Law Commons^™

The Paths Not Taken: The Supreme Court's Failures In Dickerson, Paul G. Cassell

Michigan Law Review

Where's the rest of the opinion? That was my immediate reaction to reading the Supreme Court's terse decision in Dickerson, delivered to me via email from the clerk's office a few minutes after its release. Surely, I thought, some glitch in the transmission had eliminated the pages of discussion on the critical issues in the case. Yet, as it became clear that I had received all of the Court's opinion, my incredulity grew.

Miranda'S Mistake, William J. Stuntz

Michigan Law Review

The oddest thing about Miranda is its politics - a point reinforced by the decision in, and the reaction to, Dickerson v. United States. In Dickerson, the Supreme Court faced the question whether Miranda ought to be overturned, either directly or by permitting legislative overrides. The lawyers, the literature, and the Court split along right-left - or, in the Court's case, right-center - lines, with the right seeking to do away with Miranda's restrictions on police questioning, and the left (or center) seeking to maintain them. The split is familiar. Reactions to Miranda have always divided along ideological lines, with …

Asymmetry, Fairness, & Criminal Trials, Stephen E. Hessler

Michigan Law Review

Rules of criminal procedure, like all rules of legal procedure, exist to advance the goals of the corresponding substantive law. To ask whether American criminal justice - pursued through the operation of these procedural rules - is fair is to engage in a debate that has persisted since the Founding. More recently, the early twentieth century witnessed a revolution against the procedural formalism of preceding decades. Whether justified or not, the perception flourished that the legal system's dogmatic adherence to process allowed many criminals to escape punishment, and endangered society. The public statements of the era's most prominent jurists were …

Computers, Urinals, And The Fourth Amendment: Confessions Of A Patron Saint, Wayne R. Lafave

Michigan Law Review

At least the title indicates that the article is somehow concerned with "the Fourth Amendment," though for anyone who knows me or is at all familiar with my work, that piece of information hardly would come as a revelation. The fact of the matter is that I almost always write about the Fourth Amendment; I am in an academic rut so deep as to deserve recognition in the Guinness Book World of Records. Search and seizure has been my cheval de bataille during my entire time as a law professor and even when I was a mere law student. …

Errors In Good Faith: The Leon Exception Six Years Later, David Clark Esseks

Michigan Law Review

Given this vast literature on the good faith exception, little room appears to exist for additional commentary on the propriety of the decision, its theoretical weaknesses or strengths, or what further changes in constitutional criminal procedure it forebodes. This Note will not add to the many voices complaining of the Court's misconstrual of the grounding of the exclusionary rule, nor of its crabbed notion of deterrence. Instead, it accepts, arguendo, the propriety of the exception and its underlying purpose, and then examines the six-year experience with the revised rule. The proliferation of reported applications of the good faith exception …

Forgotten Points In The "Exclusionary Rule" Debate, James Boyd White

Michigan Law Review

Most contemporary discussions of the "exclusionary rule" assume or assert that this "rule" is not part of the fourth amendment, nor required by its terms, but is rather a judicial "remedy" that was fashioned to protect those rights (against unreasonable search and seizure) that actually are granted by the fourth amendment. The protection is said to work by "deterring" official violations; this is, however, an odd use of the word, for the rule does not punish violations but merely deprives the government of some of the benefits that might ensue from them, namely the use in the criminal case of …

Search And The Single Dormitory Room, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

This Note suggests that dormitory privacy should not be illusory. It argues that when a college breaches the standards of the fourth amendment in searching a student's room, the exclusionary rule should proscribe reliance on the fruits of that search to punish the student.

The argument progresses in two steps. Section I observes that the guarantees of the fourth amendment apply to searches of college students' rooms by college officials just as they apply to searches of any private dwelling by government officials. It traces the happy demise of Moore v. Student Affairs Committee, which allowed students only limited …

Controlling The Police: The Judge's Role In Making And Reviewing Law Enforcement Decisions, Wayne R. Lafave, Frank J. Remington

Michigan Law Review

We have chosen to focus here upon judicial involvement (1) in determining whether arrest and search warrants should issue and (2) in reviewing such decisions after they have been executed (and, perhaps, made) by police officials. A comparison of some recent findings respecting the actual practice at the trial level with the "ideal" as set forth in appellate opinions may allow some conclusions to be drawn both as to the present effectiveness of appellate rulings on these subjects and as to the ultimate feasibility of further implementation of those rulings. Finally, since the exclusionary rule is, theoretically at least, one …

Constitutional Law-Search And Seizure-Retrospective Application Of Mapp V. Ohio, Timothy D. Wittlinger

