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Crafted From Whole Cloth: Reverse Stash-House Stings And The Sentencing Factor Manipulation Claim, Molly F. Spakowski

Buffalo Law Review

Kenneth Flowers is currently serving a mandatory minimum sentence of 120 months imprisonment stemming from a conviction of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. While the ten-year prison sentence is very real, the five-kilograms of cocaine is not, and never was. Mr. Flowers was caught-up in one of the elaborate and overused “reverse stash-house sting” operations employed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”).

Mr. Flowers’ story is one of many similar cases resulting from the government operation conducted by the ATF known as a reverse stash-house sting operation. The …

The Policing Of Prosecutors: More Lessons From Administrative Law?, Aaron L. Nielson

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

On a daily basis, prosecutors decide whether and how to charge individuals for alleged criminal conduct. Although many prosecutors avoid abusing this authority, prosecutors’ discretionary decisions might result in biased enforcement, inappropriate leveraging of authority, and a lack of transparency. These problems also arise when agency enforcement officials decide whether to act on conduct that violates a legal prohibition.

An inherent tension between the desire to avoid overburdening the system and the need to prevent inconsistent decision-making exists in the exercises of both prosecutorial discretion and regulatory enforcement discretion. It is clear from the similarities between the two that administrative …

Prosecutorial Misconduct: Mass Gang Indictments And Inflammatory Statements, K. Babe Howell

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article examines inflammatory statements by prosecutors in the context of mass gang indictments. I contend that inflammatory remarks not only harm the justice system and defendants, particularly minorities, but also that, when prosecutors craft and repeat hyperbolic narratives about vicious gang wars, prosecutors may come to believe the narratives and become effectively blinded to the fact that these narratives are improper, unfair, and untrue. First, I review the professional rules, standards, and case law that prohibit. Then, drawing on press releases and trial transcripts from two mass gang indictments in New York City, I demonstrate how prosecution statements exaggerate …

Prosecutorial Discretion: The Difficulty And Necessity Of Public Inquiry, Bruce A. Green

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prosecutors’ discretionary decisions have enormous impact on individuals and communities. Often, prosecutors exercise their vast power and discretion in questionable ways. This Article argues that, to encourage prosecutors to use their power wisely and not abusively, there is a need for more informed public discussion of prosecutorial discretion, particularly with regard to prosecutors’ discretionary decisions about whether to bring criminal charges and which charges to bring. But the Article also highlights two reasons why informed public discussion is difficult—first, because public and professional expectations about how prosecutors should use their power are vague; and, second, because, particularly in individual cases, …

Decarcerating America: The Opportunistic Overlap Between Theory And (Mainly State) Sentencing Practice As A Pathway To Meaningful Reform, Mirko Bagaric, Daniel Mccord

Buffalo Law Review

Criminals engender no community sympathy and have no political capital. This is part of the reason that the United States has the highest prison population on earth, and by a considerable margin. Incarceration levels grew four-fold over the past forty years. Despite this, America is now experiencing an unprecedented phenomenon whereby many states are now simultaneously implementing measures to reduce prison numbers. The unusual aspect of this is that the response is neither coordinated nor consistent in its approach, but the movement is unmistakable. This ground up approach to reducing prison numbers suffers from the misgiving that it is an …

The Impact Of Prosecutorial Misconduct, Overreach, And Misuse Of Discretion On Gender Violence Victims, Leigh Goodmark

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prosecutors are failing victims of gender violence as witnesses and when they become defendants in cases related to their own victimization. But it is questionable whether that behavior should be labeled misconduct. The vast majority of these behaviors range from misuses of discretion to things that some might consider best practices in handling gender violence cases. Nonetheless, prosecutors not only fail to use their discretion appropriately in gender violence cases, but they take affirmative action that does tremendous harm in the name of saving victims and protecting the public. The destructive interactions prosecutors have with victims of gender violence are …

Class V. United States: An Imperfect Application Of The Menna-Blackledge Doctrine To Post-Guilty Plea Constitutional Claims, Nikolaus Albright

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bargained Justice: The History And Psychology Of Plea Bargaining And The Trial Penalty, Lucian E. Dervan

