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Articles 1 - 30 of 62
Full-Text Articles in Law
The Paradox Of Death Penalty Delay: A Judicial, Empirical, And Ethical Study, Zoë Gill
The Paradox Of Death Penalty Delay: A Judicial, Empirical, And Ethical Study, Zoë Gill
Senior Theses and Projects
The American death penalty has been at the center of political debates for decades. More specifically, the complexity of death penalty delay has gained significant attention from the public as well as the Supreme Court justices. Death penalty delay represents the time that transpires between when a capital crime is committed and when the execution is carried out. Today, more than half of all prisoners currently sentenced to death have been on death row for more than 18 years. This staggering statistic has ignited debate and divided the conservative justices from the liberal justices even more. This thesis will first …
Righting The Wrongfully Convicted: How Kansas's New Exoneree Compensation Statute Sets A Standard For The United States, Scott Connolly
Righting The Wrongfully Convicted: How Kansas's New Exoneree Compensation Statute Sets A Standard For The United States, Scott Connolly
St. John's Law Review
(Excerpt)
Part I of this Note will document the increasing prevalence of exonerations and provide a perspective on how significantly the landscape of postconviction justice has developed since the late 1980s. Such developments include DNA testing, greater awareness of false confessions, and a more thorough understanding of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Part II will demonstrate the devastating impact that wrongful imprisonment has on exonerees. Finally, Part III of this Note will provide a snapshot of the current landscape of exoneree compensation laws. It will highlight the fact that many of the laws that exist do not provide sufficient resources and …
As Pertains To The Criminal Justice System, Is Hindsight 20/20?, Syndie G. E. Molina, Cristina Negrillo
As Pertains To The Criminal Justice System, Is Hindsight 20/20?, Syndie G. E. Molina, Cristina Negrillo
Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity
No abstract provided.
Smoke But No Fire: When Innocent People Are Wrongly Convicted Of Crimes That Never Happened, Jessica S. Henry
Smoke But No Fire: When Innocent People Are Wrongly Convicted Of Crimes That Never Happened, Jessica S. Henry
Jessica S. Henry
Nearly one-third of exonerations involve the wrongful conviction of an innocent person for a crime that never actually happened, such as when the police plant drugs on an innocent person, a scorned lover invents a false accusation, or an expert mislabels a suicide as a murder. Despite the frequency with which no-crime convictions take place, little scholarship has been devoted to the subject. This Article seeks to fill that gap in the literature by exploring no-crime wrongful convictions as a discrete and unique phenomenon within the wrongful convictions universe. This Article considers three main factors that contribute to no-crime wrongful …
Legal Innocence And Federal Habeas, Leah Litman
Legal Innocence And Federal Habeas, Leah Litman
Articles
Although it has long been thought that innocence should matter in federal habeas corpus proceedings, innocence scholarship has focused almost exclusively on claims of factual innocence-the kind of innocence that occurs when new evidence reveals that the defendant did not commit the offense for which he was convicted. The literature has largely overlooked cases where a defendant was convicted or sentenced under a statute that is unconstitutional, or a statute that does not apply to the defendant. The Supreme Court, however, has recently begun to recognize these cases as kinds of innocence and it has grounded its concern for them …
Smoke But No Fire: When Innocent People Are Wrongly Convicted Of Crimes That Never Happened, Jessica S. Henry
Smoke But No Fire: When Innocent People Are Wrongly Convicted Of Crimes That Never Happened, Jessica S. Henry
Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
Nearly one-third of exonerations involve the wrongful conviction of an innocent person for a crime that never actually happened, such as when the police plant drugs on an innocent person, a scorned lover invents a false accusation, or an expert mislabels a suicide as a murder. Despite the frequency with which no-crime convictions take place, little scholarship has been devoted to the subject. This Article seeks to fill that gap in the literature by exploring no-crime wrongful convictions as a discrete and unique phenomenon within the wrongful convictions universe. This Article considers three main factors that contribute to no-crime wrongful …
Defense Counsel And Public Defence, Eve Brensike Primus
Defense Counsel And Public Defence, Eve Brensike Primus
Book Chapters
Public-defense delivery systems nationwide are grossly inadequate. Public defenders are forced to handle caseloads that no one could effectively manage. They often have no funding for investigation or expert assistance. They aren’t adequately trained, and there is little to no oversight of their work. In many jurisdictions, the public-defense function is not sufficiently independent of the judiciary or the elected branches to allow for zealous representation. The result is an assembly line into prison, mostly for poor people of color, with little check on the reliability or fairness of the process. Innocent people are convicted, precious resources are wasted, and …
Can We Protect The Innocent Without Freeing The Guilty? Thoughts On Innocence Reforms That Avoid Harmful Tradeoffs, Paul Cassell
Can We Protect The Innocent Without Freeing The Guilty? Thoughts On Innocence Reforms That Avoid Harmful Tradeoffs, Paul Cassell
Utah Law Faculty Scholarship
It is fundamentally important that the criminal justice system accurately separate the guilty from the innocent. But many recent reform measures from the innocent movement rest on shaky ground. Protecting against wrongful convictions can create tradeoffs. If poorly crafted, a reform measure might not only prevent convicting innocent persons but also guilty persons, allowing dangerous criminals to avoid incarceration and continue to victimize innocent persons. From a public policy perspective, these tradeoffs create concern that reform measures may be cures worse than the disease.
