Criminal Law Commons^™

The Second Founding And Self-Incrimination, William M. Carter Jr.

Northwestern University Law Review

The privilege against self-incrimination is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights. Protection against coerced or involuntary self-incrimination safeguards individual dignity and autonomy, preserves the nature of our adversary system of justice, helps to deter abusive police practices, and enhances the likelihood that confessions will be truthful and reliable. Rooted in the common law, the privilege against self-incrimination is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination and Due Process Clauses. Although the Supreme Court’s self-incrimination cases have examined the privilege’s historical roots in British and early American common law, the Court’s jurisprudence has overlooked an important source of historical evidence: the …

Vega V. Tekoh And The Erosion Of Miranda: A Reframing Of Miranda As A Procedural Due Process Requirement, Tess A. Chaffee

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Private Police Regulation And The Exclusionary Remedy: How Washington Can Eliminate The Public/Private Distinction, Jared Rothenberg

Washington Law Review

Private security forces such as campus police, security guards, loss prevention officers, and the like are not state actors covered by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures nor the Fifth Amendment’s Miranda protections. As members of the umbrella category of “private police,” these private law enforcement agents often obtain evidence, detain individuals, and elicit confessions in a manner that government actors cannot, which can then be lawfully turned over to the government. Though the same statutory law governing private citizens (assault, false imprisonment, trespass, etc.) also regulates private police conduct, private police conduct is not bound by …

Interrogating The Nonincorporation Of The Grand Jury Clause, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

With the Supreme Court's recent incorporation-in Ramos v. Louisiana of the Sixth Amendment's jury unanimity requirement to apply to the states, the project of "total incorporation" is all but complete in the criminal procedure context. Virtually every core criminal procedural protection in the Bill of Rights has been incorporated through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to constrain not only the federal government but also the states with one exception. The Fifth Amendment's grand jury right now stands alone as the only federal criminal procedural right the Supreme Court has permitted states to ignore. In one of the …

Pretrial Custody And Miranda, Kit Kinports

Washington and Lee Law Review

In two recent opinions, Maryland v. Shatzer and Howes v. Fields, the Supreme Court concluded that inmates serving prison sentences were not in custody for purposes of Miranda—in Shatzer’s case while he was living among the general prison population and in Fields’s case while he was undergoing police interrogation. The question addressed in this Article is one that has divided the lower courts in the wake of those two decisions: the impact of the Court’s rulings on the hundreds of thousands of pretrial detainees in this country, many of whom are poor, Black, and Brown. This Article maintains that …

When Is Police Interrogation Really Police Interrogation? A Look At The Application Of The Miranda Mandate, Paul Marcus

Catholic University Law Review

Decades after the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona, questions abound as to what constitutes interrogation when a suspect is in custody. What appeared a concise, uniform rule has, in practice, left the Fifth Amendment waters muddied. This article addresses a potential disconnect between law enforcement and the courts by analyzing examples of issues arising from Miranda’s application in an array of case law. Ultimately, it attempts to clarify an ambiguity by offering a standard for what conduct classifies as an interrogation.

Abridging The Fifth Amendment: Compelled Decryption, Passwords, & Biometrics, Raila Cinda Brejt

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Technological developments change the way we perform tasks by creating more efficient solutions to old problems and giving rise to opportunities not previously possible. Advances in communications technology have made the world feel smaller and more accessible. These changes also affect the methodology of both criminal activity and the investigative procedures of law enforcement. Our fundamental rights are challenged as judges and state actors try to strike the perfect balance between longstanding values and contemporary problems. This Note considers the Fifth Amendment challenges that arise when law enforcement attempts to obtain evidence from a criminal defendant’s encrypted device. This Note …

Rock And Hard Place Arguments, Jareb Gleckel, Grace Brosofsky

Seattle University Law Review

This Article explores what we coin “rock and hard place” (RHP) arguments in the law, and it aims to motivate mission-driven plaintiffs to seek out such arguments in their cases. The RHP argument structure helps plaintiffs win cases even when the court views that outcome as unfavorable.

We begin by dissecting RHP dilemmas that have long existed in the American legal system. As Part I reveals, prosecutors and law enforcement officials have often taken advantage of RHP dilemmas and used them as a tool to persuade criminal defendants to forfeit their constitutional rights, confess, or give up the chance to …

School “Safety” Measures Jump Constitutional Guardrails, Maryam Ahranjani

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder and efforts to achieve racial justice through systemic reform, this Article argues that widespread “security” measures in public schools, including embedded law enforcement officers, jump constitutional guardrails. These measures must be rethought in light of their negative impact on all children and in favor of more effective—and constitutionally compliant—alternatives to promote school safety. The Black Lives Matter, #DefundthePolice, #abolishthepolice, and #DefundSchoolPolice movements shine a timely and bright spotlight on how the prisonization of public schools leads to the mistreatment of children, particularly children with disabilities, boys, Black and brown children, and low-income children. …

