Law Commons^™

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla

Mercer Law Review

As in prior periods, this year's survey of criminal law will include only a few of the most significant cases and statutory amendments. Due to the constant evolution of criminal laws in our society, it is simply not practical to attempt to make note of every legal development. Therefore, the discussion is limited to those changes that will have the widest application and interest to criminal law practitioners for the period from June 1, 2015 through May 31, 2016.

Georgia's Safe Harbor Ruling For Affirmative Defenses In Criminal Cases Should Be Revisited, Ben W. Studdard, Michal A. Arndt

Mercer Law Review

The State has the entire burden of proving the defendant's guilt of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt, reads the instruction given to every jury empaneled to try a criminal case in Georgia. The defendant has no burden of proof at all. Where the evidence raises a defense, the burden remains with the State to negate or disprove that defense beyond a reasonable doubt. But those same Georgia citizens, when summoned to federal jury service, may hear a very different instruction: that the defendant, upon raising an affirmative defense, has the burden of proof as to that defense, by …

Justice In The Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future: An Introduction, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Mercer Law Review

Opinions differ on the principal role of academic institutions. Should Universities be primarily concerned with scholarship and research? With classroom instruction? With producing well-rounded citizens? Mercer University has long been committed to each of these three priorities. Decades before I joined the faculty at Mercer Law School, schools within the University were already working to make public service a priority, in addition to teaching and scholarship.

Following suit, this year's Mercer Law Review Symposium boldly moved to address controversial social justice issues.' The Symposium, "Justice in the Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future," featured a powerful and varied …

Symposium Transcript: Justice In The Deep South: Learning From History, Charting Our Future

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Session One: Learning From Souther History And Culture

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Keynote Address, Stephen B. Bright

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Session Two: Learning From Struggles

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Session Three: Learning From Innovators

Mercer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Defenders, Local Control, And Brown V. Board Of Education, Russell C. Gabriel

Mercer Law Review

The topics the Mercer Law Review Symposium addresses-race, history, criminal law, and the South-have a long reach across time, place, and the spectrum of justice. It is both temptingly easy and distressfully complicated to disentangle the strands of the Southern tapestry, woven from past to present. The theory of this Essay is the easy part. Evaluating the correctness of the theory is more complicated. I am indebted to Mercer Law Review for inviting the effort.

When the United States Supreme Court decided Gideon v. Wainright' and told the states that they were required to provide lawyers to poor defendants accused …

Where Healthcare And Policing Converge: How Georgia Law Promotes Evasion Of Financial Responsibility For Indigent Arrestees' And Municipal Inmates' Medical Care, L. Taylor Hamrick

Mercer Law Review

When a law enforcement officer arrests an injured or visibly sick person, the officer typically transports the arrestee directly to a hospital for treatment prior to formal booking in a jail or detention facility. Indeed, convicted inmates, pretrial detainees, and arrestees have a constitutional right to receive necessary medical care while in police custody. However, the United States Supreme Court has distinguished a government's constitutional obligation to provide necessary medical care from a duty to pay for such care.' Instead, the Supreme Court has held that a governmental entity must pay for medical treatment of a person in its custody …

In Search Of The Beloved Community, Robert L. Rhodes Jr., Tremaine Reese

Mercer Law Review

This Article describes the process by which the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law & Justice (Georgia Appleseed) has engaged Georgians in crucial conversations about critical issues concerning the relationship among law enforcement officers and the community members they serve. We also discuss how Georgia Appleseed is working to have the content of these conversations foster change to law and policy designed to enhance police community relations.

This is a story half told. As of the date of publication of this Article, the fact-gathering and legal research described below will have been completed and public advocacy for change will have commenced. …

Inconsistencies In Georgia's Sex-Crime Statutes Teach Teens That Sexting Is Worse Than Sex, Emily L. Evett

Mercer Law Review

Jack and Jane are high school sweethearts. Jane is a sixteen-year-old high school junior, and Jack is a nineteen year old freshman in college. Last night, the teenage couple had sexual intercourse. Tonight, they decide to send sexually suggestive photographs to each other using their cell phones. Neither Jack nor Jane sent the photographs to anyone else. In Georgia, no crime was committed by either of them when they had sexual intercourse because Jane is over the age of sixteen. But, Jack committed a misdemeanor of high and aggravated nature when he sent a sexually explicit photograph of himself to …