With this caution in mind, it is possible to craft reforms that help to protect the …
Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter
Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter
University of Richmond Law Review
This comment examines actual innocence in Virginia: the progress it has made, the problems it still faces, and the possibilities for reform. Part I addresses past reform to the system, spurred by the shocking tales of Thomas Haynesworth and others. Part II identifies three of the most prevalent systemic challenges marring Virginia's justice system: (1) flawed scientific evidence; (2) the premature destruction of evidence; and (3) false confessions and guilty pleas. Part III suggests ways in which Virginia can, and should, address these challenges to ensure that the justice system is actually serving justice.
The Innocence Effect, Avishalom Tor, Oren Gazal-Ayal
The Innocence Effect, Avishalom Tor, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Avishalom Tor
Nearly all felony convictions - about 95 percent - follow guilty pleas, suggesting that plea offers are very attractive to defendants compared to trials. Some scholars argue that plea bargains are too attractive and should be curtailed because they facilitate the wrongful conviction of innocents. Others contend that plea bargains only benefit innocent defendants, providing an alternative to the risk of a harsher sentence at trial. Hence, even while heatedly disputing their desirability, both camps in the debate believe that plea bargains commonly lead innocents to plead guilty. This Article shows, however, that the belief that innocents routinely plead guilty …
Contemporary Perspectives On Wrongful Conviction: An Introduction To The 2016 Innocence Network Conference, San Antonio, Texas, Gwen Jordan, Aliza B. Kaplan, Valena Beety, Keith A. Findley
Contemporary Perspectives On Wrongful Conviction: An Introduction To The 2016 Innocence Network Conference, San Antonio, Texas, Gwen Jordan, Aliza B. Kaplan, Valena Beety, Keith A. Findley
Articles by Maurer Faculty
Innocent people have been convicted of crimes they did not commit throughout history. The exact number of wrongful convictions is unknowable. In 2014, however, the National Academy of Sciences (“NAS”) released a study of the cases of criminal defendants who were convicted and sentenced to death and concluded that 4.1% were wrongfully convicted. The researchers explained that “this is a conservative estimate of the proportion of false conviction among death sentences in the United States.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1,561,500 adults were incarcerated in federal prisons, state prisons, and county jails in 2014, …
In Memory Of Monroe Freedman: The Hardest Question For A Prosecutor, Bennett L. Gershman
In Memory Of Monroe Freedman: The Hardest Question For A Prosecutor, Bennett L. Gershman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
I’ve chosen to honor Monroe Freedman’s iconic essay on the hardest questions for a criminal defense attorney by posing the same question for prosecutors. What is the hardest question for a prosecutor? This in itself is a hard question. The thousands of federal, state, and local prosecutors in the country would likely give widely varying responses – discretionary charging, immunity grants, bargained pleas, unreliable witnesses, police testimony, and disclosure duties, for starters. Too, prosecutors are not a generic group. Just as some defense lawyers might recoil or be indifferent to Freedman’s provocative thesis, so might many prosecutors reject or be …
Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry
Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
In the summer of 2015, experts gathered from around the country to sit together and discuss one of the most pressing and important issues facing the American criminal justice system – innocence. Innocence is an issue that pervades various areas of research and influences numerous topics of discussion. What does innocence mean, particularly in a system that differentiates between innocence and acquittal at sentencing? What is the impact of innocence during plea bargaining? How should we respond to growing numbers of exonerations? What forces lead to the incarceration of innocents? Has an innocent person been put to death and, if …
Interrogation Policies, Brandon L. Garrett
Interrogation Policies, Brandon L. Garrett
University of Richmond Law Review
No abstract provided.
Innocence, Privacy, And Targeting In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Sherry F. Colb
Innocence, Privacy, And Targeting In Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence, Sherry F. Colb
Sherry Colb
No abstract provided.
Is Guilt Dispositive? Federal Habeas After Martinez, Justin F. Marceau
Is Guilt Dispositive? Federal Habeas After Martinez, Justin F. Marceau
William & Mary Law Review
Federal habeas review of criminal convictions is not supposed to be a second opportunity to adjudge guilt. Oliver Wendell Holmes, among others, has said that the sole question on federal habeas is whether the prisoner’s constitutional rights were violated. By the early 1970s, however, scholars criticized this rights-based view of habeas and sounded the alarm that postconviction review had become too far removed from questions of innocence. Most famously, in 1970 Judge Friendly criticized the breadth of habeas corpus by posing a single question: Is innocence irrelevant? In his view habeas review that focused exclusively on questions of rights in …
Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar
Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar
Reviews
When he was nearing the end of his distinguished career, one of my former law professors observed that a dramatic story of a specific case "has the same advantages that a play or a novel has over a general discussion of ethics or political theory." Ms. Houppert illustrates this point in her very first chapter.