Shackling Prejudice: Expanding The Deck V. Missouri Rule To Nonjury Proceedings, Sadie Shourd

Vanderbilt Law Review

Courts in the United States have traditionally held that criminal defendants have the right to be free from unwarranted restraints visible to the jury during the guilt phase of a trial. The term “unwarranted restraints” refers to the use of restraints on a defendant absent a court’s individualized determination that such restraints are justified by an essential state interest. In Deck v. Missouri, the Supreme Court expanded the prohibition against unwarranted restraints to the sentencing phase of a trial. The law regarding the unwarranted shackling of defendants in nonjury proceedings, however, remains unsettled. The U.S. Courts of Appeals for the …

Custodial Compulsion, Kyron J. Huigens

Articles

In cases that fall under Miranda v Arizona, police interrogators not only give a suspect reasons to confess; they also suggest that the suspect ought to confess. In doing so, interrogators effectively invoke the Wigmorean duty of a citizen to produce any evidence he has in his possession, including his own confession. That is, they invoke the duty against which the Self Incrimination Clause stands, so that the clause is applicable to police interrogations, and is violated where it is not waived. This means that “a Miranda violation” is a violation of the Self Incrimination Clause in the field, just …

What Am I Really Saying When I Open My Smartphone: A Response To Prof. Kerr, Laurent Sacharoff

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

In his forthcoming article in the Texas Law Review, Compelled Decryption and the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination, Orin S. Kerr addresses a common question confronting courts. If a court orders a suspect or defendant to enter her password to open a smartphone or other device as part of a law enforcement investigation, does that order violate the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?

To answer this question, Kerr appropriately looks by analogy to existing Fifth Amendment case law as applied to document subpoenas, the “act of production” doctrine, and its mysterious cousin, the “foregone conclusion” doctrine. From these materials, he gleans a …

Regulating Interrogations And Excluding Confessions In The United States: Balancing Individual Rights And The Search For Truth, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Like other criminal justice systems, the U.S. system must balance, on the one hand, enforcing the criminal law and, on the other, protecting individual rights in the process. Reliable fact-finding is a prerequisite to the effective enforcement of criminal law and to just outcomes. Protection of individual rights often promotes reliable fact-finding, as when a ban on involuntary confessions prevents the introduction of unreliable testimony at trial. On occasion, however, the commitment to accurate fact-finding may conflict with individual rights in a particular case. One of the clearest examples of such a conflict occurs when a court must decide whether …

Judges Do It Better: Why Judges Can (And Should) Decide Life Or Death, Andrew R. Ford

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Following its decision in Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court of the United States has attempted to standardize procedures that states use to subject offenders to the ultimate penalty. In practice, this attempt at standardization has divided capital sentencing into two distinct parts: the death eligibility decision and the death selection decision. The eligibility decision addresses whether the sentencer may impose the death penalty, while the selection decision determines who among that limited subset of eligible offenders is sentenced to death. In Ring v. Arizona, the Court held for the first time that the Sixth Amendment right to …

When Big Brother Becomes “Big Father”: Examining The Continued Use Of Parens Patriae In State Juvenile Delinquency Proceedings, Emily R. Mowry

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

The U.S. Constitution grants American citizens numerous Due Process rights; but, historically, the Supreme Court declined to extend these Due Process rights to children. Initially, common-law courts treated child offenders over the age of seven in the same manner as adult criminals. At the start of the 20th century, though, juvenile reformers assisted in creating unique juvenile courts that used the parens patriae doctrine and viewed children as delinquent youths in need of judicial parental guidance rather than punishment. Later, starting in 1967, the Supreme Court released multiple opinions extending certain constitutional Due Process rights to children in juvenile delinquency …

Self Incrimination And Cryptographic Keys, Gregory S. Sergienko

Greg Sergienko

Modern cryptography can make it virtually impossible to decipher documents without the cryptographic key thus making the availability of the contents of those documents depend on the availability of the key. This article examines the Fourth and Fifth Amendments' protection against the compulsory production of the key and the scope of the Fifth Amendment immunity against compelled production. After analyzing these questions using prevailing Fourth and Fifth Amendment jurisprudence, I shall describe the advantages of a privacy-based approach in practical and constitutional terms. [excerpt]

Unlocking The Fifth Amendment: Passwords And Encrypted Devices, Laurent Sacharoff

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Each year, law enforcement seizes thousands of electronic devices — smartphones, laptops, and notebooks — that it cannot open without the suspect’s password. Without this password, the information on the device sits completely scrambled behind a wall of encryption. Sometimes agents will be able to obtain the information by hacking, discovering copies of data on the cloud, or obtaining the password voluntarily from the suspects themselves. But when they cannot, may the government compel suspects to disclose or enter their password?

