Law Commons^™

Ohio's Administrative License Suspension: A Double Jeopardy And Due Process Analysis, Max Kravitz

Akron Law Review

This Article examines whether Ohio's imposition of an administrative license suspension "ALS" immediately upon arrest for operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol "OMVI" bars a subsequent prosecution for the substantive offense.' Traditionally, administrative license suspensions have been considered civil, administrative and primarily remedial. However, increasingly punitive amendments to Ohio's ALS statutory scheme raise the substantial question of whether an ALS is truly remedial, or whether the imposition of an ALS constitutes punishment triggering double jeopardy and due process protection.

"A Thug In Prison Cannot Shoot Your Sister": Ohio Appears Ready To Resurrect The Habitual Criminal Statute - Will It Withstand An Eighth Amendment Challenge?, Thomas R. Goots

Akron Law Review

The State of Ohio appears ready to pass a habitual offender statute. This Comment will take a closer look at habitual offender statutes in general and Ohio's past attempts at habitual offender statutes. The Comment will focus on the possible Eighth Amendment challenge to the proposed Ohio statute, by examining a hypothetical defendant.

Sentence Entrapment And Manipulation: Government Manipulation Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Todd E. Witten

Akron Law Review

This Comment discusses the theory of sentence entrapment and the application of the defense. Part II provides the reader with a general overview of the events leading up to the adoption of the guidelines and the manner in which they operate.10 Part III discusses the effect of the guidelines' quantity-based approach to criminal investigations. Part IV describes the role of the traditional "entrapment" defense, and Part V details the development of the "sentence entrapment" defense. Part VI analyzes the viability of the sentence entrapment defense, suggesting possible successful methods for raising the defense, and discusses the harms caused by the …

Neo-Federalism, Popular Sovereignity, And The Criminal Law, Terrance M. Messonnier

Akron Law Review

The first area is the substantive criminal law, especially at the federal level. In the following pages, this Article will discuss, from a Neo-Federalist perspective, the wide variety of laws found mostly in Title 18 of the United States Code that form our federal criminal law. This Article will suggest that there are both constitutional and pragmatic needs to reexamine what behavior should be punished on a federal level.

The second area is the law regarding criminal procedures. This Article will suggest, from the perspective of Popular Sovereignty, that the current trend to jealously guard jurisdictional prerogatives is not constitutionally …

The Shift Of The Balance Of Advantage In Criminal Litigation: The Case Of Mr. Simpson, David Robinson Jr.

Akron Law Review

The intense public interest in the extraordinary trial and acquittal of Mr. O.J. Simpson provides an appropriate occasion to look at the criminal justice system more generally, to note where we have been in the balance of advantage between prosecution and defense, where we are now, and where, perhaps, we should be.

Bray V. Russell: The Constitutionality Of The "Bad Time" Statute, Erin Kae Cardinal

Akron Law Review

This Note analyzes the Court’s decision in Bray. Part II presents an overview of sentencing systems in the United States, the bad time penalty, and a brief background of the doctrine of separation of powers. Part III presents the facts, procedural history, and holding of Bray. Part IV analyzes the Court’s holding pursuant to the Due Process Clause rather than the doctrine of separation of powers. This Note concludes that although the bad time statute is unconstitutional as a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers, the court could have alternatively decided that the bad time statute also violates …

Being The Government Means (Almost) Never Having To Say You're Sorry: The Sam Sheppard Case And The Meaning Of Wrongful Imprisonment, Jonathan L. Entin

Akron Law Review

Sam Sheppard was at the center of the highest profile crime in Ohio history. It contained “[m]urder and mystery, society, sex and suspense.” In the early morning hours of July 4, 1954, Marilyn Sheppard, four months pregnant with her second child, was beaten to death in her bed in the Cleveland suburb of Bay Village. The authorities quickly focused their suspicion on her husband, Sam, a prominent osteopathic physician, and charged him with first-degree murder. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. The state courts affirmed, and the Supreme Court denied direct review. Then in 1966, …

Sell-Ing Your Soul To The Courts: Forced Medication To Achieve Trial Competency In The Wake Of Sell V. United States, Elizabeth G. Schultz

Akron Law Review

Sell involves issues of individual liberty that reach beyond the sphere of the mentally ill. Although the Court ultimately decided in Dr. Sell’s favor by applying the facts of the case to a heightened scrutiny test, the Court missed an opportunity to decide this case on broader, more protective constitutional grounds for other mentally ill defendants.

This Note considers the effect that the decision in Sell v. United States has on mentally ill criminal defendants in both procedural and substantive arenas. Section II gives a brief introduction to the collateral order doctrine and discusses forced medication for trial competency purposes. …

Third Strike Or Merely A Foul Tip?: The Gross Disproportionality Of Lockyer V. Andrade, Joy M. Donham

Akron Law Review

“The United States is besieged by an incarceration crisis which far surpasses that of any other nation.” Scholars attribute the increasing prison population to changes in sentencing policy. Politicians have used the public pressure resulting from its fear of violence to pass legislation that supports this change in policy and creates more fixed sentencing structures.

