Jurisprudence Commons^™

Rethinking The Involuntary Confession Rule: Toward A Workable Test For Identifying Compelled Self-Incrimination, Mark A. Godsey

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

For more than a century, the Supreme Court has interpreted the Bill of Rights as prohibiting the police from obtaining involuntary confessions from suspects through the use of coercion. If asked whether this involuntary confession rule is an understandable and workable doctrine, however, a noticeable percentage of judges, prosecutors, police officers, criminal defense attorneys and law professors would answer with an unequivocal no.

Basic questions concerning voluntariness and free will - whether it exists, and if so, when it exists, etc. - have puzzled philosophers for centuries and represent one of history's Gordian knots. Not surprisingly, judges have fared no …

Do The United States Sentencing Guidelines Deprive Defendants Of Due Process?, Bradford Mank

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

It is difficult to determine whether due process requires individualized sentencing because sentencing goals and practices have varied greatly during the course of this nation's history. A court applying Judge Bork's original intent doctrine of constitutional interpretation would probably reach a result different from that reached by a court employing a more liberal view of due process protections.1o It is likely that liberals and conservatives on the current Supreme Court would disagree on whether the Guidelines violate due process.

This article argues that the Guidelines can be saved and can satisfy due process requirements if the Supreme Court interprets the …