Criminal Law Commons^™

Taking Great Cases: Lessons From The "Rosenberg" Case, Brad Snyder

Vanderbilt Law Review

The most watched case of the 1952 Supreme Court Term was not Brown v. Board of Education, but the case of convicted atomic spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Sentenced to death in April 1951 for passing atomic secrets to the Soviets, the Rosenbergs dominated the news and divided the country. Their case came at the height of Cold War America's obsession with Communism. Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee were exposing alleged Communists in the federal government and Hollywood, and the U.S. military was fighting the Korean War to try to stop the spread of Communism abroad. …

Small Claim Mass Fraud Actions: A Proposal For Aggregate Litigation Under Rico, Leah Bressack

Vanderbilt Law Review

Assume that, tomorrow, a large company advertises a "miracle pill" that it claims will cure all forms of cancer. The company uses a sophisticated national marketing campaign to convey a strong health assurance message, which it tailors to specific audiences: women with breast cancer, men with prostate cancer, older adults with intestinal cancer, and children with leukemia. In response to the national campaign, consumers across the country purchase the pill, which costs $10. Only then do consumers discover that the pill is worthless and that the company intentionally defrauded them.

The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations ("RICO") statute provides a …

Evening The Odds In Civil Litigation:A Proposed Methodology For Using Adverse Inferences When Nonparty Witnesses Invoke The Fifth Amendment, Charles H. Rabon, Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

A nonparty witness who responds to questioning by invoking the privilege against self-incrimination seriously can impair the party against whom the response suggests an unfavorable answer. The possible injury to a party's case is greatest when the invocation occurs unexpectedly at trial, but may cause equal damage when the privilege is relied on during discovery because the deposition of an unavailable witness may be read to the jury. In the past, courts and commentators generally opposed allowing such invocations in the jury's presence based on the belief that invocations lack credible evidentiary value because witnesses can invoke validly for a …

The Theory Of Criminal Discovery And The Practice Of Criminal Law, David W. Louisell

Vanderbilt Law Review

To crystallize in a few words the motif of a career as varied and comprehensive as that of Eddie Morgan would in any event be difficult, but it is doubly so for a life devoted, as his has been, to stuff as vital and dynamic as procedure and evidence. For me, his work most fundamentally is to be characterized as a quest for greater rationality in the adjudicative process. Whether one thinks of his analysis of the hearsay rule,' or his rationale of the admissions exception to it, or his treatment of the dead man's statute, or his study of …

Current Trends In The Business Of The Federal District Courts, Will Shafroth

Vanderbilt Law Review

Congestion in the dockets of many United States district courts in metropolitan centers has called attention to the effects on the judicial business of the great economic development of the past few years, a growth which far exceeds in extent that in any period of equal duration in our history. In the short space of thirteen years from 1940 to 1952 the market value of the output of goods and services produced by the nation's economy increased from 101 billions to 346 billions. Part of this phenomenal rise was due to a 90 percent increase in the cost of living, …