Law Commons^™

The Consent Problem In Wiretapping & Eavesdropping: Surreptitious Monitoring With The Consent Of A Participant In A Conversation, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

The extent to which American society should permit wiretapping and electronic eavesdropping has been considered by judges, legislators and scholars for many years, although this consideration has yet to result in legal rules that respond rationally and consistently to the conflicting demands of privacy and effective law enforcement. Constitutional analysis has, until very recently, relied on concepts like "physical invasion of a constitutionally protected area," producing distinctions with little relation to underlying social values; statutory restrictions on wiretapping have been much more severe than those imposed on eavesdropping, though the latter, particularly in light of the rapidly developing technology, poses …

On Interpreting The Ethiopian Penal Code, Peter L. Strauss

Faculty Scholarship

The aim of this article is to set out and discuss some general principles of interpreting the Ethiopian Penal Code – that is to say, of using it. Even now, ten years after it came into effect, many people have difficulty in understanding and using the Penal Code in a straightforward way. It seems complex, and many of its fundamental conceptions are unfamiliar to Ethiopian lawyers. This article, discussing at length how the code is built, may help reduce its apparent complexity and thus facilitate its day-to-day application.

The Presumption Of Innocence In The Soviet Union, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

The presumption of innocence is a curious item in the baggage of Western legal rhetoric. Revered today here and abroad, it has become a standard clause in international testimonials to the rights of man. Yet, at first blush, it seems conceptually anomalous and irrelevant in practice. It is hardly a presumption of fact – a distillation of common experience; statistics betray the suggestion that men indicted on criminal charges are likely to be innocent. Nor is it a legal rule masquerading as an irrebuttable presumption; it is rebuttable by proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant's guilt. Further, it …

Two Kinds Of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study Of Burden-Of-Persuasion Practices In Criminal Cases, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

Good men everywhere praise the presumption of innocence. And be they Frenchmen, Germans, or Americans, they agree on the demand of the presumption in practice. Both here and abroad, the state's invocation of criminal sanctions demands a high degree of proof that the accused has committed the offense charged. To express the requisite standard of proof, common lawyers speak of the prosecutor's duty to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. And Continental lawyers invoke the maxim in dubio pro reo – a precept requiring triers of fact to acquit in cases of doubt.

The French speak of the presomption …