Michigan Law Review

On February 15, 1960, the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed petitioner's conviction for simple burglary. The conviction was obtained through the use of evidence unlawfully seized from petitioner in violation of the fourth amendment of the United States Constitution. In December 1961 the District Court for the Parish of West Feliciana denied petitioner's writ of habeas corpus filed after the Supreme Court decision of Mapp v. Ohio, which forbade introduction at state trials of evidence seized by state officers in violation of the fourth amendment. The denial of the writ was affirmed by the Louisiana Supreme Court, and certiorari was …

Evidence-Confessions-Admissiblity Of A Subsequent Confession Under The Mcnabb-Mallory Doctrine, Ira J. Jaffe S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was indicted for first degree murder and convicted of manslaughter in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia. Defendant had willingly directed the police to the victim's body and voluntarily signed a written confession during a period of thirty-four hours detention prior to arraignment. At the arraignment defendant was informed of his rights and indicated that he was aware of them; in addition, the preliminary hearing was postponed in order to provide him opportunity to obtain counsel. Twenty hours after his arraignment the defendant once again voluntarily confessed while giving a police officer instructions as to the …

Evidence-Hearsay-Exclusion Of Self-Serving Declarations, John M. Price S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

One of the most venerable of all legal principles is the evidentiary rule excluding hearsay. This rule, which was first espoused by the English courts in the sixteenth century, arose when it became apparent that there was an inherent danger of untrustworthiness in a witness's uncorroborated recital of a prior declaration made outside the courtroom. The courts gave several reasons for regarding hearsay as untrustworthy. First, these statements, offered into evidence for the truth of the matter asserted, were not made under oath. Secondly, objection to such testimony was raised because the trier of fact had no opportunity to pass …

Scientific Investigation And Defendants' Rights, B. J. George Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Advances in science, medicine and industry have made much of the world a more pleasant place in which to live. In general more men are living a physically more satisfying life in more comfortable surroundings than preceding generations. But with this has come a parallel increase in criminality to the point that the term "crime wave" is heard with increasing frequency. Many crimes are facilitated in their commission by adaption or application of new scientific discoveries by criminal elements. A natural consequence is that already overburdened police departments turn as quickly as is financially possible to new scientific techniques in …

Criminal Law - Evidence - Wiretapping, James A. Park

Michigan Law Review

Suspecting that petitioner and others were violating state narcotics laws, New York police tapped petitioner's telephone pursuant to a warrant obtained in accordance with New York law. Acting upon information thus gained the police apprehended petitioner's brother. In his possession was found, not the narcotics as suspected, but alcohol without the tax stamps required by federal law. This evidence was turned over to federal authorities. Prosecution for possessing and transporting distilled spirits without tax stamps thereon followed, during which petitioner's motion to suppress the evidence obtained through the wiretap was denied. The Second Circuit affirmed the conviction, holding that although …

Judge And The Crime Burden, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

One does not happily charge the judiciary with responsibility for the country's burden of crime, but the responsibility does in fact exist. Judges, though they may not encourage crime, interfere with its prevention in various ways. They deliberately restrict police efficiency in the discovery of criminals. They exempt from punishment many criminals who are discovered and whose guilt is evident. More seriously still, they so warp and alter the public's attitude toward crime and criminals as gravely to weaken the country's most effective crime preventive.

Morgan: Basic Problems Of Evidence, Alfred L. Gausewitz

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Basic Problems of Evidence. By Edmund M. Morgan.

Constitutional Law-Fourth Amendment-Exclusion Of Contraband Evidence Obtained By An Illegal Search On Premises Not Owned By Defendant, Edgar A. Strause

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was in the unlawful possession of narcotics. Having been given a key by his two aunts to their hotel room with authority to use the room at will, defendant stored the narcotics there without the knowledge of the occupants. A federal officer entered the hotel room, searched the room, and seized the narcotics during the absence of the occupants, without a search warrant. The defendant was arrested the following day and claimed ownership of the seized narcotics. He was convicted in the District Court of the District of Columbia for violation of federal law, the court refusing to …

Constitutional Law-Due Process Of Law-Freedom From Unreasonable Search And Seizure-The Admissibility Of Illegally Seized Evidence, Bernard Goldstone S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Local police officers entered the private office of petitioner, a practising physician, without a warrant and seized his private books and records. As a result of the information thus obtained, petitioner was convicted of conspiracy to perform an abortion. Petitioner claimed that his constitutional rights were invaded contending that due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment includes freedom from unreasonable search and seizure and prevents the admission of illegally seized evidence, but this was denied by the Supreme Court of Colorado and the conviction was affirmed. On certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States, held, affirmed, …