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Full-Text Articles in Supreme Court of the United States
Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel
Gideon V. Wainwright--From A 1963 Perspective, Jerold H. Israel
Articles
Gideon v. Wainwright is more than a “landmark” Supreme Court ruling in the field of constitutional criminal procedure. As evidenced by the range of celebrators of Gideon’s Fiftieth Anniversary (extending far beyond the legal academy) and Gideon’s inclusion in the basic coverage of high school government courses, Gideon today is an icon of the American justice system. I have no quarrel with that iconic status, but I certainly did not see any such potential in Gideon when I analyzed the Court’s ruling shortly after it was announced in March of 1963. I had previously agreed to write an article for …
Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar
Gideon V. Wainwright A Half Century Later, Yale Kamisar
Reviews
When he was nearing the end of his distinguished career, one of my former law professors observed that a dramatic story of a specific case "has the same advantages that a play or a novel has over a general discussion of ethics or political theory." Ms. Houppert illustrates this point in her very first chapter.
Plea Bargaining And The Right To Counsel At Bail Hearings, Charlie Gerstein
Plea Bargaining And The Right To Counsel At Bail Hearings, Charlie Gerstein
Michigan Law Review
A couple million indigent defendants in this country face bail hearings each year and most of them do so without court-appointed lawyers. In two recent companion cases, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye, the Supreme Court held that the loss of a favorable plea bargain can satisfy the prejudice prong of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. If the Constitution requires effective assistance of counsel to protect plea bargains, it requires the presence of counsel at proceedings that have the capacity to prejudice those bargains. Pretrial detention has the capacity to prejudice a plea bargain because a defendant held …
Effective Trial Counsel After Martinez V. Ryan: Focusing On The Adequacy Of State Procedures, Eve Brensike Primus
Effective Trial Counsel After Martinez V. Ryan: Focusing On The Adequacy Of State Procedures, Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
Everyone knows that excessive caseloads, poor funding, and a lack of training plague indigent defense delivery systems throughout the states, such that the promise of Gideon v. Wainwright is largely unfulfilled. Commentators have disagreed about how best to breathe life into Gideon . Many disclaim any possibility that federal habeas corpus review of state criminal cases could catalyze reform give n the many procedural obstacle s that currently prevent state prisoners from getting into federal court. But the Supreme Court has recently taken a renewed interest in using federal habeas review to address the problem of ineffective attorneys in state …
The Pastor, The Burning House, And The Double Jeopardy Clause: The True Story Behind Evans V. Michigan, David A. Moran
The Pastor, The Burning House, And The Double Jeopardy Clause: The True Story Behind Evans V. Michigan, David A. Moran
Articles
The true story behind Evans v. Michigan is that a man who was probably innocent, and who would almost certainly have been acquitted by the jury, had his trial shortened after it became obvious to the judge that the police had picked up a man who had nothing to do with the fire. In other words, the facts set forth by the Michigan Supreme Court, and repeated by Alito, were grossly misleading. And because I, like Alito, believed the Michigan Supreme Court’s version of the facts, I made a silly mistake when I agreed to take the case. That silly …
When Will Race No Longer Matter In Jury Selection?, Bidish Sarma
When Will Race No Longer Matter In Jury Selection?, Bidish Sarma
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
We are coming upon the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court's opinion in Batson v. Kentucky, which made clear that our Constitution does not permit prosecutors to remove prospective jurors from the jury pool because of their race. The legal question in Batson-when, if ever, can governmental race discrimination in jury selection be tolerated?-was easy. The lingering factual question, however-when will prosecutors cease to discriminate on the basis of race?-has proven far more difficult to answer. The evidence that district attorneys still exclude minorities because of their race is so compelling that it is tempting to assume that race will …
The Illusory Right To Counsel, Eve Brensike Primus
The Illusory Right To Counsel, Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
Imagine a woman wrongly accused of murdering her fianc6. She is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. If convicted, she faces a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Her family scrapes together enough money to hire two attorneys to represent her at trial. There is no physical evidence connecting her to the murder, but the prosecution builds its case on circumstantial inferences. Her trial attorneys admit that they were so cocky and confident that she would be acquitted that they did not bother to investigate her case or file a single pre-trial motion. Rather, they waived the …
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 …
Parens Patriae Run Amuck: The Child Welfare System's Disregard For The Constitutional Rights Of Non-Offending Parents, Vivek Sankaran
Parens Patriae Run Amuck: The Child Welfare System's Disregard For The Constitutional Rights Of Non-Offending Parents, Vivek Sankaran
Articles
Over the past hundred years, a consensus has emerged recognizing a parent's ability to raise his or her child as a fundamental, sacrosanct right protected by the Constitution. Federal courts have repeatedly rejected the parens patriae summary mode of decision making that predominated juvenile courts at the turn of the twentieth century and have instead held that juvenile courts must afford basic due process to parents prior to depriving them of custodial rights to their children. This recognition has led to the strengthening of procedural protections for parents accused of child abuse or neglect in civil child protection proceedings. Yet, …
Procedural Obstacles To Reviewing Ineffective Assistance Of Trial Counsel Claims In State And Federal Postconviction Proceedings., Eve Brensike Primus
Procedural Obstacles To Reviewing Ineffective Assistance Of Trial Counsel Claims In State And Federal Postconviction Proceedings., Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
Ineffective assistance of trial counsel is one of the most frequently raised claims in state and federal postconviction petitions. This is hardly surprising given reports of trial attorneys who refuse to investigate their cases before trial, never meet with their clients before the day of trial, and fail to file any motions or object to inadmissible evidence offered at trial. Unfortunately, the current structure of indigent defense funding makes it impossible for many public defenders to provide effective representation to their clients.
