Criminal Law Commons^™

Contemporary Soviet Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The General Principles And Major Institutions Of Post-1958 Soviet Criminal Law, Chris Osakwe

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Fighting Back Against Revenge Porn: A Legislative Solution, Alex Jacobs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Death Penalty And The Fifth Amendment, Joseph Blocher

Northwestern University Law Review

Can the Supreme Court find unconstitutional something that the text of the Constitution “contemplates”? If the Bill of Rights mentions a punishment, does that make it a “permissible legislative choice” immune to independent constitutional challenges?

Recent developments have given new hope to those seeking constitutional abolition of the death penalty. But some supporters of the death penalty continue to argue, as they have since Furman v. Georgia, that the death penalty must be constitutional because the Fifth Amendment explicitly contemplates it. The appeal of this argument is obvious, but its strength is largely superficial, and is also mostly irrelevant to …

Warning: Stop-And-Frisk May Be Hazardous To Your Health, Josephine Ross

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Flawed Reasoning Behind Johnson V. United States And A Solution: Why A Facts-Based Approach Should Have Been Used To Interpret The Residual Clause Of The Armed Career Criminal Act, Jake Albert

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

How Reasonable Are Reasonable Efforts For The Children Of Incarcerated Parents?, Courtney Serrato

Golden Gate University Law Review

This article will discuss the development of the laws concerning children with incarcerated parents. Ultimately, the goal is to encourage states like California to (1) expand the law regarding reasonable efforts even further, (2) encourage California prisons to take into consideration exceptions for children and incarcerated parents in implementing prison policies, and (3) provide other states with a model for proposing new laws that can be put into practice. The background of this article will explain the federal implementation of The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) and the necessary changes California made to state law after the enactment of …

Paved With Good Intentions: Title Ix Campus Sexual Assault Proceedings And The Creation Of Admissible Victim Statements, Sara F. Dudley

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Comment argues that campuses should, in the course of their Title IX proceedings, ensure that anyone who takes a potentially admissible statement from a survivor has received trauma-informed interview training. Trauma-informed interviewing acknowledges the physiological effect of trauma on survivors, the impact that it can have on their ability to recall facts and details, and the limits and possibilities of obtaining information from such witnesses. In addition, campuses should limit the number of individuals who take statements from survivors and record the victim’s statements. These improvements will create statements of higher evidentiary quality. It will also mitigate the emotional …

Managing Fear-Based Derogation In Murder Trials, John Rafael Perez

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

No Drop Prosecution & Domestic Violence: Screening For Cooperation In The City That Never Speaks, Allessandra Decarlo

Journal of Law and Policy

Throughout history, domestic violence has been infamously kept behind closed doors and outside of our legislature. It was not until the 1960s, due to the efforts of the battered women’s movement, that the U.S. government began to address domestic violence as a social ill and offered protection to victims through statutes and policies in both State and Federal capacities. This note elaborates on one such policy, known as a “No-Drop” policy, which has been implemented by prosecutor’s offices throughout New York City’s five boroughs, as a mechanism to aggressively combat domestic violence. “No- Drop” policies allow prosecutors to vigorously prosecute …

Potholes: Dui Law In The Budding Marijuana Industry, Zack G. Goldberg

Brooklyn Law Review

The rapid legalization of marijuana across the United States has produced a number of novel legal issues. One of the most confounding issues is that presented by the marijuana-impaired driver. In jurisdictions that have legalized the use of marijuana, how high is too high to get behind the wheel? This note assesses the various marijuana DUI laws that states have implemented to combat marijuana-impaired driving. Many of these statutes have followed in the footsteps of the BAC-based standard used to combat drunk driving—using THC measurements to quantify a driver’s level of marijuana-based impairment. Unfortunately, unlike alcohol, the scientific properties of …

The Question Concerning Technology In Compliance, Sean J. Griffith

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In this symposium Essay, I apply insights from philosophy and psychology to argue that modes of achieving compliance that focus on technology undermine, and are undermined by, modes of achieving compliance that focus on culture. Insisting on both may mean succeeding at neither. How an organization resolves this apparent contradiction in program design, like the broader question of optimal corporate governance arrangements, is highly idiosyncratic. Firms should therefore be accorded maximum freedom in designing their compliance programs, rather than being forced by enforcement authorities into a set of de facto mandatory compliance structures.

