Criminal Law Commons^™

Newsroom: Logan On 2015'S Record Settlements, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

Also available @ http://law.rwu.edu/story/logan-2015s-record-settlements

Overcoming Overcriminalization, Stephen Smith

Stephen F. Smith

The literature treats overcriminalization (and, at the federal level, the federalization of crime) as a quantitative problem. Legislatures, on this view, have simply enacted too many crimes, and those crimes are far too broad in scope. This Article uses federal criminal law as a basis for challenging this way of conceptualizing the overcriminalization problem. The real problem with overcriminalization is qualitative, not quantitative: federal crimes are poorly defined, and courts all too often expansively construe poorly defined crimes. Courts thus are not passive victims in the vicious cycle of overcriminalization. Rather, by repeatedly interpreting criminal statutes broadly, courts have taken …

Overcoming Overcriminalization, Stephen Smith

Stephen F. Smith

The literature treats overcriminalization (and, at the federal level, the federalization of crime) as a quantitative problem. Legislatures, on this view, have simply enacted too many crimes, and those crimes are far too broad in scope. This Article uses federal criminal law as a basis for challenging this way of conceptualizing the overcriminalization problem. The real problem with overcriminalization is qualitative, not quantitative: federal crimes are poorly defined, and courts all too often expansively construe poorly defined crimes. Courts thus are not passive victims in the vicious cycle of overcriminalization. Rather, by repeatedly interpreting criminal statutes broadly, courts have taken …

Criminal Ambiguity: Redefining The Clean Water Act’S Mens Rea Requirements, Bobby Yu

Seton Hall Circuit Review

No abstract provided.

The Current State Of The Insanity Defense In Virginia, Jacob Gordon

The Kabod

Based upon British common law and legal precedents, the American legal system allows individuals with severe mental instability to plead not guilty by reason of insanity when charged with a criminal offense. In order to prove this claim, defendants are required to show that their mental capacity at the time of the crime was not sufficient enough in order to establish culpability and responsibility for their actions. Proving insanity is a difficult task, requiring that defendants confess to the crime, convince a jury of their insanity, and pass two independent psychological evaluations before they can be released. Because of these …

Dying To Appeal: The Long-Lasting And Ineffective Appeal Process Of The Death Sentence, Marlene Brito

Marlene Brito

The appeal process for death sentences in Florida must be revised to correct the ineffectiveness that is currently in place. The long-lasting procedure allows inmates to indefinitely delay their execution and live via the appeal process for over fifteen years because the statute does not provide a definite time limit. The comment discusses the death penalty in the United States, the jury override law and its consequences, the appeal process itself, and proposes an amendment to section 921.141, Florida Statutes.

Punitive Compensation, Cortney E. Lollar

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Criminal restitution is a core component of punishment. In its current form, this remedy rarely serves restitution's traditional aim of disgorging a defendant's ill-gotten gains. Instead, courts use this monetary award not only to compensate crime victims for intangible losses, but also to punish the defendant for the moral blameworthiness of her criminal action. Because the remedy does not fit into the definition of what most consider "restitution," this Article advocates for the adoption of a new, additional designation for this prototypically punitive remedy: punitive compensation. Unlike with restitution, courts measure punitive compensation by a victim's losses, not a defendant's …

To Catch The Lion, Tether The Goat: Entrapment, Conspiracy, And Sentencing Manipulation, Derrick Augustus Carter

Akron Law Review

This article examines how sentencing enhancement schemes play into undercover operations and manipulation ploys. This article reviews entrapment doctrines, starting with the common law principles of unclean hands and estoppel, to settled principles of objective and subjective entrapment. Through principles of conspiracy, the undercover operation ensnares perpetrators who intend factually impossible crimes, as long as an overt step is taken. Sentencing enhancement crimes, induced by government agents, must be proven before a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. A reciprocal corollary is that the accused must be able to defend enhancement accusations through defenses such as sentencing manipulation and sentencing entrapment. …

