Digital Commons Network^™

Pour Encourager Les Autres? The Curious History And Distressing Implications Of The Criminal Provisions Of The Sarbanes-Oxley Act And The Sentencing Guidelines Amendments That Followed, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a legislative history of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and the subsequent amendments to the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. It explains the surprising interaction between the civil and criminal provisions of Sarbanes-Oxley. The Article also provides a dramatic and detailed account of the interplay of political interests and agendas that ultimately led to large sentence increases for serious corporate criminals and blanket sentence increases for virtually all federal fraud defendants. The tale illuminates the substance of the new legislation and sentencing rules, but is more broadly instructive regarding the distribution of power over criminal sentencing between the three branches and …

Train Wreck? Or Can The Federal Sentencing System Be Saved? A Plea For Rapid Reversal Of Blakely V. Washington, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

In Blakely v. Washington, the Court found the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines unconstitutional, placed the validity of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in the gravest doubt, and cast a shadow of deep uncertainty over many state sentencing systems and the entire twenty-five-year sentencing reform movement. Over the next year, legal publications will be deluged with sober analyses, exegeses, dissections, and deconstructions of the doctrinal origins and long-term effects of Blakely. If the big train wreck really happens, I expect I'll write a few myself. However, it is early for that sort of thing since so much about Blakely remains unclear. Indeed, …

Toward A Better Benchmark: Assessing The Utility Of Not-At-Fault Traffic Crash Data In Racial Profiling Research, Geoffrey P. Alpert, Michael R. Smith, Roger G. Dunham

Faculty Publications

As studies on racial profiling and biased policing have begun to proliferate, researchers are debating which benchmark is most appropriate for comparison with police traffic stop data. Existing benchmark populations, which include populations estimated from census figures, licensed drivers, arrestees, reported crime suspects, and observed drivers and traffic violators, all have significant limitations. This article offers a new, alternative benchmark for police traffic stops, a benchmark that has not been previously applied or tested in a racial profiling research setting. The analysis presented compares traffic observation data, gathered at selected, high volume intersections during an ongoing racial profiling study in …

Australia And The United States: Two Common Criminal Justice Systems Uncommonly At Odds, Paul Marcus, Vicki Waye

Faculty Publications

At first glance the criminal justice systems of Australia and the United States look strikingly similar. With common law roots from England, they both emphasize the adversary system, the roleof the advocate, the presumption of innocence, and an appeals process. Upon closer reflection,however, they appear starkly different. From both Australian and U.S. perspectives, the authorsexplore those differences, examining important features such as the exclusion of evidence, rules regarding interrogation, the entrapment defense, and the open nature of trials. The Article concludes with an analysis of the reasons for those differences, reasons that heavily relate back to the founding of the …

Foreword: Terrorism On Trial, Michael P. Scharf, Amy E. Miller

Faculty Publications

While the Lockerbie approach is currently out of vogue, are there nonetheless lessons from Lockerbie that policy makers can draw on in determining how to best use law as a weapon against terrorism in the future? To explore this important and timely question, the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center assembled a group of high level United Nations officers, former U.S. government officials, noted prosecutors and defense counsel, and prominent journalists and scholars for a day-long symposium at Case Western Reserve University School of Law on October 8, 2004, entitled "Terrorism on Trial." The conference, which was cosponsored by the …

Federalism And Drug Control, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Appellate Courts, Historical Facts, And The Civil-Criminal Distinction, Chad M. Oldfather

Faculty Publications

The standard justification for the general prohibition against the evaluation of facts by appellate courts centers on those courts' perceived incompetence, relative to trial-level fact finders, to engage in the task. This Article examines that justification and finds it wanting. While trial courts and juries are indeed better-positioned to assess much of what takes place at trial, this advantage is not universal. An appellate court's access to and reliance on a transcript of the proceedings below confers on it certain advantages not only because it aids in information retention, but also because its textual basis allows the court to perform …

Sentencing The Green-Collar Offender: Punishment, Culpability, And Environmental Crime, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Multiculturalism And The Future Of Tribal Sovereignty, Scott C. Idleman

Faculty Publications

American Indian tribes would appear to be natural constituents and beneficiaries of the multiculturalism movement. Their members are generally conceptualized as racial or ethnic minorities; they have endured social and legal oppression and continue to encounter structural and even intentional discrimination; and, not least importantly, they possess genuinely different cultures and consequently add diverse perspectives to society. Despite this apparent fit, this Article questions the extent to which tribes and tribal members actually should align themselves with multicultural proponents and initiatives. The basis for this inquiry is that, unlike other societal subgroups, each recognized tribe is a distinct geopolitical entity …

Spotlight: Response To Violence Against Women At The University Of Missouri At Columbia, Mary M. Beck

Faculty Publications

The University of Missouri (“MU”) sits in the picturesque college town of Columbia on the largest and oldest campus of the Missouri University system. MU is a land grant institution created with funds and land appropriated by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890. The University “honors [that public trust] and accepts the associated accountability” by acquiring, creating, transmitting, and preserving knowledge. “MU's primary mission in research and doctoral education . . . provides the basis for service to the people of [Missouri] via outreach programs.” Domestic violence impacts MU's land grant influenced service mission. Its organizational departments, educational units, …

Instruct The Jury: Crane's Serious Difficulty Requirement & Due Process, Kenneth Gaines

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Banishment From Within And Without: Analyzing Indigenous Sentencing Under International Human Rights Standards, Colin Miller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Inadmissible But Material? Resolving The Circuit Split After Wood, Colin Miller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Is There A Place For Race As A Legal Concept, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

What does "race" mean? The word "race" is omnipresent in American social, political, and legal discourse. The concept of "race" is central to contemporary debate about affirmative action, racial profiling, hate crimes, health inequities, and many other issues. Nevertheless, the best research in genetics, medicine, and the social sciences reveals that the concept of "race" is elusive and has no reliable definition.

