Law Commons^™

Examining Crack Cocaine Sentencing In A Post-Kimbrough World, Michael B. Cassidy

Akron Law Review

This article examines Kimbrough’s effect on crack cocaine sentencing. Part I discusses the rise of crack cocaine use in the United States during the 1980s. Part II provides a short history on modern federal sentencing, including the Sentencing Reform Act, the Commission’s Guidelines, and its reports to Congress concerning the 100-to-1 ratio. Part III examines the Supreme Court’s recent Sixth Amendment jurisprudence through its seminal cases, Apprendi and Blakely. In Part IV, this article analyzes the Court’s Booker holding as well as Kimbrough and Gall v. United States, two cases that clarified Booker and its application ...

Rationalizing The Constitution: The Military Commissions Act And The Duboius Legacy Of Ex Parte Quirin, Chad Deveaux

Akron Law Review

Alexander Hamilton famously characterized the Judiciary as the “least dangerous” branch. It “has no influence over either the sword or the purse” and thus “must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.” But this perceived safeguard has sometimes proven to be the institution’s undoing. Faced with the prospect of appearing impotent, the Supreme Court has, on occasion, played the role of doctrinal apologist. The Court has bent seemingly immutable constitutional prerogatives to sanction Executive action when a contrary ruling would likely go unheeded.

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 ...

Beyond The Right To Counsel: Increasing Notice Of Collateral Consequences, Brian M. Murray

University of Richmond Law Review

This article responds to these questions by focusing on the primary roots of this justice issue, namely the prevalence of guiltypleas and the continued efforts of legislatures to increase the life- long price of a conviction. Part I begins with a discussion of these practical realities within the criminal justice system. Part II then examines the law of guilty pleas under the Fifth Amendment, including constitutional standards for valid pleas, and how current jurisprudence fails to account for the collateral consequences mentioned in Part I. Part II also discusses the right to effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment ...

Following Orders: Campbell V. United States, The Waiver Of Appellate Rights, And The Duty Of Counsel, Jacob Szewczyk

Catholic University Law Review

In the 1984 case of Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court announced a two-pronged test to analyze whether a criminal defendant has received ineffective assistance of counsel. Since the rule was announced, the Court has expanded Strickland’s scope to apply to analyze counsel’s review at different stages of the criminal proceeding. This Comment addresses one issue that has remained unanswered by the Supreme Court: whether counsel’s failure to file a notice of appeal, after a defendant has waived his right to appeal through a plea bargain, constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. This Comment discusses the circuit split ...

Judge Levine: A Survey Of His Most Influential Court Of Appeals Decisions - 1993-2002, Jean D'Alessandro

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, New York County, People V. Gajadahar, Melanie Hendry

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Ramos, Brooke Lupinacci

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Third Department, People V. Young, Randy S. Pearlman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Berroa, Marcia Miller

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Arroyo, Jean D 'Alessandro

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Line Holds, But Death May Matter: The Supreme Court's Criminal Procedure Decisions Of The 2001 Term, William Hellerstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Should The Medium Affect The Message? Legal And Ethical Implications Of Prosecutors Reading Inmate-Attorney Email, Brandon P. Ruben

Fordham Law Review

The attorney-client privilege protects confidential legal communications between a party and her attorney from being used against her, thus encouraging full and frank attorney-client communication. It is a venerable evidentiary principle of American jurisprudence. Unsurprisingly, prosecutors may not eavesdrop on inmate-attorney visits or phone calls or read inmate-attorney postal mail. Courts are currently divided, however, as to whether or not they can forbid prosecutors from reading inmate- attorney email.

This Note explores the cases that address whether federal prosecutors may read inmates’ legal email. As courts have unanimously held, because inmates know that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) monitors all ...

Democracy Enhancement And The Sixth Amendment Right To Choose, Janet Moore

Janet Moore

A democracy deficit undermines the legitimacy of criminal justice systems. People enmeshed in these systems are disproportionately poor people and people of color with little voice in creating or implementing the governing law. A stark example is the Sixth Amendment right to choose a lawyer. This understudied and undertheorized right is protected for criminal defendants who can afford to hire counsel. Yet according to Supreme Court dicta and rulings by other courts across the country, poor people “have no right to choose” their lawyers. This Article argues that the Sixth Amendment right to choose should apply to the overwhelming majority ...

