Law Commons^™

Grand Jury Innovation: Toward A Functional Makeover Of The Ancient Bulwark Of Liberty, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The grand jury is a "much maligned" organ of the criminal justice system.' Regularly employed in only about half of the states and grudgingly tolerated in the federal system,2 the American grand jury for two centuries has been criticized as costly, ineffective, overly-compliant, and redundant. Prescriptions have ranged from reforms designed to improve the grand jury's performance of its traditional filtering and charging functions to the outright abolition of the grand jury. Consequently, much of the scholarly defense of the grand jury seemingly has done little more than attempt to justify its very existence.

This Article seeks to take the …

Waiver, Certification, And Transfer Of Juveniles To Adult Court: Limiting Juveniles Transfers In Texas., Emily Ray

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

The adult criminal justice system is worse for juveniles who commit crimes. Underlying principles upon which the juvenile justice system was founded remain viable and worthy goals, and Texas law should reflect that understanding. Part II traces the development of juvenile justice in this country, including the evolution of the first American juvenile courts, and summarizes the due process rights afforded to juveniles by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Part III, I argue juvenile transfers to adult court should be limited in Texas with a special emphasis on young peoples' development, decision-making and reasoning abilities, and insights scientific research provides …

Advice And Complicity, Matthew A. Smith

Duke Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Returning Prosecutions To The States: A Proposal For A Criminal Justice Restoration Act, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The expensive and largely redundant Federal justice bureaucracy could be reduced to a fraction of its size by restoring to the states their traditional role of prosecuting crimes that fall under state jurisdiction. Returning criminal justice functions to the states can not only reduce the impact and effective reach of Federal power but can also achieve a surprisingly substantial decrease in Federal spending.

A small change in the wording of an existing Federal statute could accomplish the restoration.

This essay sets out and briefly analyses such a proposal.

Preventable Error: A Report On Prosecutorial Misconduct In California 1997–2009, Kathleen M. Ridolfi, Maurice Possley, Northern California Innocence Project

Northern California Innocence Project Publications

Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997–2009 is the most comprehensive, up-to-date, quantitative and actionable study on the extent of prosecutorial misconduct in California, how the justice system identifies and addresses it, and its cost and consequences, including the wrongful conviction of innocent people. By shining a light on prosecutorial conduct, this groundbreaking research, the work of leading experts in the field from the highly respected legal resource, NCIP, will serve as a catalyst for reform.

Realism, Punishment & Reform [A Reply To Braman, Kahan, And Hoffman, "Some Realism About Punishment Naturalism”], Paul H. Robinson, Owen D. Jones, Robert O. Kurzban

All Faculty Scholarship

Professors Donald Braman, Dan Kahan, and David Hoffman, in their article "Some Realism About Punishment Naturalism," to be published in an upcoming issue of the University of Chicago Law Review, critique a series of our articles: Concordance and Conflict in Intuitions of Justice (http://ssrn.com/abstract=932067), The Origins of Shared Intuitions of Justice (http://.ssrn.com/abstract=952726), and Intuitions of Justice: Implications for Criminal Law and Justice Policy (http://.ssrn.com/abstract=976026). Our reply, here, follows their article in that coming issue. As we demonstrate, they have misunderstood our views on, and thus the implications of, widespread agreement about punishing the "core" of wrongdoing. Although much of their …

Medicine And The Law: The Challenges Of Mental Illness, Beverley Mclachlin

Dalhousie Law Journal

In this lecture, I offer some thoughts on a medical/legal issue that is old, yet perennially pertinent; that is common, yet extraordinary; that is wellknown, yet all too often swept under the carpet. I refer to the issue-or more accurately the plethora of issues-that surround mental health and the law.

Do Judges Vary In Their Treatment Of Race?, David S. Abrams, Marianne Bertrand, Sendhil Mullainathan

All Faculty Scholarship

Are minorities treated differently by the legal system? Systematic racial differences in case characteristics, many unobservable, make this a difficult question to answer directly. In this paper, we estimate whether judges differ from each other in how they sentence minorities, avoiding potential bias from unobservable case characteristics by exploiting the random assignment of cases to judges. We measure the between-judge variation in the difference in incarceration rates and sentence lengths between African-American and White defendants. We perform a Monte Carlo simulation in order to explicitly construct the appropriate counterfactual, where race does not influence judicial sentencing. In our data set, …

Death Penalty Cases Impose Singular Burden, Judith L. Ritter, Ross Kleinstuber

Judith L Ritter

No abstract provided.

Justice For All: Victim Lost In The Legal Shuffle, Dana Harrington Conner

Dana Harrington Conner

No abstract provided.

A Criminal Justice System That Works, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.

The Construction Of Responsibility In The Criminal Law, Richard C. Boldt

Richard C. Boldt

No abstract provided.

Restitution, Criminal Law, And The Ideology Of Individuality, Richard C. Boldt

Richard C. Boldt

No abstract provided.

Accomplice Liability: American Jurisprudence Injecting Mens Rea Under False Hopes Of Criminal Deterrence, Andrew J. Sickmann

Andrew J Sickmann

Relatively little scholarly attention has been given to the doctrine of accomplice liability. To the average person this is an obscure doctrine that most do not understand. This article examines early accomplice law before State statutes began to shift towards unjust simplicity. The article will also analyze accomplice liability in relation to intent and the ‘natural and probable consequences’ doctrine, as well as accomplice law and its application in four different states. Finally, this article offers insight into how accomplice liability should be treated pursuant to principles of fairness, judiciousness, and pertinence in today’s society.

Combating Cyber-Victimization, Jacqueline Lipton

Jacqueline D Lipton

In today’s interconnected society, high profile examples of online victimization abound. Cyber-bullies, stalkers and harassers launch attacks on the less powerful, causing a variety of harms. Recent scholarship has identified some of the more salient damage, including reputational harms, severe emotional distress, loss of employment, and physical assault. Extreme cases of online abuse have resulted in death through suicide or as a result of targeted attacks. This article makes two major contributions to the cyber-victimization literature. It proposes specific reforms to criminal and tort laws to address this conduct more effectively. Further, it situates those reforms within a new multi-modal …

Curricular Stress, Edward Rubin

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Crime And Sacred Spaces In Early Modern Poland, Magda Teter

Magda Teter

This principle of intersection between action and sacredness was shared by both Jews and Christians. Both Christian and Jewish religious elites highlighted differences between sacred. In Catholicism, validation of space required a consecration by a bishop in preparation for the ritual of the Eucharist. Church vessels were viewed as sacred in relation to the Eucharist. The Eucharist defined levels of sacredness. The controversy over the nature of the Eucharist during the Reformation, challenged the notion of Christian sacred place. After the Reformation, in the minds of the church, and in Poland increasingly also in the minds of the secular courts, …

The New Federalism Meets The Eleventh Circuit's Old Criminal Law, Jonathan D. Colan

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Jamming The Revolving Door: Legislative Setbacks For Mental Health Court Systems In Virginia, Sheila Moheb

Law Student Publications

Part II of this comment will discuss the existing issues that effectuate the tension between the criminal justice system and mentally ill offenders, which provides important context to the debate surrounding the establishment of MHCs. Part III will examine the recent federal support for alternative approaches to handling mentally ill offenders and the different operational tactics implemented by existing MHC programs. Finally, Part IV will study the launch of Virginia’s first MHC in Norfolk, while exploring the latest legislative defeat in Virginia, Senate Bill 158 of the 2010 General Assembly, which sought to establish MHCs statewide.

Congressional Power To Criminalize "Local" Conduct: No Limit In Sight, Sanford L. Bohrer, Matthew S. Bohrer

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

How The Post-Framing Adoption Of The Bare-Probable-Cause Standard Drastically Expanded Government Arrest And Search Power, Thomas Y. Davies

Law and Contemporary Problems

Davies exposes a story that has been almost entirely overlooked: that the now-accepted doctrine that probable cause alone can justify a criminal arrest or search did not emerge until well after the framing of the Bill of Rights in 1789 and constituted a significant departure from the criminal-procedure standards that the Framers of the Bill thought they had preserved.

