Digital Commons Network^™

Managing Fear-Based Derogation In Murder Trials, John Rafael Perez

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Strengths And Limitations Of Forensic Science: What Dna Exonerations Have Taught Us And Where To Go From Here, Vanessa Meterko

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Folklore And Forensics: The Challenges Of Arson Investigation And Innocence Claims, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Paul Bieber

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Scandal, Fraud, And The Reform Of Forensic Science: The Case Of Fingerprint Analysis, Simon A. Cole

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Uncivil Action: Criminalizating Daubert In Procedure And Practice To Avoid Wrongful Convictions, Jessica G. Cino

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Building The Infrastructure For "Justice Through Science": The Texas Model, Sandra Guerra Thompson, Nicole Bremner Cásarez

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Forensics And Fallibility: Comparing The Views Of Lawyers And Jurors, Brandon L. Garrett, Gregory Mitchell

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innocent Suffering: The Unavailability Of Post-Conviction Relief In Virginia Courts, Kaitlyn Potter

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment examines actual innocence in Virginia: the progress it has made, the problems it still faces, and the possibilities for reform. Part I addresses past reform to the system, spurred by the shocking tales of Thomas Haynesworth and others. Part II identifies three of the most prevalent systemic challenges marring Virginia's justice system: (1) flawed scientific evidence; (2) the premature destruction of evidence; and (3) false confessions and guilty pleas. Part III suggests ways in which Virginia can, and should, address these challenges to ensure that the justice system is actually serving justice.

Recording A New Frontier In Evidence-Gathering: Police Body-Worn Cameras And Privacy Doctrines In Washington State, Katie Farden

Seattle University Law Review

This Note contributes to a growing body of work that weighs the gains that communities stand to make from police body-worn cameras against the tangle of concerns about how cameras may infringe on individual liberties and tread on existing privacy laws. While police departments have quickly implemented cameras over the past few years, laws governing the use of the footage body-worn cameras capture still trail behind. Notably, admissibility rules for footage from an officer’s camera, and evidence obtained with the help of that footage, remain on the horizon. This Note focuses exclusively on Washington State’s laws. It takes a clinical …

The Surprising History Of The Preponderance Standard Of Civil Proof, John Leubsdorf

Florida Law Review

Although much has been written on the history of the requirement of proof of crimes beyond a reasonable doubt, this is the first study to probe the history of its civil counterpart, proof by a preponderance of the evidence. It turns out that the criminal standard did not diverge from a preexisting civil standard, but vice versa. Only in the late eighteenth century, after lawyers and judges began speaking of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, did references to the preponderance standard begin to appear. Moreover, U.S. judges did not start to instruct juries about the preponderance standard until the mid-nineteenth …

I See Dead People: Examining The Admissibility Of Living-Victim Photographs In Murder Trials, Susanna Rychlak

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the summer of 2015, the Tennessee legislature debated and passed the "Victim Life Photo Act," which went into effect on July 1, 2015. This law states: "In a prosecution for any criminal homicide, an appropriate photograph of the victim while alive shall be admissible evidence when offered by the district attorney general to show the general appearance and condition of the victim while alive." Victims' rights groups lobbied for this and similar laws throughout the country, which were then enacted by state legislatures. Though these laws amended rules of evidence, the considerations under which they were passed were largely …

Virginia Prosecutors’ Response To Two Models Of Pre-Plea Discovery In Criminal Cases: An Empirical Comparison, Michael R. Doucette

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Informant Witnesses And The Risk Of Wrongful Convictions, Jessica A. Roth

Articles

Several studies in the last two decades have revealed that false criminal informant testimony is a leading factor in wrongful convictions, along with false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, and faulty forensic science. Although a great deal more remains to be done, many jurisdictions have implemented evidence-based reforms to these last three categories of evidence. Policy about criminal informants, however, seems to be stubbornly stagnant, and relevant social science is virtually nonexistent. This Article questions the relative lack of attention to informant testimony and suggests that the dangers posed by informant testimony are both greater and different than previously thought. Unlike much …

Moving Beyond Miranda: Concessions For Confessions, Scott W. Howe

Northwestern University Law Review

The law governing police interrogation provides perverse incentives. For criminal suspects, the law rewards obstruction and concealment. For police officers, it honors deceit and psychological aggression. For the courts and the rest of us, it encourages blindness and rationalization. This Article contends that the law could help foster better behaviors. The law could incentivize criminals to confess without police trickery and oppression. It could motivate police officers involved in obtaining suspect statements to avoid chicanery and duress. And, it could summon courts and the rest of us to speak more truthfully about whether suspect admissions are the product of informed, …

Constitutional Regulation Of Forensic Evidence, Brandon L. Garrett

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rescued From The Grave And Then Covered With Mud: Justice Scalia And The Unfinished Restoration Of The Confrontation Right, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Some years before his death, when asked which was his favorite among his opinions, Antonin Scalia named Crawford v. Washington. It was a good choice. Justice Scalia's opinion in Crawford reclaimed the Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution and restored it to its rightful place as one of the central protections of our criminal justice system. He must have found it particularly satisfying that the opinion achieved this result by focusing on the historical meaning of the text, and that it gained the concurrence of all but two members of the Court, from all ideological positions.