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 ...

What Is Criminal Restitution?, Cortney E. Lollar

Cortney Lollar

A new form of restitution has become a core aspect of criminal punishment. Courts now order defendants to compensate victims for an increasingly broad category of losses, including emotional and psychological losses and losses for which the defendant was not found guilty. Criminal restitution therefore moves far beyond its traditional purpose of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, restitution has become a mechanism of imposing additional punishment. Courts, however, have failed to recognize the punitive nature of restitution and thus enter restitution orders without regard to the constitutional protections that normally attach to criminal proceedings. This Article deploys a ...

Chaidez V. United States - You Can't Go Home Again, Aram A. Gavoor, Justin M. Orlosky

Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics & Public Policy

This article examines a 2013 Supreme Court decision, Chaidez v. United States, in which the Court declined to apply retroactively another recent decision, Padilla v. Kentucky. To many observers, Chaidez appears to be a discrete departure from previous Sixth Amendment right to counsel jurisprudence. On a personal level, noncitizens who pled guilty to a crime without being apprised of the plea’s removal risks are now unable to seek redress under Padilla and return to their homes in the United States. This article examines relevant Sixth Amendment and retroactivity jurisprudence and proposes an explanation for the Court’s apparent aboutface.

Recent Development: Allen V. State: Dna Evidence Of A Third Party Found At A Crime Scene Must Be Confirmed By Additional Testing To Permit Admission At Trial; Extra Testing Requirement Does Not Violate The Sixth Amendment, George Makris

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Against Professing: Practicing Critical Criminal Procedure, Mae Quinn

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

Articles

This Essay provides a solution to the conundrum of statements made by very young children and offered against an accused in a criminal prosecution. Currently prevailing doctrine allows one of three basic outcomes. First, in some cases the child testifies at trial. But this is not always feasible, and when it is, cross-examination is a poor method for determining the truth. Second, evidence of the child's statement may be excluded, which denies the adjudicative process of potentially valuable information. Third, the evidence may be admitted without the child testifying at trial, which leaves the accused with no practical ability ...

Throwing A Toy Wrench In The “Greatest Legal Engine”: Child Witnesses And The Confrontation Clause, Jonathan Clow

Washington University Law Review

Cross-examination of witnesses has often been called the “greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” Enshrined in the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment, this most basic feature of an adversarial legal system guarantees criminal defendants the right to have the prosecution’s witnesses testify in open court and the opportunity to question said witnesses in front of the jury.

The premise underlying this “greatest legal engine” is challenged, however, when children are the “witnesses against” the defendant. Social science and psychological research in recent decades suggest that cross-examination of child witnesses could actually interfere with the ...

The Right To A Public Trial And Closing The Courtroom To Disruptive Spectators, Stephen E. Smith

Washington University Law Review

The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, in part, that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” Like many constitutional rights, however, the right to a public trial is not absolute. Courtrooms may be closed to the public in some situations. In Waller v. Georgia, the Supreme Court set forth the test trial courts should apply to determine whether a courtroom closure is appropriate. However, some courts, led by the Second Circuit’s per curiam decision in Cosentino v. Kelly, have declined to apply the Waller test to ...

Confrontation After Ohio V. Clark, Anne R. Traum

Scholarly Works

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ohio v. Clark, provides an occasion to take stock of the Sixth Amendment Right to Confrontation since the court’s landmark 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington. Crawford strengthened a defendant’s right to confront his accusers face-to-face, underscoring that cross-examination is the constitutionally preferred method for testing the reliability of accusatory statements. Clark could eliminate that right in a wide range of cases where, although the reliability of a declarant’s out-of-court statements is critically important, a defendant has no right to confrontation.

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 ...

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

Rebecca Sharpless

Court Of Appeals Of New York, People V. Taylor, Susan Persaud

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Surprise Symphony: The Supreme Court’S Major Criminal Law Rulings Of The 2002 Term, William E. Hellerstein

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crawford V. Washington: Reclaiming The Original Meaning Of The Confrontation Clause, Danielle Dupre

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, Kings County, People V. Nunez, Yale Pollack

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Fourth Department, People V. Brown, Jennifer Feldman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.