Criminal Law Commons^™

Longitudinal Guilt: Repeat Offenders, Plea Bargaining, And The Variable Standard Of Proof, Russell D. Covey

Russell D. Covey

This Article introduces a new concept-“longitudinal guilt”-which invites readers to reconsider basic presuppositions about the way our criminal justice system determines guilt in criminal cases. In short, the idea is that a variety of features of criminal procedure, most importantly, plea bargaining, conspire to change the primary “truthfinding mission” of criminal law from one of adjudicating individual historical cases to one of identifying dangerous “offenders.” This change of mission is visible in the lower proof standards we apply to repeat criminal offenders. The first section of this Article explains how plea bargaining and graduated sentencing systems based on criminal history …

From Criminal Law To Urban Law And Policy: A Tribute To Professor Feridun Yenisey, Ryan Rowberry, Julian Juergensmeyer

Julian C. Juergensmeyer

No abstract provided.

Legal Beagle's Blog Archive For November 2015, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Law Library Newsletters/Blog

No abstract provided.

Public Defenders And Appointed Counsel In Criminal Appeals: The Iowa Experience, Tyler J. Buller

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

An Ethical Dilemma: Attorneys' Duties Not To Reveal Elder Abuse In Washington State, Margaret Sholian

Washington Law Review

Elder abuse is a growing social issue in the United States. As a result of increasing awareness of elder abuse, every state has enacted mandatory or voluntary reporting laws to encourage public oversight of this vulnerable population. While mandatory and voluntary reporting statutes list a wide variety of professionals, such as physicians, social workers, and caretakers, as mandatory reporters, few of these statutes require attorneys to report elder abuse. Arguably, attorneys are in the best position to discover abuse of their elderly clients, as attorneys are advisors, counselors, and protectors of their clients’ affairs. However, in many circumstances, an elderly …

The Corporate Conspiracy Vacuum (Formerly "Corporate Conspiracy: How Not Calling A Conspiracy A Conspiracy Is Warping The Law On Corporate Wrongdoing"), J.S. Nelson

J.S. Nelson

Legal Thinking, The Adversarial Process And Exonerating Innocent Defendants: A Socio-Legal View Of The Wrongful Conviction Process., Gary J. Kowaluk

Gary J Kowaluk

Little is as frustrating as advocating the release of an innocent defendant who has been wrongfully convicted. Surprisingly, most of the wrongfully convicted fail to overturn their cases through the courts, and rely on government officials and prosecutor’s to find other ways to release them from custody. Too often the wrongful conviction process leaves lawyers and judges arguing to legally support injustices in the face of a practical common sense indicating a defendant’s innocence. This paper is an attempt to understand the tendency of legal professionals to argue against remedying a wrongful conviction in favor of the continued social injustice …

Criminal Justice Act Of 1964; State Malpractice Suit Against Appointed Counsel; Ferri V. Ackerman, Sandra J. Branda

Akron Law Review

The United States Supreme Court in Ferri v. Ackerman reversed the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and held that an attorney appointed by a federal judge to represent an indigent defendant in a federal criminal trial is not, as a matter of federal law, entitled to absolute immunity in a state malpractice suit brought against him by his former client. In a unanimous opinion, the Court decided that the function of appointed counsel is more closely analogous to that of private retained counsel, who enjoy no immunity from malpractice prosecution than to that of judges and prosecutors who have traditionally been accorded …

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

It's Not Just For Death Cases Anymore: How Capital Mitigation Investigation Can Enhance Experiential Learning And Improve Advocacy In Law School Non-Capital Criminal Defense Clinics, 50 Cal. W. L. Rev. 31 (2013), Hugh Mundy

Hugh Mundy

As this article proposes, law school criminal defense clinics provide an excellent environment to design and implement a non-capital mitigation investigation protocol based on the techniques used in death penalty cases. From a pedagogical perspective, such a model promotes student development of foundational lawyering skills and values, especially in the vital area of “narrative thinking characteristic of everyday practice.” From a pragmatic standpoint, creation of a mitigation investigation model benefits clinic clients and boosts the likelihood that similar investigative methods will become a staple of the student's post-graduate practice. Part I charts the evolution of capital mitigation investigation and highlights …

Hélène Cixous's The Perjured City: Nonprosecution Alternatives To Collective Violence, Susan Ayres

Susan Ayres

In instances of collective violence — apartheid in South Africa, mass killings in Rwanda, and other crimes against humanity such as slavery — what response provides justice? How can justice be achieved under such a system? Legal justice through prosecution would be unjust. This opens the possibility of nonprosecution alternatives involving forgiveness. Hélène Cixous’s play about forgiveness as an alternative to criminal prosecution, The Perjured City: Or, the Awakening of the Furies, was written in response to an actual case of failed justice in France, known as the Bad Blood Scandal. The play provides a model of forgiveness and a …

The Prioritization Of Criminal Over Civil Counsel And The Discounted Danger Of Private Power, Kathryn A. Sabbeth

Florida State University Law Review

This Article seeks to make two contributions to the literature on the role of counsel. First, it brings together civil Gideon research and recent studies of collateral consequences. Like criminal convictions, civil judgments result in far-reaching collateral consequences, and these should be included in any evaluation of the private interests that civil lawyers protect. Second, this Article argues that the prioritization of criminal defense counsel over civil counsel reflects a mistaken view of lawyers’ primary role as a shield against government power. Lawyers also serve a vital role in checking the power of private actors. As private actors increasingly take …

Francis D. Morrissey: A Life In The Law, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxiii (2008), Michael A. Pollard, Ann Lousin

Ann M. Lousin

No abstract provided.

