Law Commons^™

Contemporary Soviet Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The General Principles And Major Institutions Of Post-1958 Soviet Criminal Law, Chris Osakwe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Reply To Miriam Baer And Michael Doucette’S Reviews Of Two Models Of Pre-Plea Discovery In Criminal Cases, Jenia I. Turner, Allison D. Redlich

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The West Virginia Law Review Flawed Forensics And Innocence Symposium, Valena E. Beety

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Scandal, Fraud, And The Reform Of Forensic Science: The Case Of Fingerprint Analysis, Simon A. Cole

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Folklore And Forensics: The Challenges Of Arson Investigation And Innocence Claims, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Paul Bieber

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Uncivil Action: Criminalizating Daubert In Procedure And Practice To Avoid Wrongful Convictions, Jessica G. Cino

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building The Infrastructure For "Justice Through Science": The Texas Model, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forensics And Fallibility: Comparing The Views Of Lawyers And Jurors, Brandon L. Garrett, Gregory Mitchell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Social Media Evidence, Darla W. Jackson

Darla W. Jackson

No abstract provided.

Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines actual innocence in Virginia: the progress it has made, the problems it still faces, and the possibilities for reform. Part I addresses past reform to the system, spurred by the shocking tales of Thomas Haynesworth and others. Part II identifies three of the most prevalent systemic challenges marring Virginia's justice system: (1) flawed scientific evidence; (2) the premature destruction of evidence; and (3) false confessions and guilty pleas. Part III suggests ways in which Virginia can, and should, address these challenges to ensure that the justice system is actually serving justice.

Recording A New Frontier In Evidence-Gathering: Police Body-Worn Cameras And Privacy Doctrines In Washington State, Katie Farden

Seattle University Law Review

This Note contributes to a growing body of work that weighs the gains that communities stand to make from police body-worn cameras against the tangle of concerns about how cameras may infringe on individual liberties and tread on existing privacy laws. While police departments have quickly implemented cameras over the past few years, laws governing the use of the footage body-worn cameras capture still trail behind. Notably, admissibility rules for footage from an officer’s camera, and evidence obtained with the help of that footage, remain on the horizon. This Note focuses exclusively on Washington State’s laws. It takes a clinical …

Brief Of The National Association For Public Defense As Amici Curiae Supporting Petitioner, Bridgeman V. District Attorney For Suffolk District, 476 Mass. 298 (2016) (No. Sjc-12157)., Janet Moore

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

As the highest courts in Florida, Missouri, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania have demonstrated, systemic relief is necessary and appropriate to cure systemic failures that deny access to courts by imposing overwhelming demands on struggling public defense systems. Government misconduct created exactly that type of constitutional crisis by flooding the Commonwealth’s criminal legal system with 24,000 Dookhan cases. New revelations of even more corruption in the Commonwealth’s forensic sciences system are now anticipated to exacerbate that crisis by adding another 18,000 Farak wrongful-conviction cases. At the same time, the District Attorneys have undermined progress on fair, reliable case-by-case resolution of …

Virginia Prosecutors’ Response To Two Models Of Pre-Plea Discovery In Criminal Cases: An Empirical Comparison, Michael R. Doucette

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Lost In Translation? The Difference Between Hearsay Rule's Historical Rationale And Practical Application, Christopher Lloyd Sewrattan

LLM Theses

An examination of the difference between the hearsay rules historical rationale and current application. The analysis occurs in three steps. In section 1, the historical rationale of the hearsay rule is identified through a reconciliation of competing theories. Section 2 analyses the difference between the hearsay rules historical rationale and the application of the exclusionary hearsay rule. Section 3 analyses the difference between the hearsay rules historical rationale and the application of some categorical hearsay exceptions.

Overall, the thesis finds that the hearsay rules historical rationale has three aspects: concern with the inherent reliability of hearsay evidence, concern with procedural …

Nobel Prizes Would Have Flunked Benzene: Judicial Review Of Administrative Evidence Overlooks Science's Linguistic Tradition, Jimmy J. Zhuang

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Good Reason For Secrecy On 38 Studios 8/12/2016, Niki Kuckes, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Arson-Associated Homicide In Australia: A Five Year Follow-Up, Claire Ferguson, Rebekah Doley, Bruce D. Watt, Mathew Lyneham, Janet Payne

Rebekah Doley

Arson homicides are rare, representing only two percent of all homicides in Australia each year. In this study, data was collected from the AIC’s National Homicide Monitoring Program (NHMP) to build on previous research undertaken into arson-associated homicides (Davies & Mouzos 2007) and to provide more detailed analysis of cases and offenders. Over the period 1989 to 2010, there were 123 incidents of arson-associated homicide, involving 170 unique victims and 131 offenders. The majority of incidents (63%) occurred in the victim’s home and more than half (57%) of all victims were male. It was found that there has been a …

