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Summary Of Toston V. State, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. 87, Kendra Kisling

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered an appeal of a district court order denying a writ of habeas corpus.

Summary Of State V. Dist. Ct., 127 Nev. Adv. Op. 84, Michelle Newman

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered the State’s petition for a writ of mandamus challenging the district court’s exclusion of blood alcohol test results obtained by retrograde extrapolation from the prosecution of defendant for driving under the influence.

Injunctions In Domestic Violence: Case Study In Iran, Ehsan Zarrokh

Ehsan Zarrokh

As domestic violence becomes increasingly recognized a widespread social problem, judicial system has begun playing larger roles in providing legal protection to these victims. One way they are doing this in the Iran is through the use of protective restraining orders or injunctions. The purpose of this research was to determine if permanent Injunctions for Protection provide victims of Domestic Violence with a sense of security in alleviating fear of retaliation or on-going violence.

Prevention And Imminence, Pre-Punishment And Actuality, Gideon Yaffe

San Diego Law Review

In a variety of circumstances, it is justified to harm persons, or deprive them of liberty, in order to prevent them from doing something objectionable. We see this in interactions between individuals--think of self-defense or defense of others--and we see it in large-scale interactions among groups--think of preemptive measures taken by countries against conspiring terrorists, plotting dictators, or ambitious nations. We can argue, of course, about the details. Under exactly what conditions is it justified to inflict harm or deprive someone of liberty for reasons of prevention? But in having such arguments we agree on the fundamental idea: there are …

Inchoate Crimes At The Prevention/Punishment Divide, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

San Diego Law Review

In this Article, I argue that inchoate crimes are best dealt with under a preventive regime. Part II argues that inchoate crimes and preparatory offenses are primarily aimed at preventing a harm and not at punishing those who deserve it. It also revisits concerns with punishing incomplete attempts that Larry Alexander and I have voiced previously. Part III considers Alec Walen's recent proposal to combat terrorism through the criminalization of threats as an inchoate offense. It also addresses general concerns with Walen's proposal and claims that Walen does not resolve the problems with inchoate criminality set forth in Part II. …

Prevention As The Primary Goal Of Sentencing: The Modern Case For Indeterminate Dispositions In Criminal Cases, Christopher Slobogin

San Diego Law Review

This Article contends that properly constituted, indeterminate sentencing is both a morally defensible method of preventing crime and the optimal regime for doing so, at least for crimes against person and most other street crimes.

More specifically, the position defended in this Article is that, once a person is convicted of an offense, the duration and nature of sentence should be based on a back-end decision made by experts in recidivism reduction, within broad ranges set by the legislature. Compared to determinate sentencing, the sentencing regime advanced in this Article relies on wider sentence ranges and explicit assessments of risk, …

Lifting The Cloak: Preventive Detention As Punishment, Douglas Husak

San Diego Law Review

Most of the scholarly reaction to systems of preventive detention has been hostile. Negative judgments are especially prevalent among penal theorists who hold nonconsequentialist, retributivist rationales for criminal law and punishment. Surely their criticisms are warranted as long as we confine our focus to the existing systems of preventive detention that flagrantly disregard fundamental principles of legality and desert. Nonetheless, I believe that many of their more sweeping objections tend to rest too uncritically on doctrines of criminal theory that are not always supported by sound arguments even though they are widely accepted. I will contend that we cannot fully …

A Punitive Precondition For Preventive Detention: Lost Status As A Foundation For A Lost Immunity, Alec Walen

San Diego Law Review

This Article argues that the presumption that an actor will be law-abiding, like the right to liberty itself, can be forfeited by criminal actions. In other words, the point is to argue that a just punishment could involve loss of the status of being a beneficiary of this presumption just as much as it could involve the loss of liberty.

In Part II, I introduce a basic framework for detention consistent with respect for autonomy and locate the lost status view within that framework. In Part III, I spell out the lost status view in more detail and contrast it …

Dangerous Psychopaths: Criminally Responsible But Not Morally Responsible, Subject To Criminal Punishment And To Preventive Detention, Ken Levy

San Diego Law Review

How should we judge psychopaths, both morally and in the criminal justice system? This Article will argue that psychopaths are often not morally responsible for their bad acts simply because they cannot understand, and therefore be guided by, moral reasons.

