Law Commons^™

City Of Los Angeles V. Patel: The Upcoming Supreme Court Case No One Is Talking About, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Focusing solely on whether a hotel owner has a reasonable expectation of privacy in a guest registry is akin to asking whether Verizon Wireless has a reasonable expectation of privacy in its customer lists. The answer to those questions should be yes, but the sixty-four thousand dollar question—and the proverbial elephant in the room—is whether hotel occupants and cell phone users forfeit their privacy rights simply because they check into the Beverly Hills Hotel or call their significant others from a Smart Phone on the Santa Monica Freeway. Put differently, a hotel owner’s expectation of privacy in a guest registry …

Do You Know The Fair Market Value Of Your Property? A Call To The Legislature To Revise Section 775.089, Florida Statutes, Governing Restitution, Adam Hapner

Adam Hapner

When a defendant’s criminal actions cause loss or damage to a victim’s property, section 775.089, Florida Statutes, requires that the court order the defendant to pay restitution to the victim. The purposes of section 775.089 are both to compensate the victim and to serve the rehabilitative, deterrent, and retributive goals of the criminal justice system. Recently, more and more cases have been decided in which the State was unable to prove the amount of loss sustained by the victim due to precise measurements of value and demanding methods of proof. In such cases, the purposes of restitution were not achieved …

The Internet Is The New Public Forum: Why Riley V. California Supports Net Neutrality, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Technology has ushered civil liberties into the virtual world, and the law must adapt by providing legal protections to individuals who speak, assemble, and associate in that world. The original purposes of the First Amendment, which from time immemorial have protected civil liberties and preserved the free, open, and robust exchange of information, support net neutrality. After all, laws or practices that violate cherished freedoms in the physical world also violate those freedoms in the virtual world. The battle over net neutrality is “is absolutely the First Amendment issue of our time,” just as warrantless searches of cell phones were …

The Stickiness Principle And Searches Incident To Arrest, Steven I. Friedland

Steven I. Friedland

In Fourth Amendment decisions, different concepts, facts and assumptions about reality are often tethered together in judicial decisions, creating a Stickiness Principle. In particular, form and function historically were viewed as an identity, not a dichotomy. For example, containers carried things, watches told time, and telephones were used to make voice calls. Advancing technology, though, began to fracture this identity and the broader Stickiness Principle.

In June 2014, Riley v. California and its companion case, United States v. Wurie, offered the Supreme Court an opportunity to begin untethering form and function and dismantling the Stickiness Principle. Riley presented the question …

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia’S Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Sex Offense Courts: How Expanding Specialized Sex Offense Courts Can Help Reduce Recidivism And Improve Victim Reporting, Catharine Richmond, Melissa Richmond

Catharine Richmond

Specialty sex offense courts are a nascent judicial innovation that seek to improve general public safety through reducing recidivism. Decreased recidivism results from swifter, personalized, experienced, and consistent judicial action that encourages sex offenders to take more responsibility and seek rehabilitative assistance. In these specialized courts, communities of stakeholders work collaboratively to prevent future crime. Although somewhat counterintuitive, specialty courts that offer such intensive and specific attention are often more cost effective and efficient than their traditional counterparts. This Note argues that sex offense courts should be expanded beyond the handful of jurisdictions where they currently exist, not only to …

The Appropriate Standard Of Proof For Determining Intellectual Disability In Capital Cases: How High Is Too High?, Timothy Saviello

Timothy Saviello

This paper takes a comprehensive look at how intellectual disability is diagnosed and proven in court, and applies the reasoning in the recent Supreme Court decision in Hall v. Florida to the determination of the appropriate standard of proof when capital defendants raise intellectual disability, concluding that preponderance of the evidence is the only standard of proof which adequately protects intellectually disabled capital defendants from unconstitutional execution.

