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Beyond Unreliable: How Snitches Contribute To Wrongful Convictions, Alexandra Natapoff
Beyond Unreliable: How Snitches Contribute To Wrongful Convictions, Alexandra Natapoff
Golden Gate University Law Review
This Comment briefly surveys in Part I some of the data on snitch-generated wrongful convictions. In Part II, it describes in more detail the institutional relationships among snitches, police, and prosecutors that make snitch falsehoods so pervasive and difficult to discern using the traditional tools of the adversarial process. Part III concludes with a litigation suggestion for a judicial check on the use of informant witnesses, namely, a Daubert-style pre-trial reliability hearing. The Appendix in Part IV contains a sample motion requesting and justifying such a hearing.
Unconstitutional Exploitation Of Delegated Authority: How To Deter Prosecutors From Using "Substantial Assistance" To Defeat The Intent Of Federal Sentencing Laws, Adriano Hrvatin
Golden Gate University Law Review
This Comment addresses whether the intent of the federal sentencing system is defeated when prosecutors reward high-level drug offenders with lenient sentences in exchange for testimony against less culpable co-conspirators. This Comment argues that prosecutors violate separation-of-powers principles when they move for downward departures on behalf of kingpins who provide substantial assistance in a case against less culpable co-defendants because Congress did not authorize such an exercise of prosecutorial discretion. In such instances where the intent of Congress is defeated, the prosecutor is essentially making law and thereby encroaching upon the law-making function of Congress. To cure this constitutional abuse …
Criminal Law And Procedure, Veronica A. Franz Gundred, Richard A. Nebb
Criminal Law And Procedure, Veronica A. Franz Gundred, Richard A. Nebb
Golden Gate University Law Review
No abstract provided.