Digital Commons Network^™

The Criminal Investigator, Terry Goldsworthy

Terry Goldsworthy

Extract:
The words of Sherlock Holmes illustrate that it is the attention to detail that makes for a successful investigator. The investigator is a story teller, charged with telling the story of the victim in such a way that it is impervious to criticism or doubt. Many cogs make up the machinery of the justice system, yet the most important is the investigator, without whom, many crimes would go unsolved.

Protect The Children: Challenges That Result In, And Consequences Resulting From, Inconsistent Prosecution Of Child Pornography Cases In A Technological World, Francis S. Monterosso

Francis S Monterosso

This Note untangles courts’ problems with the prosecution of child pornography defendants and aims to redirect attention to the social impact associated with these crimes. First, Part I provides an introduction to the Note and discusses the background of the Child Pornography Prevention Act. Secondly, Part II sets forth the evolution of the CPPA and its goals and shortcomings. Next, Part III further explains the development of child pornography prosecutions in the United States through two cases that illustrate the government’s desire to prosecute child pornography defendants.

Moreover, Part IV explains the difficulties courts have encountered in the prosecution of …

Kids These Days: Teenage Sexting And How The Law Should Deal With It, Michael Parker

Michael R Parker

Since time immemorial members of the youngest generation have managed to create new and unique ways to offend and disgust their predecessors. The most recent of these is “sexting.” Sexting, the practice of sending or posting sexually suggestive text messages and images via cell phone or internet, is a new phenomenon which has recently gained significant momentum. In fact, according to a recent study, almost twenty-percent of all teens have participated. And although this new trend is socially acceptable amongst teenagers, the legislature has been slow, if not absent, in adapting legislation to address it. Almost every state continues to …

A Jury Of One: Opinion Formation, Conformity, And Dissent On Juries, Nicole L. Waters, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Approximately 6 percent of criminal juries hang. But, how many dissenters carry the jury, hang the jury, or conform to the majority’s wishes? This article examines the formation of individual verdict preferences, the impact of deliberation, and the role of the dissenter using data from nearly 3,500 jurors who decided felony cases. Jurors were asked: “If it were entirely up to you as a one-person jury, what would your verdict have been in this case?” Over one-third of jurors, privately, would have voted against their jury’s decision. Analyses identify the characteristics of jurors who dissent, and distinguish dissenters who hang …

Characteristics Of Contemporary Gag Order Requests In Media Law Reporter Volumes 19 Through 33, Brad Leavitt Clark

Theses and Dissertations

The conflict between the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment is not new nor is it easily decipherable. Both amendments appear to have absolute priority, yet they appear to conflict (Erickson, 1977). The First Amendment declares unequivocally, "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press[,]" while the Sixth Amendment states with equal force, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..." (U.S. Constitution, Amendment I, Amendment VI). Free speech and an unrestricted …

Reevaluating California's Pitchess Process In Light Of The Police Officer Misconduct Problem, Jaime A. Lubbock

Jaime A. Lubbock

The California Supreme Court's decision in Pitchess v. Superior Court, allowing defendants access to police officer employment files under certain specific circumstances, was intended to strike a balance between a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial and a legitimate interest in maintaining the confidentiality of police officer employment files. The statutory reaction to the Pitchess decision and subsequent court rulings have tipped this balance in favor of officer privacy, sacrificing not only the individual fair trial right, but foregoing a valuable tool in the exposure and deterrence of officer misconduct. The relevant statutes within California’s penal and evidence codes …

Bailing Out Hanson And Ettridge, Michael Weir

Michael Weir

Extract: One of the side issues that kept the Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge saga in the media was their unsuccessful attempts to obtain bail after being convicted in the District Court on fraud and electoral charges. David Field’s article The Perils of Pauline in this edition discusses the reasons why Pauline Hanson and David Ettridge were ultimately released after their convictions were quashed. Their attempts to obtain bail were all unsuccessful. In the light of their eventual acquittal it is interesting to ask what is the nature of bail; when is it granted and why was it not granted …

A Summary Of Legal System Amalgamation: An Introduction To Judge Patrick L. Robinson's Observations On The Hybrid Nature Of The Rules Of Procedure And Evidence Of The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, Jane E. Cross

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

On 14 February 2009, His Excellency Judge Patrick L. Robinson of Jamaica, President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), spoke at the Nova Southeastern University (NSU) Shepard Broad Law Center, for Black History Month.

