Law Commons^™

Essential Elements, Nancy J. King, Susan R. Klein

Vanderbilt Law Review

For well over a century the United States Supreme Court has debated who has final authority to define what is a "crime" for purposes of applying the procedural protections guaranteed by the Constitution in criminal cases. After numerous shifts back and forth from judicial to legislative supremacy,' the Court has settled upon a multi-factor analysis for policing the criminal-civil divide, an analysis that permits courts to override legislative intent to define an action as civil in the rare case where the action waddles and quacks like a crime. This tug-of-war over the finality of legislative labels in defining crime and …

A Predictive Framework For The Effectiveness Of International Criminal Tribunals, James B. Griffin

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note examines international criminal tribunals and analyzes the factors that can govern the level of their effectiveness. The historical background in this area is essential, for one of the main points of the Note is that international criminal tribunals cannot be detached from the political circumstances that create them and enforce their verdicts if those verdicts are to be enforceable at all.

The Note begins with an analysis of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, and compares it to its contemporary counterpart, the International Military Tribunal at Tokyo. The Note then makes a similar analysis of the recent International …

Essential Elements, Nancy J. King, Susan Riva Klein

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The Court has struggled for well over a century with the issue of who has final authority to define what is a "crime" for purposes of applying procedural protections guaranteed by the Constitution in criminal cases. Just as labeling an action "civil" may allow the government to circumvent constitutional criminal procedure entirely, so labeling a fact an "affirmative defense" or a "sentencing factor" instead of an element of the offense may allow the government to escape constitutional criminal procedure selectively, bypassing the burden of proof, pleading, and jury requirements that would otherwise apply to an offense element. In its decision …