Law Commons^™

Quisano V. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 9 (February 18, 2016), Michael Hua

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

This court affirmed an appeal from a judgment of conviction, pursuant to an Alford plea, of voluntary manslaughter and child abuse, neglect, or endangerment with substantial bodily harm holding:

(1) Brady violations do not occur when the evidence in question is not favorable to the defendant;

(2) Prosecutors have a strict duty to disclose under their own open-file policy until sentencing proceedings; and,

(3) Media outlets require a written by the district court to electronically cover proceedings unless nonconstitutional or harmless error results in such coverage.

Diminishing Probable Cause And Minimalist Searches, Kit Kinports

Kit Kinports

This paper comments on recent Supreme Court opinions that have used phrases such as "reasonable belief" and "reason to believe" when analyzing intrusions that generally require proof of probable cause. Historically, the Court used these terms as shorthand references for both probable cause and reasonable suspicion. While this lack of precision was unobjectionable when the concepts were interchangeable, that has not been true since Terry v. Ohio created a distinction between the two standards. When the Justices then resurrect these terms without situating them in the dichotomy between probable cause and reasonable suspicion, it is not clear whether they are …

Taylor Vs. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 27 (April. 21, 2016), Marta Kurshumova

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) access and usage of historical cell phone connection data without a warrant does not violate the Fourth Amendment if the “specific and articulable facts” standard is met, (2) the out-of-court and in-court identifications did not violate Taylor’s constitutional rights to due process of law, (3) the prosecutorial conduct during closing arguments did not violate Taylor’s Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial or Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and (4) there was sufficient evidence at trial to support the jury's finding of guilt.

Prosecutorial Ventriloquism: People V. