Law Commons^™

The Perils Of Evidentiary Manipulation, Edward K. Cheng

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The use of evidentiary rules to achieve substantive goals strikes me as a Faustian bargain, and, given Bierschbach and Stein's acknowledgedly tentative position, I hope to dissuade them of the virtues of the practice. My goal therefore is to explore briefly the potential dark side of specialized evidentiary rules. The concerns of injecting substantive goals into evidence law extend far beyond the narrow legitimacy concerns Bierschbach and Stein raise. It is not simply the question of whether we aspire to a pluralistic or majority-take-all democratic society. Rather, evidentiary manipulation threatens the legitimacy of criminal and evidence law... Bierschbach and Stein's …

Cunningham V. California - Case Comment, Rebecca Haw Allensworth

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Sixth Amendment--Allocation of Fact-finding in Sentencing.--Apprendi v. New Jersey spawned a series of Supreme Court sentencing decisions which, when viewed together, are at best confusing and at worst contradictory. Commentators and courts have struggled to find a coherent governing principle uniting "Apprendi," "Blakely v. Washington," and "United States v. Booker." The holding in "Apprendi," originally described as a bright-line rule, has proved anything but. Last Term, in "Cunningham v. California," the Court added another chapter to the Apprendi saga when it declared unconstitutional California's Determinate Sentencing Law (DSL). Justice Ginsburg authored the majority opinion that overturned the California Supreme Court's …

Regulating Settlement: What Is Left Of The Rule Of Law In The Criminal Process?, Nancy J. King

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Consider what plea bargains would be like if legal rules were taken more seriously than they currently are. A court would recognize a defendant's willingness to be convicted of an offense only when certain conditions were met: (1) the defendant actually committed the crime; (2) the defendant was punished with the penalty authorized by law for that crime; (3) all government actors involved in the investigation, prosecution, defense, and adjudication of the case had complied with the law governing the criminal process; and (4) the settlement agreement did not relieve any of them of the duty to comply with the …

The Origins Of Shared Intuitions Of Justice, Owen D. Jones, Paul H. Robinson, Robert Kurzban

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Contrary to the common wisdom among criminal law scholars, empirical evidence reveals that people's intuitions of justice are often specific, nuanced, and widely shared. Indeed, with regard to the core harms and evils to which criminal law addresses itself-physical aggression, takings without consent, and deception in transactions-the shared intuitions are stunningly consistent across cultures as well as demographics. It is puzzling that judgments of moral blameworthiness, which seem so complex and subjective, reflect such a remarkable consensus. What could explain this striking result?

The authors theorize that one explanation may be an evolved predisposition toward these shared intuitions of justice, …

Law, Responsibility, And The Brain, Owen D. Jones, Dean Mobbs, Hakwan C. Lau, Christopher D. Frith

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article addresses new developments in neuroscience, and their implications for law. It explores, for example, the relationships between brain injury and violence, as well as the connections between mental disorders and criminal behaviors. It discusses a variety of issues surrounding brain fingerprinting, the use of brain scans for lie detection, and concerns about free will. It considers the possible uses for, and legal implications of, brain-imaging technology. And it also identifies six essential limits on the use of brain imaging in courtroom procedures.