Law Commons^™

Of Breaches Of The Peace, Home Invasions, And Securities Fraud, A. Christine Hurt

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Hidalgo V. District Court, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. 59, Barbra E. Zess

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Luis Hidalgo III and Anabel Espindola, awaiting a capital murder trial, made a petition for a writ of mandamus or prohibition challenging the alleged aggravating circumstances (solicitation to commit murder) as not being “a felony involving the use or threat of violence to the person of another,” as required by NRS 200.033(2)(b). The other aggravator, murder to receive money, was successfully challenged as violating SCR 250(4)(c) requirements.

Statistics In The Jury Box: How Jurors Respond To Mitochondrial Dna Match Probabilities, David H. Kaye, Valerie P. Hans, B. Michael Dann, Erin J. Farley, Stephanie Albertson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article describes parts of an unusually realistic experiment on the comprehension of expert testimony on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequencing in a criminal trial for robbery. Specifically, we examine how jurors who responded to summonses for jury duty evaluated portions of videotaped testimony involving probabilities and statistics. Although some jurors showed susceptibility to classic fallacies in interpreting conditional probabilities, the jurors as a whole were not overwhelmed by a 99.98% exclusion probability that the prosecution presented. Cognitive errors favoring the defense were more prevalent than ones favoring the prosecution. These findings lend scant support to the legal argument that mtDNA …

Summary Of Wilson V. State Of Nevada, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 54, Tanya Gaylord

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

What Is A Business Crime?, Richard A. Booth

Working Paper Series

Criminal prosecution has been used with increasing frequency recently in connection with a variety of business failures and other financial offenses. Indeed, it appears that there are few such offenses that cannot be prosecuted criminally even though they also give rise to civil remedies. While some such offenses seem to be quite serious frauds, others seem to be as minor as getting the accounting rules wrong. Thus, the question addressed in this essay is how to define a business crime and what should be the proper role of criminal prosecution in connection with business offenses. I start with the proposition …

Suspension And The Extrajudicial Constitution, Trevor W. Morrison

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

What happens when Congress suspends the writ of habeas corpus? Everyone agrees that suspending habeas makes that particular - and particularly important - judicial remedy unavailable for those detained by the government. But does suspension also affect the underlying legality of the detention? That is, in addition to making the habeas remedy unavailable, does suspension convert an otherwise unlawful detention into a lawful one? Some, including Justice Scalia in the 2004 case Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Professor David Shapiro in an important recent article, answer yes.

This Article answers no. I previously offered that same answer in a symposium essay; …

The Price Of Misdemeanor Representation, Erica J. Hashimoto

Scholarly Works

Nobody disputes either the reality of excessive caseloads in indigent defense systems or their negative effects. More than forth years after Gideon v. Wainwright, however, few seem willing to accept that additional resources will not magically appear to solve the problem. Rather, concerned observers demand more funds while state and local legislators resist those entreaties in the face of political resistance and pressures to balance government budgets. Recognizing that indigent defense systems must operate in a world of limited resources, states should reduce the number of cases streaming into those systems by significantly curtailing the appointment of counsel in low-level …

Faster, Higher, Stronger: Preventing Human Trafficking At The 2010 Olympics, Benjamin Perrin

All Faculty Publications

This report considers the upcoming 2010 Olympics in Vancouver in the context of Canada’s human trafficking response to date, and makes recommendations to ensure that this event showcases our best to the world – and is not a flashpoint for human trafficking.

Summary Of Dewey V. State, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 47, Nevada Law Journal

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

No abstract provided.

The Origins Of Shared Intuitions Of Justice, Paul H. Robinson, Robert O. Kurzban, Owen D. Jones

All Faculty Scholarship

Contrary to the common wisdom among criminal law scholars, the empirical evidence reveals that people's intuitions of justice are often specific, nuanced, and widely shared. Indeed, with regard to the core harms and evils to which criminal law addresses itself – physical aggression, takings without consent, and deception in transactions – the shared intuitions are stunningly consistent, across cultures as well as demographics. It is puzzling that judgments of moral blameworthiness, which seem so complex and subjective, reflect such a remarkable consensus. What could explain this striking result? The authors theorize that one explanation may be an evolved predisposition toward …

The Noose, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Ryan V. Dist. Ct., 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 42, Katie Maw

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Petition for a writ of mandamus challenging a district court’s order denying petitioner’s motion to substitute counsel.

Race And Recalcitrance: The Miller-El Remands, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Batson v. Kentucky, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor may not peremptorily challenge a juror based upon his or her race. Although Baston was decided more than twenty years ago, some lower courts still resist its command. Three recent cases provide particularly egregious examples of that resistance. The Fifth Circuit refused the Supreme Court's instruction in Miller-El v. Cockrell, necessitating a second grant of certiorari in Miller-El v. Dretke. The court then reversed and remanded four lower court cases for reconsideration in light of Miller-El, but in two cases the lower courts have thus …

Group Think: The Law Of Conspiracy And Collective Reason, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Although vicarious liability for the acts of co-conspirators is firmly entrenched in federal courts, no adequate theory explains how the act and intention of one conspirator can be attributed to another, simply by virtue of their criminal agreement. This Article argues that the most promising avenue for solving the Pinkerton paradox is an appeal to the collective intention of the conspiratorial group to commit the crime. Unfortunately, misplaced skepticism about the notion of a "group will" has prevented criminal scholars from embracing the notion of a conspiracy's collective intention to commit a crime. However, positing group intentions requires only that …

Crimes That Count Twice: A Reexamination Of Rico's Nexus Requirements Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(C) And 1964(C), Randy D. Gordon

Faculty Scholarship

The complicated structure of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act makes it difficult to determine when “ordinary” crimes spill over into RICO violations. This Article examines and synthesizes various “nexus” requirements that courts have devised to separate non-RICO crimes from full-blown RICO violations. The Article concludes with a discussion of the United States Supreme Court’s recent holding in Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corporation, 126 S. Ct. 1991 (2006), which sharply limits certain types of civil RICO claims.