Structural Reform In Criminal Defense: Relocating Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Claims, Eve Brensike Primus
Structural Reform In Criminal Defense: Relocating Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel Claims, Eve Brensike Primus
Articles
This Article suggests a structural reform that could solve two different problems in criminal defense representation. The first problem is that the right to effective trial counsel lacks a meaningful remedy. Defendants are generally not permitted to raise ineffective assistance of counsel claims until collateral review. Given that collateral review typically occurs years after trial, most convicted defendants have completed their sentences by that time and therefore have little incentive to pursue ineffectiveness claims. Moreover, there is no right to counsel on collateral review, and it is unrealistic to expect defendants to navigate the complicated terrain of an ineffectiveness claim …
Justice Frank Murphy And American Labor Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Justice Frank Murphy And American Labor Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine
Articles
Working people and disfavored groups were central concerns of Frank Murphy, the last Michigan Law School graduate to sit on the United States Supreme Court. In the pages of this Review, just over a half century ago, Archibald Cox wrote of him: "It was natural ...th at his judicial work should be most significant in these two fields [labor law and civil rights] and especially in the areas where they coalesce."' In this Essay, after a brief overview of Murphy the man, his days at the University of Michigan, and his career prior to the Court appointment, I shall review …
Motions For Appointment Of Counsel And The Collateral Order Doctrine, Michigan Law Review
Motions For Appointment Of Counsel And The Collateral Order Doctrine, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
This Note argues that denials of motions for appointment of counsel should be immediately appealable under the collateral order exception to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Part I examines the extent to which the collateral order doctrine modifies the finality rule. It argues that recent Supreme Court decisions that at first appear to have narrowed the doctrine have in fact only restated it. Part II applies the collateral order doctrine to orders denying appointment of counsel, concluding that such denials qualify for immediate review. Part III argues that policy considerations support this conclusion.
Justice, Bureaucracy, And Legal Method, Jospeh Vining
Justice, Bureaucracy, And Legal Method, Jospeh Vining
Articles
In the real world justice denied is not justice. Talking from the beginning about access to justice, rather than simply justice, emphasizes in a salutary way this commonplace of citizen and client. Justice that is inaccessible, delayed, refused does not just sit there glowing like a grail, which those separated from it may contemplate and yearn for. It is only in imagining that justice is available to someone, and in imagining what it would be like to be that someone, that one can see the thing as justice at all. To put it in economic terms, justice is not a …
Gideon V. Wainwright: The Art Of Overruling, Jerold H. Israel
Gideon V. Wainwright: The Art Of Overruling, Jerold H. Israel
Articles
During the 1962 Term, the Supreme Court, on a single Monday, announced six decisions concerned with constitutional limitations upon state criminal procedure. The most publicized of these, though probably not the most important in terms of legal theory or practical effect, was Gideon v. Wainwright. In an era of constantly expanding federal restrictions on state criminal processes, the holding of Gideon-that an indigent defendant in a state criminal prosecution has an unqualified right to the appointment of counsel-was hardly startling. And while Gideon will obviously have an important effect in the handful of states that still fail to appoint counsel …