Law Faculty Scholarship

In Bargained Justice: The History and Psychology of Plea Bargaining and the Trial Penalty, Lucian E. Dervan traces the historical evolution of plea bargaining from its rejection under English common law to its dominance in modern American criminal adjudication.The article demonstrates that inducements to plead guilty—once condemned as coercive and incompatible with truth-seeking—emerged in the United States in the nineteenth century, expanded during periods of overcriminalization and prohibition, and were ultimately constitutionalized in Brady v. United States (1970). Dervan critically examines the Supreme Court’s assumption in Brady that innocent defendants would not falsely plead guilty in significant numbers. Drawing …

Envisioning Abolition Democracy, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

For decades, police in Chicago chained people in their custody to the wall in dark, windowless rooms and subjected their captives to beatings, electric shocks, anal rape, and racial abuse. In July 2016, members of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, created in the aftermath of numerous police killings in Chicago and elsewhere, occupied vacant lots adjacent to the Chicago Police Department’s Homan Square facility — one of the locations where such abuse occurred. The Collective sought justice, not through recourse to the criminal courts or civil litigation, but instead by reconceptualizing justice in connection with efforts to end reliance on imprisonment and …

Are Police Obsolete? Breaking Cycles Of Violence Through Abolition Democracy, V. Noah Gimbel, Craig Muhammad

Cardozo Law Review

On February 5, 2018, Baltimore activists organized a successful "cease-fire weekend," during which no one was killed-and the cops were not to thank. Indeed, as community anti-violence organizers worked to cool hot feuds in order to prove that endless violence was not their destiny, the Baltimore Police Department was sinking ever-deeper into perhaps the most shocking police corruption scandal of the twenty-first century.

The stark contrast between ordinary city residents risking their safety to fight against violence in their community and a corrupt police force committing and propagating acts of violence in the microcosmic streets of Baltimore raises what may …

Pretext And Justification: Republicanism, Policing, And Race, Ekow N. Yankah

Cardozo Law Review

On April 4, 2015, Police Officer Michael Slager gunned down Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina with a cool that resembled target practice. Scott's name joined a heartbreaking list of men of color killed by unjustified police violence. The video of the incident also broadcast to the world the spectacular violence always lurking beneath the surface of daily interactions between police and men of color.

The "Black Lives Matter" movement has fiercely insisted Scott's death not be viewed as an isolated incident but understood as woven into the fabric of American policing. American policing harms individual people of color, …

Defending White Space, Addie C. Rolnick

Cardozo Law Review

Police violence against minorities has generated a great deal of scholarly and public attention. Proposed solutions-ranging from body cameras to greater federal oversight to anti-bias training for police-likewise focus on violence as a problem of policing. Amid this national conversation, however, insufficient attention has been paid to private violence. This Article examines the relationship between race, self-defense laws, and modern residential segregation. The goal is to sketch the contours of an important but undertheorized relationship between residential segregation, private violence, and state criminal law. By describing the interplay between residential segregation and modern self-defense law, this Article reveals how criminal …

Re-Examining Custody And Incarceration Requirements In Postconviction Dna Testing Statutes, Ian J. Postman

Cardozo Law Review

Part I describes the history of custody and incarceration requirements in PC DNA testing statutes, as well as the interaction between those requirements and state sex offender registration acts. Part II analyzes a number of custody and incarceration requirements across various states. Part III proposes the elimination of custody requirements from PC DNA testing statutes and rebuts concerns about removing these requirements. Ultimately, this Note argues that custody and incarceration requirements specifically harm those who have been wrongly convicted of sex offenses, and the requirements' fundamental incongruity with the goals of PC DNA testing support their complete elimination from PC …

Familial Searching: How Implementing Minimum Safeguards Ensures Constitutionally-Permissible Use Of This Powerful Investigative Tool, Alexandra Nieto

Cardozo Law Review

This Note supports the adoption of Familial DNA Search Policies. by states that have not yet taken a position on the issue. Part I of this Note provides background on the role of Familial Searches in criminal investigations. This includes a discussion on the nature of Familial Searches, why they are useful, and the current state of the law. Part I also considers the different guidelines and protections in existing Familial Search Policies, as well as states' policies regulating their DNA databases. Part II discusses the Fourth Amendment and equal protection concerns implicated by Familial Searches and how a court …

How Do We Know If Prosecutors Are Doing A Good Job?, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Common Law Evidence And The Common Law Of Human Rights: Towards A Harmonic Convergence?, John D. Jackson

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

This Article considers the impact which European Human Rights Law has made upon the common law rules of evidence with reference to the approach the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has adopted towards exclusionary rules of evidence. Particular attention will be given to rules that have been developed by the ECtHR in relation to the right to counsel during police questioning (the so-called “Salduz” doctrine) and the right to examine witnesses (the so-called “sole or decisive” evidence rule). The Article argues that the effect of these rules has encouraged common law judges to engage more holistically with the effect …

Multiple Foster Care Placements Should Be Considered A Mitigating Factor In Criminal Proceedings, Daniel Pollack, Khaya Novick Eisenberg Dr., Amanda Dolce Esq.

