Law Commons^™

A Call For Judicial Scrutiny: How Increased Judicial Discretion Has Led To Disparity And Unpredictability In Federal Sentencings For Child Pornography, Loren Rigsby

Seattle University Law Review

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) has made child pornography related crimes among the most harshly punishable federal offenses. Nevertheless, sentencing judges have regained the right to depart from the recommended Federal Sentencing Guidelines (Guidelines). The Guideline range for child pornography reflects sound and clear congressional intent to impose harsh penalties on defendants to deter, and ultimately eliminate, the market for child pornography. For this reason, this Comment argues that sentences that fall outside the Guidelines range should be reviewed with much greater scrutiny and should not be used solely to reflect a judge’s view that the advised sentence is …

Double Jeopardy—Civil Forfeitures And Criminal Punishment: Who Determines What Punishments Fit The Crime, Barbara A. Mack

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will attempt to distill from this confusion a meaningful double jeopardy policy, applicable to parallel civil and criminal proceedings, that takes into account the history of double jeopardy, recent changes in statutory law, and the contemporary chaotic state of parallel civil and criminal proceedings. Under current law, double jeopardy protects against three abuses: (1) a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, (2) a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and (3) multiple punishments for the same offense. This Article will show that the multiple punishments prong has little basis in law, other than reliance …

Preface: Double Jeopardy In Washington And Beyond, Justice Philip A. Talmadge

Seattle University Law Review

The prohibition against double jeopardy is of ancient lineage in western civilization. In a ringing and scholarly dissent that rewards reflection, Justice Hugo Black said:

Fear and abhorrence of governmental power to try people twice for the same conduct is one of the oldest ideas found in western civilization. Its roots run deep into Greek and Roman times. Even in the Dark Ages, when so many other principles of justice were lost, the idea that one trial and one punishment were enough remained alive through the canon law and the teachings of the early Christian writers. By the thirteenth century …

The Double Jeopardy Implications Of In Rem Forfeiture Of Crime-Related Property: The Gradual Realization Of A Constitutional Violation, Andrew L. Subin

Seattle University Law Review

Over the past decade, the government has escalated its "war on drugs." Although the "war" has not decreased drug use or limited the availability of drugs on the street, the government continues to sacrifice the constitutional rights of its citizens in an effort to escalate the hostility. Since the "zero tolerance" policy of the Reagan Administration, the government has relied heavily on the forfeiture of property related to drug crimes as a tool to deter and punish the illegal distribution of drugs. The federal forfeiture statute, 21 U.S.C. § 881, allows the government to seize any property used to facilitate …

The Plain Feel Doctrine In Washington: An Opportunity To Provide Greater Protections Of Privacy To Citizens Of This State, Laura T. Bradley

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment argues that Washington should return to an independent analysis of search and seizure doctrine under article I, section 7 of the state constitution and reject the admission of contraband seized during the course of a pat-down frisk. The decisions in Hudson and Dickerson have established an unnecessary and unworkable standard, and involve an increased invasion of personal privacy without the counter-balancing need to protect the safety of others. The plain feel doctrine as announced in Dickerson and Hudson developed from two well-established concepts in search and seizure law-the Terry frisk of persons to discover weapons and the plain …

What Would Happen If Videotaped Depositions Of Sexually Abused Children Were Routinely Admitted In Civil Trials? A Journey Through The Legal Process And Beyond , John B. Mitchell

Seattle University Law Review

As all of us are aware, there has been concern throughout our legal system about the trauma that child victims of sexual abuse suffer when testifying at criminal trials. It is likely that these same concerns will follow into the civil arena as civil cases for sexual abuse of child victims become more common. In response, advocates of child victims will propose that videotapes of child depositions be admitted in trial in place of live testimony. Such evidence may have profound effects on juries and may also alter the role of advocates in our civil system. This Article is about …

Washington's Sexually Violent Predators Statute: Law Or Lottery? A Response To Professor Brooks, John Q. La Fond

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, the author responds to Alexander D. Brooks, The Constitutionality and Morality of Civilly Committing Violent Sexual Predators, article.

Keynote Address: Predators And Politics, Norval Morris

Seattle University Law Review

The following article is a transcription of portions of Mr. Morris's keynote address presented at the Predators and Politics Symposium on March 9, 1992 at the University of Puget Sound School of Law.