Pennsylvania Stacks The Deck Against Defendants In Commonwealth V. Alicia, Leaving False Confession Assessments To The Jury, Katherine Reamy

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Wearable Devices As Admissible Evidence: Technology Is Killing Our Opportunity To Lie, Nicole Chauriye

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

David Brown Versus Louisiana, Charles Ogletree, Ronald Sullivan

Amicus Briefs

No abstract provided.

Louisiana Rapper’S Case Speaks To Bigger Problems In The Criminal Justice System, Andrea L. Dennis, Erik Nelson, Michael Render

Popular Media

This article published on April 25, 2016 at the Huffington Post examines the case of McKinley Phipps. He was sentenced to thirty years of hard labor for a crime that, to this day, he insists he did not commit. During the trial prosecutors used Phipps’s rap persona and lyrics - remixed for special effect - to carefully construct a story of Phipps’s guilt. The article discusses how Phipps lyrics and persona contributed to his conviction and the progress of his appeals.

Copwatching, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Litigating From The Prison Of The Mind: A Cognitive Right To Post-Conviction Counsel, Ken Strutin

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

No abstract provided.

Crossing The Line: Daubert, Dual Roles, And The Admissibility Of Forensic Mental Health Testimony, Sara Gordon

Cardozo Law Review

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals often testify as forensic experts in civil commitment and criminal competency proceedings. When an individual clinician assumes both a treatment and a forensic role in the context of a single case, however, that clinician forms a dual relationship with the patient - a practice that creates a conflict of interest and violates professional ethical guidelines. The court, the parties, and the patient are all affected by this conflict and the biased testimony that may result from dual relationships. When providing forensic testimony, the mental health professional's primary duty is to the court, not to …

Bruton On Balance: Standardizing Redacted Codefendant Confessions Through Federal Rule Of Evidence 403, Margaret Dodson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Joint criminal trials are a relatively common practice in the American criminal justice system. When multiple criminal defendants are charged in a single crime-especially in conspiracy cases-courts and prosecutors alike favor joint trials because of their comparable efficiency to individual trials. However, joint trials can raise significant procedural and constitutional concerns for codefendants. One such issue arises when the government seeks to introduce the confession of a non-testifying defendant (hereinafter a "declarantdefendant") that inculpates other codefendants.

When introduced, such confessions raise potential Sixth Amendment issues under Bruton v. United States. A Bruton violation occurs in a joint trial when a …

Strange Bedfellows: How Expanding The Public Safety Exception To Miranda Benefits Counterterrorism Suspects, Geoffrey Corn, Chris Jenks

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Reconsidering The Standards Of Admission For Prior Bad Acts Evidence In Light Of Research On False Memories And Witness Preparation, Jason Tortora

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The British Experience With Hearsay Reform: A Cautionary Tale, Mark S. Brodin

Fordham Law Review

Among the proposals being considered by the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence (“the Committee”) is the scrapping of the categorical exception regime for hearsay, leaving questions of reliability and admissibility ad hoc to district court judges along the lines of Federal Rules of Evidence (FRE) 403 and 807. Over the past decades, the British have moved toward this approach, and it is the purpose of this Article to identify the lessons that can be learned from that experience, especially with regard to criminal prosecutions and the right of confrontation.

Rethinking The Rationale(S) For Hearsay Exceptions, Stephen A. Saltzburg

Fordham Law Review

The thirty-seven principal provisions that permit out-of-court statements to be admitted for their truth under the Federal Rules of Evidence are found in Article VIII of the Rules. There are eight provisions in Rule 801(d), twenty-three provisions in Rule 803, five provisions in Rule 804 and one provision in Rule 807 that can be relied upon to admit hearsay evidence for its truth value.

Prior Inconsistent Statements And Substantive Evidence—Federal Rule 801(D)(1)(A): The Compromise, Stephen A. Saltzburg

Fordham Law Review

Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(1)(A) is a compromise. The Supreme Court’s version of the Rule, which it submitted to Congress in 1972, would have made all prior inconsistent statements of a witness present in court for cross-examination admissible as substantive evidence. The Court’s proposal was strongly favored by the Advisory Committee on the Federal Rules of Evidence (or “the Advisory Committee”) members who drafted the Rule. They submitted it to the Court knowing that it was consistent with the approach taken by some states and favored by authorities like John Henry Wigmore, Edmund Morgan, and Charles McCormick. But the Court’s …

Third Annual Lecture On Legal Education With Jennifer L. Mnookin Of Ucla Law Part Ii, "Constructing Evidence And Educating Juries: The Case For Modular, Made-In-Advance Expert Evidence About Eyewitness Identifications And False Confessions", Jennifer L. Mnookin

Faculty Workshops

Professor Jennifer L. Mnookin, now affiliated with The University of Wisconsin Law School, presented her work Constructing Evidence and Educating Juries: The Case for Modular, Made-in-Advance Expert Evidence About Eyewitness Identifications and False Confessions. This work examines the comparison of the idea of modular testimony to several alternative methods for trying to reduce the dangers of inaccurate eyewitness identifications and false confessions.