This Article considers the Fifth Amendment protection against compelled disclosures of passwords — a question that has split and …

Finality Of A Conviction: A Noncitizen's Right To Procedural Due Process, Daniela Mondragon

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain

Maine Law Review

Young children are frequently precluded from testifying at trial on the grounds of incompetency because they cannot answer questions about abstract concepts regarding “truth” and “lies.” In this situation, should the child’s earlier, out-of-court statements disclosing the abuse and identifying the abuser also be inadmissible? The stakes are huge. If young children cannot testify, and their out-of-court statements are precluded, they simply become safe prey, unprotected by the judicial system. The pivotal question becomes, are there procedures that can ensure fairness both to children and to their alleged abusers? This article argues that a child’s testimonial incapacity at trial ought …

Book Review: James Duane, You Have The Right To Remain Innocent: What Police Officers Tell Their Children About The Fifth Amendment, Cecily J. Mullins

ConLawNOW

In this essay, the student author reviews the book You Have the Right to Remain Innocent by James Duane, which emphasizes the inherent risks of speaking to the police, regardless of whether or not you have something to hide.

Fifty Years Later And Miranda Still Leaves Us With Questions, Nicole Langston, Bernice B. Donald

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This affords the suspect safeguards to make an informed choice between speech and silence and prevents involuntary statements. Although Miranda warnings are seemingly standard, the Miranda decision did not come without criticism.' Now, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision, the topic still garners intense debate.' Even after all of these years, there are still critics who do not support Miranda warnings, and now they rely on long-term studies about the effectiveness of Miranda warnings to support their positions. Yet, even with these new studies, there still remains some ambiguity about the effectiveness of Miranda rights concerning whether …

Law Enforcement And Criminal Law Decisions, Erwin Chemerinsky

Erwin Chemerinsky

No abstract provided.

The Prophylactic Fifth Amendment, Tracey Maclin

Faculty Scholarship

Before Miranda was decided, the Court had not squarely confronted the issue of when a violation of the Fifth Amendment occurs. Over fifty years ago, the Court acknowledged that the right against self-incrimination has two interrelated facets: The Government may not use compulsion to elicit self-incriminating statements; and the Government may not permit the use in a criminal trial of self-incriminating statements elicited by compulsion. Back then, the “conceptual difficulty of pinpointing” when a constitutional violation occurs — when the Government employs compulsion, or when the compelled statement is actually admitted at trial — was unimportant. Chavez v. Martinez forced …

The Law Court's Proper Application Of Miranda In State V. Bragg: A "Matter-Of-Fact Communication" To The Defendant Regarding Evidence Against Him Will Not Typically Constitute "Interrogation", Stephen B. Segal

Maine Law Review

In State v. Bragg, Tammy Bragg was convicted of a Class D crime for operating under the influence (OUI) at the completion of a jury trial, and was ordered to pay a fine of $800 and her license was suspended for ninety days. During her trial, Bragg submitted a motion to suppress statements she made in the police officer’s vehicle and the police station on the grounds that she was not read her Miranda warnings prior to making the statements. The Superior Court denied her motion, however, concluding that Miranda warnings were not necessary in the officer’s vehicle because her …

State V. Lovejoy: Should Pre-Arrest, Pre-Miranda Silence Be Admissible During The State's Case-In-Chief As Substantive Evidence Of Guilt?, Mark A. Rucci

Maine Law Review

Article 1, section 6 of Maine Constitution reads in part that “[t]he accused shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself or herself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, property, or privileges . . . .” Further, the Law Court has held that “the State constitutional protection against self-incrimination is the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment." However, as with most provisions of the Constitution, the protection against self-incrimination is open to interpretation. While the Supreme Court has answered some questions surrounding the Fifth Amendment’s protections, it has left many decisions regarding its scope largely within the purview of the …

Compulsion, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

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 …

Policing In The Era Of Permissiveness: Mitigating Misconduct Through Third-Party Standing, Julian A. Cook Iii

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was driving his vehicle when he was stopped by Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department for a broken taillight. A dash cam video from the officer’s vehicle showed the two men engaged in what appeared to be a rather routine verbal exchange. Sometime after Slager returned to his vehicle, Scott exited his car and ran away from Slager, prompting the officer to pursue him on foot. After he caught up with Scott in a grassy field near a muffler establishment, a scuffle between the men ensued, purportedly …

A Defendant's Fifth Amendment Right And Double Jeopardy In Contempt Cases, Saba Khan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

"I Plead The Fifth": New York's Integrated Domestic Violence Courts And The Defendant's Fifth Amendment Dilemma, Rhona Mae Amorado

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.