Digital Commons Network^™

The Unindicted Co-Ejaculator And Necrophilia: Addressing Prosecutors' Logic-Defying Responses To Exculpatory Dna Results, Jacqueline Mcmurtrie

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

This article addresses a prosecutor’s development of new and bizarre theories, particularly in cases involving confession evidence, to explain away exculpatory DNA results. In Juan Rivera’s case, the prosecutor’s theory for why sperm found inside the 11-year-old victim on the day she was murdered did not belong to Rivera was that she had sex with someone before Rivera came along and raped (but did not ejaculate) and murdered her. The unnamed-lover theory is used so often by prosecutors that it has a moniker: “the unindicted co-ejaculator.” In the case of the Dixmoor Five, teenagers convicted of the rape and murder …

The Chronic Failure To Discipline Prosecutors For Misconduct: Proposals For Reform, Thomas P. Sullivan, Maurice Possley

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

While most prosecutors adhere to the maxim that their primary task is to obtain just results, there are some who violate their ethical responsibilities in order to rack up convictions. This article describes the distressing, decades-long absence of discipline imposed on prosecutors whose knowing misconduct has resulted in terrible injustices being visited upon defendants throughout the country. Many honorable lawyers have failed to speak out about errant prosecutors, thus enabling their ethical breaches. The silent accessories include practicing lawyers and judges of trial and reviewing courts who, having observed prosecutorial misconduct, failed to take corrective action. Fault also lies with …

Who Could It Be Now? Challenging The Reliability Of First Time In-Court Identifications After State V. Henderson And State V. Lawson, Aliza B. Kaplan, Janis C. Puracal

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Despite the recent advances in assessing the reliability of eyewitness identifications, the focus to date has largely been identifications made pretrial. Little has been written about identifications made for the first time in the courtroom. While in-court identifications have an extraordinarily powerful effect on juries, all such identifications are potentially vulnerable to post-event memory distortion and decay. Absent an identification procedure that effectively tests the witness’s memory, it is impossible to know if the witness’s identification of the defendant is a product of his or her original memory or a product of the extraordinarily suggestive circumstances created by the in-court …

Prohibition, Stare Decisis, And The Lagging Ability Of Science To Influence Criminal Procedure, Wesley M. Oliver

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Science has revealed that, contrary to longstanding intuitions, eyewitnesses are sometimes mistaken and false confessions do occur. The methods police use to obtain identifications and confessions can affect their reliability. Yet criminal procedure does not deter investigatory methods that produce unreliable evidence as thoroughly as it does those methods that produce reliable evidence. If an officer conducts an illegal search of a car trunk, the evidence is excluded and subsequently officers know that they must follow the rules if they hope to admit the fruits of such searches. If, however, an officer creates a suggestive lineup—which risks a false conviction—the …

Prosecutors And Victims: Why Wrongful Convictions Matter, Jeanne Bishop, Mark Osler

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Often, discussions of wrongful convictions focus almost entirely on the wrongfully convicted and ignore two important constituencies: prosecutors and crime victims. Both constituencies have unique connections to wrongful convictions and should be recognized as potentially powerful allies for change. Prosecutors are deeply committed to justice and to the outcomes of their cases; they can help identify and correct wrongful convictions and introduce policies to avoid wrongful convictions in the first place. Wrongful convictions matter to crime victims because convicting the wrong person leaves the real perpetrator free to commit more crimes, creates a new, innocent victim, and drains resources that …

Paternal Incarceration And Adolescent Well-Being: Life Course Contingencies And Other Moderators, Raymond R. Swisher, Unique R. Shaw-Smith

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

The Sound Of Silence: Evidentiary Analyses Of Precustodial Silence In Light Of Salinas V. Texas, Lukas Mansour

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In the recent Supreme Court case Salinas v. Texas, the Court declined to answer whether precustodial silence should be admissible as evidence of a defendant’s guilt. This Comment uses the case as an example from which it argues that courts should take a different approach to precustodial silence. Rather than examining a defendant’s precustodial silence from a constitutional perspective, as many courts, including the Supreme Court, have done, this Comment argues that courts would be better served examining this type of silence from an evidentiary perspective instead.

