Criminal Law Commons^™

Territoriality In American Criminal Law, Emma Kaufman

Michigan Law Review

It is a bedrock principle of American criminal law that the authority to try and punish someone for a crime arises from the crime’s connection to a particular place. Thus, we assume that a person who commits a crime in some location— say, Philadelphia—can be arrested by Philadelphia police for conduct deemed criminal by the Pennsylvania legislature, prosecuted in a Philadelphia court, and punished in a Pennsylvania prison. The idea that criminal law is tied to geography in this way is called the territoriality principle. This idea is so familiar that it usually goes unstated.

This Article foregrounds and questions …

The Municipal Pardon Power, Hayato Watanabe

Michigan Law Review

At the state and federal levels, the pardon power can be used to restore the dignity and legal rights lost by a criminal conviction. Unfortunately, those facing similar consequences from municipal convictions may not have access to a pardon. Although clemency is exceedingly rare at any level of government, municipal defendants face a unique structural problem that deprives them of the possibility of a pardon. Specifically, many cities have simply failed to create a local clemency power. This Note argues that the authority to grant pardons for municipal offenses is part of the toolbox of powers provided to cities through …

Criminal Justice And The Mattering Of Lives, Deborah Tuerkheimer

Michigan Law Review

A review of James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.

Private Actors And Public Corruption: Why Courts Should Adopt A Broad Interpretation Of The Hobbs Act, Megan Demarco

Michigan Law Review

Federal prosecutors routinely charge public officials with “extortion under color of official right” under a public-corruption statute called the Hobbs Act. To be prosecuted under the Hobbs Act, a public official must promise official action in return for a bribe or kickback. The public official, however, does not need to have actual authority over that official action. As long as the victim reasonably believed that the public official could deliver or influence government action, the public official violated the Hobbs Act. Private citizens also solicit bribes in return for influencing official action. Yet most courts do not think the Hobbs …

Criminal Infliction Of Emotional Distress, Avlana K. Eisenberg

Michigan Law Review

This Article identifies and critiques a trend to criminalize the infliction of emotional harm independent of any physical injury or threat. The Article defines a new category of criminal infliction of emotional distress (“CIED”) statutes, which include laws designed to combat behaviors such as harassing, stalking, and bullying. In contrast to tort liability for emotional harm, which is cabined by statutes and the common law, CIED statutes allow states to regulate and punish the infliction of emotional harm in an increasingly expansive way. In assessing harm and devising punishment, the law has always taken nonphysical harm seriously, but traditionally it …

Federalism And Criminal Law: What The Feds Can Learn From The States, Rachel E. Barkow

Michigan Law Review

Criminal law enforcement in the United States is multijurisdictional. Local, state, and federal prosecutors all possess the power to bring criminal charges. An enduring question of criminal law is how authority should be allocated among these levels of government. In trying to gain traction on the question of when crime should be handled at the federal level and when it should be left to local authorities, courts and scholars have taken a range of approaches. Oddly, one place that commentators have not looked for guidance on how to handle the issue of law enforcement allocation is within the states themselves. …

Coercion's Common Threads: Addressing Vagueness In The Federal Criminal Prohibitions On Torture By Looking To State Domestic Violence Laws, Sarah H. St. Vincent

Michigan Law Review

Under international law, the United States is obligated to criminalize acts of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. However, the federal criminal torture laws employ several terms whose meanings are so indeterminate that they inhibit the statutes' effectiveness and fail to provide adequate guidance regarding precisely which forms of mistreatment may result in prosecution. These ambiguous terms have given rise to serious and prolonged controversies within the executive branch regarding what torture is-controversies that confirm, and may further compound, the uncertainty of liability under the laws in question.

In order to solve this problem of vagueness and provide definitive …

The Market For Criminal Justice: Federalism, Crime Control, And Jurisdictional Competition, Doron Teichman

Michigan Law Review

Part I introduces the concepts of jurisdictional competition and crime displacement and argues that, as a positive matter, a decentralized criminal justice system may create a competitive process among the different units composing it, in which each such unit attempts to divert crime to neighboring communities. Part II then turns to evaluate the normative aspects of jurisdictional competition in the area of criminal justice. In this context I will show that competition can have both advantages and disadvantages. On one hand, the forces of competition might drive jurisdictions to fight crime efficiently, since any jurisdiction that functions inefficiently will suffer …

Police And Thieves, Rosanna Cavallaro

Michigan Law Review

What is it about New York City that has, in the last few years, spawned a series of books attacking the criminal justice system and describing a community in which victims' needs are compelling while the rights of the accused are an impediment to justice? Why does this apocalyptic vision of the system persist, despite statistics demonstrating the sharpest decline in the city's and the nation's crime rates in decades? What explains the acute detachment from the accused that is at the core of this series of books? In Virtual Justice: The Flawed Prosecution of Crime in America, Richard Uviller …

