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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Procedure
Legal Innocence And Federal Habeas, Leah Litman
Legal Innocence And Federal Habeas, Leah Litman
Articles
Although it has long been thought that innocence should matter in federal habeas corpus proceedings, innocence scholarship has focused almost exclusively on claims of factual innocence-the kind of innocence that occurs when new evidence reveals that the defendant did not commit the offense for which he was convicted. The literature has largely overlooked cases where a defendant was convicted or sentenced under a statute that is unconstitutional, or a statute that does not apply to the defendant. The Supreme Court, however, has recently begun to recognize these cases as kinds of innocence and it has grounded its concern for them …
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Articles
In January 2015, the Supreme Court directed the parties to brief and argue an additional question in Johnson v. United States: “Whether the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), is unconstitutionally vague.” The order represents an unusual move because the defendant had not raised the vagueness issue and the Court issued the order after it had already heard argument on the question raised in the petition for certiorari. Commentators therefore view the order as a signal that the Court will likely invalidate the residual clause. This decision will have been several years …
Collateral Review Of Career Offender Sentences: The Case For Coram Nobis, Douglas J. Bench Jr.
Collateral Review Of Career Offender Sentences: The Case For Coram Nobis, Douglas J. Bench Jr.
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Occasionally, criminals correctly interpret the law while courts err. Litigation pursuant to the federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) includes numerous examples. The ACCA imposes harsher sentences upon felons in possession of firearms with prior "violent felony" convictions. Over time, courts defined "violent" so contrary to its common meaning that it eventually came to encompass driving under the influence, unwanted touching, and the failure to report to correctional facilities. However, in a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has attempted to clarify the meaning of violent in the context of the ACCA and, in the process, excluded such offenses. …
Litigation Strategies For Dealing With The Indigent Defense Crisis, Eve Brensike Primus
Litigation Strategies For Dealing With The Indigent Defense Crisis, Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
The indigent defense delivery system in the United States is in a state of crisis. Public defenders routinely handle well over 1,000 cases a year, more than three times the number of cases that the American Bar Association says one attorney can handle effectively. As a result, many defendants sit in jail for months before even speaking to their court-appointed lawyers. And when defendants do meet their attorneys, they are often disappointed to learn that these lawyers are too overwhelmed to provide adequate representation. With public defenders or assigned counsel representing more than 80% of criminal defendants nationwide, the indigent …
From Miranda To §3501 To Dickerson To...(Symposium: Miranda After Dickerson: The Future Of Confession Law), Yale Kamisar
From Miranda To §3501 To Dickerson To...(Symposium: Miranda After Dickerson: The Future Of Confession Law), Yale Kamisar
Articles
Once the Court granted [certiorari in Dickerson] court-watchers knew the hour had come. At long last the Court would have to either repudiate Miranda, repudiate the prophylactic-rule cases [the cases viewing Miranda's requirements as not rights protected by the Constitution, but merely "prophylactic rules"] or offer some ingenious reconciliation of the two lines of precedent. The Supreme Court of the United States, however, doesn't "have to" do anything, as the decision in Dickerson once again reminds us.
Congress' Arrogance, Yale Kamisar
Congress' Arrogance, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Does Dickerson v. U.S., reaffirming Miranda and striking down §3501 (the federal statute purporting to "overrule" Miranda), demonstrate judicial arrogance? Or does the legislative history of §3501 demonstrate the arrogance of Congress? Shortly after Dickerson v. U.S. reaffirmed Miranda and invalidated §3501, a number of Supreme Court watchers criticized the Court for its "judicial arrogance" in peremptorily rejecting Congress' test for the admissibility of confessions. The test, pointed out the critics, had been adopted by extensive hearings and debate about Miranda's adverse impact on law enforcement. The Dickerson Court did not discuss the legislative history of §3501 at all. However, …
"Can (Did) Congress 'Overrule' Miranda?, Yale Kamisar
"Can (Did) Congress 'Overrule' Miranda?, Yale Kamisar
Articles
I think the great majority of judges, lawyers, and law professors would have concurred in Judge Friendly's remarks when he made them thirty-three years ago. To put it another way, I believe few would have had much confidence in the constitutionality of an anti-Miranda provision, usually known as § 3501 because of its designation under Title 18 of the United States Code, a provision of Title II of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (hereinafter referred to as the Crime Act or the Crime Bill), when that legislation was signed by the president on June 19, …
The Path To Habeas Corpus Narrows: Interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(D)(1), Sharad Sushil Khandelwal
The Path To Habeas Corpus Narrows: Interpreting 28 U.S.C. § 2254(D)(1), Sharad Sushil Khandelwal
Michigan Law Review
The enforcement of the U.S. Constitution within the criminal justice system is an odd subspecies of constitutional law. In areas other than criminal law, federal courts act as the ultimate guarantors of constitutional rights by providing remedies whenever violations occur. Criminal law, however, is different by necessity; the bulk of criminal justice occurs in state courthouses, leaving constitutional compliance largely to state judges. The U.S. Supreme Court, of course, may review these decisions if it chooses, but a writ of certiorari can be elusive, especially given the Court's shrinking docket. After World War II, however, this feature of criminal constitutional …