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Full-Text Articles in Law
Recognizing The Need For Mental Health Reform In The Texas Department Of Criminal Justice, Kara Mchorse
Recognizing The Need For Mental Health Reform In The Texas Department Of Criminal Justice, Kara Mchorse
St. Mary's Law Journal
The ways in which mental health care and the criminal justice system interact are in desperate need of reform in Texas. The rate of mental illness in Texas is higher than the current state of mental health care can provide for. While state hospitals were once the primary care facilities of those with mental illness, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has taken on that role in the last few decades; and when the criminal justice system becomes entangled with mental health care, it often leads to “unmitigated disaster.” If Texas continues to allow the TDCJ to act as …
Deterrence, David Crump
Texas Law's Life Or Death Rule In Capital Sentencing: Scrutinizing Eight Amendment Violations And The Case Of Juan Guerrero, Jr., John Niland, Riddhi Dasgupta
Texas Law's Life Or Death Rule In Capital Sentencing: Scrutinizing Eight Amendment Violations And The Case Of Juan Guerrero, Jr., John Niland, Riddhi Dasgupta
St. Mary's Law Journal
The United States Supreme Court has never explained the Eighth Amendment’s impact in noncapital cases involving a mentally retarded or brain-injured defendant. The Court has not provided guidance to legislatures or lower courts concerning the acceptable balancing of aggravating and mitigating factors and the role that mitigating factors must play in the sentencing decision. A definitive gap exists between the protections afforded to a criminal defendant facing a life sentence as opposed to those confronted with the death penalty. The Court requires sentencing procedures to consider aggravating and mitigating factors, including mental retardation and brain damage, when imposing a death …
A Meaningless Relationship: The Fifth Circuit's Use Of Dismissed And Uncharged Conduct Under The Federal Sentencing Guidelines Recent Development., Erin A. Higginbotham
A Meaningless Relationship: The Fifth Circuit's Use Of Dismissed And Uncharged Conduct Under The Federal Sentencing Guidelines Recent Development., Erin A. Higginbotham
St. Mary's Law Journal
The Fifth Circuit’s failure to require the uncharged conduct to have a meaningful relationship with the conduct of conviction is flawed. An amendment of section 5K2.21 specifically approved the consideration of uncharged or dismissed offenses to serve as a basis for an upward departure to reflect the actual seriousness of the offense. Confusion amongst federal circuit courts of appeal arose as to whether such conduct included uncharged or dismissed criminal offenses. Interpreting the amendment’s language has caused a circuit split. The Fifth Circuit erroneously interpreted section 5K2.21 as to require nothing more than a “remote connection” between the uncharged crime …
Punishment Evidence: Grunsfeld Ten Years Later., Edward L. Wilkinson
Punishment Evidence: Grunsfeld Ten Years Later., Edward L. Wilkinson
St. Mary's Law Journal
This Article deals with the admissible evidence during the punishment phase of a non-capital trial in Texas. In 1989, the Texas Legislature amended Article 37.07, Section 3(a) of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure to widen the scope of evidence admissible during the punishment phase of a non-capital trial. Grunsfel v. State, the leading case, the Court of Criminal Appeals interpreted the statute so narrowly as to render the changes meaningless. In 1993, the legislature amended the statute a second time; it provided for a more expansive range of evidence to be introduced, but deleted a critical definition of what …