A Limited Defense Of Clinical Placebo Deception, Adam Kolber

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Who Is To Shame? Narratives Of Neonaticide, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

In seventeenth-century England, single women who killed their newborns were believed to have acted to hide their shame. They were prosecuted under the 1624 Concealment Law and punished by death. This harsh response eventually evolved into a more humane and sympathetic one, as shown by the increasing number of acquittals in the late eighteenth century and by the sharp drop of prosecutions in the late nineteenth century. Then, in 1922, England passed the Infanticide Act, amended in 1938, which provided that a mother who killed her child would be prosecuted for manslaughter, not murder. Today, the great majority of women …

International Law And Prosecutorial Discretion, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The Luck Of The Draw: Using Random Case Assignment To Investigate Attorney Ability, David S. Abrams, Albert H. Yoon

All Faculty Scholarship

One of the most challenging problems in legal scholarship is the measurement of attorney ability. Measuring attorney ability presents inherent challenges because the nonrandom pairing of attorney and client in most cases makes it difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between attorney ability and case selection. Las Vegas felony case data, provided by the Clark County Office of the Public Defender in Nevada, offer a unique opportunity to compare attorney performance. The office assigns its incoming felony cases randomly among its pool of attorneys, thereby creating a natural experiment free from selection bias. We find substantial heterogeneity in attorney performance …

Uk Car-Flipping: The Vat Fraud Market-Place And Certified Solutions, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud and its offspring carousel fraud and contra trading fraud are siphoning huge amounts of VAT revenue from the UK Treasury. This fraud is not a function of the goods involved. It is a function of the market-place. Recently another type of market-place dependent VAT fraud has taken hold in the UK - car-flipping.

In some instances the market-place where these frauds festers is a pre-existing or natural market-place, one that grows out of legitimate commercial practices. Fraudsters enter this market-place (so the argument goes) and take advantage of legitimate businesses who unwittingly get caught up …

Summary Of Nay V. State, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 35, Tyler James Watson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from a judgment of conviction, upon a jury verdict, of first-degree murder with the use of a deadly weapon and robbery with the use of a deadly weapon.

Summary Of Witherow V. State, Bd. Of Parole Comm’Rs, 123 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 33, Tyler Ure

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

This case is an appeal from a district court order dismissing a complaint that challenged a parole board proceeding under Nevada’s Open Meeting Law.‡Ìq

Section 6: Criminal Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law's "Mediating Rules": Balancing, Harmonization, Or Accident?, Michael T. Cahill

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mediating Rules In Criminal Law, Alex Stein, Richard A. Bierschbach

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Gallegos V. State, 123 Nev. Advanced Opinion 31, Matthew Engle

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appellant Albert Gallegos was charged under NRS 202.360(1)(b),2 in 2004, with one count of unlawful possession of a firearm after police arrested him at his home in Clark County and found a firearm inside that home. That charge was based on a 1998 felony warrant issued by a California superior court. The California court issued the warrant when Gallegos failed to appear for sentencing after pleading nolo contendere to seven felony charges. At his Nevada trial, Gallegos testified that he did not appear for his sentencing hearing because the California superior court told him when he entered his plea that …

Summary Of State V. Ruscetta, Nev. Adv. Op. No. 32, Krystallin Hernandez

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from a district court’s order granting a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence found by a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Officer during a consensual vehicle search.

The American Model Penal Code: A Brief Overview, Paul H. Robinson, Markus D. Dubber

All Faculty Scholarship

If there can be said to be an "American criminal code," the Model Penal Code is it. Nonetheless, there remains an enormous diversity among the fifty-two American penal codes, including some that have never adopted a modern code format or structure. Yet, even within the minority of states without a modern code, the Model Penal Code has great influence, as courts regularly rely upon it to fashion the law that the state's criminal code fails to provide. In this essay we provide a brief introduction to this historic document, its history and its content. Available for download at http://ssrn.com/abstract=661165

The Grand Inquisitors, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Prisoners’ (Plea Bargain) Dilemma, Oren Bar-Gill, Omri Ben-Shahar

Law & Economics Working Papers Archive: 2003-2009

How can a prosecutor, who has only limited resources, credibly threaten so many defendants with costly and risky trials and extract plea bargains involving harsh sentences? Had defendants refused to settle, many of them would not have been charged or would have escaped with lenient sanctions. But such collective stonewalling requires coordination among defendants, which is difficult if not impossible to attain. Moreover, the prosecutor, by strategically timing and targeting her plea offers, can create conflicts of interest among defendants, frustrating any attempt at coordination. The substantial bargaining power of the resource-constrained prosecutor is therefore the product of the collective …