Ohio Northern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Punishing Poverty: Robinson & The Criminal Cash Bond System, Lauren Bennett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The current cash bail system works in a way that punishes poverty. In Robinson v. California, the Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment to punish an individual for a status or condition. Poverty is a status. The cash bail system is unconstitutional under Robinson and the Eighth Amendment because it punishes the status of poverty. Similar to drug addiction, poverty “may be contracted innocently or involuntarily or it might even take hold from the moment of a person’s birth.” Kalief Browder had no control over his family’s financial position. Yet, this financial position kept him …

Bail Reform And Intimate Partner Violence In Maine, Mac Walton

Maine Law Review

The bail reform movement is leading to pretrial practice changes across the country, largely aimed at reducing pretrial detention rates or uncoupling pretrial detention from money. These reforms often include expanding or formalizing the role of actuarial risk assessment tools in bail determinations. Maine has not enacted bail reforms to expressly reduce pretrial detention, but since 2015, Maine courts have been using a risk assessment tool in bail decisions in intimate partner violence cases. Analysis of risk assessment practices in Kentucky and New Jersey, in comparison with the particular considerations in IPV cases, can inform Maine’s current bail system and …

Felon Jurors In Vacationland, James M. Binnall

Maine Law Review

Maine is the only jurisdiction in the United States that places no limitations on a convicted felon’s juror eligibility. Instead, Maine screens prospective felon-jurors using their normal jury selection procedures. In recent years, scholars have suggested that meaningful community engagement can help facilitate former offenders’ reintegration and criminal desistance. From that theoretical posture, a number of empirical studies have explored the connection between participation in the electorate and the reentry of former offenders. Those studies suggest that voting has the potential to prompt pro-social changes among former offenders. Still, to date, no research has focused on jury service as a …

Bloody Hell: How Insufficient Access To Menstrual Hygiene Products Creates Inhumane Conditions For Incarcerated Women, Lauren Shaw

Texas A&M Law Review

For thousands of incarcerated women in the United States, dealing with menstruation is a nightmare. Across the country, many female prisoners lack sufficient access to feminine hygiene products, which negatively affects their health and rehabilitation. Although the international standards for the care of female prisoners have been raised in attempt to eliminate this issue, these stan- dards are often not followed in the United States. This Comment argues that denial of feminine hygiene products to female prisoners violates human de- cency. Additionally, this Comment considers possible constitutional violations caused by this denial, reviews current efforts to correct this problem, and …

Harm, Sex, And Consequences, India Thusi

Utah Law Review

At a moment in history when this country incarcerates far too many people, criminal legal theory should set forth a framework for reexamining the current logic of the criminal legal system. This Article is the first to argue that “distributive consequentialism,” which centers the experiences of directly impacted communities, can address the harms of mass incarceration and mass criminalization. Distributive consequentialism is a framework for assessing whether criminalization is justified. It focuses on the outcomes of criminalization rather than relying on indeterminate moral judgments about blameworthiness, or “desert,” which are often infected by the judgers’ own implicit biases. Distributive consequentialism …

Stemming The Expansion Of The Void-For-Vagueness Doctrine Under Johnson, Clancey Henderson

Utah Law Review

This Note addresses the constitutionality of the risk-of-force clause. Since many of the cases challenging the risk-of-force clause proceed on the argument that it is indistinguishable from the ACCA’s residual clause, the history of the residual clause is particularly relevant. Addressing the constitutionality of the risk-of-force clause will necessarily entail a discussion of whether it is distinguishable from the residual clause. Accordingly, brief histories of the ACCA and the residual clause will be given. This overview will provide a backdrop to the discussion of the Supreme Court’s struggle to define and apply the residual clause in numerous cases preceding the …

