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Criminal law

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Selected Works

2016

Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Law

Take Our Quiz About Constitutional Law, Judith L. Ritter Sep 2016

Take Our Quiz About Constitutional Law, Judith L. Ritter

Judith L Ritter

No abstract provided.

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Gender, Race, And Intersectionality On The Federal Appellate Bench., Todd Collins, Laura Moyer Sep 2016

Gender, Race, And Intersectionality On The Federal Appellate Bench., Todd Collins, Laura Moyer

Laura Moyer

While theoretical justifications predict that a judge’s gender and race may influence judicial decisions, empirical support for these arguments has been mixed. However, recent increases in judicial diversity necessitate a reexamination of these earlier studies. Rather than examining individual judges on a single characteristic, such as gender or race alone, this research note argues that the intersection of individual characteristics may provide an alternative approach for evaluating the effects of diversity on the federal appellate bench. The results of cohort models examining the joint effects of race and gender suggest that minority female judges are more likely to support criminal …

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Neuroimaging And The "Complexity" Of Capital Punishment, O. Carter Snead Aug 2016

Neuroimaging And The "Complexity" Of Capital Punishment, O. Carter Snead

O. Carter Snead

The growing use of brain imaging technology to explore the causes of morally, socially, and legally relevant behavior is the subject of much discussion and controversy in both scholarly and popular circles. From the efforts of cognitive neuroscientists in the courtroom and the public square, the contours of a project to transform capital sentencing both in principle and in practice have emerged. In the short term, these scientists seek to play a role in the process of capital sentencing by serving as mitigation experts for defendants, invoking neuroimaging research on the roots of criminal violence to support their arguments. Over …

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Silencing Gideon's Trumpet: The Plight Of The Indigent Prisoner, Allison I. Connelly Jul 2016

Silencing Gideon's Trumpet: The Plight Of The Indigent Prisoner, Allison I. Connelly

Allison Connelly

In this newsletter article, Professor Connelly discusses the difficulties faced by indigent prisoners in gaining access to the justice system.

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Campus Sexual Misconduct As Sexual Harassment: A Defense Of The Doe, Katharine K. Baker May 2016

Campus Sexual Misconduct As Sexual Harassment: A Defense Of The Doe, Katharine K. Baker

Katharine K. Baker

This article explains and defends the Department of Education’s campaign against sexual misconduct on college campuses. It does so because DOE has inexplicably failed to make clear that their goal is to protect women from the intimidating and hostile environment that results when men routinely use women sexually, without regard to whether women consent to the sexual activity. That basic point, that schools are policing harassing and intimidating behavior, not necessarily rape, has been lost on both courts and commentators. Boorish, entitled, sexual behavior that stops well short of rape, if pervasive enough, has been actionable as sexual harassment for …

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Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences Of Police Failure To Investigate Sex Crimes In Britain And The United States, Lisa Avalos May 2016

Prosecuting Rape Victims While Rapists Run Free: The Consequences Of Police Failure To Investigate Sex Crimes In Britain And The United States, Lisa Avalos

Lisa Avalos

    Imagine that a close friend is raped, and you encourage her to report it to the police. At first, she thinks that the police are taking her report seriously, but the investigation does not seem to move forward.  The next thing she knows, they accuse her of lying and ultimately file charges against her.  You and your friend are in shock; this outcome never entered your minds. This nightmare may seem inconceivable, but it has in fact occurred repeatedly in both the United States and Britain – countries that are typically lauded for their high levels of gender equality. …

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Gun Control, Mental Illness, And Black Trans And Lesbian Survival, Gabriel Arkles May 2016

Gun Control, Mental Illness, And Black Trans And Lesbian Survival, Gabriel Arkles

Gabriel Arkles

Those concerned with racial, gender, sexual, economic, or disability justice should be concerned about the direction and focus of national conversations in the wake of Newtown. Controversies over gun control and mental health treatment have a profound impact on those marginalized based on race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Gun control laws endanger trans people of color and queer women of color, as well as those labeled mentally ill, by failing to reduce interpersonal violence while increasing the violence of the criminal legal system. Instead of increasing incarceration of people in marginalized communities who choose to carry guns, we should …

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Gun Control, Mental Illness, And Black Trans And Lesbian Survival, Gabriel Arkles May 2016

Gun Control, Mental Illness, And Black Trans And Lesbian Survival, Gabriel Arkles

