Law Commons^™

The Answer To Trial Publicity Is A Better Question, Kevin F. Qualls

Kevin F Qualls

Free-Press/Fair-Trial contests now happen in a new media age. Judicial remedies such as change-of-venue, sequestration, jury admonitions, and gag orders were fashioned in an era that included broadcast radio and television, an emerging cable television industry, and the traditional print media of newspapers and magazines. That content was, to some degree, geographically bound and temporary. Now those judicial remedies are applied in a new media age that extends the reach of traditional media in time and space while offering interactive capability. The efficacy of these remedies is in question. This paper provides an historical overview of how judicial remedies for …

Civil Rights In Crisis: The Racial Impact Of The Denial Of The Sixth Amendment Right To Counsel, Richard Klein

Richard Daniel Klein

Whereas in 2013 there had been widespread celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, much has been written in subsequent years about the unhappy state of the quality of counsel provided to indigents. But it is not just defense counsel who fail to comply with all that we hope and expect would be done by those who are part of our criminal courts; prosecutorial misconduct, if not actually increasing, is becoming more visible. The judiciary chooses to focus on the rapid processing of cases, often ignoring the rights of those being prosecuted …

The Aba Guidelines And The Norms Of Capital Defense Representation, Russell Stetler, W. Bradley Wendel

W. Bradley Wendel

The ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases (“Guidelines”), as revised in 2003, continue to stand as the single most authoritative summary of the prevailing professional norms in the realm of capital defense practice. Hundreds of court opinions have cited the Guidelines. They have been particularly useful in helping courts to assess the investigation and presentation of mitigating evidence in death penalty cases. This Article will discuss how these Guidelines have come to reflect prevailing professional norms in this critical area of capital defense practice and how that practice has developed in the …

The Perilous Psychology Of Public Defending, Scott Howe

Scott W. Howe

This article examining the ethical challenges confronting most public defender attorneys is framed as a fictional talk presented by P.D. Atty, a former public defender attorney, at a small conference of new public defender attorneys. The presentation asserts that public defenders typically face psychological obstacles to providing zealous advocacy for all of their clients and that an essential aspect of the remedy starts with recognition of these psychological barriers. The author contends that these challenges relate to a typically unacknowledged aversion to representing certain kinds of criminal defendants. Contrary to common supposition, the strongest aversion is not to representation of …

Clear And Simple Deportation Rules For Crimes: Why We Need Them And Why It's Hard To Get Them, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless