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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law

Should Federalism Shield Corruption?—Mail Fraud, State Law And Post-Lopez Analysis, George D. Brown Nov 2011

Should Federalism Shield Corruption?—Mail Fraud, State Law And Post-Lopez Analysis, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

In this Article, Professor Brown examines the issues that federal prosecutions of state and local officials pose. The analysis focuses on prosecutions under the mail fraud statute and considers the general debate over the proper scope of federal criminal law. Professor Brodin addresses the question of whether a re-examination of mail fraud would focus on constitutional or statutory issues and by utilizing the Supreme Court case United States v. Lopez examines the question of internal limits on the mail fraud statute.


Border Searches In The Age Of Terrorism, Robert M. Bloom Oct 2011

Border Searches In The Age Of Terrorism, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

This article will first explore the history of border searches. It will look to the reorganization of the border enforcement apparatus resulting from 9/11 as well as the intersection of the Fourth Amendment and border searches generally. Then, it will analyze the Supreme Court's last statement on border searches in the Flores-Montano27 decision, including what impact this decision has had on the lower courts. Finally, the article will focus on Fourth Amendment cases involving terrorism concerns after 9/11, as a means of drawing some conclusions about the effect the emerging emphasis on terrorism and national security concerns will likely have …


Judicial Integrity: A Call For Its Re-Emergence In The Adjudication Of Criminal Cases, Robert M. Bloom Oct 2011

Judicial Integrity: A Call For Its Re-Emergence In The Adjudication Of Criminal Cases, Robert M. Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

A court can invalidate or rectify certain kinds of offensive official action on the grounds of judicial integrity. In the past, it has served as a check on overzealous law enforcement agents whose actions so seriously impaired due process principles that they shocked the bench’s conscience. The principle not only preserves the judiciary as a symbol of lawfulness and justice, but it also insulates the courts from becoming aligned with illegal actors and their bad acts. The 1992 case of U.S. v. Alvarez-Machain, however, may have signaled a departure from past practices. This article reviews current Supreme Court cases and …


Reconsidering Spousal Privileges After Crawford, R. Michael Cassidy Oct 2011

Reconsidering Spousal Privileges After Crawford, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

In this article the author explores how domestic violence prevention efforts have been adversely impacted by the Supreme Court’s new “testimonial” approach to the confrontation clause. Examining the Court’s trilogy of cases from Crawford to Davis and Hammon, the author argues that the introduction of certain forms of hearsay in criminal cases has been drastically limited by the court’s new originalist approach to the Sixth Amendment. The author explains how state spousal privilege statutes often present a significant barrier to obtaining live testimony from victims of domestic violence. The author then argues that state legislatures should reconsider their spousal privilege …


Toward A More Independent Grand Jury: Recasting And Enforcing The Prosecutor’S Duty To Disclose Exculpatory Evidence, R. Michael Cassidy Oct 2011

Toward A More Independent Grand Jury: Recasting And Enforcing The Prosecutor’S Duty To Disclose Exculpatory Evidence, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

This Article analyzes the Supreme Court’s decision in Williams, in which the Court struck down an attempt by the Tenth Circuit to impose an obligation on federal prosecutors to disclose substantial exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. The author discusses the contours of this case and the ethical underpinnings of a prosecutor’s disclosure obligations before the grand jury, and sets forth a new framework for consideration of such issues.


Unanswered Questions Of A Minority People In International Law: A Comparative Study Between Southern Cameroons & South Sudan, Bernard Sama Mr Oct 2011

Unanswered Questions Of A Minority People In International Law: A Comparative Study Between Southern Cameroons & South Sudan, Bernard Sama Mr

Bernard Sama

The month July of 2011 marked the birth of another nation in the World. The distressful journey of a minority people under the watchful eyes of the international community finally paid off with a new nation called the South Sudan . As I watched the South Sudanese celebrate independence on 9 July 2011, I was filled with joy as though they have finally landed. On a promising note, I read the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying “[t]ogether, we welcome the Republic of South Sudan to the community of nations. Together, we affirm our commitment to helping it meet its …


Setting The Record Straight On State V. John Ingram Purtle: Reflections On The Great Dissenter, Samuel A. Perroni Oct 2011

Setting The Record Straight On State V. John Ingram Purtle: Reflections On The Great Dissenter, Samuel A. Perroni

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.


Judicial Interference With Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Bennett L. Gershman Jul 2011

Judicial Interference With Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Bennett L. Gershman

Pace Law Review

Probably the most damaging external impediment to a lawyer’s ability to render effective assistance to a client may come from the interference by the trial judge in counsel’s advocacy. A judge supervises the conduct of a trial but he is more than a mere umpire or moderator. A trial judge, by his rulings, questions, and comments, has an enormous capacity to affect the merits of a party’s case and thereby influence the verdict of the jury. To be sure, the basic requirement of a trial judge, both legally and ethically, is to be impartial in demeanor as well as in …


Dead Wrong: Why Washington’S Deadly Weapon Criminal Sentencing Enhancement Needs “Enhancement”, James Harlan Corning Apr 2011

Dead Wrong: Why Washington’S Deadly Weapon Criminal Sentencing Enhancement Needs “Enhancement”, James Harlan Corning

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment confronts the difficult question of how to reformulate the deadly weapon sentencing enhancement to better align it with the policy goals of deterring and punishing armed crime. Part II explores the constitutional and practical defects in each of the three formulations of the sentencing enhancement’s armed requirement by delving into the enhancement’s legislative history and the judicial struggle to interpret it. Part III analyzes the need for a more nuanced approach to the weapon enhancement by exploring key criticisms about the enhancement’s scope and application. Part IV argues that the Washington legislature must provide courts with more rigid …


