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Harmless Constitutional Error: How A Minor Doctrine Meant To Improve Judicial Efficiency Is Eroding America's Founding Ideals, Ross C. Reggio
Harmless Constitutional Error: How A Minor Doctrine Meant To Improve Judicial Efficiency Is Eroding America's Founding Ideals, Ross C. Reggio
CMC Senior Theses
The United States Constitution had been in existence for almost two hundred years before the Supreme Court decided that some violations of constitutional rights may be too insignificant to warrant remedial action. Known as "harmless error," this statutory doctrine allows a court to affirm a conviction when a mere technicality or minor defect did not affect the defendant's substantial rights. The doctrine aims to promote judicial efficiency and judgment finality. The Court first applied harmless error to constitutional violations by shifting the statutory test away from the error's effect on substantial rights to its impact on the jury's verdict. Over …
The Right To Digital Privacy: Advancing The Jeffersonian Vision Of Adaptive Change, Kerry Moller
The Right To Digital Privacy: Advancing The Jeffersonian Vision Of Adaptive Change, Kerry Moller
CMC Senior Theses
The relationship between privacy, technology, and law is complex. Thomas Jefferson’s prescient nineteenth century observation that laws and institutions must keep pace with the times offers a vision for change. Statutory law and court precedents help to define our right to privacy, however, the development of new technologies has complicated the application of old precedents and statutes. Third party organizations, such as Google, facilitate new methods of communication, and the government can often collect the information that third parties receive with a subpoena or court order, rather than a Fourth Amendment-mandated warrant. Privacy promotes fundamental democratic freedoms, however, under current …