California’s Three Strikes law (Three Strikes), an example of such a structure, has resulted in the largest increase in the prison population. Public pressure, spurred by the fear of violent criminals being released and committing the same crimes again and again, led to the enactment …

Developmental Detour: How The Minimalism Of Miller V. Alabama Led The Court's "Kids Are Different" Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence Down A Blind Alley, Mary Berkheiser

Akron Law Review

With its narrow ruling, Miller has taken the Eighth Amendment kids are different jurisprudence on a deleterious detour that could lead Miller and Jackson and others like them to a certain dead end. Where Miller went wrong is the subject of this paper. It begins with Graham and the significance of the Court’s ruling that the Eighth Amendment categorically precludes imposition of a sentence of life without parole on a juvenile nonhomicide offender. Next, this paper turns to the Supreme Court’s decision in Miller, parsing the Court’s reliance on precedent and the reasoning that led it to adopt a ruling …

The New State Postconviction, Giovanna Shay

Akron Law Review

I argue in this paper that, because Maples and Martinez coincide with other important developments that make state postconviction more important, they could have critical synergistic effects. Maples and Martinez create incentive for states to provide effective counsel in state postconviction at a moment when these proceedings are being forced to assume a new role in the development of federal constitutional criminal procedure. The confluence of these events could produce a new era in state postconviction.

Bright Lines, Black Bodies: The Florence Strip Search Case And Its Dire Repercussions, Teresa A. Miller

Akron Law Review

Part I is a brief history of Search and Seizure law, focusing on seismic doctrinal shifts that occurred from the 1950s to the present. As a framework for the important cases, the Founders’ concerns about abuse of governmental authority are discussed, as well as the rights protected by the Fourth Amendment. Various governmental programs will also be presented, such as the War on Drugs and its call for a large-scale federal anti-drug policy, first initiated by President Richard Nixon in 1969. Part II is a description of the central reasoning presented in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, including the …

Florence V. Board Of Chosen Freeholders: Police Power Takes A More Intrusive Turn, Wayne A. Logan

Akron Law Review

This symposium affords an opportunity to reflect upon the combined force of Florence and one of its foundational precedents, also decided by a 5-4 vote: Atwater v. City of Lago Vista. In Atwater, the Court afforded police explicit authority to arrest individuals for very minor offenses (there failure to wear a seatbelt) without a warrant, paving the way not only for arrests such as experienced by Albert Florence, but also a myriad of others, based on laws contained in state, local and federal codes. With Atwater, the Court refused to limit the governmental power to subject individuals to the trauma …

The Modest Effect Of Minneci V. Pollard On Inmate Litigants, Alexander Volokh

Akron Law Review

This Symposium, on the recent Supreme Court Term’s criminal procedure jurisprudence, illustrates these complexities. Of the five “cases” discussed here, three come out in a “liberal” direction and two come out in a “conservative” direction. Nor do the results merely stem from Justice Kennedy’s swing vote (though he was in the majority in all of these cases); one of the “liberal” cases was decided by a majority of seven Justices, and one of the “conservative” ones was decided by a majority of eight. Looking at these cases together is a good way of reminding us to be wary of simplistic …

The Duke Rape Case Five Years Later: Lessons For The Academy, The Media, And The Criminal Justice System, Dan Subotnik

Akron Law Review

The time that has since passed allows for a more comprehensive evaluation of the cultural meaning of the Duke Rape case. This is the goal of the newly released “Institutional Failures,” which constitutes a point of departure for this review. The aim of this article is first to clarify the contribution this book makes to an understanding of the case. I will describe and analyze the content of the nine essays that make up the book; I will make reference to related works, and I will offer a concluding evaluation of the book’s likely impact.

Implicated But Not Charged: Improving Due Process For Unindicted Co-Conspirators, Raeed N. Tayeh

Akron Law Review

This Comment posits that the practice of publicly naming unindicted co-conspirators before trial violates due process and that unless preventative measures are adopted to halt this practice, such due process violations will continue. This conclusion is buttressed by the text that follows, which surveys the relevant case law on the rights of unindicted co-conspirators, highlights the types of harm that a sample of unindicted co-conspirators have suffered as a result of being publicly named, and proposes procedures and rules that, if adopted, would conform with due process and help prevent these harms.

In this Comment, I will expand on the …

Full Disclosure: Cognitive Science, Informants, And Search Warrant Scrutiny, Mary Nicol Bowman

Akron Law Review

This article aims to improve the quality of evidence gathering and interpretation at one crucial phase of investigations: the evaluation of search warrant applications. Part II of this article provides background on the search warrant application process, including how courts evaluate such applications based on informants’ tips and how defendants can subsequently challenge those decisions. Part III then discusses the ways in which cognitive biases can affect each stage of the search warrant process. Part IV provides my suggested solutions to the problems identified, all of which fall under the general umbrella of full disclosure. That part argues that education …

O'Connor's Firsts, Phyllis L. Crocker

Akron Law Review

Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor will make her mark on the Ohio court system and on the laws of Ohio in many ways. She made two significant marks her first day as Chief Justice: she was the first woman elected to the position of Chief Justice in Ohio and in her swearing-in speech she called for review of the death penalty in Ohio.1 Both were meaningful to me personally and as a citizen of Ohio. I appreciated her acknowledging her place in history and her willingness to tackle, right from the beginning of her tenure, the important topic of the death …