Law Commons^™

Scandal, Fraud, And The Reform Of Forensic Science: The Case Of Fingerprint Analysis, Simon A. Cole

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Risk Assessment At Sentencing: Implications For Research And Policy, Steven L. Chanenson, Jordan M. Hyatt

Working Paper Series

At-sentencing risk assessments are predictions of an individual’s statistically likely future criminal conduct. These assessments can be derived from a number of methodologies ranging from unstructured clinical judgment to advanced statistical and actuarial processes. Some assessments consider only correlates of criminal recidivism, while others also take into account criminogenic needs. Assessments of this nature have long been used to classify defendants for treatment and supervision within prisons and on community supervision, but they have only relatively recently begun to be used – or considered for use – during the sentencing process. This shift in application has raised substantial practical and …

Folklore And Forensics: The Challenges Of Arson Investigation And Innocence Claims, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Paul Bieber

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dishonest Ethical Advocacy?: False Defenses In Criminal Court, Joshua A. Liebman

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines this dilemma and recent judicial approaches to it. Judges disagree about how guilty criminal defendants should be permitted to mount defenses at trial. Some have forbidden defense counsel from knowingly advancing any false exculpatory proposition. Others have permitted guilty defense attorneys to present sincere or truthful testimony in order to bolster a falsehood. And still others have signaled more general comfort with the idea that an attorney aggressively can pursue an acquittal on behalf of a guilty client. This Note seeks to resolve this issue by parsing the range of false defense tactics available to attorneys and …

Accidental Vitiation: The Natural And Probable Consequence Of Rosemond V. United States On The Natural And Probable Consequence Doctrine, Evan Goldstick

Fordham Law Review

Recently, the Court decided Rosemond v. United States. In Rosemond, the Court had to determine the requisite mental state for aiding and abetting a particular federal crime. While the Court had the opportunity to weigh in on the natural and probable consequence doctrine in Rosemond, it declined to do so in footnote 7. This Note reviews the natural and probable consequence doctrine, its reception by courts and commentators, and the Court’s holding in Rosemond. This Note then applies the holding of Rosemond to several federal cases that employed the doctrine to determine whether, despite footnote 7, …

Pulse: Finding Meaning In A Massacre Through Gay Latinx Intersectional Justice, Judith E. Koons

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Effective Social Media Use By Law Enforcement Agencies: A Case Study Approach To Quantifying And Improving Efficacy And Developing Agency Best Practices, David T. Snively

Master of Public Administration Practicums

In the wake of protests against law enforcement for an array of reasons, law enforcement officers and agencies have a responsibility to recognize and utilize the available mediums of communication with which they may best develop a connection to the communities they serve. Furthermore, law enforcement agencies must be informed that established, traditional methods of news dissemination – such as press conferences and printed articles – are now both ineffective and under-utilized, replaced in large part by social media live-time reports. For that reason, law enforcement agency executives must address both the responsibility to provide appropriately timed updates to critical …

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla

Mercer Law Review

As in prior periods, this year's survey of criminal law will include only a few of the most significant cases and statutory amendments. Due to the constant evolution of criminal laws in our society, it is simply not practical to attempt to make note of every legal development. Therefore, the discussion is limited to those changes that will have the widest application and interest to criminal law practitioners for the period from June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2016.

Private Actors And Public Corruption: Why Courts Should Adopt A Broad Interpretation Of The Hobbs Act, Megan Demarco

Michigan Law Review

Federal prosecutors routinely charge public officials with “extortion under color of official right” under a public-corruption statute called the Hobbs Act. To be prosecuted under the Hobbs Act, a public official must promise official action in return for a bribe or kickback. The public official, however, does not need to have actual authority over that official action. As long as the victim reasonably believed that the public official could deliver or influence government action, the public official violated the Hobbs Act. Private citizens also solicit bribes in return for influencing official action. Yet most courts do not think the Hobbs …

Strengths And Limitations Of Forensic Science: What Dna Exonerations Have Taught Us And Where To Go From Here, Vanessa Meterko

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Legal And Ethical Puzzle: Defense Counsel As Quasi Witness, Elizabeth Slater

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. criminal justice system is built on the concept of an adversarial trial. The defense and prosecution present competing narratives to a neutral audience that judges whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. In this context, defense counsel is expected to be a zealous advocate for the defendant, providing the most effective representation possible in light of the evidence presented by the government. However, there are occasions outside of trial where defense counsel’s traditional role changes and she is asked to disclose, not to the jury, but to the court, personal opinions and knowledge about …

Conviction By Prior Impeachment, Anna Roberts

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Georgia's Safe Harbor Ruling For Affirmative Defenses In Criminal Cases Should Be Revisited, Ben W. Studdard, Michal A. Arndt

Mercer Law Review

The State has the entire burden of proving the defendant's guilt of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, reads the instruction given to every jury empaneled to try a criminal case in Georgia. The defendant has no burden of proof at all. Where the evidence raises a defense, the burden remains with the State to negate or disprove that defense beyond a reasonable doubt. But those same Georgia citizens, when summoned to federal jury service, may hear a very different instruction: that the defendant, upon raising an affirmative defense, has the burden of proof as to that defense, by …

