Law Commons^™

Screening Versus Plea Bargaining: Exactly What Are We Trading Off?, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

I was delighted to be invited to comment on Ronald Wright and Marc Miller's important and instructive article, The Screening/Bargaining Tradeoff. Those familiar with the authors' work, including their original and fascinating criminal procedure casebook, will be unsurprised by many of the article's virtues, including a focus on empirical examination of real-world practice and (perhaps a special case of that more general virtue) attention to practices at the state and local level, where most criminal law enforcement actually occurs. Wright and Miller develop some interesting insights into the potential for changes in plea bargaining practices that have frequently been …

Revenge Or Mercy? Some Thoughts About Survivor Opinion Evidence In Death Penalty Cases, Joseph L. Hoffmann

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Unexploded Bomb: Voice, Silence And Consequence At The Hague Tribunals -- A Legal And Rhetorical Critique, Timothy W. Waters

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This Article examines the decision by the ICTY Prosecutor not to investigate NATO's bombing campaign during the Kosovo war - and the Prosecutor's unusual decision to publish an Inquiry explaining its reasons. Many scholars have examined the Inquiry, but all have focused on its substantive legal analysis. This Article takes a different approach: It focuses on how the Prosecution reached the conclusion not to investigate. Using rhetorical analysis, it examines the Prosecution's decision-making mindset to see what that indicates about the shape of future international prosecutorial decision-making, including at the ICC.

There is no evidence that the Prosecution succumbed to …

Revising The Model Penal Code: Keeping It Real, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

The thesis of this talk can be simply stated: In any serious discussion of revising the Model Penal Code (MPC), the object of the game cannot be revising the MPC itself. Rather, the object of any revision of the Code is to promote the reform of the nation's actual criminal codes, as adopted by the state legislatures and Congress.

Atkins, Adolescence, And The Maturity Heuristic: Rationales For A Categorical Exemption For Juveniles From Capital Punishment, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court voted six to three to bar further use of the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders. The Court offered three reasons for banning the execution of the retarded. First, citing a shift in public opinion over the thirteen years since Penry v. Lynaugh, the Court in Atkins ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded is "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Second, the Court concluded that retaining the death penalty for the mentally retarded would not serve the interest in retribution or deterrence that is essential to capital …

Punishment, Proportionality, And Jurisdictional Transfer Of Adolescent Offenders: A Test Of The Leniency Gap Hypothesis, Aaron Kupchik, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Akiva Liberman

Faculty Scholarship

In the past two decades, nearly every state has expanded its authority and simplified its procedures to transfer adolescent offenders from juvenile to criminal (adult) courts. As a result, the use of jurisdictional transfer has grown steadily. These developments reflect popular and political concerns that punishment in juvenile courts is too lenient for serious crimes committed by adolescents. Yet there is mixed evidence that expanded transfer authority has produced more certain or severe punishments for adolescents prosecuted in criminal courts. Some empirical studies show that adolescents transferred to criminal court are more likely to be convicted, sentenced to prison, and …

Rethinking The Death Penalty: Can We Define Who Deserves Death – A Symposium Held At The Association Of The Bar Of The City Of New York May 22, 2002, Martin J. Leahy, Norman L. Greene, Robert Blecker, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier, William M. Erlbaum, David Von Drehle, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In light of the defects of the capital punishment system and recent calls for a moratorium on executions, many are calling for serious reform of the system. Even some who would not eliminate the death penalty entirely propose reforms that they contend would result in fewer executions and would limit the death penalty to a category that they call the "worst of the worst." This program asks the question: Is there a category of defendants who are the "worst of the worst?" Can a crime be so heinous that a defendant can be said to "deserve" to be executed? Would …

A Few Reflections On The Model Penal Code Commentaries, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

When Deborah Denno invited me to participate in the panel of the Association of American Law Schools discussing possible revision of the Model Penal Code, I initially declined, not having taught criminal law for more than two decades and having written only sporadically in the field. Professor Denno urged that as one involved in the revision of the Commentary, I might nonetheless have something to contribute. In these reflections, as at the session, I have mainly restricted myself to the relationship between the final commentary and the Code itself.

As Gerard Lynch's essay explains, the Model Penal Code was the …

Reciprocal Effects Of Crime And Incarceration In New York City Neighborhoods, Jeffery Fagan, Valerie West, Jan Holland

Faculty Scholarship

The concentration of incarceration in social groups and areas has emerged in the past decade as a topic of research and policy interest. This interest was fueled by several factors: persistent continued growth of incarceration through the 1990s, even as crime rates fell nationally for over seven years; persistent racial disparities in incarceration; assessments of the collateral consequences of incarceration that potentially aggravate the causal dynamics that lead to elevated crime rates; rapid growth in the number of returning prisoners to their communities; an influx that may strain social control in neighborhoods where social and economic disadvantages have already created …

From Violent Crime To Terrorism: The Changing Basis Of The Federal, State And Local Law Enforcement Dynamic, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

Two lines of questions dominate discussions about how the nation ought to respond at home to the new (or rather newly perceived) terrorist threat: How do we ensure that information about potential terrorist activities is effectively gathered, shared, and used? And how do we ensure that the Government neither abuses the investigative authority we give it, nor demands more authority than it needs? Each line can profitably be pursued in its own terms. Yet to keep the conversations separate is to miss seeing how the very process of creating an effective domestic intelligence network may introduce a salutary level of …

Toward Taping, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Numerous authors, from all points on the political spectrum, have advocated that police interrogations be taped. But police rarely record custodial questioning, at least in full, and only a handful of courts have found this failure objectionable. This commentary outlines three different constitutional grounds for mandating that such recording become a routine practice. To set up the constitutional argument, the article first outlines why taping is needed despite the elaborate rules that now govern interrogation. Put simply, the reasoning is as follows: the Miranda regime has failed, voluntariness should once again be the focal point of interrogation regulation, and taping …

The Evolution Of The United Nations Position On Terrorism: From Exempting National Liberation Movements To Criminalizing Terrorism Wherever And By Whomever Committed, Malvina Halberstam

Articles

No abstract provided.