Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Putting Together The Pieces: The Mosaic Theory And Fourth Amendment Jurisprudence Since Carpenter, Ben Vanston

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Warrant Nullification, L. Joe Dunman

West Virginia Law Review

Police officers execute thousands of search warrants in the United States every year, often looking for drugs in people's homes. Many search warrants are executed by militarized "dynamic entry" teams who violently conduct raids late at night with little or no warning, guns drawn. These raids have killed and injured hundreds of people nationwide-not just suspects but also officers and bystanders. Protests erupt in response, the community divides, and trust in institutions crumbles.

Legislative and executive policy can reduce the violence of search warrant executions, but could there also be a judicial option? This Article explores one such option ...

The Burden Of Time: Government Negligence In Pandemic Planning As A Catalyst For Reinvigorating The Sixth Amendment Speedy Trial Right, Sara Hildebrand, Ashley Cordero

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Calling Strikes: The Sixth Circuit’S Interpretation Of The Prison Litigation Reform Act, Emily O'Hara

Boston College Law Review

On May 3, 2021, in Simons v. Washington, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a court’s non-binding “strike” recommendation under the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) did not violate the PLRA or Article III of the United States Constitution. Courts agree that binding strikes are impermissible, but disagree on the underlying reasoning. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that the PLRA, which revokes in forma pauperis filing from indigent prisoner-litigants after three qualifying dismissals, renders binding strikes impermissible before a prisoner accrues three strikes. By resolving the issue using the PLRA, the Sixth Circuit found ...

Procedural Pitfalls: The Eleventh Circuit Holds That The Sentencing Commission’S Policy Statement On Sentence Reduction Is Binding On Defendant-Filed Motions, Allison Cheney

Boston College Law Review

On May 7, 2021, in United States v. Bryant, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s policy statement in Section 1B1.13 of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines binds defendant-filed motions for compassionate release. In its Application Notes, the policy statement provides four “extraordinary and compelling circumstances” that warrant a sentence reduction. Application Note 1(D) is the “catch-all provision” because it states that judges may grant compassionate release for “other reasons” not specifically listed in the preceding Application Notes. Application Note 1(D) states that the Director of ...

Prosecution In Public, Prosecution In Private, Lauren M. Ouziel

Notre Dame Law Review

Criminal procedure has long set a boundary between public and private in criminal enforcement: generally speaking, enforcement decisions at the post-charging stage are exposed to some degree of public view, while those at the pre-charging stage remain almost entirely secret. The allocation of public and private is, at heart, an allocation of power—and the current allocation is a relic. When private prosecutors were the mainstay of criminal enforcement, public court processes effectively constrained them. But those processes do little to constrain the spaces where enforcement power today resides: in decisions by the servants of a state-run, professionalized enforcement apparatus ...

Combating Recidivism, Shaylin Daley

Senior Honors Projects

SHAYLIN DALEY (Psychology) Combating Recidivism Sponsor: Lisa Holley (Political Science) Many people believe that criminals cannot be helped. It is evident that at least some of society shuns people who break laws and have negative views about the amount of money spent on detaining inmates. Thousands of individuals are released from United States prisons a day. Many of these individuals have no plan in place for their return home and are sent into the streets with nothing except for a jail ID. Most of these people will end up returning to prison. A good sum of these people face problems ...

The Death Penalty Standard That Won’T Die: The Georgia Supreme Court Maintains The Highest Possible Standard Of Proof For The Mentally Disabled, Alyssa Ledoux

Mercer Law Review

Several serious issues arise when applying the death penalty to the mentally disabled. First, the social purposes served by the death penalty, retribution and deterrence, are questionable when it comes to the mentally disabled. Retribution by execution is reserved for those at the highest level of culpability or the highest level of conscious and depraved guilt. Likewise, execution is viewed as an effective deterrent on cold calculus that is not found in individuals with a mental disability.

Second, challenges the disabled face, such as the tendency to falsely confess, the lesser ability to present a persuasive showing of mitigating factors ...

Prisoners, Punitive Damages, And Precedent, Oh My! The Eleventh Circuit In Hoever Overrules Prior Interpretation Of The Prison Litigation Reform Act, Tatiana Dobretsova

Mercer Law Review

Imagine you are a prisoner at Dooly State Prison in Unadilla, Georgia. A squad of about thirty officers march into the prison one day, dressed in riot gear, chanting, “kill, kill, kill.” The officers begin cursing and ordering inmates to get out of their cells, even yanking some by their shirts if they are not moving quickly enough. As you and the other inmates rush out of your cells, you are subjected to body cavity searches—you are ordered to strip naked, squat and cough, turn around, and bend over, all in the presence of several officers. An officer hands ...

