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Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons™

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Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility

2015

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law Enforcement and Corrections

Fixed Justice: Reforming Plea-Bargaining With Plea-Based Ceilings, Russell D. Covey Nov 2015

Fixed Justice: Reforming Plea-Bargaining With Plea-Based Ceilings, Russell D. Covey

Russell D. Covey

The ubiquity of plea bargaining creates real concern that innocent defendants are occasionally, or perhaps even routinely, pleading guilty to avoid coercive trial sentences. Pleading guilty is a rational choice for defendants as long as prosecutors offer plea discounts so substantial that trial is not a rational strategy regardless of guilt or innocence. The long-recognized solution to this problem is to enforce limits on the size of the plea/trial sentencing differential. As a practical matter, however, discount limits are unenforceable if prosecutors retain ultimate discretion over charge selection and declination. Because the doctrine of prosecutorial charging discretion is immune to …

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The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan Jul 2015

The High Price Of Poverty: A Study Of How The Majority Of Current Court System Procedures For Collecting Court Costs And Fees, As Well As Fines, Have Failed To Adhere To Established Precedent And The Constitutional Guarantees They Advocate., Trevor J. Calligan

Trevor J Calligan

No abstract provided.

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Stop Blaming The Prosecutors: The Real Causes Of Wrongful Convictions And Rightful Exonerations, And What Should Be Done To Fix Them, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean, James J. Berles Apr 2015

Stop Blaming The Prosecutors: The Real Causes Of Wrongful Convictions And Rightful Exonerations, And What Should Be Done To Fix Them, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean, James J. Berles

Adam Lamparello

Wrongfully convicted and rightfully exonerated criminal defendants spent, on average, ten years in prison before exoneration, and the ramifications to the defendants, the criminal justice system, and society are immeasurable.Prosecutorial misconduct, however, is not the primary cause of wrongful convictions. To begin with, although more than twenty million new adult criminal cases are opened in state and federal courts each year throughout the United States, there have been only 1,281 total exonerations over the last twenty-five years. In only six percent of those cases was prosecutorial misconduct the predominant factor resulting in those wrongful convictions. Of course, although prosecutorial misconduct …

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Read, White, And Blue: Prosecutors Reading Inmate Emails And The Attorney-Client Privilege, 48 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1119 (2015), Danielle Burkhardt Jan 2015

Read, White, And Blue: Prosecutors Reading Inmate Emails And The Attorney-Client Privilege, 48 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1119 (2015), Danielle Burkhardt

UIC Law Review

This Comment addresses whether the attorney-client privilege should extend to emails exchanged between an inmate and his or her attorney over TRULINCS, the prison email system. Section II describes the history of the attorney-client privilege, and compares and contrasts the federal privilege with the New York state privilege in order to directly address Dr. Ahmed’s conflict. Section III juxtaposes other forms of privileged attorney-client contact with inmate emailing, and discusses the confidentiality agreement provided through the prison email system, TRULINCS. Finally, Section IV proposes a fiscally responsible, efficient, and convenient solution to the possible extension of the attorney-client privilege to …

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