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Full-Text Articles in Law
Criminal Justice Secrets, Meghan J. Ryan
Criminal Justice Secrets, Meghan J. Ryan
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
The American criminal justice system is cloaked in secrecy. The government employs covert surveillance operations. Grand-jury proceedings are hidden from public view. Prosecutors engage in closed-door plea-bargaining and bury exculpatory evidence. Juries convict defendants on secret evidence. Jury deliberations are a black box. And jails and prisons implement clandestine punishment practices. Although there are some justifications for this secrecy, the ubiquitous nature of it is contrary to this nation’s Founders’ steadfast belief in the transparency of criminal justice proceedings. Further, the pervasiveness of secrecy within today’s criminal justice system raises serious constitutional concerns. The accumulation of secrecy and the aggregation …
Am I Angry? You Bet I Am! Watching The George Floyd Murder Trial, Cheryl Page
Am I Angry? You Bet I Am! Watching The George Floyd Murder Trial, Cheryl Page
Journal Publications
We have come a mighty long way in our criminal justice system. We have gone from a period of time when people of African descent were not considered humans and were deliberately excluded from serving on jury panels to seeing Black judges, defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys taking part in selecting more diverse juries. Progress has been made, but how far have we really journeyed, and are the vestiges of racial animus and discrimination from the Jim Crow era truly eradicated? One need not look further than the current criminal trial we are witnessing of former Minneapolis police officer Derek …
Federal Guilty Pleas: Inequities, Indigence And The Rule 11 Process, Julian A. Cook
Federal Guilty Pleas: Inequities, Indigence And The Rule 11 Process, Julian A. Cook
Scholarly Works
In 2017 and 2018, the Supreme Court issued two little-noticed decisions—Lee v. United States and Class v. United States. While neither case captured the attention of the national media nor generated meaningful academic commentary, both cases are well deserving of critical examination for reasons independent of the issues presented to the Court. They deserve review because of a consequential shared fact; a fact representative of a commonplace, yet largely overlooked, federal court practice that routinely disadvantages the indigent (and disproportionately minority populations), and compromises the integrity of arguably the most consequential component of the federal criminal justice process. In each …
Regulating Interrogations And Excluding Confessions In The United States: Balancing Individual Rights And The Search For Truth, Jenia I. Turner
Regulating Interrogations And Excluding Confessions In The United States: Balancing Individual Rights And The Search For Truth, Jenia I. Turner
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Like other criminal justice systems, the U.S. system must balance, on the one hand, enforcing the criminal law and, on the other, protecting individual rights in the process. Reliable fact-finding is a prerequisite to the effective enforcement of criminal law and to just outcomes. Protection of individual rights often promotes reliable fact-finding, as when a ban on involuntary confessions prevents the introduction of unreliable testimony at trial. On occasion, however, the commitment to accurate fact-finding may conflict with individual rights in a particular case. One of the clearest examples of such a conflict occurs when a court must decide whether …
Neil Gorsuch And The Return Of Rule-Of-Law Due Process, Nathan Chapman
Neil Gorsuch And The Return Of Rule-Of-Law Due Process, Nathan Chapman
Popular Media
Something curious happened at the Supreme Court last week. While the country was glued to the Cirque du Trump, the rule of law made a comeback, revived by Neil Gorsuch, whose place on the Court may prove to be one of Trump’s most important legacies.
Unlike the partisan gerrymander and First Amendment cases currently pending before the Court, immigration cases are usually long on textual analysis and short on grand themes. Accordingly, court-watchers didn’t have especially high expectations for Sessions v. Dimaya.
Anselmo V. Bisbee, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 45 (Jun. 29, 2017), Marco Luna
Anselmo V. Bisbee, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 45 (Jun. 29, 2017), Marco Luna
Nevada Supreme Court Summaries
The Nevada Parole Board can deny parole for any reason authorized by regulation or statute. However, inmates do have a statutory right to have a parole hearing under NRS 213.140(1). Therefore, in limited cases where the Nevada Parole Board clearly misapplied its own internal guidelines in assessing whether to grant parole to an inmate, a new parole hearing is warranted.
Motion For Leave To File Amicus Curiae Brief And Brief For The National Association For Public Defense And Kentucky Association Of Criminal Defense Lawyers As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Sneed V. Burress (U.S. March 24, 2017) (No. 16-8047)., Janet Moore
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
No abstract provided.