Federalization’S Folly, Stephen F. Smith

San Diego Law Review

Overcriminalization and overpunishment are the two key features of federal criminal law today, yet the “federalization” of criminal law has accomplished precious little in terms of public safety. The failed drug war proves as much: federal prosecutors have filled the nation’s prisons with low-level drug dealers and drug users serving long sentences, but drugs remain widely available at greater purity and lower prices throughout the land—and drug overdoses are at record highs. Instead of focusing on areas of federal comparative advantage, such as terrorism, international drug trafficking, and organized crime, federal prosecutors waste scarce resources “playing district attorney”—that is to …

Reforming Competence Restoration Statutes: An Outpatient Model, Susan A. Mcmahon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Defendants who suffer from mental illness and are found incompetent to stand trial are often ordered committed to an inpatient mental health facility to restore their competence, even if outpatient care may be the better treatment option. Inpatient facilities are overcrowded and place the defendants on long waiting lists. Some defendants then spend weeks, months, or even years in their jail cell, waiting for a transfer to a hospital bed.

Outpatient competence restoration programs promise to relieve this pressure. But even if every state suddenly opened a robust outpatient competence restoration program, an obstacle looms: the statutes governing competence restoration, …

Protecting The Fifth Amendment: The Residual Clause In The Mandatory Guidelines Is Void For Vagueness, Olivia M. Tourgee

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

The first part of this Note will address the specific problem the Mandatory Guidelines present. First, the Mandatory Guidelines will be defined, and the mandatory and binding nature of these Mandatory Guidelines will be explored in depth. Second, this Note will explain the significance of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Booker that declared the Mandatory Guidelines unconstitutional. Third, this Note will evaluate Beckles, where the Supreme Court held that the Advisory Guidelines were not subject to vagueness challenges. Thus, the first part of this Note will set the stage for the problem that the Mandatory Guidelines present.

The second …

Protecting Due Process During Terrorism Adjudications: Redefining "Crimes Against Humanity" And Eliminating The Doctrine Of Complimentary Jurisdiction In Favor Of The International Criminal Court, Daniel N. Clay

Arkansas Law Review

“When we sit in judgment we are holding ourselves out as people—as the kind of a community—that are worthy of this task. It is the seriousness, the gravity, of the act of judgment which gives rise to our legitimate and laudable emphasis on procedural fairness and substantive accuracy in criminal procedure. But these things focus on the defendant—the one judged. I am concerned about us who would presume to sit in judgment. Who are we that we should do this? Whether we intend to do so or not, we answer this question in part through the way we conduct our …

The Thirteenth Amendment, Prison Labor Wages, And Interrupting The Intergenerational Cycle Of Subjugation, Josh Halladay

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that meager or no compensation for prisoners, who are disproportionately black and other persons of color, entraps them and their children in a cycle of subjugation that dates back to the days of slavery, and this Comment proposes to interrupt this cycle by setting a minimum wage for prisoners and creating college savings accounts for their children. As part of the cycle, when people enter prisons and the doors behind them close, so do their families’ bank accounts and the doors to their children’s schools. At the same time, the cells next to them open, ready to …

When A Tent Is Your Castle: Constitutional Protection Against Unreasonable Searches Of Makeshift Dwellings Of Unhoused Persons, Evanie Parr

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will argue that all jurisdictions should follow the Washington State Court of Appeals, Division II in validating makeshift dwellings used by people experiencing homelessness as spaces protected from unwarranted police intrusions by shifting evaluations of “reasonable expectations of privacy” to a more equitable standard that appreciates the realities of economic disparity. This approach to constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures is imperative to protect the rights of people experiencing homelessness, given that such individuals are regularly subjected to invasions of privacy and heightened exposure to the criminal justice system.

Sentence For The Damned: Using Atkins To Understand The “Irreparable Corruption” Standard For Juvenile Life Without Parole, Zachary Crawford-Pechukas

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note suggests that guidance should be drawn from the Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence regarding the execution of intellectually disabled offenders. Atkins v. Virginia paved the way for the juvenile sentencing cases as the Supreme Court for the first time found that, under the Eighth Amendment, a selected class of offenders—the intellectually disabled — were not eligible for the state’s harshest penalty—the death penalty— because of their diminished culpability. Atkins similarly left the state courts to figure out how to decide whether an individual offender met this amorphous standard, “intellectually disabled.” As state courts grappled with this standard and …