Special Administrative Measures And The War On Terror: When Do Extreme Pretrial Detention Measures Offend The Constitution?, Andrew Dalack
Special Administrative Measures And The War On Terror: When Do Extreme Pretrial Detention Measures Offend The Constitution?, Andrew Dalack
Michigan Journal of Race and Law
Our criminal justice system is founded upon a belief that one is innocent until proven guilty. This belief is what foists the burden of proving a person’s guilt upon the government and belies a statutory presumption in favor of allowing a defendant to remain free pending trial at the federal level. Though there are certainly circumstances in which a federal magistrate judge may—and sometimes must—remand a defendant to jail pending trial, it is well-settled that pretrial detention itself inherently prejudices the quality of a person’s defense. In some cases, a defendant’s pretrial conditions become so onerous that they become punitive …
Marked!, Aya Gruber
Presumed Guilty, Terrence Cain
Presumed Guilty, Terrence Cain
Faculty Scholarship
It would probably surprise the average American to learn that prosecutors need only prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt sometimes. Although the Due Process Clauses of the Constitution require that the government prove each element of an alleged criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt, the use of statutory presumptions has relieved the government of this responsibility, and in some cases, has even shifted the burden to the defendant to disprove the presumption. Likewise, the Sixth Amendment grants a criminal defendant the right to have the jury and the jury alone determine whether the government has met its burden and ultimately …
Proportional Mens Rea, Stephen F. Smith
De-Naturalizing Criminal Law: Of Public Perceptions And Procedural Protections, Benjamin Levin
De-Naturalizing Criminal Law: Of Public Perceptions And Procedural Protections, Benjamin Levin
Publications
Innocence, it turns out, is a complex concept. Yet the Innocence Movement has drawn power from the simplicity of the wrong-person story of innocence, as told most effectively by the DNA cases. The purity of that story continues to have power, but that story alone cannot sustain the Innocence Movement. It is too narrow. It fails to accommodate the vast majority of innocent people in our justice system. It fails to embrace innocence in its full complexity. . . . [I]n the end, for virtually all purposes, innocence must be understood under the objective rules that have long governed the …
Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman
Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman
Michigan Law Review
Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard of proof in all criminal cases. Experimental studies as well as real world examples indicate, however, that fact finders often adjust the evidentiary threshold for conviction in accordance with the severity of the applicable sanction. All things being equal, the higher the sanction, the higher the standard of proof that fact finders will apply in order to convict. Building on this insight, this Article introduces a new paradigm for criminal punishments-a paradigm that focuses on designing penalties that will reduce the risk of unsubstantiated …
The Innocence Effect, Avishalom Tor, Oren Gazal-Ayal
The Innocence Effect, Avishalom Tor, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Journal Articles
Nearly all felony convictions - about 95 percent - follow guilty pleas, suggesting that plea offers are very attractive to defendants compared to trials. Some scholars argue that plea bargains are too attractive and should be curtailed because they facilitate the wrongful conviction of innocents. Others contend that plea bargains only benefit innocent defendants, providing an alternative to the risk of a harsher sentence at trial. Hence, even while heatedly disputing their desirability, both camps in the debate believe that plea bargains commonly lead innocents to plead guilty. This Article shows, however, that the belief that innocents routinely plead guilty …
False Convictions, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Samuel R. Gross
False Convictions, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Samuel R. Gross
Book Chapters
False convictions have received a lot of attention in recent years. Two-hundred and forty-one prisoners have been released after DNA testing has proved their innocence, and hundreds of others have been released without DNA evidence. We now know quite a bit more about false convictions than we did thirty years ago - but there is much more that we do not know, and may never know.
Innocence And Federal Habeas After Aedpa: Time For The Supreme Court To Act, Joseph L. Hoffmann
Innocence And Federal Habeas After Aedpa: Time For The Supreme Court To Act, Joseph L. Hoffmann
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
Innocence Is Different: Taking Innocence Into Account In Reforming Criminal Procedure, D. Michael Risinger, Lesley C. Risinger
Innocence Is Different: Taking Innocence Into Account In Reforming Criminal Procedure, D. Michael Risinger, Lesley C. Risinger
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Exonerating The Innocent: Pretrial Innocence Procedures, Tim Bakken, Lewis M. Steel
Exonerating The Innocent: Pretrial Innocence Procedures, Tim Bakken, Lewis M. Steel
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Models Of Justice To Protect Innocent Persons, Tim Bakken
Models Of Justice To Protect Innocent Persons, Tim Bakken
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.
Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit And The Importance Of Getting It Right The First Time, Mike Ware
Dallas County Conviction Integrity Unit And The Importance Of Getting It Right The First Time, Mike Ware
NYLS Law Review
No abstract provided.