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Brief Of The National Association For Public Defense As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Stein V. United States Of America (U.S. September 15, 2017) (No. 17-250)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Petitioner’s case asks a basic but fundamental question: Will our criminal justice system permit convictions obtained through the knowing use of false testimony, simply because the prosecutor has not also suppressed evidence indicating the testimony was false? The Eleventh Circuit answered this question in the affirmative, but for decades this Court has known a very different justice system, one in which the knowing, uncorrected use of false testimony by the prosecutor could never be countenanced. And for good reason. As this Court has long recognized, the knowing use of false testimony is “as inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice …

Brief Of The National Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Et Al As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Mcwilliams V. Dunn (U.S. March 6, 2017) (No. 16-5294)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

We submit this brief to make three important points. First, Ake itself clearly and unambiguously held as a matter of due process that indigent capital defendants must be provided with independent expert assistance upon a reasonable showing of need. The Court was unanimous on this point and swept aside aging precedent that had held provision of neutral assistance was adequate.

Second, Ake was hardly a revolutionary decision. As the Court noted, many states already provided expert assistance. In the first six years after Ake, numerous states explicitly held independent expert assistance must be provided upon an adequate showing of need. …

Brief Of The National Association For Public Defense, Et Al As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Christeson V. Roper (U.S. January 30, 2017) (No. 16-7730)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This case involves federal courts doubling down on the effective denial of counsel to a severely mentally impaired capital habeas petitioner on the eve of his execution, thereby preventing the full and fair litigation of an issue that demands this Court’s attention: the role played by a petitioner’s mental impairment in determining whether equitable tolling applies to the statute of limitations for filing a habeas petition. This Court should grant the petition to address whether the denial of adequate funding in this case constituted a constructive denial of the right to counsel required by the capital representation statute, 18 U.S.C. …

Critical Issues And New Empirical Research In Public Defense: An Introduction, Andrew L.B. Davies, Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

When we co-founded the Indigent Defense Research Association (IDRA) in 2015, we wanted to create a meeting place for people who share the sense that empirical research has something to contribute to the field of public defense. With over 150 members and counting, IDRA has become a vibrant community of practitioners and researchers who engage via an active listserv, topical monthly conference calls, and the production of white papers and webinars. In addition, IDRA members present papers at conferences of the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Many of the papers in this volume were first presented at the November 2015 …

Brief Of The National Association For Public Defense As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Christensen V. United States Of America (U.S. November 7, 2016) (No. 16-461)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The jury is essential to our structure of government, available to criminal defendants as the final arbiter of guilt. As this Court has recognized time and again, the jury serves an important role both structurally within the balance of powers and as a check on governmental power, adding a layer of protection for individual defendants.

The rule applied by the Ninth Circuit and some other courts, allowing dismissal of a holdout juror if a judge sees no reasonable possibility that his view is connected to the merits of the case, threatens the fundamental role of the jury. In contrast to …

Brief Of The National Association For Public Defense As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Bridgeman V. District Attorney For Suffolk District, 476 Mass. 298 (2016) (No. Sjc-12157)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

As the highest courts in Florida, Missouri, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania have demonstrated, systemic relief is necessary and appropriate to cure systemic failures that deny access to courts by imposing overwhelming demands on struggling public defense systems. Government misconduct created exactly that type of constitutional crisis by flooding the Commonwealth’s criminal legal system with 24,000 Dookhan cases. New revelations of even more corruption in the Commonwealth’s forensic sciences system are now anticipated to exacerbate that crisis by adding another 18,000 Farak wrongful-conviction cases. At the same time, the District Attorneys have undermined progress on fair, reliable case-by-case resolution of …

Brief Of The Roderick & Solange Macarthur Justice Center, Et Al As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Christeson V. Roper (8th Cir. August 19, 2016) (No. 16- 02730)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This case involves a district court’s patent disregard for a deeply mentally impaired defendant’s right to meaningful representation in capital federal habeas proceedings. By funding only 6% of defense counsel’s request for necessary expert and other resources, the District Court violated the constitution, ignored federal statutory mandates, flouted the Supreme Court’s remand order, blocked counsel’s ability to satisfy professional and ethical obligations, publicly disclosed contents of previously protected information about defense strategy, and set a very dangerous precedent for our justice system.

Constructing Crimmigration: Latino Subordination In A “Post-Racial” World, Yolanda Vazquez

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Over the last forty years, the concern over the relationship between noncitizens and criminality has reached epic proportions. Laws, policies, procedures, and rules have been developed, the immigration and criminal justice system have been employed, and billions of dollars have been spent towards detecting, detaining, prosecuting, and removing those who are targeted as posing “the greatest threat to the nation.” As a result, a “new” phenomenon emerged, crimmigration, that not only redesigned the criminal and immigration systems, but also brought about a cultural transformation in the United State —restructuring social categories, diminishing economic and political power, and perpetuating the marginalization …

Is Prosecution "Medically Appropriate"?, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Each year, U.S. courts send thousands of incompetent defendants to hospitals for treatment, where psychiatrists frequently administer psychotropic medication that can alleviate symptoms and allow the defendants to proceed with criminal adjudication. Although defendants and their attorneys usually do not object to such treatment, treatment refusals in two recent, nationally prominent cases-those of Russell Eugene Weston, Jr., the accused Capitol shooter, and Charles T. Sell, a dentist charged with filing false insurance claims-have focused legal and media attention on whether and under what conditions competence restoration can be forced on an unwilling defendant.

In its June 2003 decision in Sell …

The Psychiatrist And Execution Competency: Fording Murky Ethical Waters, Douglas Mossman Md

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The focus of this article is whether it is ethical for physicians to participate in the evaluation or treatment of condemned prisoners who are incompetent. According to Ward, this may be the "ultimate question, faced by psychiatrists who are asked to deal with execution competency. This article is not intended to offer an answer to this question. Rather, it seeks to (1) elucidate issues connected to the "ultimate question's" resolution, (2) articulate a set of premises within which psychiatrists should evaluate their relationship to institutions whose purposes include punishing criminals, and (3) suggest that, if the death penalty itself is …

The Scope Of Criminal Restitution: Awarding Unliquidated Damages In Sentencing Hearings, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

During the past several years a variety of victim groups have forced the criminal justice system to pay more attention to the restitution needs of victims! Criminal courts, however, are still limited in the types of restitution they may award. Typically, sentencing judges can award restitution for the whole range of liquidated damages including the value of stolen or destroyed property, medical expenses, and lost past wages. In most jurisdictions, however, criminal courts cannot award restitution for unliquidated damages involving compensation for pain and suffering, or for lost future earning capacity. Crime victims must initiate a civil suit at their …