The Downstream Consequences Of Misdemeanor Pretrial Detention, Paul Heaton, Sandra G. Mayson, Megan Stevenson
The Downstream Consequences Of Misdemeanor Pretrial Detention, Paul Heaton, Sandra G. Mayson, Megan Stevenson
Scholarly Works
In misdemeanor cases, pretrial detention poses a particular problem because it may induce innocent defendants to plead guilty in order to exit jail, potentially creating widespread error in case adjudication. While practitioners have long recognized this possibility, empirical evidence on the downstream impacts of pretrial detention on misdemeanor defendants and their cases remains limited. This Article uses detailed data on hundreds of thousands of misdemeanor cases resolved in Harris County, Texas—the thirdlargest county in the United States—to measure the effects of pretrial detention on case outcomes and future crime. We find that detained defendants are 25% more likely than similarly …
Policing Criminal Justice Data, Wayne A. Logan, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
Policing Criminal Justice Data, Wayne A. Logan, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson
Scholarly Publications
No abstract provided.
Due Process And The Failure Of The Criminal Court, Steven Zeidman
Due Process And The Failure Of The Criminal Court, Steven Zeidman
Publications and Research
No abstract provided.
Wrongful Confictions And Due Process Violations, Cheryl Page
Wrongful Confictions And Due Process Violations, Cheryl Page
Journal Publications
This analytical essay looks at the myriad of ways innocent people are wrongfully convicted and how the criminal justice system fails to truly reach a fair and equitable result. The article looks at how at the initial stages of a criminal proceeding, a defendant can be prejudiced to the point of sufficient harm to his chances at being given a fair and impartial judicial proceeding. This article examines how fatal mistakes can be made and reveals that there can be flaws in the science of DNA testing, including fraud, criminologist bias, improper laboratory procedures, and human error. This article seeks …
Using Outcomes To Reframe Guilty Plea Adjudication, Anne R. Traum
Using Outcomes To Reframe Guilty Plea Adjudication, Anne R. Traum
Scholarly Works
The Supreme Court’s 2012 decisions in Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye lay the groundwork for a new approach to judicial oversight of guilty pleas that considers outcomes. These cases confirm that courts possess robust authority to protect defendants’ Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel and that plea outcomes are particularly relevant to identifying and remedying prejudicial ineffective assistance in plea-bargaining. The Court’s reliance on outcome-based prejudice analysis and suggestions for trial court-level reforms to prevent Sixth Amendment violations set the stage for trial courts to take a more active, substantive role in regulating guilty pleas. …
"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira Robbins
"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira Robbins
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
Prosecutors sometimes use what are known as "bad juror" lists to exclude particular citizens from jury service. Not only does this practice interfere with an open and fair jury-selection process, thus implicating a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his or her peers, but it also violates potential jurors' rights to serve in this important capacity. But who is on these lists? And is a prosecutor required to disclose the lists to defense counsel? These questions have largely gone unnoticed by legal analysts. This Article addresses the prosecutor's duty to disclose bad-juror lists. It reviews the federal …
Democracy And Criminal Discovery Reform After Connick And Garcetti, Janet Moore
Democracy And Criminal Discovery Reform After Connick And Garcetti, Janet Moore
Faculty Articles and Other Publications
A leading cause of wrongful conviction and wasteful litigation in criminal cases is the nondisclosure of information beneficial to the defense by prosecutors and law enforcement as required by Brady v. Maryland. In Connick v. Thompson and Garcetti v. Ceballos, the Supreme Court weakened Brady’s enforceability by limiting the deterrent force of 42 U.S.C § 1983 liability. Connick highlights Garcetti’s implications as a criminal discovery case, which scholars have not fully analyzed. While Connick restricted § 1983 liability when prosecutors confess to suppressing exculpatory evidence, Garcetti restricted liability when prosecutors are disciplined for bringing Brady evidence to light. …
Technological Leap, Statutory Gap, And Constitutional Abyss: Remote Biometric Identification Comes Of Age, Laura K. Donohue
Technological Leap, Statutory Gap, And Constitutional Abyss: Remote Biometric Identification Comes Of Age, Laura K. Donohue
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Federal interest in using facial recognition technology (“FRT”) to collect, analyze, and use biometric information is rapidly growing. Despite the swift movement of agencies and contractors into this realm, however, Congress has been virtually silent on the current and potential uses of FRT. No laws directly address facial recognition—much less the pairing of facial recognition with video surveillance—in criminal law. Limits placed on the collection of personally identifiable information, moreover, do not apply. The absence of a statutory framework is a cause for concern. FRT represents the first of a series of next generation biometrics, such as hand geometry, iris, …
Constitutionalizing Immigration Law On Its Own Path, Anne R. Traum