Washington's Sexually Violent Predator Law: A Deliberate Misuse Of The Therapeutic State For Social Control, John Q. La Fond

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will demonstrate that the Washington legislature deliberately chose to abuse the medical model of involuntary commitment for treatment in order to achieve lifetime preventive detention. In so doing, the legislature violated fundamental constitutional principles that underlie our system of social care and control and safeguard individual liberty.

The Juvenile Death Penalty In Washington: A State Constitutional Analysis, Bruce L. Brown

Seattle University Law Review

This Article first briefly examines the United States Supreme Court cases dealing with the juvenile death penalty. Second, the Article describes the history and structure of Washington's death penalty statute. Third, the Article analyzes whether the state constitution's ban on cruel punishment prohibits the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles.

Editor's Preface: Predators And Politics: The Dichotomies Of Translation In The Washington Sexually Violent Predators Statute, Nancy Watkins Anderson, Kenneth W. Masters

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Limits On The State's Power To Confine "Dangerous" Persons: Constitutional Implications Of Foucha V. Louisiana, James W. Ellis

Seattle University Law Review

This Article does not attempt a complete analysis of all the constitutional implications of Foucha,nor does it attempt to provide a definitive answer to the question of the constitutionality of Washington's sexual predator statute. Rather, because Foucha addressed important due process and equal protection questions relevant to the Washington statute, the Article is an attempt to analyze the case's basic constitutional holdings and discussion on the issue of state deprivation of physical liberty.

The Constitutionality And Morality Of Civilly Committing Violent Sexual Predators, Alexander D. Brooks

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will address four major substantive constitutional and moral challenges to the Washington Sexually Violent Predator statute. The first is that the statute provides for unacceptable preventive detention contrary to American tradition and law. The second is that the terminology used to identify the mental condition of sexually violent predators is vague and meaningless, resulting in inaccurate and unfair applications and lacking in uniformity. The third objection is that the treatment program necessarily relies on a false assumption that efficacious treatment is available and argues that without efficacious treatment the statute must fail. Fourth, the confinement involved, which theoretically …

The Community Protection Act And The Sexually Violent Predators Statute, Norm Maleng

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, former prosecutor Norm Maleng discusses his experience with The Community Protection Act and Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Law.

Cognitive Restructuring Through Law: A Therapeutic Jurisprudence Approach To Sex Offenders And The Plea Process, Jeffrey A. Klotz, David B. Wexler, Bruce D. Sales, Judith V. Becker

Seattle University Law Review

At the University of Arizona, we hope to develop a series of studies that will ultimately examine a variety of empirical issues relating to the law and plea process with respect to sex offenders. These studies arise from one particular therapeutic jurisprudence application proposed by David Wexler and Bruce Winick. This Article summarizes the empirical questions raised by Wexler and Winick's theory and suggests how those questions might be empirically analyzed.

Confronting Violence: In The Act And In The Word, David Boerner

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, the author narrates his experience as a member of the Task Force to create Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment Law.

A Psychiatric Perspective On Washington's Sexually Violent Predators Statute, Robert M. Wettstein, M.D.

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will critique Washington's Community Protection Act from the perspective of a clinical and forensic psychiatrist. Part II of the Article will address and examine problems with the statute's definitions and consider some of the problems in conducting evaluations of proposed sexual predators. Part III will then discuss some of the many difficulties inherent in providing treatment under the statute. Part IV will review the potential abuses, costs and risks to the participants presented by the statute. Finally, Part V will focus on the ethical issues in providing expert medical testimony pursuant to the statute.

So What's In A Name? A Rhetorical Reading Of Washington's Sexually Violent Predators Act, J. Christopher Rideout

Seattle University Law Review

In this Article, I will examine this socially constitutive function of narratives in the enactment of Washington State's Sexually Violent Predators Act.'0 This Act is a prime recent example of how social narratives-in this case, narratives of violence, pain, and outrage-lie behind the official language of the law. As Winter would point out, narrative was the vehicle that prompted legal change. The question for this Article, however, is what happens once the story has been recast into another form, here that of a statute? How well do the immediacy of the details and the authorial voice of the story lend …

The Politics Of Sexual Psychopathy: Washington State's Sexual Predator Legislation, Stuart Scheingold, Toska Olson, Jana Pershing