Scholars and lawyers who endorse the same conclusion automatically tend to infer from this premise that psychopaths should not be held criminally punishable for their criminal acts. These scholars and lawyers are making this assumption (that just criminal punishment requires moral responsibility) on the basis of one of two deeper assumptions: that either criminal punishment directly requires moral responsibility or …

Choosing A Better Path: The Misguided Appeal Of Increased Criminal Liability After Deepwater Horizon, Joshua Fershee

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Too Big To Obey: Why Bp Should Be Debarred, Rena Steinzor, Anne Havemann

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law, Franklin J. Hogue, Laura D. Hogue

Mercer Law Review

We have culled through the most important criminal cases of this reporting period' and selected those that resulted in changes to criminal case law that will likely have an effect upon the way prosecutors and defense attorneys approach criminal cases in Georgia.

Where Did My Privilege Go? Congress And Its Discretion To Ignore The Attorney-Client Privilege, Don Berthiaume, Jeffrey Ansley

Don R Berthiaume

“The right to counsel is too important to be passed over for prosecutorial convenience or executive branch whimsy. It has been engrained in American jurisprudence since the 18th century when the Bill of Rights was adopted... However, the right to counsel is largely ineffective unless the confidential communications made by a client to his or her lawyer are protected by law.”[1] So said Senator Arlen Specter on February 13, 2009, just seven months before Congress chose to ignore the very privilege he lauded. Why then, if the right to counsel is as important as Senator Specter articulated, does Congress maintain …

Electronic Contracts In Tanzania: An Appraisal Of The Legal Framework, Daudi Mwita Nyamaka Mr.

Daudi Mwita Nyamaka Mr.

The concern of our study was to examine the legal basis for electronic contracts in Tanzania. The major problems that were being examined are; the ascertainment of e-contract terms and the other party in the contract with the focus to consent i.e. consensus ad idem requirements and capacity to contract. With the first problem, e-commerce involves e-contracts and the business community in Tanzania enters into contractual arrangements with external world via websites or email in which case the electronic environment is not suitable in Tanzania in terms of the laws and the technology. Messages sent via internet may be garbled …

Professional Ethics In Interdisciplinary Collaboratives: Zeal, Paternalism And Mandated Reporting, Alexis Anderson, Lynn Barenberg, Paul R. Tremblay

Paul R. Tremblay

In this Article, the authors, two clinical law teachers and a social worker teaching in the clinic, wrestle with some persistent questions that arise in cross-professional, interdisciplinary law practice. In the past decade much writing has praised the benefits of interdisciplinary legal practice, but many sympathetic skeptics have worried about the ethical implications of lawyers working with nonlawyers, such as social workers and mental health professionals. Those worries include the difference in advocacy stances between lawyers and other helping professionals, and the mandated reporting requirements that apply to helping professionals but usually not to lawyers. This Article addresses those concerns …

Criminalizing The Undocumented: Ironic Boundaries Of The Post-September 11th ‘Pale Of Law.’, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

The general hypothesis put forth in this Article is that well-accepted historical matrices are increasingly inadequate to address the complex issues raised by various U.S. government practices in the so-called “war on terrorism.” The Article describes certain stresses that have recently built upon two major legal dichotomies: the citizen/non-citizen and criminal/civil lines. Professor Kanstroom reviews the use of the citizen/non-citizen dichotomies as part of the post-September 11th enforcement regime and considers the increasing convergence between the immigration and criminal justice systems. Professor Kanstroom concludes by suggesting the potential emergence of a disturbing new legal system, which contains the worst features …

Deportation, Social Control, And Punishment: Some Thoughts About Why Hard Laws Make Bad Cases, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

From the Author’s Introduction: We live in a time of unusual vigor, efficiency, and strictness in the deportation of long-term permanent resident aliens convicted of crimes. This situation is the result of some fifteen years of relatively sustained attention to this issue, which culminated in two exceptionally harsh laws: the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA). In many cases, these laws have brought about a rather complete convergence between the criminal justice and deportation systems. Deportation is now often a virtually automatic consequence of criminal …

Deportation And Justice: A Constitutional Dialogue, Daniel Kanstroom

Daniel Kanstroom

Recent statutory changes to the United States immigration law have resulted in a large increase in the number of lawful permanent resident noncitizens who are deported because of prior criminal conduct. Now, deportation is often a virtually automatic consequence of conviction for an increasingly minor array of crimes including possessory drug offenses and shoplifting. Under current statutory law, permanent resident noncitizens may be deported for crimes that were not grounds for deportation when they were committed and there may be no possibiilty of mercy or humanitarian relief. This Dialogue explores arguments for and against this system. Specifically, it examines the …

Standing Mute At Arrest As Evidence Of Guilt: The 'Right To Silence' Under Attack, Frank R. Herrmann S.J., Brownlow M. Speer

Frank R. Herrmann, S.J.

