Law Commons^™

“Far From The Turbulent Space”: Considering The Adequacy Of Counsel In The Representation Of Individuals Accused Of Being Sexually Violent Predators, Michael L. Perlin, Heather Ellis Cucolo

Michael L Perlin

Abstract:

For the past thirty years, the US Supreme Court's standard of Strickland v. Washington has governed the question of adequacy of counsel in criminal trials. There, in a Sixth Amendment analysis, the Supreme Court acknowledged that simply having a lawyer assigned to a defendant was not constitutionally adequate, but that that lawyer must provide "effective assistance of counsel," effectiveness being defined, pallidly, as requiring simply that counsel's efforts be “reasonable” under the circumstances. The benchmark for judging an ineffectiveness claim is simply “whether counsel’s conduct so undermined the proper function of the adversarial process that the trial court cannot …

Neurotechnologies At The Intersection Of Criminal Procedure And Constitutional Law, Amanda C. Pustilnik

Amanda C Pustilnik

The rapid development of neurotechnologies poses novel constitutional issues for criminal law and criminal procedure. These technologies can identify directly from brain waves whether a person is familiar with a stimulus like a face or a weapon, can model blood flow in the brain to indicate whether a person is lying, and can even interfere with brain processes themselves via high-powered magnets to cause a person to be less likely to lie to an investigator. These technologies implicate the constitutional privilege against compelled, self-incriminating speech under the Fifth Amendment and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure …

The Privilege Against Self-Incrimination In Bankruptcy And The Plight Of The Debtor, Timothy R. Tarvin

Timothy R Tarvin

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …

Orwellian Surveillance Of Vehicular Travels, Sam Hanna

Sam Hanna

What would someone learn about you if all your automobile travels were ubiquitously tracked beginning today? Creating an indefinite database of a person’s previous automobile travels to formulate deductions on intimate details of people's lives is precisely what law enforcement agencies are currently able to accomplish with automatic license plate recognition (“ALPR”). With the ubiquity of ALPR cameras, continuous government surveillance of automobile travels is no longer a figment of the imagination. Consequently, the judicial and legislative branches of government must embark on balancing the private and public interests implicated by this technology. Failure to set suitable boundaries around the …

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …