Law Commons^™

The Electronic Recording Of Criminal Interrogations, Roberto Iraola

University of Richmond Law Review

Should law enforcement officers be required to record, by video or audiotape, custodial interrogations of suspects? If so, how much, the entire interrogation or just the confession? Many prosecutors and police departments maintain that a recording requirement will hamper law enforcement and discourage suspects from talking. Proponents of this measure argue that the recording of interrogations protects against false confessions, augments the effective administration of justice, and serves to improve the relationship between the public and the police.

This article generally examines the developing case law on this question. Because of the incriminating nature of confessions, the article, by way …

Texas V. Cobb: A Narrow Road Ahead For The Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel, Beth G. Hungate-Noland

University of Richmond Law Review

Raymond Cobb stabbed sixteen-month-old Kori Rae Owings's mother in the stomach while he was attempting to steal the stereo from their home. He then took the mother's body into the woods behind the house.

The Constitution As A Whole: A Partial Political Science Perspective, Mark A. Graber

University of Richmond Law Review

The Bill of Rights: Creationand Reconstruction ("The Bill of Rights")' is a professionally rewarding and disturbing masterpiece. The work is professionally rewarding because Professor Akhil Amar develops a meticulously detailed, historically sophisticated, and largely persuasive account of how the liberties set out in the Bill of Rights were originally understood and the original relationship between the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment. This is state of the art legal scholarship that will no doubt influence the way the next generation of constitutional lawyers and historians study fundamental constitutional rights. Professor Amar's book is professionally disturbing in part because, having …

Austin Owen Lecture: Reassessment Should Not Lead To Wholesale Rejection Of The Juvenile Justice System, Lawrence L. Koontz Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

While coming into the twenty-first century will be a new experience for all of us, we should be conscious of the intersections of the past, present, and future as we near the year 2000.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Criminal Law And Procedure, Cullen D. Seltzer

University of Richmond Law Review

This article discusses recent Virginia cases and legislative developments in the area of criminal law and procedure. The article discusses cases from April of 1995 to July of 1996 and legislative changes effective July 1, 1996. This article does not discuss federal developments. Nor does the article discuss death penalty issues, as that area of the law is sufficiently particularized that, for purposes of manageability, it falls outside the scope of this discussion.

Novak V. Commonwealth: Are Virginia Courts Providing Special Protection To Virginia's Juvenile Defendants?, Ellen R. Fulmer

University of Richmond Law Review

On March 9, 1991, Shawn Paul Novak was charged with the murder of two young boys, Daniel Grier, age nine, and Christopher Weaver, age seven. The boys had disappeared on March 4 and their bodies were found the next day after an extensive search. The police inquiry into the murders led to the questioning of a number of people, including Shawn, then age sixteen. Shawn was questioned on four separate occasions. At no time prior to, during, or after any of these questioning sessions was Shawn read his Mirandawarnings which specify the rights to which he was entitled under the …

Withrow V. Williams And Collateral Review Of Miranda Violations: The Supreme Court Rejects The Rule Of Stone V. Powell Under A Revised View Of Applicable Prudential Concerns, John K. Byrum Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

More than fifty years before ratification of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, Lord Camden observed: [I]t is very certain, that the law obligeth no man to accuse himself; because the necessary means of compelling self-accusation, falling upon the innocent as well as the guilty, would be both cruel and unjust; and it should seem, that search for evidence is disallowed upon the same principle. There, too, the innocent would be confounded with the guilty. Over one hundred years later, in Mapp v. Ohio, the Supreme Court affirmed this relationship between Fourth and Fifth Amendment liberties, holding that …

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Criminal Law And Procedure, Steven D. Benjamin

University of Richmond Law Review

During the past year, the Court of Appeals of Virginia continued to be the major contributor to the development of substantive and procedural criminal law in the Commonwealth. Many of the court's decisions concerned the characterization of. police-citizen encounters in the context of both Fourth Amendment law and the rights of an accused under Miranda v. Arizona. A number of cases concerned the admissibility of uncharged misconduct, and the numerous double jeopardy opinions involved case-by-case application of Grady v. Corbin, Blockburger v. United States, and related statutes. A growing body of procedural law concerned the propriety of impanelling jurors of …

New York V. Quarles:The "Public Safety" Exception To Miranda, John Randolph Bode

University of Richmond Law Review

In New York v. Quarles, the Supreme Court attempted to limit the exclusionary sanction provided under Miranda v. Arizona. Quarles is a significant decision in the criminal procedure area not only because of the exception which it establishes, but because it represents "a legitimate effort by the Burger Court to reconcile the realities of effective law enforcement with the often hyper technical rules of criminal justice." Many observers have interpreted the Quarles decision as the long-awaited fruition of the conservatism now presiding over the Burger Court. However, the setting for Quarles can be traced back to the Miranda decision itself.