Accidental Vitiation: The Natural And Probable Consequence Of Rosemond V. United States On The Natural And Probable Consequence Doctrine, Evan Goldstick

Fordham Law Review

Recently, the Court decided Rosemond v. United States. In Rosemond, the Court had to determine the requisite mental state for aiding and abetting a particular federal crime. While the Court had the opportunity to weigh in on the natural and probable consequence doctrine in Rosemond, it declined to do so in footnote 7. This Note reviews the natural and probable consequence doctrine, its reception by courts and commentators, and the Court’s holding in Rosemond. This Note then applies the holding of Rosemond to several federal cases that employed the doctrine to determine whether, despite footnote 7, …

Dishonest Ethical Advocacy?: False Defenses In Criminal Court, Joshua A. Liebman

Fordham Law Review

This Note examines this dilemma and recent judicial approaches to it. Judges disagree about how guilty criminal defendants should be permitted to mount defenses at trial. Some have forbidden defense counsel from knowingly advancing any false exculpatory proposition. Others have permitted guilty defense attorneys to present sincere or truthful testimony in order to bolster a falsehood. And still others have signaled more general comfort with the idea that an attorney aggressively can pursue an acquittal on behalf of a guilty client. This Note seeks to resolve this issue by parsing the range of false defense tactics available to attorneys and …

Attempt, Merger, And Transferred Intent, Nancy Ehrenreich

Brooklyn Law Review

Recent years have seen a dramatic expansion in the transferred-intent doctrine via rulings involving attempt liability. In its basic form, transferred intent allows an intentional actor with bad aim who kills an unintended victim (instead of the intended target) to be punished for murder. Today, some courts allow conviction in such situations not only of transferred intent murder as to the actual victim, but of attempted murder of the intended victim as well. Critics of this expansion (as well as other similar variations) have argued that it distorts the meaning of transferred intent and imposes liability disproportionate to culpability. Little …

Exploring The Conflicts Within Carceral Feminism: A Call To Revocalize The Women Who Continue To Suffer, Krishna De La Cruz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Pulse: Finding Meaning In A Massacre Through Gay Latinx Intersectional Justice, Judith E. Koons

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Punishing Genocide: A Comparative Empirical Analysis Of Sentencing Laws And Practices At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Rwandan Domestic Courts, And Gacaca Courts, Barbora Hola, Hollie Nyseth Brehm

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This article compares sentencing of those convicted of participation in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. With over one million people facing trial, Rwanda constitutes the world’s most comprehensive case of criminal accountability after genocide and presents an important case study of punishing genocide. Criminal courts at three different levels— international, domestic, and local—sought justice in the aftermath of the violence. In order to compare punishment at each level, we analyze an unprecedented database of sentences given by the ICTR, the Rwandan domestic courts, and Rwanda’s Gacaca courts. The analysis demonstrates that sentencing varied across the three levels—ranging from limited time …

Case Note: Case Of Vasiliauskas V. Lithuania In The European Court Of Human Rights, Stoyan Panov

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

No abstract provided.

Say Hello To My Little Friend Civil Rico: The Third Circuit Green Lights Insurance Shakedown Of Big Pharma With In Re Avandia, Marie Bussey-Garza

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

A New Sentencing Blueprint: The Third Circuit Allows Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Fraud Convictions To Be Offset By Construction Contract Performance In United States V. Nagle, Christopher C. Reese

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To The West Virginia Law Review Flawed Forensics And Innocence Symposium, Valena E. Beety

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Scandal, Fraud, And The Reform Of Forensic Science: The Case Of Fingerprint Analysis, Simon A. Cole

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Folklore And Forensics: The Challenges Of Arson Investigation And Innocence Claims, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Paul Bieber

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla

Mercer Law Review

As in prior periods, this year's survey of criminal law will include only a few of the most significant cases and statutory amendments. Due to the constant evolution of criminal laws in our society, it is simply not practical to attempt to make note of every legal development. Therefore, the discussion is limited to those changes that will have the widest application and interest to criminal law practitioners for the period from June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2016.

Computer Fraud And Abuse Act Enforcement: Cruel, Unusual, And Due For Reform, Tiffany Curtiss

Washington Law Review

This Comment argues that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) uses an outdated concept of technology in everyday activities that can lead to unexpected and grossly disproportional federal criminal charges. The CFAA’s vague definitions passively provide broad prosecutorial discretion that may turn millions of everyday internet users into criminals, even in cases of a common breach of an online terms-of-service agreement. Congress should look to the Eighth Amendment and draw from its principles in reforming the CFAA. The Comment concludes with a proposed interpretation of the CFAA that would better align the statute with other criminal laws, namely trespass. …

Strengths And Limitations Of Forensic Science: What Dna Exonerations Have Taught Us And Where To Go From Here, Vanessa Meterko

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Legal And Ethical Puzzle: Defense Counsel As Quasi Witness, Elizabeth Slater

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. criminal justice system is built on the concept of an adversarial trial. The defense and prosecution present competing narratives to a neutral audience that judges whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt. In this context, defense counsel is expected to be a zealous advocate for the defendant, providing the most effective representation possible in light of the evidence presented by the government. However, there are occasions outside of trial where defense counsel’s traditional role changes and she is asked to disclose, not to the jury, but to the court, personal opinions and knowledge about …

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 …

An Uncivil Action: Criminalizating Daubert In Procedure And Practice To Avoid Wrongful Convictions, Jessica G. Cino

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building The Infrastructure For "Justice Through Science": The Texas Model, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.