In Atkins v. Virginia the Supreme Court held that the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment prevented the execution of a criminal defendant suffering from intellectual disability. Because the Court in …

Gay Panic And The Case For Gay Shield Laws, Kelly Strader, Molly Selvin, Lindsey Hay

Kelly Strader

In a highly publicized “gay panic” case, Brandon McInerney shot and killed Larry King in their middle school classroom. King was a self-identified gay student who sometimes wore jewelry and makeup to school and, according to those who knew him, was possibly transgender. Tried as an adult for first-degree murder, McInerney asserted a heat of passion defense based upon King’s alleged sexual advances. The jury deadlocked, with a majority accepting McInerney’s defense. Drawing largely upon qualitative empirical research, this article uses the Larry King murder case as a prism though which to view the doctrinal, theoretical, and policy bases of …

Plead Guilty, Without Bargaining: Learning From China’S “Summary Procedure” Before Enacting Indonesia’S “Special Procedure” In Criminal Procedure., Choky Risda Ramadhan Mr.

Choky Risda Ramadhan Mr.

Because Indonesian courts are increasingly overrun with criminal cases, Indonesian lawmakers recently introduced a criminal procedure bill to include “special procedure” (jalur khusus), a procedure that allows defendants to plead guilty in order to increase efficiency. Unlike plea-bargaining in the U.S., this procedure more resembles China’s “summary procedure,” which is solely conducted by a judge, not negotiated independently by prosecutors and defendants. Before enacting the provision of special procedure, however, Indonesian lawmakers should learn from China’s successes and failures implementing summary procedure. While this procedure resulted in increased efficiency in China, it did not provide for defense counsel, and …

Riley V. California: Privacy Still Matters, But How Much And In What Contexts?, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Private information is no longer stored only in homes or other areas traditionally protected from warrantless intrusion. The private lives of many citizens are contained in digital devices no larger than the palm of their hand—and carried in public places. But that does not make the data within a cell phone any less private, just as the dialing of a phone number does not voluntarily waive an individual’s right to keep their call log or location private. Remember that we are not talking exclusively about individuals suspected of committing violent crimes. The Government is recording the calls and locations of …

Back To The Future With The Uniform Code Of Military Justice: The Need To Recalibrate The Relationship Between The Military Justice System, Due Process, And Good Order And Discipline, Anthony J. Ghiotto

Anthony J. Ghiotto

In recent years, the military justice system has come under increased Congressional and public scrutiny. Driving much of this increased scrutiny is the issue of sexual assault. The dramatic increase in reported sexual assaults, coupled with the military’s response, resulted in public officials calling for dramatic reform of the military justice system. These calls for reform included limiting, and even removing, the role commanders play in the military justice system. The military departments must proceed carefully, though, with these calls for reform. Dramatic reforms designed to correct the apparent flaws in the military justice system may in turn undermine the …

Riley V. California: What It Means For Metadata, Border Searches, And The Future Of Privacy, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Private information is no longer stored only in homes or other areas traditionally protected from warrantless intrusion. The private lives of many citizens are contained in a digital device no larger than the palm of their hand—and carried in public places. But that does not make the data within a cell phone any less private, just as the dialing of a phone number does not voluntarily waive an individual’s right to keep their call log or location private. Remember that we are not talking about individuals suspected of committing violent crimes. The Government is recording the calls and locations of …

Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting The Appellate Standard Of Review For Hearsay, Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson, Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting the Appellate Standard of Review for Hearsay

Abstract:

The decision by a federal a court to exclude or admit hearsay can be crucial to the case of either party. Despite this prospective impact, the federal courts of appeal currently defer to district courts’ expertise by reviewing a district court’s decision to admit or exclude hearsay for an abuse of discretion. Such deference often insulates district courts’ incorrect interpretation of the rule against hearsay and the improper application of the exclusions and exceptions to the rule from appellate reversal.

Lowering the standard of review for …

Reflections On An Extraordinary Career: Thoughts About Jerry Caplan's Retirement, Michael Vitiello

Michael Vitiello

Reflections on an Extraordinary Career: Thoughts about Gerald Caplan’s Retirement Abstract: The occasion for this essay is the retirement of my colleague Gerald Caplan. But this is not a sentimental account of a friend’s career. Instead, I take the opportunity of Jerry’s retirement to reflect on the role of a thoughtful principled conservative as a Washington insider and as an academic. The essay explores three areas of Jerry’s distinguished career: the first is a discussion of his role in saving the Legal Services Corporation when it was under attack from the right wing, within and without the Reagan Administration. The …

Unreasonable Doubt: Warren Hill, Aedpa, And Georgia’S Unconstitutional Burden Of Proof, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

No abstract provided.