This article argues that "race" is an unnecessary and potentially pernicious concept. As evidenced by the history of slavery, segregation, the Holocaust, and other human tragedies, the idea of "race" can perpetuate prejudices and misconceptions and serve as …

Ake V. Oklahoma: The Right To Expert Assistance In A Post-Daubert, Post-Dna World, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

Although securing the services of defense experts to examine evidence, to advise counsel, and to testify at trial is frequently critical in modern criminal litigation, it was not until 1985 that the United States Supreme Court in Ake v. Oklahoma, 470 U.S. 68 (1985), recognized, for the first time, a constitutional right to expert assistance. In a system in which an overwhelming majority of criminal defendants are indigent, Ake was a landmark case. Nevertheless, the Ake Court could not have anticipated how the advent of DNA evidence would revolutionize forensic science or how the Daubert trilogy would alter the judicial …

A Statutory Approach To Criminal Law, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

Article suggests that learning about criminal statutes should be incorporated into teaching criminal law.

Relations Between Lawyer And Client In Damages: Model, Typical, Or Dysfunctional?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

This essay begins, therefore, by briefly examining the question of what constitutes good lawyering. The essay acknowledges the difficulty of defining precisely what is good lawyering. In fact, scholars, judges, and lawyers often disagree markedly when they characterize lawyer behavior using the term. Not surprising, then, even though academic commentators routinely trumpet the importance of establishing a meaningful attorney-client relationship as an important aspect of good lawyering, not all in the legal profession embrace that view.8Indeed, the debate about the importance of a good lawyer-client relationship largely reflects contrasting attitudes within the legal profession about the client's role in the …

Defining Terrorism As The Peacetime Equivalent Of War Crimes: Problems And Prospects, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

This article examines the proposal to define terrorism as the peacetime equivalent of war crimes in the context of answering two questions: First, why might it be useful to define terrorism by reference to the existing laws of war? And second, what are the potential negative consequences which might counsel against such an approach?

Mothers Who Kill: Coming To Terms With Modern American Infanticide, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Turning Girls Into Women: Re-Evaluating Modern Statutory Rape Law, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Building On Bedrock: The Continued Evolution Of Jury Reform, G. Thomas Munsterman, Paula L. Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Abundantly clear is that, far from being an enclave from the pressures and concerns of contemporary society, jury service readily absorbs and reflects those concerns in ways that can both support and challenge the American jus­tice system. Some of these concerns cut across many stages of jury service, and their effects are felt in unexpected ways. To sift through and identify the most noteworthy jury improvement efforts and concerns in the last seven years, we turned to technology (coincidently one of the hottest topics in jury service) and examined the topics that subscribers to Jur-E Bulletin, the National Center …

Localization And Transparency In Sentencing: Reflections On The New Early Disposition Departure, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

A newly authorized "early disposition departure" permits federal judges to reduce the sentences of criminal defendants who plead guilty quickly pursuant to a locally adopted early disposition program. The new departure mechanism provides the first formal mandate in the United States Sentencing Guidelines for "localization," that is, adjusting the sentences of federal defendants based on local circumstances. This paper provides a defense of localization, and suggests that localization may be reconciled with the Guidelines' overriding objective of transparency in sentencing. The early disposition departure provides a model of "transparent localization," but could be reformed so as to offer both transparency …

The Entrapment Defense: An Interview, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Evaluation Of Factors Related To The Disproportionate Representation Of Children Of Color In Santa Clara County’S Child Welfare System: Child Welfare Practices And Ethnic/Racial Disproportionality In The Child Welfare System, Alice Hines, Peter Lee, Laurie Drabble, Kathy Lemon Osterling, Julian Chow, Alfred Perez, Lonnie Snowden

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Justice By Paperwork: A Day In The Life Of A Court Scribe In Bourbon Mexico City, Michael C. Scardaville

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Challenge To The Rationale For General Economic Crime Sentence Increases Following Sarbanes-Oxley, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

I am writing in response to the Commission's request for comment published in the Federal Register on January 17, 2003. I will address the question of whether the base offense level and/or the loss table of U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 should be further modified to provide across-the-board sentence increases for economic crime offenders at virtually all loss levels. In my view, no case for doing so has yet been made.

Cooperation And Accountability After The Feeney Amendment, Michael M. O'Hear

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Reliability And The Admissibility Of Experts, Dale A. Nance

Faculty Publications

Modern law on expert testimony insists, as a condition of admissibility, that the asserted expertise be determined by the trial judge to be reliable. Reliability is usually characterized as a dichotomous attribute of evidence, as if expertise were either reliable or unreliable. This article argues that making progress in the development of meaningful and appropriate restrictions on the admissibility of expert testimony requires that we abandon this conceptualization and understand the implications of endorsing a gradational notion of reliability in which evidence can be more or less reliable and in which a comparative assessment of reliability is prominent. Consistent with …

"Lady Madonna, Children At Your Feet": Tragedies At The Intersection Of Motherhood, Mental Illness And The Law, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Foreword: Expanding The Debate On Race, Poverty, Social Justice, And The Law, Margaret M. Russell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.