Actual Versus Perceived Performance Of Judges, Theodore Eisenberg, Talia Fisher, Issi Rosen-Zvi Apr 2011

Actual Versus Perceived Performance Of Judges, Theodore Eisenberg, Talia Fisher, Issi Rosen-Zvi

Seattle University Law Review

Perceptions of judges ought to be based on their performance. Yet, few studies of the relation between perceived and actual judicial performance exist. Those claiming judicial bias should be especially sensitive to the relation between perception and performance. Judges perceived by the public or by the legal community as disfavoring a group may be regarded as biased, but that perception is unfair if the judges’ votes in cases do not disfavor the group. For example, it may be unfair to accuse an appellate judge of pro-state bias in criminal cases if the judge votes for defendants at a higher rate …


Preliminary Report On Race And Washington's Criminal Justice System, Task Force On Race And The Criminal Justice System Apr 2011

Preliminary Report On Race And Washington's Criminal Justice System, Task Force On Race And The Criminal Justice System

Seattle University Law Review

For this Report, the Research Working Group reviewed evidence on disproportionality in Washington’s criminal justice system and considered whether crime commission rates accounted for this disproportionality. We found that crime commission rates by race and ethnicity are largely unknown and perhaps unknowable, but that some researchers simply take arrest rates as good proxies for underlying commission rates for all crimes.We found that use of arrest rates likely overstates black crime commission rates for several reasons.68 But even if arrest rates are used as a proxy for underlying crime commission rates, the extent of racial disproportionality is not explained by commission …


Pvip Transitional Peer Mentors, Douglas J. Henderson Mar 2011

Pvip Transitional Peer Mentors, Douglas J. Henderson

DOUGLAS J HENDERSON

Project VETS Intervention Program (PVIP) – Hamilton County, Ohio In early 2010 Hamilton County, Ohio was chosen as the pilot site for a federally funded jail diversion intervention program – the project was named Project VETS Intervention Program (PVIP). The SAMHSA National Gains Center awarded the State of Ohio grant money as part of its second round of funding, which was aimed at helping the existing and increasing veteran criminally justice involved population, and their families, with a priority given to Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans who have suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)/Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). The …


Comments On [Israeli] Proposal For Structuring Judicial Discretion In Sentencing, Paul H. Robinson Mar 2011

Comments On [Israeli] Proposal For Structuring Judicial Discretion In Sentencing, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

In this essay, Professor Robinson supports the current Israeli proposal for structuring judicial discretion in sentencing, in particular its reliance upon desert as the guiding principle for the distribution of punishment, its reliance upon benchmarks, or “starting-points,” to be adjusted in individual cases by reference to articulated mitigating and aggravating circumstances, and the proposal’s suggestion to use of an expert committee to draft the original guidelines.


El Derecho De Sucesiones Se Debe Atemperar A Los Cambios De La Sociedad Del Siglo Xxi, Edward Ivan Cueva Feb 2011

El Derecho De Sucesiones Se Debe Atemperar A Los Cambios De La Sociedad Del Siglo Xxi, Edward Ivan Cueva

Edward Ivan Cueva

No abstract provided.


Juvenile Justice Reform 2.0, Tamar R. Birckhead Jan 2011

Juvenile Justice Reform 2.0, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Before the 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the United States Supreme Court’s exercise of judicial review did not support the notion that constitutional litigation could be an effective instrument of social reform. The Court’s principled rejection of racially segregated public education, however, gave new legitimacy to the concept of judicial review, transforming it from an obstacle into a principal means of achieving social progress. Since then, federal courts have impacted public policy in many areas – from housing, welfare, and transportation to mental health institutions, prisons, and juvenile courts. Yet, there are inherent structural challenges to effecting …


Courts' Increasing Consideration Of Behavioral Genetics Evidence In Criminal Cases: Results Of A Longitudinal Study, Deborah W. Denno Jan 2011

Courts' Increasing Consideration Of Behavioral Genetics Evidence In Criminal Cases: Results Of A Longitudinal Study, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

This article, which is part of a symposium honoring David Baldus, presents a unique study of all criminal cases (totaling thirty-three) that addressed behavioral genetics evidence from June 1, 2007, to July 1, 2011. The study builds upon this author’s prior research on all criminal cases (totaling forty-eight) that used such evidence during the preceding thirteen years (1994-2007). This combined collection of eighty-one criminal cases employing behavioral genetics evidence offers a rich context for determining how the criminal justice system has been handling genetics factors for nearly two decades, but also why the last four years reveal particularly important discoveries. …


Judicial Interference With Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Bennett L. Gershman Jan 2011

Judicial Interference With Effective Assistance Of Counsel, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A lawyer’s ineffective representation of a client may be attributable to a lawyer’s own personal failings. However, impairment of the right to effective assistance of counsel may also come from a trial judge’s conduct, and can takes many forms, and occur in varying circumstances. It is therefore difficult to formulate clear principles to cover all of the various situations in which a judge can undermine effective representation. The Borukhova and Mallayev case is only the most recent illustration of the way a ruling of a judge – forcing the lawyer to sum up his case without giving the lawyer adequate …


Hot Crimes: A Study In Excess, Steven P. Grossman Jan 2011

Hot Crimes: A Study In Excess, Steven P. Grossman

All Faculty Scholarship

Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. . . . [I]ts nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) restored to; . . . sometimes the panic passes over and is forgotten . . . at other times it has more serious and long-lasting repercussions and might produce such as those in legal and social policy or even …