Seattle University Law Review

What are the principles that guide this return to indeterminacy? Taken at face value, rehabilitation would seem to be the goal of the civil commitment provisions that make avail- able a treatment program to cure and reintegrate sexual offenders. Of course, rehabilitation was unequivocally rejected by determinate sentencing reformers, who considered it both discriminatory and ineffective.6 An alternative interpretation is that the sexual predator provisions lead in an incapacitative direction-that is, they are designed to predict which offenders are so dangerous that they must be more or less permanently institutionalized to protect the society. Either way, the sexual predator legislation …

Sexual Predator Law—The Nightmare In The Halls Of Justice, Robert C. Boruchowitz

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, the author discusses his experience as a defense attorney with Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Act, RCW 71.09.060.

Sources Of Security, Julie Shapiro

Seattle University Law Review

The fixable problems relating to the specifics of the stat- ute thus do not raise the hardest questions that a statute like this one presents precisely because they are fixable. If I agreed that the general idea of the statute was a good one, I still might find the specifics of this statute unacceptable. But I would be able to propose an acceptable statute that accomplished the same basic purpose. Thus, although the specifics of this statute are of enormous importance to the legal questions pending in the courts and to those who must litigate under the statute, the specifics …

Sexual Predators: Mental Illness Or Abnormality? A Psychiatrist's Perspective, James D. Reardon, M.D.

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, the author discusses Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Act, RCW 71.09.060, from a psychiatrist’s perspective.

Proceedings Under Washington's New Statutory Scheme Providing For The Indefinite Involuntary Commitment Of Sexually Violent Predators Are Civil, Not Criminal, In Nature, Timothy Michael Blood

Seattle University Law Review

In this Symposium Article, the author discusses the constitutional importance of classifying Washington’s Sexually Violent Predator Act, RCW 71.09.060, as a civil commitment and not a criminal sanction.

Dismantling The Exclusionary Rule: United States V. Leon And The Courts Of Washington—Should Good Faith Excuse Bad Acts?, Catherine Cruikshank

Seattle University Law Review

This Note will review briefly the history of the exclusionary rule under fourth amendment jurisprudence, with special emphasis given to the purposes the rule has traditionally been thought to serve. The significance of the Leon decision then will be examined in light of the emergence in Washington of an interpretation of article I, section 7 that diverges from the Supreme Court's interpretations of the fourth amendment. This Note will conclude by discussing how article I, section 7 continues to embody the several purposes traditionally served by the exclusionary rule.

Survey Of Washington Search And Seizure Law, Justice Robert F. Utter

Seattle University Law Review

This Survey is designed to assist lawyers and judges who must argue and resolve search and seizure issues in Washington State. The Survey summarizes the controlling state and federal cases on search and seizure law and uses as an additional reference W. LAFAVE, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment (1978). Washington courts are likely to analyze future search and seizure issues under both the fourth amendment and Washington Constitution article I, section 7. The difference in wording between the two provisions is substantial, suggesting different degrees or types of privacy protection. This Survey summarizes the predominant treatment …

State Prisoners, Federal Courts, And Playing By The Rules: An Analysis Of The Aldisert Committee's Recommended Procedures For Handling Prisoner Civil Rights Cases, Gay Gellhorn

Seattle University Law Review

The Comment first will recapitulate the full range of procedural initiatives proposed by the Aldisert Committee for adoption as local court rules. Then it will analyze the Committee's recommendations relating to pleading forms and screening the complaints before service of process, the critical stage at which courts dispose of most prisoner complaints. Although concluding that important aspects of the recommended procedures are fundamentally inconsistent with federal statutes and rules, this Comment acknowledges the valid concerns generating the Committee's proposals, and then suggests alternative judicial actions responsive to the phenomenon of state prisoner civil rights com- plaints in federal courts.

Capital Punishment And The Right To Life: Some Reflections On The Human Right As Absolute, Peter J. Riga

Seattle University Law Review

The right to life of the person and its various applications in different political situations is one of the most debated subjects of our day. This question is important today for a number of reasons: the widespread demand for abortion, the drive for the right to die, and the challenge to capital punishment. The debate seems at times to be confused: those opposing all forms of war and capital punishment seem to approve of abortion; while others vehemently opposed to abortion, approve of war and capital punishment. But this inconsistency disappears once an absolute view of man's right to life …