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Full-Text Articles in Law

No Change In Sight For Sentencing Guidelines, Wes R. Porter Dec 2011

No Change In Sight For Sentencing Guidelines, Wes R. Porter

Publications

In the post-Booker era, the commission must reinvent itself to provide a useful tool for the courts in determining punishment, explains Wes Reber Porter of Golden Gate University School of Law.


Confrontation Clause Again Before High Court, Robert K. Calhoun Sep 2011

Confrontation Clause Again Before High Court, Robert K. Calhoun

Publications

This past term, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the latest in a series of confrontation clause cases that began in 2004 with Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36. In Bullcoming v. New Mexico, 11 C.D.O.S. 7706, the court held that the confrontation clause does not permit the government to introduce a forensic lab report in a criminal trial through the in-court testimony of an analyst who did not personally perform or observe the test that formed the basis for the report.


Why Cops Lie, Peter Keane Mar 2011

Why Cops Lie, Peter Keane

Publications

Police officer perjury in court to justify illegal dope searches is commonplace. One of the dirty little not-so-secret secrets of the criminal justice system is undercover narcotics officers intentionally lying under oath. It is a perversion of the American justice system that strikes directly at the rule of law. Yet it is the routine way of doing business in courtrooms everywhere in America.


Ninth Circuit Strikes Out On Hearsay, Peter Keane Jan 2011

Ninth Circuit Strikes Out On Hearsay, Peter Keane

Publications

The recent Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals opinion, United States v. Barry Bonds , is a murky distortion of an important Federal Rule of Evidence. Quite apart from any celebrity status about a decision regarding the upcoming perjury trial of the former Giants' slugger, the ruling significantly affects the admissibility of evidence in the federal courts in an unfortunate and erroneous way.


The Pendulum In Federal Sentencing Can Also Swing Toward Predictability: A Renewed Role For Binding Plea Agreements Post-Booker, Wes R. Porter Jan 2011

The Pendulum In Federal Sentencing Can Also Swing Toward Predictability: A Renewed Role For Binding Plea Agreements Post-Booker, Wes R. Porter

Publications

This article argues that in addition to the swing toward increased judicial discretion and overall lower sentences, the pendulum also can swing toward predictability and informed decision making for the defendant. The federal sentencing scheme must allow a defendant to pursue, negotiate, and contract for what the defendant believes is a uniform, proportional, and fair sentence. Increased use of binding plea agreements in federal court could complement the progressive developments following Booker and restore some predictability and informed decision making to federal sentencing. However, without significant rule, policy, and perception changes, like those proposed in Part VI of this article, …


Wrongfully Convicted: The Overrepresentation Of The Poor, Susan Rutberg Jan 2011

Wrongfully Convicted: The Overrepresentation Of The Poor, Susan Rutberg

Publications

Professor Susan Rutberg introduced a panel of her students who presented papers, each focused on an individual cause of wrongful convictions and a proposed solution to this identified problem. The panel illustrated how law school students can use the lens of their inexperience to articulate straightforward approaches that might reduce the circumstances that produce wrongful convictions and alleviate some of the hardship such convictions cause.


Wrongfully Incarcerated, Randomly Compensated - How To Fund Wrongful-Conviction Compensation Statutes, Deborah M. Mostaghel Jan 2011

Wrongfully Incarcerated, Randomly Compensated - How To Fund Wrongful-Conviction Compensation Statutes, Deborah M. Mostaghel

Publications

It is sadly true that there are people in this country who are sentenced to prison, and even death, for crimes they did not commit. Some have been exonerated and released, largely as the result of innocence projects that have helped prisoners assemble DNA evidence that shows they were not the perpetrators. Some have been exonerated years after they died in prison. Many others are no doubt never exonerated. For a wrongfully convicted person, exoneration is the end of one road but only the beginning of another. Unbelievably, exonerees starting out on the road back to society find that they …


¡Silencio! Undocumented Immigrant Witnesses And The Right To Silence, Violeta R. Chapin Jan 2011

¡Silencio! Undocumented Immigrant Witnesses And The Right To Silence, Violeta R. Chapin

Publications

At a time referred to as "an unprecedented era of immigration enforcement," undocumented immigrants who have the misfortune to witness a crime in this country face a terrible decision. Calling the police to report that crime will likely lead to questions that reveal a witness's immigration status, resulting in detention and deportation for the undocumented immigrant witness. Programs like Secure Communities and 287(g) partnerships evidence an increase in local immigration enforcement, and this Article argues that undocumented witnesses' only logical response to these programs is silence. Silence, in the form of a complete refusal to call the police to report …


A Diva Defends Herself: Gender And Domestic Violence In An Early Twentieth-Century Headline Trial, Carolyn B. Ramsey Jan 2011

A Diva Defends Herself: Gender And Domestic Violence In An Early Twentieth-Century Headline Trial, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This short article was presented as part of a symposium on headline criminal trials, organized by St. Louis University School of Law in honor of Lawrence Friedman. It describes and analyzes the self-defense acquittal of opera singer Mae Talbot in Nevada in 1910 on charges of murdering her abusive husband. Based on extensive research into archival trial records and newspaper reports, the article discusses how the press, the court, and trial lawyers on both sides depicted the killing and Mae’s possible defenses. Without discounting the sensationalism and entertainment value, to a scandal-hungry public, of stories about violent marriages, I contend …


Domestic Violence And State Intervention In The American West And Australia, 1860-1930, Carolyn B. Ramsey Jan 2011

Domestic Violence And State Intervention In The American West And Australia, 1860-1930, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

This Article calls into question stereotypical assumptions about the presumed lack of state intervention in the family and the patriarchal violence of Anglo-American frontier societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By analyzing previously unexamined cases of domestic assault and homicide in the American West and Australia, Professor Ramsey reveals a sustained (but largely ineffectual) effort to civilize men by punishing violence against women. Husbands in both the American West and Australia were routinely arrested or summoned to court for beating their wives in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Judges, police officers, journalists, and others expressed dismay …