Constitutionalizing Immigration Law On Its Own Path, Anne R. Traum
Scholarly Works
Courts should insist on heightened procedural protections in immigration adjudication. They should do so under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause rather than by importing Sixth Amendment protections from the criminal context. Traditional judicial oversight and the Due Process Clause provide a better basis than the Sixth Amendment to interpose heightened procedural protections in immigration proceedings, especially those involving removal for a serious criminal conviction. The Supreme Court’s immigration jurisprudence in recent years lends support for this approach. The Court has guarded the availability of judicial review of immigration decisions. It has affirmed that courts are the arbiters of constitutional …
Beyond Torture: The Nemo Tenetur Principle In Borderline Cases, Luis E. Chiesa
Beyond Torture: The Nemo Tenetur Principle In Borderline Cases, Luis E. Chiesa
Journal Articles
In this article I examine three borderline cases in which it is not clear whether a confession had been obtained in violation of the nemo tenetur principle (i.e. the rights against self-incrimination and forced inculpation). The case of the false confession presents a situation in which a person made a voluntary confession but the overwhelming evidence pointed to the falsity of the statements. In contrast, the confession obtained in the case of the truth serum is of high probative value. However, it could be argued that the suspect did not voluntarily decide to incriminate himself, given that he confessed when …
Evidence Destroyed, Innocence Lost: The Preservation Of Biological Evidence Under Innocence Protection Statutes, Cynthia Jones
Evidence Destroyed, Innocence Lost: The Preservation Of Biological Evidence Under Innocence Protection Statutes, Cynthia Jones
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
No abstract provided.
Return Of The Great Writ: Judicial Review, Due Process, And The Detention Of Alleged Terrorists As Enemy Combatants, Benjamin Priester
Return Of The Great Writ: Judicial Review, Due Process, And The Detention Of Alleged Terrorists As Enemy Combatants, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
The federal government's reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, included a wide range of statutes, policies, and strategies for aggressively pursuing, capturing, detaining, and punishing not only the individuals directly responsible for the attacks, but also those who seek to carry out future attacks. The objective was no less ambitious than the elimination of the entire terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, from its leaders like Osama bin Laden to its agents in the field. To accomplish this aim the government invoked the full range of its powers in foreign and domestic affairs: military force abroad, foreign …
Without Charge: Assessing The Due Process Rights Of Unindicted Co-Conspirators, Ira Robbins
Without Charge: Assessing The Due Process Rights Of Unindicted Co-Conspirators, Ira Robbins
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
The grand jury practice of naming individuals as unindicted co-conspirators routinely results in injury to reputations,lost employment opportunities, and a practical inability to run for public office. Yet, because these individuals are not parties to a criminal trial, they have neither the right to present evidence northe opportunity to clear their names. Thus, Professor Robbins argues that the practice violates the Fifth Amendment guarantee that “[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property,without due process of law[.]” While prosecutors may offer many justifications to support the practice of namingunindicted co-conspirators, these reasons do not withstand …
Constitutional Constraints On Proving "Whodunnit?", John O. Sonsteng
Constitutional Constraints On Proving "Whodunnit?", John O. Sonsteng
Faculty Scholarship
American system places these constraints on the age old criminal law question: “WHODUNIT?” This article explores these issues.
Evitts V. Lucey, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
Black V. Romano, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
Schall V. Martin, Lewis F. Powell, Jr.
The Preliminary Hearing: A Necessary Part Of Due Process, Andrea Lyon
The Preliminary Hearing: A Necessary Part Of Due Process, Andrea Lyon
Law Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Punitive Conditions Of Prison Confinement: An Analysis Of Pugh V. Locke And Federal Court Supervision Of State Penal Administration Under The Eighth Amendment, Ira Robbins
Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals
The 1960's marked a watershed for the criminal justice system. In such areas as search and seizure, right to counsel and the privilege against self-incrimination, the federal courts first defined substantive constitutional rights and then imposed them upon disinclined functionaries at the state level. At first, these innovations raised thorny questions of constitutional interpretation about the rights involved, but, as is especially visible in the search and seizure area, the debate more recently has focused on the remedy chosen by the Supreme Court for enforcing these rights against the states.' This pattern of escalating federal involvement in the criminal justice …
Mullaney V. Wilbur, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Mullaney V. Wilbur, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Supreme Court Case Files
No abstract provided.
Gagnon V. Scarpelli, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Gagnon V. Scarpelli, Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Supreme Court Case Files
No abstract provided.