Law Commons^™

Telling Tales In Court: Trial Procedure And The Story Model, Richard O. Lempert

Articles

There are three ways in which stories may figure prominently at trials. First, litigants may tell stories to jurors. Not only is there some social science evidence that this happens, but trial lawyers have an instinctive sense that this is what they do. Ask a litigator to describe a current case and she is likely to reply, "Our story is ... " Second, jurors may try to make sense of the evidence they receive by fitting it to some story pattern. If so, the process is likely to feed back on itself. That is, jurors are likely to build a …

The Fourth Amendment And Its Exclusionary Rule, Yale Kamisar

Articles

"The history of liberty," Justice Felix Frankfurter once noted, "has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards" and "the history of the destruction of liberty," Professor Anthony Amsterdam has added, "has largely been the history of the relaxation of those safeguards in the face of plausible sounding governmental claims of a need to deal with widely frightening and emotion freighted threats to the good order of society." These plausible-sounding government claims are being heard today -and they are putting enormous pressure on the Fourth Amendment, the constitutional provision that protects "the right of the people to be secure …

Confessions, Criminals, And Community, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The American Jury At Twenty-Five Years, Valerie P. Hans, Neil Vidmar

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The year 1991 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of Harry Kalven, Jr. and Hans Zeisel's classic work, The American Jury. Arguably one of the most important books in the field of law and social science, this research monograph began the modrn field of jury studies and deeply influenced contemporary understanding of the jury as an institution.

In this essay we assess the book from the vantage point of a quarter- century. First, we provide a historical backdrop by reviewing the activities of the University of Chicago's Jury Project that led to the publication of The American Jury …

Challenging Public Investigative Reports: How To Fight The Hearsay Exception, Steven P. Grossman, Stephen J. Shapiro

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper discusses how attorneys can argue against having government and public reports admitted into evidence at trial that would be damaging to their client. When this paper was done, such reports were admitted via Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)(C). The authors argue that it is possible to challenge admission of factual findings in public reports despite various court decisions which make this difficult.

Federal Habeas Review Of New York Convictions: Relieving The Tensions, Roger J. Miner '56

Bar Associations

No abstract provided.

A Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard In Death Penalty Proceedings: A Neglected Element Of Fairness, Linda Carter

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Crime And Punishment In The Federal Courts, Roger J. Miner '56

Criminal Law

No abstract provided.

New York Law School — Final Examinations, Roger J. Miner '56

New York Law School Events and Publications

No abstract provided.

Survey Of Recent Developments In Indiana Criminal Law And Procedure, Bruce G. Berner, David E. Vandercoy

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding Teague V. Lane, John H. Blume, William Pratt

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Exigent Circumstances Exception To The Warrant Requirement, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Habeas Corpus, Qualified Immunity, And Crystal Balls: Predicting The Course Of Constitutional Law, Kit Kinports

Journal Articles

After describing the basic legal and policy issues surrounding the qualified immunity defense and the use of novelty to explain procedural defaults in habeas cases, Part I of this article advocates a standard for both types of cases that asks whether a person exercising reasonable diligence in the same circumstances would have been aware of the relevant constitutional principles. With this standard in mind, Part II examines the qualified immunity defense in detail, concluding that in many cases public officials are given immunity even though they unreasonably failed to recognize the constitutional implications of their conduct. Part III compares the …

Judicial Misconduct During Jury Deliberations, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The author considers the two principal types of improper judicial behavior that may occur during the jury deliberation process. Judicial conduct that attempts to place undue pressure on a jury to reach a verdict may include verdict-urging instructions, threats and intimidation, and inquiry into the numerical division of the jury on the merits of the verdict. Judicial participation in private, ex parte communications with jurors may also subvert orderly trial procedure and undermine the impartiality of the jury. Neither kind of judicial conduct may be allowed to compel a verdict from a jury.