Rhode Island V. Innis: A Workable Definition Of "Interrogation"?, Deborah L. Fletcher

University of Richmond Law Review

In Rhode Island v. Innis, the Supreme Court addressed for the first time the issue of what constitutes interrogation under Miranda v. Arizona. Innis is a significant decision in the criminal procedure area not only because of the workable standard for determining "interrogation" which it sets forth, but also because it signals the Burger Court's decision not to overrule Mirandaor to further disparage its effectiveness. However, Innis by no means represents a return to the Warren Court's solicitous approach to a suspect's Miranda rights. The Burger Court still has not raised Miranda's protections and strictures to the status of constitutionally …

Miranda V. Arizona: The Emerging Pattern, Evelyn G. Skaltsounis

University of Richmond Law Review

In Miranda v. Arizona, the United States Supreme Court set forth a series of specific guidelines to determine the admissibility at trial of statements elicited during police interrogation of a criminal suspect. Since 1971, the Burger Court has whittled away at the mandates of Miranda. It is possible that one major factor underlies this erosion process: the very frustrating reality that, in many situations, an obviously guilty party is allowed to go free because "the constable has blundered."

Constitutional Law-Equal Protection-Reimbursement Of Appointed Counsel Fees As A Condition Of Probation Held Not Violative Of The Equal Protection Clause

University of Richmond Law Review

Every defendant facing criminal prosecution that may result in imprisonment is guaranteed the right to counsel. The Supreme Court has required appointed counsel for indigents in widening classes of cases and at different stages of prosecution. This trend has increased the burden on public revenues, and many states, in an effort to recover some of the costs, have enacted recoupment statutes. Several state courts have expressed unfavorable opinions as to the constitutionality of these statutes. The first Supreme Court decision to focus on a state recoupment statute struck it down as violative of the equal protection clause.

Evidence-Defendant's Confession Following Confrontation With Illegally Seized Evidence Not Excluded Where Independent Motive Induced The Confession

University of Richmond Law Review

The "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine is a refinement of the exclusionary rule of evidence. This rule prevents the admission of secondary evidence (the fruit) discovered or derived from evidence obtained in an unlawful search (the poisonous tree). In this area of search and seizure, courts have excluded confessions made after the accused has been confronted with illegally seized evidence, once it was shown that the confes- sion was caused or induced by the confrontation.

Criminal Law-Evidence--Confession To Polygraph Operator Prior To Actual Test Held Admissible

University of Richmond Law Review

Rules of evidence governing the admissibility of confessions have devel- oped gradually throughout the history of Anglo-American jurisprudence. Initially any confession was admissible regardless of the methods by which it was obtained. The basic consideration was that the evidence admitted be truthful and reliable. To protect the integrity of judicial proceedings, safeguards were later developed to insure the reliability of confessions by a determination of the voluntariness with which they were given. Courts have struggled with the problem of formulating a workable definition of voluntariness and have not yet developed a uniform substantive test.

Search And Seizure- Knowledge Of Fourth Amendment Rights Not A Prerequisite To A Valid Consent Search

University of Richmond Law Review

The fourth amendment to the United States Constitution, applicable to the states through the fourteenth amendment, guarantees to every citizen the indefeasible right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. As a response to a long history of English colonial abuses, the fourth amendment was intended by the drafters of the Bill of Rights to be a safeguard against governmental misuse of the writs of assistance' and the general warrant. The Supreme Court has broadly interpreted the constitutional mandate of the fourth amendment as proscribing all searches and seizures which do not comply with its stringent provisions. However, certain …

New Looks At An Ancient Writ: Habeas Corpus Reexamined, Andrew P. Miller, Robert E. Shepherd Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

The traditional characterization of the writ of habeas corpus as an original ... civil remedy for the enforcement of the right to personal liberty, rather than as a stage of the state criminal proceedings or as an appeal therefrom . . . cannot be permitted to defeat the manifest federal policy that federal constitutional rights of personal liberty shall not be denied without the fullest opportunity for plenary federal judicial review.

Prospectivity And Retroactivity Of Supreme Court Constitutional Interpretations

University of Richmond Law Review

The freedom of a court, state or federal, to define the limits of ad- herence to precedent has been sanctioned by the Supreme Court in both civil' and criminal cases. Accordingly, any decision can be made to apply to future cases or relate back to all past cases. In no other area of the law is such a decision more important than in the field of criminal procedure where the freedom of a convicted man can rest upon a decision to apply a new "rule" retroactively or prospectively. It is not surprising, therefore, that the majority of retroactivity cases involve …