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Exculpatory Evidence Pre-Plea Without Extending Brady, Brian Sanders

University of Chicago Law Review

Innocent defendants sometimes plead guilty. This is a problem. Some suggest fixing this problem with a constitutional requirement that prosecutors disclose exculpatory evidence before a defendant pleads guilty. A circuit split has thus developed concerning whether Brady, which requires disclosure of exculpatory evidence, extends to the pre-plea context. The Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, however, likely bars a constitutional requirement for pre-plea disclosure of exculpatory evidence. Faced with this exigency, this Comment argues that contract law should form the legal basis for pre-plea disclosure. Specifically, the contract doctrine of constructive fraud provides a suitable remedy. While big boy clauses, which defeat constructive …

Federal Expansion And The Decay Of State Courts, Diego Zambrano

University of Chicago Law Review

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the country entered its third era of judicial federalism. That era is defined by federal judicial expansion into areas of statecourt power and federal monopolization of large and complex litigation. These changes, in turn, have coincided with the decay of state courts. Whether measured by funding, delays, or docket loads, state courts—the true workhorses of the American legal system—have declined relative to federal courts. Indeed, over the last decade, state chief justices have complained that state courts are “financially bankrupt,” “at ‘the tipping point of dysfunction,’” and “on the edge of an abyss.” …

Front Matter / Editorial Information

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Settlement Malpractice, Michael Moffitt

University of Chicago Law Review

Lawyers routinely settle lawsuits or advise their clients about settlement. One might expect, therefore, that clients routinely complain about some aspect of their lawyers’ settlement services. Ten years of data from eleven jurisdictions paint a vivid, different picture: although the vast majority of civil lawsuits are resolved through negotiated settlements and although complaints against lawyers are common, fewer than 1 percent of reported legal malpractice cases and only about 1.5 percent of bar complaints relate in any way to lawyers’ settlement-related conduct or advice. Even in those instances when clients do raise such complaints, clients rarely prevail. In short, even …

Front Matter / Editorial Information

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents / Editorial Information

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Passive Embezzlement Schemes As Continuing Offenses, William Admussen

University of Chicago Law Review

For most offenses, the statute of limitations begins to run when the elements of an offense are satisfied. For continuing offenses, however, the statute of limitations begins to run when the crime stops, extending the amount of time the government has to bring charges. This Comment considers the circuit split over whether passive embezzlement schemes are continuing offenses. Typically charged under the federal embezzlement statute, 18 USC § 641, passive embezzlement schemes continue automatically once set in motion. They are distinguished from active embezzlement schemes in that active schemes require some affirmative act by the embezzler for the scheme to …

Remedies For Robots, Mark A. Lemley, Bryan Casey

University of Chicago Law Review

What happens when artificially intelligent robots misbehave? The question is not just hypothetical. As robotics and artificial intelligence systems increasingly integrate into our society, they will do bad things. We seek to explore what remedies the law can and should provide once a robot has caused harm.

Remedies are sometimes designed to make plaintiffs whole by restoring them to the condition they would have been in “but for” the wrong. But they can also contain elements of moral judgment, punishment, and deterrence. In other instances, the law may order defendants to do (or stop doing) something unlawful or harmful.

Each …

Contents / Editorial Information

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law In A Civil Guise: The Evolution Of Family Courts And Support Laws, Elizabeth D. Katz

University of Chicago Law Review

Each year family courts incarcerate thousands of Americans for nonpayment of child support. The vast majority of these parents are not accorded criminal procedure protections because courts have characterized routine child support enforcement as a “civil” matter. The United States Supreme Court has endorsed this approach. In Turner v Rogers, the Court began from a premise it regarded as both legally significant and unquestionably true: that child support proceedings are civil On that basis, the Court determined that an indigent father facing a year in jail was not entitled to a public defender. The Court’s analysis reflects a broader and …

Categorically Redeeming Graham V Florida And Miller V Alabama: Why The Eighth Amendment Guarantees All Juvenile Defendants A Constitutional Right To A Parole Hearing, Parag Dharmavarapu

University of Chicago Law Review

The Supreme Court has held that life without parole is an unconstitutional sentence for nearly all juvenile defendants—except for a select few that the criminal justice system deems irredeemable. Though this represents a positive development in the Court’s juvenile sentencing jurisprudence, it has left the case law deeply unsettled. For instance, the Court has held that redeemable juveniles are all entitled to a “meaningful opportunity to obtain release,” but it has failed to explicitly define what that constitutional mandate means in practice. On top of that, the Court has concluded that not even expert psychologists can determine at sentencing whether …

Entire Issue

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents / Editorial

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Empirical Upside Of Personalized Criminal Procedure, Matthew B. Kugler, Lior Jacob Strahilevitz

University of Chicago Law Review

Though personalization of law is often viewed as a new idea, pockets of criminal procedure already tolerate it. Many courts have held that Miranda warnings must be tailored when read to juveniles or people with limited English proficiency; a suspect’s age is necessarily part of the judicial calculus when determining whether the police’s questioning of her is a custodial interrogation; and some state courts consider a person’s demographic characteristics when deciding whether they have consented to a search. The question before us now is whether society should go further. Should the law of criminal procedure pay more attention to individual …

Neuroscience And The Personalization Of Criminal Law, Deborah W. Denno

University of Chicago Law Review

While objective standards of reasonableness permeate most legal disciplines, criminal law has trended toward personalization since the 1960s, when the Model Penal Code introduced conceptions of mental states based on Freudian psychoanalytic theory. Today, advancements in neuroscience offer previously inconceivable insights into living brain structures and damage. This Essay contends that a criminal justice system that uses personalizing neuroscientific evidence will yield better outcomes. This Essay contributes two unique tools to the personalized law debate. First are the results of my two-decade-long Neuroscience Study, in which I have compiled eight hundred criminal cases that addressed neuroscientific evidence in any capacity. …

Front Matter / Editorial Information

University of Chicago Law Review

No abstract provided.

Contents

University of Chicago Law Review

Contents and editorial information.