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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

Show Me Criminal Procedure, Ben L. Trachtenberg, Anne M. Alexander Apr 2019

Show Me Criminal Procedure, Ben L. Trachtenberg, Anne M. Alexander

Open Educational Resources

Show Me Criminal Procedure is an open educational resources casebook available for free to students. This is the 2d ed. published in Spring 2019.


Choosing A Criminal Procedure Casebook: On Lesser Evils And Free Books, Ben L. Trachtenberg Apr 2016

Choosing A Criminal Procedure Casebook: On Lesser Evils And Free Books, Ben L. Trachtenberg

Faculty Publications

Among the more important decisions a law teacher makes when preparing a new course is what materials to assign. Criminal procedure teachers are spoiled for choice, with legal publishers offering several options written by teams of renowned scholars. This Article considers how a teacher might choose from the myriad options available and suggests two potentially overlooked criteria: weight and price.


Systemic Barriers To Effective Assistance Of Counsel In Plea Bargaining, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy Jul 2014

Systemic Barriers To Effective Assistance Of Counsel In Plea Bargaining, Rodney J. Uphoff, Peter A. Joy

Faculty Publications

In a trio of recent cases, Padilla v. Kentucky, Missouri v. Frye, and Lafler v. Cooper, the U.S. Supreme Court has focused its attention on defense counsel's pivotal role during the plea bargaining process . At the same time that the Court has signaled its willingness to consider ineffective assistance of counsel claims at the plea stage, prosecutors are increasingly requiring defendants to sign waivers that include waiving all constitutional and procedural errors, even unknown ineffective assistance of counsel claims such as those that proved successful in Padilla and Frye. Had Jose Padilla and Galin Frye been forced to sign …


American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii Jan 2007

American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This essay is an invited response to Professor Ronald Wright's impressive study of the fact that the acquittal rate in federal criminal trials is declining even faster than the rate of trials themselves, Trial Distortion and the End of Innocence in Federal Criminal Justice, 154 U. PA. L. REV. 79 (2005). The essay concurs with Professor Wright's conclusion that one significant factor driving down both federal trial and acquittal rates is the government's use of the markedly increased bargaining leverage afforded to prosecutors by the post-1987 federal sentencing system consisting of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines interacting with various statutory mandatory …


The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: A Simplified Sentencing Grid, Model Sentencing Guidelines §1.1, Frank O. Bowman Iii Jan 2006

The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: A Simplified Sentencing Grid, Model Sentencing Guidelines §1.1, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article is the first of twelve parts of a set of Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of a simplified approach to federal sentencing proposed by the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative. The Model Sentencing Guidelines and the Constitution Project report are all to be published in Volume 18, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The project is described in an essay titled "'Tis a Gift to be Simple: A Model Reform of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines", available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=927929.


The Failure Of The Federal Sentencing System: A Structural Analysis, Frank O. Bowman Iii Apr 2005

The Failure Of The Federal Sentencing System: A Structural Analysis, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

For most of the last decade, I numbered myself among the supporters of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and wrote extensively in their defense, while chronicling their defects. In the past year, I have reluctantly concluded that the federal sentencing guidelines system has failed. This Article explains the Guidelines' failure. The Sentencing Reform Act was intended to distribute the power to make sentencing policy and rules and to control individual sentencing outcomes among a range of national and local actors - the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Congress, the federal appellate courts, and the Department of Justice at the national level, and district …


Pour Encourager Les Autres? The Curious History And Distressing Implications Of The Criminal Provisions Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And The Sentencing Guidelines Amendments That Followed, Frank O. Bowman Iii Apr 2004

Pour Encourager Les Autres? The Curious History And Distressing Implications Of The Criminal Provisions Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And The Sentencing Guidelines Amendments That Followed, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a legislative history of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the subsequent amendments to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. It explains the surprising interaction between the civil and criminal provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley. The Article also provides a dramatic and detailed account of the interplay of political interests and agendas that ultimately led to large sentence increases for serious corporate criminals and blanket sentence increases for virtually all federal fraud defendants. The tale illuminates the substance of the new legislation and sentencing rules, but is more broadly instructive regarding the distribution of power over criminal sentencing between the three branches and …


Prove All Things And Holf Fast That Which Is Good: The Missouri Supreme Court Redraws The Line Between Plain Error And Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel - Deck V. State, Thomas L. Azar Jr. Apr 2003

Prove All Things And Holf Fast That Which Is Good: The Missouri Supreme Court Redraws The Line Between Plain Error And Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel - Deck V. State, Thomas L. Azar Jr.

Missouri Law Review

Few challenges to a judicial determination are as disruptive as a criminal defendant’s allegation of ineffective assistance of counsel. Discovering the truth behind such an allegation is extremely difficult, owing both to the distorting effect of hindsight and the near impossibility of discovering the full extent of any damage caused by defense counsel’s alleged errors. This Note examines the genesis of the confusion concerning the current standard for granting post-conviction relief due to ineffective assistance of counsel and the Missouri Supreme Court’s most recent effort to clarify that standard in Deck v. State.


Federal Jurisdiction Over Juveniles: Who Decides , Alicia K. Embley Jan 1999

Federal Jurisdiction Over Juveniles: Who Decides , Alicia K. Embley

Missouri Law Review

Because of the increase in the number and severity of violent crimes committed by juveniles, public demand for harsher penalties and proceedings for young offenders also increases each year.2 Congress has responded to the public outcry by enacting numerous pieces of legislation that mandate federal juvenile accountability. This legislation represents a drastic departure from the federal government's traditional policy of leaving juvenile justice affairs to the states. One of the many congressional acts in the past decades confers federal jurisdiction upon prosecution of juveniles who commit serious violent or drug related crimes if the United States Attorney certifies that the …


Missouri Law Regarding Punitive Damages And The Doctrine Of Remittitur, Edward S. Stevens Jan 1999

Missouri Law Regarding Punitive Damages And The Doctrine Of Remittitur, Edward S. Stevens

Missouri Law Review

The imposition of punitive damages can devastate defendants, be they individuals or large corporations. Fortunately for these defendants, the jury does not have the final word on the amount of damages. This Note addresses the circumstances under which punitive damages are available in Missouri and when the doctrine of remittitur will be used so that damage awards comport with Missouri's prohibition against excessive awards and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.


Preliminary Hearing--Better Alternatives Or More Of The Same, The, Gary L. Anderson Jun 1970

Preliminary Hearing--Better Alternatives Or More Of The Same, The, Gary L. Anderson

Missouri Law Review

The first part of this article analyzes the preliminary hearing as a working institution. The second part sets out and evaluates current proposals and prospects for improving the hearing through reform. In the third part a set of alternative procedures is proposed which might function better than a judicial hearing with multiple functions, and comparisons are made with present and proposed hearing procedures. Throughout the article it will be assumed that any proposal for reform should fairly and effectively protect the interests of the accused while respecting the needs of law enforcement. In addition, any proposal for reform should take …