Departing From Teague: Miller V. Alabama's Invitation To The States To Experiment With New Retroactivity Standards, Eric Schab

Eric Schab

No abstract provided.

The Scarlet Letter: Why Courts’ Reliance On Recidivist Statutes During Sentence Enhancement Hearings May Create Fifth And Eighth Amendment Violations, Jesse S. Weinstein

Jesse Weinstein

No abstract provided.

Solving Batson, Tania Tetlow

Tania Tetlow

The Supreme Court faced an important ideological choice when it banned the racial use of peremptory challenges in Batson v. Kentucky. It could either ground the rule in equality rights designed to protect potential jurors from stereotyping, or it could base the rule on the defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an “impartial jury” drawn from a fair cross-section of the community. By choosing Equal Protection analysis, the Court turned away from the defendant and the fair functioning of the criminal justice system and instead focused on protecting potential jurors. The Court thus built fatal error into the Batson rule, a …

Rationality, Insanity, And The Insanity Defense: Reflections On The Limits Of Reason, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Theodore Y. Blumoff

Individuals who suffer from chronic paranoid ideations live with deeply embedded conspiratorial delusions that are sometimes accompanied by unwanted visual and/or auditory stimuli, sometime neither: just psychotic delusions in which they feel as if they have lost control of their lives – and of course they have, albeit not from the performances of foreign forces. When those perceived forces persevere for even a fairly short period of time, they can dictate the performance of evil deeds that the individual ultimately feels helpless to oppose. What observations and findings from neuroscience make clear is that such individuals do not lack knowledge, …

Finding The Foregone Conclusions Of Encryption, Timothy A. Wiseman

Timothy A Wiseman

Encryption is commonly used to protect private information, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Courts have been struggling to determine when, within the bounds of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the Courts may compel a defendant in a criminal case to decrypt their data.

This article argues that a broad use of the Forgone Conclusion doctrine would permit the Courts to order a defendant to decrypt their data when the prosecution can show with reasonable particularity the existence and location of the encrypted documents, that they are likely to be incriminating, and that the government can authenticate them without the …

Criminal Innovation And The Warrant Requirement: Reconsidering The Rights-Police Efficiency Trade-Off, Tonja Jacobi, Jonah Kind

Tonja Jacobi

It is routinely assumed that there is a trade-off between police efficiency and the warrant requirement. But existing analysis ignores the interaction between police investigative practices and criminal innovation. Narrowing the definition of a search or otherwise limiting the requirement for a warrant gives criminals greater incentive to innovate to avoid detection. With limited police resources to develop countermeasures, police will often be just as effective at capturing criminals when facing higher Fourth Amendment hurdles. We provide a game theoretic model that shows that when police investigation and criminal innovation are considered in a dynamic context, the police efficiency rationale …

Back To The Future: The Constitution Requires Reasonableness And Particularity—Introducing The “Seize But Don’T Search” Doctrine, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Issuing one-hundred or fewer opinions per year, the United States Supreme Court cannot keep pace with opinions that match technological advancement. As a result, in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, the Court needs to announce a broader principle that protects privacy in the digital age. That principle, what we call “seize but don’t search,” recognizes that the constitutional touchstone for all searches is reasonableness.

When do present-day circumstances—the evolution in the Government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years …

Bounties For Bad Behavior: Rewarding Culpable Whistleblowers Under The Dodd-Frank Act And Internal Revenue Code, Jennifer M. Pacella

Jennifer M. Pacella, Esq.