Missing The Mark: Gun Control Is Not The Cure For What Ails The U.S. Mental Health System, Carolyn Reinach Wolf, Jamie A. Rosen

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Some Sources Of Crime Guns In Chicago: Dirty Dealers, Straw Purchasers, And Traffickers, Philip J Cook, Richard J. Harris, Jens Ludwig, Harold A. Pollack

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Accentuating The Positive Or Eliminating The Negative? Paternal Incarceration And Caregiver-Child Relationship Quality, Sara Wakefield

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

The Current And Future State Of Gun Policy In The United States, William J. Vizzard

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Choice Of Counsel And The Appearance Of Equal Justice Under Law, Wesley M. Oliver

NULR Online

No abstract provided.

A Constitution At A Crossroads: A Conversation With The Chief Justice Of The Constitutional Court Of South Africa, Drew F. Cohen

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

The Intersection Of Dominance Feminism And Stalking Laws, Andrea Mazingo

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Mental Retardation And The Death Penalty: The Need For An International Standard Defining Mental Retardation, Allison Freedman

Northwestern Journal of Human Rights

No abstract provided.

These Aren’T My Peers: Why Illinois Should Reconsider Its Age Requirement For Jury Service, Wesley Morrissette

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Crime Victims' Rights During Criminal Investigations? Applying The Crime Victims' Rights Act Before Criminal Charges Are Filed, Paul G. Cassell, Nathanael J. Mitchell, Bradley J. Edwards

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Extending Sentencing Mitigation For Deserving Young Adults, Kelsey B. Shust

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Negotiating Peremptory Challenges, Caren Myers Morrison

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Confronting Cognitive “Anchoring Effect" And “Blind Spot” Biases In Federal Sentencing: A Modest Solution For Reforming A Fundamental Flaw, Mark W. Bennett

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Criminal Constitutional Avoidance, William W. Berry Iii

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Realizing Reliability In Forensic Science From The Ground Up, Jessica D. Gabel

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Expungement And Post-Exoneration Offending, Amy Shlosberg, Evan J. Mandery, Valerie West, Bennett Callaghan

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Autocorrect? A Proposal To Encourage Voluntary Restitution Through The White-Collar Sentencing Calculus, Daniel Faichney

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Creating Constitutional Procedure: Frye, Lafler, And Plea Bargaining Reform, Mike Work

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Parental Incarceration: What We Know And Where We Need To Go, Christopher Uggen, Suzy Mcelrath

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Why So Contrived? Fourth Amendment Balancing, Per Se Rules, And Dna Databases After Maryland V. King, David H. Kaye

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Breaking Free Of The Prison Paradigm: Integrating Restorative Justice Techniques Into Chicago's Juvenile Justice System, Judy C. Tsui

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Sentencing The Family: Recognizing The Needs Of Dependent Children In The Administration Of The Criminal Justice System, Tamar Lerer

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated persons are parents; in many instances, their incarceration has profound effects on their young children. Despite the predictable harm that the these children experience when their caretakers are incarcerated, the criminal justice system lacks a uniform, principled, and transparent way to consider their interests at critical stages in the process.

In this Article, I argue that the interests of the children of incarcerated offenders should be considered and demonstrate how this can be done. The paper proceeds in three Parts. In the first Part, I explain why we should care about caretaker incarceration: it harms …

Booking Students: An Analysis Of School Arrests And Court Outcomes, Kerrin C. Wolf

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

The fate of school discipline and security in America is at a crucial turning point. While the “school-to-prison pipeline” has recently received an increased amount of attention from policy makers interested in improving public education, the recent shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut led to renewed calls for the heightened security measures that helped give rise to the pipeline. This article provides clear evidence that heightened disciplinary and security measures in schools are faulty policy responses, as they have adverse impacts on the students they intend to protect and siphon resources away from policies that more effectively ensure …