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Criminal Law

Mercer University School of Law

2017

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Law

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla Dec 2017

Criminal Law, Bernadette C. Crucilla

Mercer Law Review

The adversarial nature between prosecutors and those charged with crimes makes criminal law, in particular, be in a constant state of transformation. Thus, as in prior years, this year's survey of criminal law will include only a few of the most significant cases and statutory amendments. Due to this constant evolution, it is simply not practical to attempt to make note of every single legal development. Therefore, the discussion this period has been limited to the changes that will have the widest application or interest to criminal law practitioners from June 1, 2016 through May 31, 2017.


Three Strikes And You're Still In? Interpreting The Three-Strike Provision Of The Prison Litigation Reform Act In The Eleventh Circuit, Beatrice C. Hancock Jul 2017

Three Strikes And You're Still In? Interpreting The Three-Strike Provision Of The Prison Litigation Reform Act In The Eleventh Circuit, Beatrice C. Hancock

Mercer Law Review

The three-strike provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA)' was implemented to curb the filing of frivolous and meritless claims by prisoner litigants in federal courts. Although the PLRA is over two decades old, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had not had an opportunity to interpret the three-strike provision until May of 2016. Daker v. Commissioner, Georgia Department of Corrections tasked the court with determining what constitutes a strike under the PLRA and whether a serial litigant had accrued three strikes in the dismissals of his previous filings.3 The court determined that want of …


Methamphetamine, Money, And A Motion To Withdraw As Counsel: United States V. Jimenez-Antunez All Boils Down To The Appropriate Standard-, Jessica Haygood May 2017

Methamphetamine, Money, And A Motion To Withdraw As Counsel: United States V. Jimenez-Antunez All Boils Down To The Appropriate Standard-, Jessica Haygood

Mercer Law Review

In United States v. Jimenez-Antunez, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a defendant is not required to show good cause to dismiss his retained counsel, even if the defendant then intends to request appointed counsel. The issue was one of first impression in the Eleventh Circuit, and one that has caused some disagreement between the other circuits. There are distinct differences between the right to appointed counsel and the right to retained counsel under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This case continues to uphold those distinctions by keeping the standards …


On Competence: (Re)Considering Appropriate Legal Standards For Examining Sixth Amendment Claims Related To Criminal Defendants’ Mental Illness And Disability, Sarah Gerwig-Moore Jan 2017

On Competence: (Re)Considering Appropriate Legal Standards For Examining Sixth Amendment Claims Related To Criminal Defendants’ Mental Illness And Disability, Sarah Gerwig-Moore

Articles

This Article addresses the questions of attorney error and client competency and examines the following issues: the origin and development of the legal tests for intellectual competency to stand trial or enter a plea and the tests for evaluating Sixth Amendment effective assistance of counsel claims; the range of state and federal approaches to circumstances when those two situations converge; and whether and how our legal tests should be shaped to best assess attorney error when the client likely has an intellectual disability or incompetence. When consideration of a defendant's mental illness or mental disability forms the basis of a …