What Is Probable Cause, And Why Should We Care?: The Costs, Benefits, And Meaning Of Individualized Suspicion, Andrew E. Taslitz

Law and Contemporary Problems

Taslitz defines probable cause as having four components: one quantitative, one qualitative, one temporal, and one moral. He focuses on the last of these components. "Individualized suspicion," the US Supreme Court has suggested, is perhaps the most important of the four components of probable cause. That is a position with which he heartily agree. The other three components each play only a supporting role. But individualized suspicion is the beating heart that gives probable cause its vitality.

The Blameless Corporation, Larry D. Thompson

Scholarly Works

This article is a clarification and expansion of the author's previous oral statements published in The American Criminal Law Review 46-4--a Symposium Issue on "Achieving the Right Balance: The Role of Corporate Criminal Law in Ensuring Corporate Compliance."

From Enemy Combatant To American Citizen: Protecting Our Constitution, Not Our Enemy, Annie Macaleer

Annie Macaleer

This Article advocates maintaining the use of Combatant Status Review Tribunals and military commissions in the framework that the executive and legislative branches have already established during the Bush administration, despite the Obama administration’s recent policy to try detainees in federal court. Furthermore, this Article argues against the use of Article III criminal courts as an arena to prosecute unlawful enemy combatants.

Allshouse V. Pennsylvania, Brief Of The National Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The Pennsylvania Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers, The Public Defender Association Of Pennsylvania, And The Defender Association Of Philadelphia, As Amici Curiae On Behalf Of Petitioner, Jules Epstein

Jules Epstein

No abstract provided.

Breakdown In The Language Zone: The Prevalence Of Language Impairments Among Juvenile And Adult Offenders And Why It Matters, Michele M. Lavigne

Michele M LaVigne

For over eighty years, social scientists have known that poor language skills are closely associated with the constellation of emotional and behavioral disturbances routinely seen in juvenile and criminal court. These include conduct disorder, academic deficits, social incompetence, impulsivity, and even aggression. As we might expect, researchers have also found that language impairments are present at a high rate within juvenile and adult correctional institutions. So far however, the law has yet to acknowledge even the existence of this body of social science, let alone its significance for the administration of justice, rehabilitation, and public safety. This article is an …

Book Review Of The Last Lawyer: The Fight To Save Death Row Inmates, By John Temple, Kenneth Williams

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Constitutionality Of Cyberbullying Laws: Keeping The Online Playground Safe For Both Teens And Free Speech, Alison V. King

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Internet is a blessing and a curse. Along with the manifold benefits the Internet provides-electronic research, instantaneous news, social networking, online shopping, to name a few-comes a host of dangers: online harassment and cyberbullying, hacking, voyeurism, identity theft, phishing, and perhaps still more perils that have yet to appear. The Internet creates a virtual world that can result in very real consequences for people's lives. This creates a challenge for parents, schools, and policymakers attempting to keep pace with rapidly developing technologies and to provide adequate protections for children. The even greater challenge, however, is to balance these vital …

Reading The Judicial Mind: Predicting The Courts' Reaction To The Use Of Neuroscientific Evidence For Lie Detection, Jennifer Chandler

Dalhousie Law Journal

How will the courts react to the emerging technology ofdetecting deception using neuroscientific methods such as neuro-imaging? The sociological theory of the autonomy of technology suggests that if neuroscientific techniques come to be seen as reliable for this purpose, other objections will soon be abandoned. The history of the judicial reaction to DNA evidence illustrates this pattern. As DNA evidence came to be seen as highlyreliable, the courts rapidly abandoned their concerns that juries would be overwhelmed by the "mystique of science" and that the justice system would be "dehumanized." The legaljustifications for rejecting polygraph evidence are explored in order …

“She Said I Did What!”: An Argument Against The Admissibility Of Eyewitness Expert Testimony, Russell J. Cortazzo

Russell J. Cortazzo Jr.

Recent DNA exonerations of those wrongly convicted through inaccurate eyewitness identifications highlight the growing public understanding that eyewitness misidentification is not always perfect. In response, several states have enacted, with many others considering, eyewitness identification reform measures, such as allowing qualified psychological experts called “eyewitness experts” to freely testify on the factors affecting memory and the inaccuracy of eyewitness testimony. This article will first explain the effects of the eyewitness expert on the jury and the discrete factors the experts believe affect witness reliability. This article will then describe the problems in allowing the eyewitness expert to testify on witness …