In 2012, Bradley Birkenfeld received a $104 million reward or “bounty” from the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) for blowing the whistle on his employer, UBS, which facilitated a major offshore tax fraud scheme by assisting thousands of U.S. taxpayers to hide their assets in Switzerland. Birkenfeld does not fit the mold of the public’s common perception of a whistleblower. He was himself complicit in this crime and even served time in prison for his involvement. Despite his conviction, Birkenfeld was still eligible for a sizable whistleblower bounty under the IRS Whistleblower Program, which allows rewards for whistleblowers who are convicted …

A Provocative Defense, Aya Gruber

Aya Gruber

It is common wisdom that the provocation defense is, quite simply, sexist. For decades, there has been a trenchant feminist critique that the doctrine reflects and reinforces masculine norms of violence and shelters brutal domestic killers. The critique is so prominent that it appears alongside the doctrine itself in leading criminal law casebooks. The feminist critique of provocation embodies several claims about provocation's problematically gendered nature, including that the defense is steeped in chauvinist history, treats culpable sexist killers too leniently, discriminates against women, and expresses bad messages. This article offers a (likely provocative) defense of the provocation doctrine. While …

Kaleidoscopic Chaos: Understanding The Circuit Courts’ Various Interpretations Of § 2255’S Savings Clause, Jennifer L. Case

Jennifer L. Case

More than 65 years ago, Congress enacted a short statute (codified at 28 U.S.C. § 2255) to even the habeas corpus workload among the federal courts. That statute included a “Savings Clause,” which allows prisoners to challenge their convictions and sentences in a federal habeas petition when § 2255 is “inadequate or ineffective” for the task. Since that time—and with increasing frequency—the U.S. Courts of Appeals have developed wildly varying tests to determine when and how § 2255’s Savings Clause applies to prisoners’ attempts to bring federal habeas petitions under 28 U.S.C. § 2241.

In their attempts to understand the …

Modern Prostitution Reform And The Return Of Volitional Consent, Amanda J. Peters

Amanda J Peters

For decades, prostitution laws in America have focused exclusively on contractual consent: the agreement to exchange sexual services for a fee. Courts and legislatures alike ignored volitional consent, or traditional mens rea, by concentrating on the offer and acceptance of the prostitution agreement. In this way, the law disregarded the actor’s choice to engage in the crime. The de facto strict liability nature of the offense rendered it nearly impossible for prostitutes to successfully raise the defenses of duress and necessity. The failure of the law to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary prostitution resulted in charges, trials, and convictions …

Checked In: Real-Time Geolocation Surveillance And The Fourth Amendment, Eric J. Struening

Eric J Struening

Leaks have revealed that the use of personal technology such as cell phones and e-mail plays a large part in how the government obtains national security information. However, it is still an open question of how far the protection of the Fourth Amendment provides an individual against government intrusion in that type of technology. This article examines how the Fourth Amendment applies to the real-time tracking of national security targets through technology. I argue that a non-physical, short-term, warrantless, real-time trace of an individual’s location for national security purposes will not infringe the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. As …

Paroline, Restitution, And Transferred Scienter: Child Pornography Possessors And Restitution Based On A Commerce-Clause Derived, Aggregate Proximate Cause Theory., Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

This Article responds to the Fifth Circuit’s decision in In re Amy Unknown, which is before the United States Supreme Court on granted writ of certiorari. This Article poses a more logical and legal construct, derived from Commerce Clause analysis, that although each individual possessor of child pornography appears to contribute almost imperceptibly to the original victim’s harm, instead, on an aggregate proximate cause theory, the original victim would not have been victimized at all had there been no aggregate market of willing possessors for the material. Victims of child pornography, under the federal statute, and via aggregate proximate cause, …

Lethal Injection And The Right Of Access: The Intersection Of The Eighth And First Amendments, Timothy F. Brown

Timothy Brown

The Spring and Summer of 2014 have witnessed renewed debate on the constitutionality of the death penalty after a series of high profile legal battles concerning access to lethal injection protocols and subsequent questionable executions. Due to shortages in the drugs traditionally used for the lethal injection, States have changed their lethal injection protocols to shield information from both the prisoners and the public. Citing public safety concerns, the States refuse to release information concerning the procurement of the drugs to the public. Such obstruction hinders the public’s ability to determine the cruelty of the punishment imposed and creates the …