The Ultimate Violation, Todd Maybrown

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Ultimate Violation by Judith Rowland

Disorganized Crime: The Economics Of The Visible Hand, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Disorganized Crime: The Economics of the Visible Hand by Peter Reuter

Do Defendants Have An Attorney When They Have A Public Defender, James Eisenstein

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Counsel for the Poor: Criminal Defense in Urban America by Robert Hermann, Eric Single, and John Boston

Urban Politics And The Criminal Courts, Milton Heumann

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Urban Politics and the Criminal Courts by Martin A. Levin

The Legacy Of The Stubborn And Rebellious Son, Irene Merker Rosenberg, Yale L. Rosenberg

Michigan Law Review

In twentieth century America, as in Biblical ,times, parents unable to subdue their disobedient children are authorized to invoke the coercive power of the state. As recently as 1971, for example, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts rejected constitutional challenges to the state's "stubborn child" law, which at the time of its original enactment in 1646 was patterned after the above-quoted verse from Deuteronomy. The court upheld an adjudication that an adolescent girl who refused to submit to a medical examination, used vulgar language, slammed doors, and stayed outside the home "probably talking with the boys," was a "stubborn child" …

Some Observations On The Disposition Of Ccw Cases In Detroit, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Part I of this Note details the disposition of cases alleging violations of the Michigan CCW statute that were brought in the Detroit recorder's court during 1973. Although the statute is only part of the current scheme of gun control in Michigan, it is the principal weapon available to the police and prosecutor in the preventive battle against the illegal use of firearms. To give meaning to the dispositional statistics and to aid in perceiving the over-all judicial attitude toward CCW cases, the statistical results of the study are compared with statistics on the disposition of cases involving felonies similar …

The Concurrent State And Local Regulation Of Marijuana: The Validity Of The Ann Arbor Marijuana Ordinance, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

The City Council of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has recently amended the City's "marijuana ordinance" so that it prohibits the possession, control, use, giving away, or sale of marijuana, and specifies a five dollar fine as punishment for violations of the ordinance. The State of Michigan has also legislated to prohibit marijuana-related activities, specifying a number of different offenses with penalties ranging as high as four years in prison, or a 2,000 dollar fine, or both. By enacting the ordinance, the City government has minimized the criminal sanctions for an activity it has found essentially benign, pursuant to certain local purposes. …

Silverstein: Defense Of The Poor In Criminal Cases In American State Courts, John F. Grady

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Defense of the Poor in Criminal Cases in American State Courts by Lee Silverstein

Labor Law--Federal Pre-Emption--State Jurisdiction To Prosecute Labor Organizers For Criminal Trespass, John W. Galanis

Michigan Law Review

Defendants, non-employee union organizers, entered the parking lot of a retail department store without permission for the sole purpose of distributing union material to the store's employees. After continued refusal to comply with requests to leave, the defendants were arrested, tried, and convicted of criminal trespass. It was contended that the trial court lacked jurisdiction because the National Labor Relations Act had pre-empted state control of the labor activities involved. On appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, held, affirmed. State jurisdiction was justified not only by the state's interest in domestic peace and the protection of employer's property rights, …

Criminal Law - Insane Persons - Competency To Stand Trial, John H. Hess M.D., Henry B. Pearsall S.Ed., Donald A. Slichter S.Ed., Herbert E. Thomas M.D.

Michigan Law Review

Mental unsoundness in a person accused of a crime raises two distinct legal questions. One is the question of the individual's responsibility for his behavior and the other is the question of the individual's competency to enter into the legal procedures of trial or punishment. In recent years considerable attention has been given to matters of responsibility, but relatively little attention has been paid to the problem of incompetency and especially to the consequences of incompetency proceedings. In order to analyze and evaluate the operations of the Michigan law in the area of incompetency to stand trial, two psychiatrists joined …

Municipal Corporations - Statutory Liability For Mob Violence - Definition Of Correctional Power, Nathan B. Driggers

Michigan Law Review

On August 12, 1947 eight Negro families moved into a Chicago public housing development which was occupied largely by white families. On the evening of August 14, several thousand people, protesting the Negro intrusion, congregated in the area, blocking traffic and brandishing bats, bricks, and stones. A large number of policemen were on duty at the scene. The automobile of the plaintiff, a Negro, was intercepted at an intersection by the crowd which began throwing bricks at the occupants of the car. The plaintiff was struck by one missile and suffered severe physical injury. He brought suit against the city …

Real Property - The Effect Of Zoning Ordinances On The Law Of Nuisance, Robert B. Fiske, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

One of the most interesting and least explored questions in the law of property is the effect of zoning ordinances on the law of nuisance. Particularly interesting is the extent to which statutory authorization by zoning can legalize a use of land which, in the absence of a zoning ordinance, would constitute a nuisance. In order to understand this problem fully it is necessary to begin with a general analysis of the law of nuisance and the various classifications into which it has been divided by the courts.