Remarks: Neuroscience, Gender, And The Law, Stacey A. Tovino Jd, Phd

Akron Law Review

n my recent research, I have been exploring the legal impact of advances in the neuroscience of gender, such as whether and how stakeholders are using recent studies finding structural and functional differences between male and female brains in an attempt to influence the law. I also have been examining whether and how stakeholders are using the neuroscience of both gender-specific and gender-prevalent health conditions to influence the interpretation of civil and regulatory health law. Today, I am going to explore how stakeholders are using advances in the neuroscience of three gender-specific and genderprevalent conditions (the postpartum mood disorders, premenstrual …

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 …

The "Once An Adult, Always An Adult" Doctrine: More Harm Than Good, Kaitlin Pegg

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

This Note focuses on the negative effects of the “once an adult, always an adult” doctrine, one mechanism through which juveniles convicted of a crime can be transferred to adult court. The doctrine, enacted in a majority of states, provides that children who have been previously transferred to adult court by a judge or prosecutor, or because of statutory exclusion of certain crimes from juvenile jurisdiction, will be transferred for all subsequent crimes, regardless of severity.

When juveniles convicted of crimes are transferred to the adult court system, they are subject to a wide array of harsh punishments unavailable in …

Prosecutions Of Extraterritorial Criminal Conduct And The Abuse Of Rights Doctrine, Danielle Ireland-Piper

Danielle Ireland-Piper

Under international law, states can in certain circumstances institute domestic prosecutions over conduct occurring extraterritorially. Such exercises of extraterritorial jurisdiction sit at the crossroads of domestic and international law and can be highly controversial. This paper considers whether the abuse of rights doctrine is useful in regulating assertions of extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction. Part I introduces the principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction under international law. Part II provides examples of some of the problems that can arise in domestic prosecutions of extraterritorial criminal conduct, compromising the ability of an individual to enjoy a fair trial. Part III considers the effectiveness of the …

Autonomous Weapons And Accountability: Seeking Solutions In The Law Of War, Kelly Cass

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Autonomous weapons are increasingly used by militaries around the world. Unlike conventional unmanned weapons such as drones, autonomous weapons involve a machine deciding whether to deploy lethal force. Yet, because a machine cannot have the requisite mental state to commit a war crime, the legal scrutiny falls onto the decision to deploy an autonomous weapon. This Article focuses on the dual questions arising from that decision: how to regulate autonomous weapon use and who should be held criminally liable for an autonomous weapon’s actions. Regarding the first issue, this Article concludes that regulations expressly limiting autonomous weapon use to non-human …

The Jaffe Case And The Use Of International Kidnapping As An Alternative To Extradition, Wade A. Buser

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Temporal Arbitrariness: A Back To The Future Look At A Twenty-Five-Year-Old Death Penalty Trial, Mary Kelly Tate

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

There Goes The Neighborhood: Florida's Crackdown On Adverse Possession In The Wake Of The Foreclosure Crisis, Phillip V. Urban

Phillip V Urban

An examination of the creative use of adverse possession in Florida following the foreclosure crisis, and the State's heavy-handed reaction to the practice.

Constructing Crimmigration: Latino Subordination In A “Post-Racial” World, Yolanda Vazquez

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Over the last forty years, the concern over the relationship between noncitizens and criminality has reached epic proportions. Laws, policies, procedures, and rules have been developed, the immigration and criminal justice system have been employed, and billions of dollars have been spent towards detecting, detaining, prosecuting, and removing those who are targeted as posing “the greatest threat to the nation.” As a result, a “new” phenomenon emerged, crimmigration, that not only redesigned the criminal and immigration systems, but also brought about a cultural transformation in the United State —restructuring social categories, diminishing economic and political power, and perpetuating the marginalization …

The Right To No: The Crime Of Marital Rape, Women's Human Rights, And International Law, Melanie Randall, Vasanthi Venkatesh

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

More than half of the world’s countries do not explicitly criminalize sexual assault in marriage. While sexual assault in general is criminalized in these countries, sexual assault perpetrated by a spouse is entirely legal. The human rights violations inhere in acts of violence against women are now well recognized. Yet somehow marital rape is a particular form of gendered violence that has escaped both criminal law sanctions and human rights approbation in a great number of the world’s nations.

This silence in the law creates legal impunity for men who sexually assault or rape the women who are their wives …