Young People And The Criminal Justice System: New Insights And Promising Responses, Jioji Ravulo

Faculty of Social Sciences - Papers (Archive)

On any given day during 2006-07 there were approximately 6,000 young people in Australia under juvenile justice supervision. This amounts to 12,765 young people who spent time under supervision through that year and 10,675 of them were aged between 10 and 17. The majority received a non-custodial sentence, which includes community-based orders and good behaviour bonds, however 43% experienced some form of detention (AIHW, 2008). The number of young people under community-based supervision showed a distinct downward trend between 2003-04 and 2006-07 (AIHW, 2008). Conversely there was an increase in the daily average number of young people incarcerated, from 590 …

Foreword: Combating Terrorist Financing, Richard K. Gordon, Christyn Rossman

Faculty Publications

Forward to the Case Western Reserve University School of Law's Institute for Global Security Law and Policy symposium The World Conference on Combating Terrorist Financing, Cleveland, OH, April 10 to 11, 2008

International Standards For Detaining Terrorism Suspects: Moving Beyond The Armed Conflict-Criminal Divide, Monica Hakimi

Articles

Although sometimes described as war, the fight against transnational jihadi groups (referred to for shorthand as the "fight against terrorism") largely takes place away from any recognizable battlefield. Terrorism suspects are captured in houses, on street corners, and at border crossings around the globe. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the high-level Qaeda operative who planned the September 11 attacks, was captured by the Pakistani government in a residence in Pakistan. Abu Omar, a radical Muslim imam, was apparently abducted by U.S. and Italian agents off the streets of Milan. And Abu Baker Bashir, the spiritual leader of the Qaeda-affiliated group responsible for …

Crime And Precaution, Allen Gnanam

Allen Gnanam

Precautionary logic and risk assessments can be associated with counter terrorism, criminal profiling, and the management of high risk individuals/ groups. Overall, risk precautionary logic and risk assessments can be framed using the Ban-opticon concept identified by Bigo, though panopitic elements do exist when discussing concepts of surveillance. The Ban opticon framework has 3 major concepts: (a) Criminal profiling, (b) the management of movement and (c) exceptionalism.

Both precautionary logic and risk assessments are associated with the profiling of harms and threats, the management of individual or group movement, and both are used to provide qualitative and quantitative rationale for …

Culpability In Creating The Choice Of Evils, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

Can an actor justify criminal conduct when he was criminally culpable in creating the conditions making it necessary? Virtually every American jurisdiction answers that he cannot and bars the necessity defense under those circumstances. Whereas many scholars have condemned that response, this Article takes the very different view that the exclusion of the defense for purposeful, knowing, and reckless criminal conduct that directly causes the conditions leading to the allegedly justified act represents a sound retributivist check on what is an otherwise cruder evaluation of whether conduct is socially valuable, worthy of praise, or, in a word, justified. Criminal "created …

Cops, Robbers, And Search Engines: The Questionable Role Of Criminal Law In Contributory Infringement Doctrine, Mark Bartholomew

Journal Articles

Online technologies have created a new litigation locus for intellectual property rights holders, one that targets intermediaries, not direct infringers. This unprecedented litigation strategy has put sudden pressure on the courts to evaluate the liability of indirect infringers. Without a developed body of precedent at their disposal, judges have resorted to analogies from the criminal law of accomplice liability to set the boundaries of contributory infringement. Does it make sense for intellectual property regulation to depend on the same principles that animate criminal law? This Article maintains that it would be a mistake to remake contributory infringement law in criminal …

Fitting Punishment, Juliet P. Stumpf

Juliet P Stumpf

Proportionality is conspicuously absent from the legal framework for immigration sanctions. Immigration law relies on one sanction – deportation – as the ubiquitous penalty for any immigration violation. Neither the gravity of the violation nor the harm that results bears on whether deportation is the consequence for an immigration violation. Immigration law stands alone in the legal landscape in this respect. Criminal punishment incorporates proportionality when imposing sentences that are graduated based on the gravity of the offense; contract and tort law provide for damages that are graduated based on the harm to others or to society. This Article represents …