Eliminating The Battle Of Experts In Criminal Insanity Cases, Henry Weihofen

Michigan Law Review

It is the purpose of this article to discuss certain procedural devices which have been adopted in some jurisdictions, designed to eliminate the ''battle of experts" which still disgraces criminal procedure in most of our states, and to replace it with a more impartial, more scientific, type of investigation.

Criminal Law-A Study Of Statutory Blackmail And Extortion In The Several States, Alice Kramer Griep

Michigan Law Review

In attempting to define the crime of extortion or blackmail, it must be pointed out at the outset that there is a technical crime known as extortion, which stems from the common law, and there is another statutory crime which may be called extortion or blackmail, this latter crime being what the lawyer and laymen usually refer to by the term blackmail. Extortion at common law was the unlawful taking by an officer, by color of his office, of any money or thing of value that was not due him, or more than was due, or before it was due. …

Criminal Law And Procedure - Extradition Of A Juvenile Delinquent, Felicia I. Hmiel

Michigan Law Review

The state of Georgia, by an acting justice of peace of a county, charged a thirteen-year-old boy with the crime of assault with intent to murder. Under the Georgia Criminal Code the offense was punishable by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of two to ten years. The boy was found in the state of New York, whereupon the governor of Georgia sent a requisition for extradition to the governor of New York. The boy defendant brought a habeas corpus proceeding in a New York court to obtain release from custody under the extradition warrant. Held, the defendant …

Criminal Law And Procedure-Federal Courts - Substitution By Supreme Court Of Its Inferences Of Fact For Those Of The State Court, John S. Pennell

Michigan Law Review

The recent cases of Avery v. Alabama and Chambers v. Florida raise the interesting question of the conclusiveness of a fact finding of a state court upon the United States Supreme Court in a criminal trial when the accused claims that one of his constitutional rights has been impaired, and the holding of the state court is to the effect that on the facts presented such right has not been impaired. The case may arise in the United States Supreme Court in either of two ways. It may come up on appeal from a lower federal court denying a petition …

Indictment And Information - Requirement Of Specificity In Charging A Statutory Offense, Ward P. Allen

Michigan Law Review

On an information charging the possession of "a certain habit forming drug, to wit: Marijuana . . . in violation of section 158, Chapter 91, Illinois Revised Statutes (1935)," defendant was convicted in the municipal court of Chicago. The Illinois adoption of the Uniform Narcotic Drug Act made the possession of "any narcotic drug" unlawful; defined "narcotic drugs" to include "cannabis"; and stated that "Cannabis includes the following substances, under whatever names they may be designated: (a) The dried flowering or fruiting tops of the pistillate plant Cannabis Sativa L.," from which the resin has not been extracted; (b) the …

Trusts-Liability Of Trust Estate For Torts Of Trustee

Michigan Law Review

Defendants, trustees of land which had been leased for years to plaintiff, demanded that plaintiff stop removing crops from the land until the past-due rent was paid. Such a removal of crops was a criminal offense by South Carolina statute. In a suit for libel against the defendants in their representative capacity, held, defendants' demurrer sustained. Ross v. Moses, 175 S. C. 355, 179 S. E. 757 (1935).

Criminal Law And Procedure - "Public Enemy" Statutes - Constitutionality

Michigan Law Review

Defendants were convicted of the crime of being disorderly persons within the meaning of section 167, Michigan Public Acts, 1931, No. 328, which provided that "any person who engages in an illegal occupation or business . . . shall be deemed a disorderly person. Proof of recent reputation for engaging in an illegal occupation or business shall be prima fade evidence of being engaged in an illegal occupation or business." Police officers testified as to the reputation of the defendants for being bootleggers, stick-up men, robbers, and murderers. Held, that section 167 of the statute is unconstitutional and void …

Criminal Law In Action- Carrying Concealed Weapons - Chicago Statistics, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

Lawyers are beginning to recognize, though slowly, that enforcement and administration of law are affected more by the psychological conditioning and the character of its administrators than by the content of the law itself. This basis of difference is well demonstrated by some data of Chicago criminal court operations as compared with similar proceedings before Detroit judges.

Presumptions - Constitutional Validity Of Statute Establishing Proof Of Reputation As Prima Facie Evidence Of Commission Of Crime

Michigan Law Review

The rise and sway of the gangster as a menace to American social and economic security has led, of late, to the employment of unique means of combating lawlessness. Faced by a tremendous increase in the difficulties lying in the path of those seeking the conviction of professional criminals for major crimes, the police and prosecutors often turn towards a means of fighting crime originally devised to make life uncomfortable for petty off enders. The enforcement of the pistol laws and the vagrancy statutes against millionaire gangsters, and repeated arrests on suspicion, have been resorted to as a means of …