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Constitutional Law

University of Michigan Law School

2013

Defendants

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Plea Bargaining And The Right To Counsel At Bail Hearings, Charlie Gerstein Jun 2013

Plea Bargaining And The Right To Counsel At Bail Hearings, Charlie Gerstein

Michigan Law Review

A couple million indigent defendants in this country face bail hearings each year and most of them do so without court-appointed lawyers. In two recent companion cases, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, the Supreme Court held that the loss of a favorable plea bargain can satisfy the prejudice prong of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. If the Constitution requires effective assistance of counsel to protect plea bargains, it requires the presence of counsel at proceedings that have the capacity to prejudice those bargains. Pretrial detention has the capacity to prejudice a plea bargain because a defendant held …


Counsel's Control Over The Presentation Of Mitigating Evidence During Capital Sentencing, James Michael Blakemore May 2013

Counsel's Control Over The Presentation Of Mitigating Evidence During Capital Sentencing, James Michael Blakemore

Michigan Law Review

The Sixth Amendment gives a defendant the right to control his defense and the right to a lawyer's assistance. A lawyer's assistance, however, sometimes interferes with a defendant's control over his case. As a result, the Supreme Court, over time, has had to delineate the spheres of authority that pertain to counsel and defendant respectively. The Court has not yet decisively assigned control over mitigating evidence to either counsel or defendant. This Note argues that counsel should control the presentation of mitigating evidence during capital sentencing. First, and most importantly, decisions concerning the presentation of mitigating evidence are best characterized …


The Right To Counsel For Indians Accused Of Crime: A Tribal And Congressional Imperative, Barbara L. Creel Apr 2013

The Right To Counsel For Indians Accused Of Crime: A Tribal And Congressional Imperative, Barbara L. Creel

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Native American Indians charged in tribal court criminal proceedings are not entitled to court appointed defense counsel. Under well-settled principles of tribal sovereignty, Indian tribes are not bound by Fifth Amendment due process guarantees or Sixth Amendment right to counsel. Instead, they are bound by the procedural protections established by Congress in the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Under the Indian Civil Rights Act (ICRA), Indian defendants have the right to counsel at their own expense. This Article excavates the historical background of the lack of counsel in the tribal court arena and exposes the myriad problems that it …


Effective Trial Counsel After Martinez V. Ryan: Focusing On The Adequacy Of State Procedures, Eve Brensike Primus Jan 2013

Effective Trial Counsel After Martinez V. Ryan: Focusing On The Adequacy Of State Procedures, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Everyone knows that excessive caseloads, poor funding, and a lack of training plague indigent defense delivery systems throughout the states, such that the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is largely unfulfilled. Commentators have disagreed about how best to breathe life into Gideon . Many disclaim any possibility that federal habeas corpus review of state criminal cases could catalyze reform give n the many procedural obstacle s that currently prevent state prisoners from getting into federal court. But the Supreme Court has recently taken a renewed interest in using federal habeas review to address the problem of ineffective attorneys in state …