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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Pleas' Progress, Stephanos Bibas May 2004

Pleas' Progress, Stephanos Bibas

Michigan Law Review

George Fisher's new book, Plea Bargaining's Triumph, is really three books in one. The first part is a careful, detailed explanation of how and why plea bargaining exploded in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the nineteenth century. This part is the fruit of an impressive amount of original research in Massachusetts court records and newspaper archives. The second part of the book looks more broadly at other academic histories of plea bargaining in England, California, and New York. It explains how the forces that produced plea bargaining in Middlesex County likewise contributed to plea bargaining's rise elsewhere. The final part …


The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted And Transformed, Richard D. Friedman Jan 2004

The Confrontation Clause Re-Rooted And Transformed, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

For several centuries, prosecution witnesses in criminal cases have given their testimony under oath, face to face with the accused, and subject to cross-examination at trial. The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees the procedure, providing that ‘‘[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witness against him.’’ In recent decades, however, judicial protection of the right has been lax, because the U.S. Supreme Court has tolerated admission of outof- court statements against the accused, without cross-examination, if the statements are deemed ‘‘reliable’’ or ‘‘trustworthy.’’ …