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Full-Text Articles in Law
Quit Using Acquittals: The Unconstitutionality And Immorality Of Acquitted-Conduct Sentencing, Brenna Nouray
Quit Using Acquittals: The Unconstitutionality And Immorality Of Acquitted-Conduct Sentencing, Brenna Nouray
Pepperdine Law Review
This Comment examines the phenomenon of acquitted-conduct sentencing—a practice that allows a sentencing judge to enhance a criminal defendant’s sentence due to conduct for which he has already been acquitted. Seventeen-year-old Dayonta McClinton is one of many criminal defendants who have unjustly suffered at the hands of this practice when he received a thirteen-year enhancement because of conduct for which he already received a verdict of not guilty from a jury. This Comment argues that acquitted-conduct sentencing is unconstitutional, as it violates both the reasonable doubt standard required under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment and the jury …
The Nonexistent Speedy Trial Right, Colleen Cullen
The Nonexistent Speedy Trial Right, Colleen Cullen
Pepperdine Law Review
The United States Constitution and all fifty states guarantee a speedy trial right for individuals accused of crimes. The controlling United States Supreme Court case, decided over fifty years ago, described the Sixth Amendment as a fundamental right with Fourteenth Amendment Due Process implications. Although the right to a speedy trial is a universally recognized right, this Article compellingly demonstrates the right is actually nonexistent throughout the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated this previously unrecognized problem in courthouses across the country, which has led to news outlets finally covering the issue of the nonexistent speedy trial. This …
Dear Courts: I, Too, Am A Reasonable Man, Marvel L. Faulkner
Dear Courts: I, Too, Am A Reasonable Man, Marvel L. Faulkner
Pepperdine Law Review
There has been an ongoing debate regarding police-on-Black violence since the dawn of the United States police force. At every stage, the criminal justice system has had a monumental impact on the plight of the Black American community. The historical roots of racism within the criminal justice system have had adverse effects on the Black American psyche. Emerging research suggests that the upsurge in reporting police-on-Black violence—including videos shot from pedestrian camera phones and uploaded to multimedia platforms and historical accounts of the agonizing treatment Black Americans have experienced beginning with Slave Patrols—has affected individualized behavior during interactions with police …