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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Evidence
Bending The Rules Of Evidence, Edward K. Cheng, G. Alexander Nunn, Julia Simon-Kerr
Bending The Rules Of Evidence, Edward K. Cheng, G. Alexander Nunn, Julia Simon-Kerr
Northwestern University Law Review
The evidence rules have well-established, standard textual meanings—meanings that evidence professors teach their law students every year. Yet, despite the rules’ clarity, courts misapply them across a wide array of cases: Judges allow past acts to bypass the propensity prohibition, squeeze hearsay into facially inapplicable exceptions, and poke holes in supposedly ironclad privileges. And that’s just the beginning.
The evidence literature sees these misapplications as mistakes by inept trial judges. This Article takes a very different view. These “mistakes” are often not mistakes at all, but rather instances in which courts are intentionally bending the rules of evidence. Codified evidentiary …
The State Secrets Privilege: An Institutional Process Approach, Alexandra B. Dakich
The State Secrets Privilege: An Institutional Process Approach, Alexandra B. Dakich
Northwestern University Law Review
It is no secret that since September 11, 2001, the Executive Branch has acted at variance with laws otherwise restraining its conduct under the guise of national security. Among other doctrines that make up the new national security canon, state secrets privilege assertions have narrowed the scope of redressability for parties alleging official misconduct in national security cases. For parties such as the Muslim American community surveilled by the FBI in Orange County, California, or Abu Zubaydah, who was subjected to confirmed torture tactics by the U.S. government, success in the courts hinges on the government’s unbridled ability to assert …
Innovating Criminal Justice, Natalie Ram
Innovating Criminal Justice, Natalie Ram
Northwestern University Law Review
From secret stingray devices that can pinpoint a suspect’s location, to advanced forensic DNA-analysis tools, to recidivism risk statistic software—the use of privately developed criminal justice technologies is growing. So too is a concomitant pattern of trade secret assertion surrounding these technologies. This Article charts the role of private law secrecy in shielding criminal justice activities, demonstrating that such secrecy is pervasive, problematic, and ultimately unnecessary for the production of well-designed criminal justice tools.
This Article makes three contributions to the existing literature. First, the Article establishes that trade secrecy now permeates American criminal justice, shielding privately developed criminal justice …
Discovering Forensic Fraud, Jennifer D. Oliva, Valena E. Beety
Discovering Forensic Fraud, Jennifer D. Oliva, Valena E. Beety
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay posits that certain structural dynamics, which dominate criminal proceedings, significantly contribute to the admissibility of faulty forensic science in criminal trials. The authors believe that these dynamics are more insidious than questionable individual prosecutorial or judicial behavior in this context. Not only are judges likely to be former prosecutors, prosecutors are “repeat players” in criminal litigation and, as such, routinely support reduced pretrial protections for defendants. Therefore, we argue that the significant discrepancies between the civil and criminal pretrial discovery and disclosure rules warrant additional scrutiny.
In the criminal system, the near absence of any pretrial discovery means …
Riley And Abandonment: Expanding Fourth Amendment Protection Of Cell Phones, Abigail Hoverman
Riley And Abandonment: Expanding Fourth Amendment Protection Of Cell Phones, Abigail Hoverman
Northwestern University Law Review
In light of the privacy concerns inherent to personal technological devices, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in 2014 recognizing the need for categorical heightened protection of cell phones during searches incident to arrest in Riley v. California. This Note argues for expansion of heightened protections for cell phones in the context of abandoned evidence because the same privacy concerns apply. This argument matters because state and federal courts have not provided the needed protection to abandoned cell phones pre- or post-Riley.
Gatekeeping Science: Using The Structure Of Scientific Research To Distinguish Between Admissibility And Weight In Expert Testimony, David L. Faigman, Christopher Slobogin, John Monahan
Gatekeeping Science: Using The Structure Of Scientific Research To Distinguish Between Admissibility And Weight In Expert Testimony, David L. Faigman, Christopher Slobogin, John Monahan
Northwestern University Law Review
Fundamental to all evidence rules is the division of responsibility between the judge, who determines the admissibility of evidence, and the jury, which gauges its weight. In most evidentiary contexts, such as those involving hearsay and character, threshold admissibility obligations are clear and relatively uncontroversial. The same is not true for scientific evidence. The complex nature of scientific inference, and in particular the challenges of reasoning from group data to individual cases, has bedeviled courts. As a result, courts vary considerably on how they define the judge’s gatekeeping task under Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and its state equivalents.
This …
Moving Beyond Miranda: Concessions For Confessions, Scott W. Howe
Moving Beyond Miranda: Concessions For Confessions, Scott W. Howe
Northwestern University Law Review
The law governing police interrogation provides perverse incentives. For criminal suspects, the law rewards obstruction and concealment. For police officers, it honors deceit and psychological aggression. For the courts and the rest of us, it encourages blindness and rationalization. This Article contends that the law could help foster better behaviors. The law could incentivize criminals to confess without police trickery and oppression. It could motivate police officers involved in obtaining suspect statements to avoid chicanery and duress. And, it could summon courts and the rest of us to speak more truthfully about whether suspect admissions are the product of informed, …
Forced Decryption As Equilibrium—Why It’S Constitutional And How Riley Matters, Dan Terzian
Forced Decryption As Equilibrium—Why It’S Constitutional And How Riley Matters, Dan Terzian
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay considers whether the government can force a person to decrypt his computer. The only courts to consider the issue limited their analyses to rote application of predigital doctrine and dicta. This is a mistake; courts should instead aim to maintain the ex ante equilibrium of privacy and government power. This approach—seeking equilibrium—was just endorsed by the Supreme Court in Riley v. California, a recent Fourth Amendment case. Yet Riley’s rationale also extends to the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause, and maintaining equilibrium there requires permitting forced decryption. Because current doctrine can be interpreted as allowing forced decryption, …