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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
30 = 20: ‘Understanding’ Maximum Sentence Enhancements, Frank R. Herrmann S.J.
30 = 20: ‘Understanding’ Maximum Sentence Enhancements, Frank R. Herrmann S.J.
Frank R. Herrmann, S.J.
In this article, Professor Herrmann argues that the due process protections of a criminal trial should apply to aggravating factors that under current “maximum-enhancing statutes” allow judges to impose lengthier punishments in the sentencing phase. Part I considers the Supreme Court's rationale for refusing to apply full due process safeguards to all types of sentencing schemes. This background will reveal the unique quality of maximum-enhancing statutes and establish why the due process protections of a criminal trial should apply to sentencing under maximum-enhancing statutes. Part I, therefore, undertakes to explain courts' rationales to deny criminal defendants full criminal due process …
Standing Mute At Arrest As Evidence Of Guilt: The 'Right To Silence' Under Attack, Frank R. Herrmann S.J., Brownlow M. Speer
Standing Mute At Arrest As Evidence Of Guilt: The 'Right To Silence' Under Attack, Frank R. Herrmann S.J., Brownlow M. Speer
Frank R. Herrmann, S.J.
It is commonly understood that an arrested person has a right to remain silent and that the government may not use his or her silence to prove guilt at trial. Three Circuit Courts of Appeal, however, reject this understanding. They allow the prosecution to use an arrested person's pre-Miranda silence as direct evidence of guilt. This article argues that those Circuits are wrong. The article, first, demonstrates the historical antiquity of the Common Law principle that a detained person has the right to stand mute. Though the right was limited by statutory incursion and in tension, at times, with the …