Gabriel Arkles

Those concerned with racial, gender, sexual, economic, or disability justice should be concerned about the direction and focus of national conversations in the wake of Newtown. Controversies over gun control and mental health treatment have a profound impact on those marginalized based on race, gender, sexuality, class, and disability. Gun control laws endanger trans people of color and queer women of color, as well as those labeled mentally ill, by failing to reduce interpersonal violence while increasing the violence of the criminal legal system. Instead of increasing incarceration of people in marginalized communities who choose to carry guns, we should …

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Ultracrepidarianism In Forensic Science: The Hair Evidence Debacle, David H. Kaye Mar 2016

Ultracrepidarianism In Forensic Science: The Hair Evidence Debacle, David H. Kaye

David Kaye

For over 130 years, scientific sleuths have been inspecting hairs under microscopes. Late in 2012, the FBI, the Innocence Project, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers joined forces to review thousands of microscopic hair comparisons performed by FBI examiners over several of those decades. The results have been astounding. Based on the first few hundred cases in which hairs were said to match, it appears that examiners “exceeded the limits of science” in over 90% of their reports or testimony. The disclosure of this statistic has led to charges that the FBI “faked an entire field of forensic …

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Conspiracy As Contract, Laurent Sacharoff Dec 2015

Conspiracy As Contract, Laurent Sacharoff

Laurent Sacharoff

This article considers the central concept of criminal conspiracy — the agreement. It shows how both courts and scholars have almost entirely failed to define it. Even more surprisingly, neither discusses how “agreement” in criminal conspiracy compares with the agreement in contract law. Instead, courts have diluted the agreement requirement by substituting “mutual understanding” or “slight connection,” leading to uncertainty, unfairness, and a profusion of conspiracy convictions for mere presence or association.

This article argues courts should define agreement, and do so as an exchange of promises between the conspirators to commit a crime. An exchange of promises meets the …

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When Numbers Lie: The Under-Reporting Of Police Justifiable Homicides, Tiffany R. Murphy Dec 2015

When Numbers Lie: The Under-Reporting Of Police Justifiable Homicides, Tiffany R. Murphy

Tiffany R Murphy

The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) is tasked with tracking the number of police-involved homicides in a given year. Over a ten-year period, the BJS published the average number of police-involved homicides at 400 annually. However, the BJS’s ability to provide accurate information in this area is woefully lacking because of systemic failures in its data collection from law enforcement agencies. These deficiencies result in hundreds of police-involved homicides being unreported. What results is an incomplete picture for local, state, and federal agencies to make assessments as to how the over 18,000 law enforcement agencies are performing …

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Evidence Of The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot.Pdf, Eric Carpenter Dec 2015

Evidence Of The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot.Pdf, Eric Carpenter

Eric R. Carpenter

In response to the American military's perceived inability to handle sexual assault cases, many members of Congress have lost confidence in those who run the military justice system. Critics say that those who run the military justice system are sexist and perceive sexual assault cases differently than the public does.

This article is the first to empirically test that assertion. Further, this is the first study to focus on the military population that matters – those who actually run the military justice system.

This study finds that this narrow military population endorses two constructs that are associated with the acceptance …

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Evidence Of The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot.Pdf, Eric Carpenter Dec 2015

Evidence Of The Military's Sexual Assault Blind Spot.Pdf, Eric Carpenter

Eric R. Carpenter

In response to the American military's perceived inability to handle sexual assault cases, many members of Congress have lost confidence in those who run the military justice system. Critics say that those who run the military justice system are sexist and perceive sexual assault cases differently than the public does.

This article is the first to empirically test that assertion. Further, this is the first study to focus on the military population that matters – those who actually run the military justice system.

This study finds that this narrow military population endorses two constructs that are associated with the acceptance …

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Teaching Criminal Procedure: Why Socrates Would Use Youtube, Stephen E. Henderson, Joseph Thai Dec 2015

Teaching Criminal Procedure: Why Socrates Would Use Youtube, Stephen E. Henderson, Joseph Thai

Stephen E Henderson

In this invited contribution to the Law Journal's annual Teaching Issue, we pay some homage to the great philosopher whose spirit allegedly guides our classrooms, in service of two concrete goals. One, we employ dialogue to describe the “nuts and bolts” of teaching Criminal Procedure, most of which are equally relevant to any doctrinal law school course (including course description, office hours, seating charts and attendance, class decorum and recording, student participation, laptops, textbooks, class preparation and presentation, and exams). Two, we explain the benefits of using multimedia in the classroom, including a few of the many modules found on …

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