendants tried and sentenced in your court, Judge Barish. It’s one of the lowest in the Southern District. 34%? That’s the recidivism rate of EVALUATE, higher than the national average, 15 points behind you.


The Place Of The People In Criminal Procedure, Jocelyn Simonson Feb 2019

The Place Of The People In Criminal Procedure, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The (Im)Partial Jury: A Trial Consultant’S Role In The Venire Process, Stephanie M. Coughlan Jan 2019

The (Im)Partial Jury: A Trial Consultant’S Role In The Venire Process, Stephanie M. Coughlan

Brooklyn Law Review

Over the last four decades, trial consultants have become integral members of the venire process. Before the trial consulting field emerged, attorney-conducted voir dire focused too heavily on an attorney’s gut instincts and subconscious biases. This note highlights two concerns arising from attorney-conducted voir dire. First, in Batson v. Kentucky and its progeny, the Supreme Court addressed the unconstitutionality of a system that permits attorneys to strike jurors based on unfounded prejudices. Although Batson and its progeny prohibit lawyers from exercising discriminatory challenges against prospective jurors, this practice can easily go undetected. Second, as illustrated in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado, the …


Arrests As Guilt, Anna Roberts Jan 2019

Arrests As Guilt, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Lead Us Not Into Temptation: A Response To Barbara Fedders's Opioid Policing, Anna Roberts Jan 2019

Lead Us Not Into Temptation: A Response To Barbara Fedders's Opioid Policing, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Farewell To The Felonry, Alice Ristroph Oct 2018

Farewell To The Felonry, Alice Ristroph

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


A Nation Of Informants: Reining In Post-9/11 Coercion Of Intelligence Informants, Diala Shamas Jul 2018

A Nation Of Informants: Reining In Post-9/11 Coercion Of Intelligence Informants, Diala Shamas

Brooklyn Law Review

This article challenges the adequacy of the existing legal and regulatory framework governing informant recruitment and coercion practices to protect fundamental rights, informed by the Muslim-American experience. It looks at the growing law enforcement practice of recruiting informants among Muslim-American communities for intelligence gathering purposes. Although the coercion of law-abiding individuals to provide information to federal law enforcement agencies for intelligence gathering purposes implicates significant rights, it is left unregulated. Existing, albeit limited, restraints on the government agents’ ability to coerce individuals to provide information either assume a criminal context, or are driven by historical concerns over FBI corruption. As …