Law Commons^™

Livelihood, Ability To Pay, And The Original Meaning Of The Excessive Fines Clause, Nicholas M. Mclean

Nicholas M. McLean

Most modern courts that have been called upon to interpret and apply the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment have concluded that a fine or forfeiture can be unconstitutionally excessive only if it is grossly disproportionate to its associated offense. However, in light of its text, history, and purpose, the Excessive Fines Clause is appropriately understood as encoding both a proportionality principle and a further limiting principle linking financial penalties to the personal circumstances and economic status of the offender. This Article seeks to address a significant and surprising gap in the extant literature by articulating and systematically developing …

Amicus Brief: State V. Glover (Maine Supreme Judicial Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

When law enforcement seeks to obtain a warrantless, pre-arrest DNA sample from an individual, that individual has the right to say “No.” If silence is to become a “badge of guilt,” then the right to silence—under the United States and Maine Constitutions—might become a thing of the past. Allowing jurors to infer consciousness of guilt from a pre-arrest DNA sample violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States and Maine Constitutions.

Against Juvenile Sex Offender Registration, Catherine L. Carpenter

Catherine L Carpenter

Against Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Catherine L. Carpenter* Abstract Imagine if you were held accountable the rest of your life for something you did as a child? This is the Child Scarlet Letter in force: kids who commit criminal sexual acts and who pay the price with the burdens and stigma of sex offender registration. And in a game of “how low can you go?,” states have forced children as young as nine and ten years old onto sex offender registries, some with registration requirements that extend the rest of their lives. It is both unremarkable and true that children …

A Missed Chance For Justice In Court, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

This op-ed argues that Osama bin Laden should have been captured and tried in a court of law, rather than assassinated under circumstances suggesting he was unarmed and posed no immediate threat.

Juvenile Justice Reform 2.0, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Before the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review did not support the notion that constitutional litigation could be an effective instrument of social reform. The Court’s principled rejection of racially segregated public education, however, gave new legitimacy to the concept of judicial review, transforming it from an obstacle into a principal means of achieving social progress. Since then, federal courts have impacted public policy in many areas – from housing, welfare, and transportation to mental health institutions, prisons, and juvenile courts. Yet, there are inherent structural challenges to effecting …

Objecting At The Altar: Why The Herring Good Faith Principle And The Harlow Qualified Immunity Doctrine Should Not Be Married, John M. Greabe

John M Greabe

Response to: Jennifer E. Laurin, Trawling for Herring: Lessons in Doctrinal Borrowing and Convergence, 111 Colum. L. Rev. 670 (2011)

Critics of the curtailment of the exclusionary rule worked by Herring v. United States have denounced the decision as Supreme Court activism posing as derivation from settled law. Professor Jennifer Laurin agrees that Herring breaks with exclusionary rule doctrine but disputes that it lacks any grounding in Court precedent. She says that Herring consummates a long courtship between the Leon good faith exception to the exclusionary rule and the Harlow standard for qualified immunity. Laurin premises her argument on an …

Establishing Guidelines For Attorney Representation Of Criminal Defendants At The Sentencing Phase Of Capital Trials, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

Can Criminal Law Be Controlled?, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This review of Douglas Husak's 2008 book, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, summarizes and largely endorses Husak's normative argument about the indefensible expansiveness of much contemporary criminal liability. It then offers a skeptical (or pessimistic) argument about the possibilities for a normative theory such as Husak's to have much effect on criminal justice policy in light of the political barriers to reform.

Heller’S Constitutional Dialogue: How The Supreme Court’S Choice Of Language In District Of Columbia V. Heller Is Instructive For Anticipating Future Interpretations Of The Second Amendment., Jason E. Niehaus

Jason E Niehaus

This article was an analysis of the language used by the Supreme Court in its decision in District of Columbia v. Heller to predict (ultimately correctly) the Court's later ruling regarding the Incorporation of the Second Amendment.