Ding Dong! The Count Is Dead, Or Is It?: Criminal Defendants May Not Directly Appeal Convictions If Unresolved Counts Are On The Dead Docket, Lilly B. Nickels

Mercer Law Review

A defendant is indicted on two criminal counts, is found guilty on one of those counts, and is sentenced to time in prison. However, the jury could not come to a decision on the other count, so the trial court judge places the count on the court’s dead docket where the count could remain for an indefinite period of time, deeming the defendant’s case pending in the trial court. Due to the defendant’s case being classified as pending, the defendant does not have the right to a direct appeal. The defendant must helplessly serve prison time without ...

The Restorative Prison: Essays On Inmate Peer Ministry & Prosocial Corrections, Michael A. Hallett

Showcase of Faculty Scholarly & Creative Activity

Drawing on work from inside some of America’s largest and toughest prisons, this book documents an alternative model of "restorative corrections" utilizing the lived experience of successful inmates, fast disrupting traditional models of correctional programming. While research documents a strong desire among those serving time in prison to redeem themselves, inmates often confront a profound lack of opportunity for achieving redemption. In a system that has become obsessively and dysfunctionally punitive, often fewer than 10% of prisoners receive any programming. Incarcerated citizens emerge from prisons in the United States to reoffend at profoundly high rates, with the majority of ...

Symposium Transcript

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

No abstract provided.

Psychosis, Heat Of Passion, And Diminished Responsibility, E. Lea Johnston, Vincent T. Leahey

Boston College Law Review

This Article calls for the creation of a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Currently, most jurisdictions recognize only one partial excuse: the common law heat-of-passion defense. Empirical research demonstrates that populations with delusions experience similar impairments to decision-making capacities as people confronted with sudden, objectively adequate provocation. Yet, current law affords significant mitigation only to the latter group, which only applies in murder cases. Adoption of the Model Penal Code’s “extreme mental or emotional disturbance” (EMED) defense could extend mitigation to other forms of diminished responsibility. However, examination of jurisdictions’ adoption and utilization of the ...

The Future Of The Allen Charge In The New Millennium, Caleb Epperson

Arkansas Law Review

"In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same." Following the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, social and political movements grew rapidly nationwide to combat the prevalence of police brutality against African-American communities. The impact of the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement has been observed in both cities across the United States and in related movements internationally. This movement highlights the necessity for police reform and catalyzes the public’s growing call for greater criminal justice reform. To achieve the ...

Can't We Just Talk About This First?: Making The Case For The Use Of Discovery Depositions In Arkansas Criminal Cases, Bryan Altman

Arkansas Law Review

“[T]he quest for better justice is a ceaseless quest, that the single constant for our profession is the need for continuous examination and reexamination of our premises as to what law should do to achieve better justice.” From time to time, it is important that we take stock of our legal surroundings and ask ourselves if our procedures are still properly serving us, or if there is need for change and improvement. In this Article, I argue that the time has come for Arkansas to provide the criminal defense bar with the affirmative power to conduct discovery depositions. Arkansas ...

Modern Sentencing Mitigation, John B. Meixner Jr.

Northwestern University Law Review

Sentencing has become the most important part of a criminal case. Over the past century, criminal trials have given way almost entirely to pleas. Once a case is charged, it almost always ends up at sentencing. And notably, judges learn little sentencing-relevant information about the case or the defendant prior to sentencing and have significant discretion in sentencing decisions. Thus, sentencing is the primary opportunity for the defense to affect the outcome of the case by presenting mitigation: reasons why the nature of the offense or characteristics of the defendant warrant a lower sentence. It is surprising, then, that relatively ...

Is Misdemeanor Cash Bail An Unconstitutional Excessive Fine?, Barnett J. Harris

Pepperdine Law Review

The Excessive Fines Clause is one of the least developed clauses pertaining to criminal procedure in the Bill of Rights. In fact, the Supreme Court has only interpreted the Clause a few times in its entire history. Yet, on any given day, hundreds of thousands of people languish in jails without having been convicted of anything, because most of these people are unable to meet the bail amount a judge sets. This Essay examines the surprisingly under-explored relationship between misdemeanor cash bail & pretrial detention and the Excessive Fines and Excessive Bail Clauses of the Eighth Amendment, using the Supreme Court ...

Children Behind Bars: A Path To Reducing Pre-Adjudicative Detention In The Juvenile Justice System, Rebecca Stark

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

In 2019, nearly 16,000 young people referred to the juvenile justice system were detained in juvenile facilities. Nearly 10,000 of them had not yet been found to have committed a crime. When it comes to youthful offenders, one might assume that courts would be inclined to exhibit leniency and favor pretrial release. In reality, judges detain youth pretrial in over a quarter of delinquency cases.

Pretrial detention does not affect all youth at an equal rate: juvenile court judges consistently detain older youths more often than younger youths, more boys than girls, and far more children of ...

Quo Vadis? Assessing New York’S Civil Forfeiture Law, Steven L. Kessler

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Minimum Sentences, Maximum Suffering: A Proposal To Reform Mandatory Minimum Sentencing, Jordan Ramsey

Helm's School of Government Conference

This paper offers several proposals to reform mandatory minimum sentencing laws and asks how we can best uphold Freedom and the Rule of Law within sentencing law.