It is commonly understood that an arrested person has a right to remain silent and that the government may not use his or her silence to prove guilt at trial. Three Circuit Courts of Appeal, however, reject this understanding. They allow the prosecution to use an arrested person's pre-Miranda silence as direct evidence of guilt. This article argues that those Circuits are wrong. The article, first, demonstrates the historical antiquity of the Common Law principle that a detained person has the right to stand mute. Though the right was limited by statutory incursion and in tension, at times, with the …

Criminal Law And Procedure, Virginia B. Theisen

University of Richmond Law Review

Once more, the past year yielded a wealth of developments in the area of criminal law and procedure. The author has endeavored to cull the most significant decisions and legislative enactments, with an eye toward the "takeaway" from a case rather than a discussion of settled principles.

The Corroborative Effect Of Lies, Siyuan Chen

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

PP v Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus [2010] SGHC 7; Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus v PP [2011] SGCA 52. Overview of the case: In PP v Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus, the accused was charged with murder. He and the deceased had been in a tumultuous relationship, and the main evidence that connected the deceased’s death to the accused, apart from the fact that her body was found in the construction site that the accused worked at, was that DNA taken from her rectum tested positive for semen that matched his DNA.

Apprendi And The Dynamics Of Guilty Pleas, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Labor Law—Labor Management Relations Act—Section 8(B)(1)(A)—Court-Enforced Fines Under A Union-Shop Provision.—Nlrb V. Allis-Chalmers Mfg. Co., Mitchell J. Sikora, Robert S. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

No abstract provided.

Jailhouse Informants, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

No abstract provided.

“A More Majestic Conception:” The Importance Of Judicial Integrity In Preserving The Exclusionary Rule, Robert M. Bloom, David H. Fentin

Robert M. Bloom

In Mapp v. Ohio (1961), the Warren Court held that the so-called exclusionary rule was applicable to the states. Subsequent Supreme Courts have shown their disenchantment with the rule by seeking to curb its applicability. Most recently, the Court has characterized the exclusionary rule as a “massive remedy” to be applied only as a “last resort.” The Courts’ analytical framework for the last thirty-five years for cutting back the exclusionary rule was a balancing test which weighed the costs of suppressing reliable evidence with the benefits of deterring future police violations. This balancing has been used most recently in two …

Judicial Integrity: A Call For Its Re-Emergence In The Adjudication Of Criminal Cases, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

A court can invalidate or rectify certain kinds of offensive official action on the grounds of judicial integrity. In the past, it has served as a check on overzealous law enforcement agents whose actions so seriously impaired due process principles that they shocked the bench’s conscience. The principle not only preserves the judiciary as a symbol of lawfulness and justice, but it also insulates the courts from becoming aligned with illegal actors and their bad acts. The 1992 case of U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, however, may have signaled a departure from past practices. This article reviews current Supreme Court cases and …

The Constitutional Infirmity Of Warrantless Nsa Surveillance: The Abuse Of Presidential Power And The Injury To The Fourth Amendment, Robert M. Bloom, William J. Dunn

Robert M. Bloom

In recent months, there have been many revelations about the tactics used by the Bush Administration to prosecute their war on terrorism. These stories involve the exploitation of technologies that allow the government, with the cooperation of phone companies and financial institutions, to access phone and financial records. This paper focuses on the revelation and widespread criticism of the Bush Administration’s operation of a warrantless electronic surveillance program to monitor international phone calls and emails that originate or terminate with a United States party. The powerful and secret National Security Agency heads the program and leverages its significant intelligence collection …

Inevitable Discovery: An Exception Beyond The Fruits, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Wilson V. State, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. 68, Aaron K. Haar

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered an appeal from the district court’s dismissal of Petitioner’s third state petition for writ of habeas corpus in light of McConnell v. State.

Summary Of Nunnery V. State, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. 69, Sabrina Dolson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considers an appeal of a death penalty sentence for a first-degree murder conviction.