Law Commons^™

To Catch A Killer: Roadblocks And The Fourth Amendment, Michael T. Morley

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law Sanctuaries, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

The paper explores the existence of various social institutions that have resisted the reach of criminal law enforcement authority over time. Focusing on the response of the Catholic Church to widespread clergy sexual abuse, which in many respects reflects the practice of sanctuary in the European middle ages, as well as the historic resistance of families and corporations to criminal law authority, the paper discusses the reasons underlying the phenomenon of sanctuaries, and offers insights into how criminal wrongdoing might best be addressed therein.

The Importance Of Purpose In Probation Decision Making, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Articulation of purpose is, and should be, an important feature of any governmental activity. Since 1962, and the publication of the Model Penal Code, governments have increasingly seen fit to identify the purposes of punishment. To the extent such purposes have been expressly identified, however, they have primarily related to imprisonment, informing the duration inquiry. Governments have been far less dedicated to the articulation of the purposes of probation, a disposition that today easily accounts for the majority of penal outcomes in U.S. courts. This paper explores the role of purpose in probation decision making. It begins with a historical …

Substantive Due Process And The Involuntary Confinement Of Sexually Violent Predators, Wayne A. Logan, Eric S. Janus

Scholarly Publications

Over the past fifty years the Supreme Court has been repeatedly asked to address the constitutionality of civil commitment laws, including laws specifically targeting sexually violent predators (SVPs). The SVP laws have withstood challenge, in each instance redeemed by their putative civil purpose. Today, however, roughly 13 years after the first modern SVP law was enacted by the State of Washington, serious concern exists over whether the laws are fulfilling their civil purpose, or are merely serving as vehicles for impermissible preventive detention.

This Article addresses this question, in the process exploring the viability of the major remaining constitutional basis …

Jacob's Legacy: Sex Offender Registration And Community Notification Laws, Practice And Procedure In Minnesota, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

Triggered in significant part by the October, 1989, abduction of eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling in rural St. Joseph, Minnesota, Americans during the 1990s were beset by a "moral panic" over convicted sex offenders living in their midst. To be sure, this panic in itself was not unprecedented in American history. At regular intervals throughout the twentieth century, heinous sexual victimizations, of women and children in particular, preoccupied the nation, often after receiving intense media attention. The 1990s panic, however, was unique in its force and scope, taking tangible form in what has been aptly called a "'legislative' panic." As a result …