Criminal Law Commons^™

The Politics Of The Bail System: What's The Price For Freedom., Lydia D. Johnson

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

The only factor determining the release of a defendant from custody before his trial date is money. The government should eliminate the current bail system and replace it with mandated pre-trial release unless the state can prove the defendant to be a flight risk or a danger to society. This bail system has an adverse economic impact on minorities and on poor communities. Some states have used their constitutions to implement pre-trial release. Texas has four constitutional provisions which would permit similar implementations. However, clashing political ideologies and institutional alliances continue to prevent the construction of a workable solution. Dismantling …

Consensual Police-Citizen Encounters: Human Factors Of A Reasonable Person And Individual Bias., Evan M. Mcguire

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

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable government intrusion. The government must establish probable cause and obtain a warrant to search a particular location. However, there are minute Fourth Amendment distinctions at various levels of police-citizen interaction which act as exceptions to the general rule. Officers may approach a citizen for any reason as long as a reasonable person in their place would feel able to escape the officer’s advances. Ultimately, abuse of this exception to Fourth Amendment protections occurs frequently, especially when it comes to minority populations. The police can conduct a search without a warrant if there is reasonable …

All For One: A Review Of Victim-Centric Justifications For Criminal Punishment, Adam J. Macleod

Faculty Articles

Disparate understandings of the primary justification for criminal punishment have in recent years divided along new lines. Retributivists and consequentialists have long debated whether a community ought to punish violators of legal norms primarily because the violator has usurped communal standards (the retributivist view), or rather merely as a means toward some end such as rehabilitation or deterrence (the consequentialist view). The competing answers to this question have demarcated for some time the primary boundary in criminal jurisprudential thought.

A new fault line appears to have opened between those who maintain the historical view that criminal punishment promotes the common …

A Further Inquiry Into The Quality Of Indigent Felony Defense., Richard L. Huff

St. Mary's Law Journal

One of the primary goals of a democracy is equality before the law for all of its citizens. To this end, in 1963, the Supreme Court held that states must provide counsel to indigent defendants, at their own expense, in all felony trials. Although other jurisdictions have chosen a defender system of criminal attorneys hired by the local government to meet the Supreme Court’s mandate, Bexar County, Texas, utilizes a system of assigning members of the local bar to defendants in rotation. Contrary to the prevailing view, it is submitted that Bexar County's assigned counsel system provides adequate representation for …

A Study In The Treatment Of Crime And Law Enforcement In The United States As Compared To The European Countries., George E. Glos

St. Mary's Law Journal

The United States holds a comparably higher crime rate than European countries in the area of homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary, and incitation of riots. This article explores the differences existing in the treatment of serious crimes in the leading systems of criminal law and law enforcement. This study examines how the United States, compared with European countries, define subcategories of major crimes and establish the penalties, defenses, and the access to relief attached to each crime. Contrasted with the provisions of the various states of the United States, the European provisions are simpler and carry stiffer penalties. The object …

Primary Requirements For The Application Of The Federal Writ Of Habeas Corpus And Its Problem Areas., L. Vance Stanton

St. Mary's Law Journal

Applications for issuance of writs of habeas corpus are among the most frequently filed petitions in federal courts. The substantial number of applications may be attributed to the fact that habeas corpus can be the fastest and most effective method which the law provides to insure an individual’s liberty. However, there are still areas within its framework that are unsettled. Specifically, there are two primary unsettled problems existing in federal habeas corpus proceedings, which include the certificate of probable cause and whether the federal rules apply to habeas corpus proceedings. The primary purpose of this article is to explain the …

Informing A Jury Of The Legal Effect Of Its Answers., James G. Denton

St. Mary's Law Journal

Limiting jury consideration to facts, as opposed to the outcome, best serves special issue systems. The purpose of the special issues system is to ensure juries answer the presented questions without bias or prejudice. Though several writers have persuasively advocated for advising juries of the consequences of their findings, doing so seems to undermine the purpose of special issue systems because it allows for juries to answer questions with reference to their desired outcome. To ensure juries answer issues on the facts alone, trial judges should not give a jury, directly or indirectly, any information that may apprise them of …

Due Process And The Juvenile Offender., Carlos Cadena

St. Mary's Law Journal

For over sixty years, courts consistently found notions of due process inapplicable in juvenile proceedings. The goal of the juvenile court movement was to establish systems of education and protection of errant children, rather than deterrence and retribution. To accomplish these results, the juvenile court was shorn of all resemblance to criminal courts. Public hearings were to be avoided and the intervention of counsel was not required, since the juvenile judge represented both the child and the state. However, it became clear that children were receiving the protection of the state because they engaged in criminal conduct and with little …

Habeas Corpus Proceedings In The Supreme Court Of Texas., Joe Greenhill, Martin D. Beirne Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

Writs of habeas corpus, anchored both in the common law and Constitution of Texas, are vitally important to secure the freedom of those wrongfully imprisoned. However, minimal literature on the subject exists to assist attorneys who must prepare and present an application for writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court of Texas. To address the gap in literature, this article lays out the process attorneys should follow when filing a writ of habeas corpus. The most important items which should be brought before the Court are: (1) a motion for leave to file the application; (2) the application for …