Dedication To Professor Timothy P. O'Neill, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. Xxv (2008), Kathryn J. Kennedy

Kathryn J. Kennedy

No abstract provided.

What's It Worth To Keep A Secret?, Gavin C. Reid, Nicola Searle, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

This article is the first major study of protection and valuation of trade secrets under federal criminal law. Trade secrecy is more important than ever as an economic complement and substitute for other intellectual property protections, particularly patents. Accordingly, U.S. public policy correctly places a growing emphasis on characterizing the scope of trade secrets, creating incentives for their productive use, and imposing penalties for their theft. Yet amid this complex ecosystem of legal doctrine, economic policy, commercial strategy, and enforcement, there is little research or consensus on how to assign value to trade secrets. One reason for this gap is …

Foreword: Critical Race Theory And Empirical Methods Conference, Kimani Paul-Emile

Fordham Law Review

Everyone seems to be talking about race. From the protests that erupted in cities across the country over the failure of grand juries in Missouri and New York to indict police officers in the killing of two unarmed black men, to the racially charged statements made by the owners of professional sports teams; and the college fraternity members captured on film singing a racist lynching song; race exploded into the nation’s collective consciousness. Even the Starbucks Coffee chain’s recent “Race Together” campaign, intended to promote discussion about race, sparked a controversy and was quickly withdrawn. These and other events have …

Police Racial Violence: Lessons From Social Psychology, L. Song Richardson

Fordham Law Review

The recent rash of police killing unarmed black men has brought national attention to the persistent problem of policing and racial violence. These cases include the well-known and highly controversial death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, as well as the deaths of twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York; John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio; Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, California; Dante Parker in San Bernardino County, California; and Vonderrit D. Myers Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri. Data reported to the FBI indicate that white police officers killed black citizens almost twice a …

When Is Fear For One's Life Race-Gendered? An Intersectional Analysis Of The Bureau Of Immigration Appeals's In Re A-R-C-G- Decision, Ange-Marie Hancock

Fordham Law Review

In August 2014, the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) handed down a breakthrough decision, In re A-R-C-G-, permitting courts to consider domestic violence as a gendered form of persecution in a home country and thus grounds for asylum in the United States. Along with two other 2014 decisions, In re W-G-R- and In re M-E-V-G-, this case represented a marked shift from prior BIA decisions, which for fifteen years had interpreted sections 208(a) and 241(b)(3) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act more narrowly, thus excluding claims of home country abuse as reasonable grounds to grant asylum. Specifically, …

Taking A Stand?: An Initial Assessment Of The Social And Racial Effects Of Recent Innovation In Self-Defense Laws, Mario L. Barnes

Fordham Law Review

Perhaps, not surprisingly, the controversy over the rise of self-defense reforms in the United States that have come to be known as ―Stand Your Ground‖ (SYG) laws, began with a story about colors. This Article principally applies an empirical method and critical race theory (eCRT) lens to explore whether these reformed statutes, which generally have authorized greater use of force within the context of self-defense, deter crime and differentially affect Whites, Blacks, and other racial groups.

When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber

Fordham Law Review

Focusing on criminal law and procedure in particular, this Article seeks to expose various tensions in critical race theorizing and progressive theorizing more broadly, offer some suggestions for a unifying methodology of critical criminal law analysis, and discuss where empirical study might fit into this new program. Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law is not only subject to the competing frames of critique and formalism, it also exists within an overarching American criminal law culture that can eclipse both concerns over rights violations and structural injustice. The U.S. penal system has become a “peculiar institution” and a …

The Hypocrisy Of "Equal But Separate" In The Courtroom: A Lens For The Civil Rights Era, Jaimie K. Mcfarlin

Jaimie K. McFarlin

This article serves to examine the role of the courthouse during the Jim Crow Era and the early stages of the Civil Rights Movement, as courthouses fulfilled their dual function of minstreling Plessy’s call for “equality under the law” and orchestrating overt segregation.

Betting Against The (Big) House: Bargaining Away Criminal Trial Rights, Raymond J. Mckoski

Raymond J. McKoski

No abstract provided.

Symposium: Sounding The Alarm On Mass Incarceration: Moving Beyond The Problem And Toward Solutions, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Newsroom: Coombs Named Weisberger Professor, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Examining The Websites Of Canada’S ‘Top Sex Crime Lawyers’: The Ethical Parameters Of Online Commercial Expression By The Criminal Defence Bar, Elaine Craig

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Online advertising has become a primary source of information about legal services. This trend towards web-based marketing of legal services poses new challenges to the regulation of the legal profession. Challenges which, to date, have not been fully met. It also creates a new source of data for researchers studying aspects of the legal profession such as legal ethics, lawyers’ perspectives and strategies, and legal discourse. The objective of this study is to examine the most prominent websites in Canada that advertise legal representation for individuals accused of sexual offences. The study of these websites yielded two types of observations …

Gideon’S Army And The Central Theme Of Poverty, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

Gideon’s Army, a powerful documentary film that follows the work of three public defenders in the South, provides a window into the well documented dysfunction of most public defender offices across the country. While following the life and work of these public defenders—Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander, and June Hardwick—the viewer sees what the academic literature has documented for decades: public defenders carry caseloads that are multiples of professional guidelines; compensation for public defenders is so paltry that many are barely making ends meet; the offices in which they work are resource-starved; guilty pleas are the default; and the public …

Introduction To The Symposium On Entrepreneurial Lawyering, Anthony J. Luppino, Ellen Suni

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

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 …