Newsroom: Goldstein On Drug Databases 6-27-2016, Sheri Qualters, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Gatekeeping Science: Using The Structure Of Scientific Research To Distinguish Between Admissibility And Weight In Expert Testimony, David L. Faigman, Christopher Slobogin, John Monahan

Northwestern University Law Review

Fundamental to all evidence rules is the division of responsibility between the judge, who determines the admissibility of evidence, and the jury, which gauges its weight. In most evidentiary contexts, such as those involving hearsay and character, threshold admissibility obligations are clear and relatively uncontroversial. The same is not true for scientific evidence. The complex nature of scientific inference, and in particular the challenges of reasoning from group data to individual cases, has bedeviled courts. As a result, courts vary considerably on how they define the judge’s gatekeeping task under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and its state equivalents.

This …

Actions Speak Louder Than Images: The Use Of Neuroscientific Evidence In Criminal Cases, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

This invited commentary for Journal of Law & the Biosciences considers four empirical studies previously published in the journal of the reception of neuroscientific evidence in criminal cases in the United States, Canada, England and Wales, and the Netherlands. There are conceded methodological problems with all, but the data are nonetheless instructive and suggestive. The thesis of the comment is that the courts are committing the same errors that have bedeviled the reception of psychiatric and psychological evidence. There is insufficient caution about the state of the science, and more importantly, there is insufficient understanding of the relevance of the …

Constitutional Regulation Of Forensic Evidence, Brandon L. Garrett

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Merchants And Thieves, Hungry For Power”: Prosecutorial Misconduct And Passive Judicial Complicity In Death Penalty Trials Of Defendants With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Causation In Cases Of Evidential Uncertainty: Juridical Techniques And Fundamental Issues, Ken Oliphant

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This paper reviews from a comparative legal perspective the range of juridical techniques that have been developed in different legal systems to address perceived problems of uncertain alternative causation. It finds that the process of development has generally proceeded in an ad hoc and unprincipled fashion, without regard for overall coherence. It argues for a more principled legal approach in which the appropriate legal response (full liability, proportional liability or no liability) is adopted on the basis of a ranking of the different categories of cases in which problems of causal uncertainty can arise, reflecting the strength (or weakness) of …

Louisiana Rapper’S Case Speaks To Bigger Problems In The Criminal Justice System, Andrea L. Dennis, Erik Nelson, Michael Render

Popular Media

This article published on April 25, 2016 at the Huffington Post examines the case of McKinley Phipps. He was sentenced to thirty years of hard labor for a crime that, to this day, he insists he did not commit. During the trial prosecutors used Phipps’s rap persona and lyrics - remixed for special effect - to carefully construct a story of Phipps’s guilt. The article discusses how Phipps lyrics and persona contributed to his conviction and the progress of his appeals.

Lost In A Maze Of Character Evidence: How The Federal Courts Lack A Cohesive Approach To Applying Federal Rule Of Evidence 404(B) In Drug Distribution Cases, Brian Byrne

Pace Law Review

The admission of a criminal defendant’s prior bad acts can be a powerful tool for attaining a conviction. The federal courts are currently divided as to whether the defendant’s prior drug use is admissible under Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence when the defendant is charged with distributing a controlled dangerous substance.

Part I of this Comment will briefly explore the historical roots of Rule 404(b). Part II will examine the permissible purposes for admitting prior bad acts under Rule 404(b). Part III will discuss the circuit split that has developed as to whether the defendant’s prior drug …

Billy Joel: The Minstrel Testifies Or How The Rules Of Evidence Handcuff The Piano Man, Hon. Richard A. Dollinger

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Carroll, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 23 (Apr. 7, 2016), Jessie Folkestad

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Defendant Deangelo Carroll appealed from a conviction for conspiracy to commit murder and first-degree murder with use of a deadly weapon. The Supreme Court of Nevada found the district court erred in denying Carroll’s motion to suppress his statements to police because the police subjected Carroll to a custodial interrogation, without advising him of his Miranda rights. The Court affirmed however, finding the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

Epigenetics And Toxic Torts: How Epidemiological Evidence Informs Causation, Kerriann Laubach

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

How Sound Is The Science? Applying Daubert To Biomechanical Experts’ Injury Causation Opinions, Loren Peck

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strategic Evidence Issues In Equal Employment Litigation, Marc Rosenblum

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.