Qualitative Collective Case Study Of Targeted Violence Preparedness At Institutions Of Higher Education, Tim Gunter

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

An increase in targeted violence incidents (TVIs), primarily active shooter events, at institutions of higher education (IHEs) has exposed gaps in campus security plan preparation and exercises. The purpose of this qualitative collective case study was to discover barriers to and best practices of universities and colleges conducting security preparedness activities for TVIs. The theory that guided this study was vested interest theory which predicts how attitudes will influence behavior in a commitment to preparedness fundamentals. The setting for this study was two institutions of higher education along the East Coast of the United States. Data collection techniques included site …

Building The Infrastructure For "Justice Through Science": The Texas Model, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The West Virginia Law Review Flawed Forensics And Innocence Symposium, Valena E. Beety

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Say Hello To My Little Friend Civil Rico: The Third Circuit Green Lights Insurance Shakedown Of Big Pharma With In Re Avandia, Marie Bussey-Garza

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Sentencing Blueprint: The Third Circuit Allows Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Fraud Convictions To Be Offset By Construction Contract Performance In United States V. Nagle, Christopher C. Reese

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dignity, Vol 1, Issue 1, 2016, Donna M. Hughes Dr.

Donna M. Hughes

55. Challenging The Credibility Of Alleged Victims Of Child Sexual Abuse In Scottish Courts., Zsófia Szojka, Samantha J. Andrews, Michael E. Lamb, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Thomas D. Lyon

Thomas D. Lyon

Recent Developments; Immigration And Naturalization -- Effect Of State Conviction Of Minor Drug Offense By Youthful Offenders -- Availability Of Relief From Mandatory Deportation Based On State Certificate Of Relief From Disabilities Granted As A Result Of The Conviction (Rehman V. Immigration And Naturalization Service, 2d Cir 1976), Donna R. Christie

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Mayo V. Eigh. Jud, Dist. Ct., 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 79 (Nov. 23, 2016), Alex Velto

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court found that the district court did not err when it found no violation of NRS 172.145(2). The Court interpreted NRS 172.145(2), which creates a duty on district attorneys to submit evidence to a grand jury if they are “aware” it will “explain away the charge.” The Court determined that a district attorney must be “aware” evidence has exculpatory value before there is a duty to present the evidence to a grand jury. The district attorney is not obligated to present exculpatory evidence it possesses but does not recognize as exculpatory. In the case at issue, because the district …

Johnson V. Kelley, Bruce Green

Amicus Briefs

No abstract provided.

Brief Of Appellant, Mark Andrew Matthews V. State Of Maryland, No. 327, Paul Dewolfe, Renée M. Hutchins, Jesse M. Lachman

Court Briefs

No abstract provided.

The Law Of The Groves: Whittling Away At The Legal Mysteries In The Prosecution Of The Groveland Boys, William R. Ezzell

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This Article tells the legal story of one of the South’s most infamous trials – the Groveland Boys prosecution in central Florida. Called “Florida’s Little Scottsboro,” the Groveland case garnered international attention in 1949 when four young black men were accused of the gang rape of a white woman in the orange groves north of Orlando. Several days of rioting, Ku Klux Klan activity, three murders, two trials, and three death penalty verdicts followed, in what became the most infamous trial in Florida history. The appeals of the trial reached the United States Supreme Court, with the NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall …

Nuclear Weapons, Lethal Injection, And American Catholics: Faith Confronting American Civil Religion, Thomas L. Shaffer

Thomas L. Shaffer

But, still, honor is important among us. "He was an honorable man" is still a moving thing to say, at a (man's) funeral. The notion, and the liturgy that invokes the notion, show us believers that civil religion has a hold on us, and that we need a place where we can sit down together and think things out.2 6 This argument of mine needs to get beneath simple contrasts between biblical faith and civil religion. We believers need to reason together, plopped down as we are in the middle of the present. We believers include naval officers and lawyers …

Introduction, Kate Price

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Voting To End Vulnerability: Understanding The Recent Proliferation Of State-Level Child Sex Trafficking Legislation, Kate Price, Keith Gunnar Bentele

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

This Article first focuses on the history of CSEC (commercially sexually exploited children) legislation in the United States by contextualizing the history of state anti-trafficking laws within the larger anti-trafficking policy framework of federal U.S. statutes and United Nations’ (U.N.) protocols. The second and third sections address the variables, statistical model, and results of our data analysis. The fourth section discusses the implications of these findings. The Article concludes with practical considerations for future CSEC legislative efforts on the state level.

License To Abuse: Confronting Coach-Inflicted Sexual Assault In American Olympic Sports, Haley O. Morton

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Creative Capitalism And Human Trafficking: A Business Approach To Eliminate Forced Labor And Human Trafficking From Global Supply Chains, Dana Raigrodski

William & Mary Business Law Review

A great amount of revenue generated by businesses in the global economy can be linked to the trafficking and enslavement of human beings. Yet, the current discourse on human trafficking fails to recognize the magnitude of benefit consumers, businesses, and economies gain from the work of forced and trafficked labor. Moreover, the limited efforts that seek to address this situation have focused on ways to encourage businesses to voluntarily adopt more socially responsible practices. These measures have had only limited success, and are generally believed to be in tension with the for-profit purposes of businesses. Hence, the task of convincing …