Be All You Can Be (Without The Protection Of The Constitution), Keith M. Harrison

Law Faculty Scholarship

[Excerpt] “Despite the generous inclusion by President Reagan of the many soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in the concept of "the people" of this republic, it is not altogether dear whether one whose status has changed from ordinary "citizen" to "a member of the armed forces" can legitimately claim any of the constitutional protections of citizenship until he or she is no longer a member of the armed forces. In the course of this nation's history the Supreme Court has denied some or all of the protection of the Constitution to many groups of people, including African-Americans, 2 women,3 Native …

The Constitutionality Of High-Speed Pursuits Under The Fourth And Fourteenth Amendments, Kathryn R. Urbonya

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Character Impeachment Evidence: Psycho-Bayesian (!?) Analysis And A Proposed Overhaul, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Typically, arguments for restricting character impeachment evidence are based in part on the premise that prior crimes, at least violent crimes, generally indicate little about a person's veracity. The argument advanced here against character impeachment of criminal defendants does not rely on that premise; in fact, it accepts the premise that prior antisocial behavior, even not involving dishonesty, often does indicate a good deal about a person's general truthtelling inclination. A careful analysis of the situation of the accused on the witness stand-rather than an easy assumption about irrelevance-leads to this Article's broad conclusion that character impeachment evidence of criminal …

Waiver Of Rights In The Interrogation Room: The Court's Dilemma, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Who Is An Impartial Juror In An Age Of Mass Media?, Fred H. Cate, Newton N. Minow

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Selecting Impartial Juries: Must Ignorance Be A Virtue In Our Search For Justice -- Welcome And Statement Of The Issue, Fred H. Cate, Newton N. Minow

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law 1991 Legislative Update, Philip A. Cherner, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Affirmative Action After Metro Broadcasting V. Fcc: The Solution Almost Nobody Wanted, Douglas O. Linder

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

The Great Writ In Action: Empirical Light On The Federal Habeas Corpus Debate, Larry Yackle

Faculty Scholarship

The national debate regarding federal habeas corpus for state prisoners is fueled in the main by ideology. To some, the authority of the federal courts to entertain constitutional challenges to state criminal convictions is the embodiment of all that was right about the Warren Court and the vision that Court offered of a meaningful system of American liberty, underwritten by independent federal tribunals willing and able to check the coercive power of government. By this account, the Bill of Rights is the protean source of safeguards for individual freedom - commanding generous, imaginative, and insightful elaboration by federal courts at …

The Exclusionary Rule And Confession Evidence: Some Perspectives On Evolving Practices And Policies In The United States And England And Wales, Mark Berger

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Confessions And The Right To Silence In Japan, Daniel H. Foote

Articles

In several highly-publicized recent cases in Japan, individuals convicted of murder and sentenced to death were acquitted in retrials obtained after decades on death row. These so-called "death penalty retrial cases'" generated great controversy and considerable reflection about the criminal justice system in Japan. A central, substantive issue presented by these cases relates to the procurement and use of confessions; each of these cases-and several other major recent Japanese cases in which defendants have been acquitted following bitterly contested trials-turned on the validity of repudiated confessions.

Consequently, much recent commentary has focussed on conf essions and related issues. Not surprisingly, …

The Lockett Paradox: Reconciling Guided Discretion And Unguided Mitigation In Capital Sentencing, Scott E. Sundby

Articles

No abstract provided.

To Tell What We Know Or Wait For Godot?, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

Professor Elliott raises two questions about the American Psychological Association's practice of submitting amicus briefs to the courts. First, are our data sufficiently valid, consistent, and generalizable to be applicable to the real world issues? Second, are amicus briefs adequate to communicate scientific findings? The first of these is not a general question, but must be addressed anew each time the Association considers a new issue. An evaluation of the quality and sufficiency of scientific knowledge about racial discrimination, for example, tells us nothing at all about the quality and sufficiency of scientific knowledge about sexual abuse. "Are the data …

Self-Defense As A Justification For Punishment, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

There are few legal ideas as basic as the principle of legitimate self-defense. Every individual, it is said, has the right to defend his or her person, property or living space against wrongful aggression and, if necessary, to kill the aggressor. This principle is so deeply ingrained in our legal thinking that it is difficult to imagine a legal system that did not acknowledge it. The concept of having rights would be virtually toothless unless we could use force to vindicate our rights against aggression.

The notion of having rights is less well-accepted in Jewish law than are the ideas …

The Great Repression: Criminal Punishment In The Nineteen-Eighties, Michael Mandel

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.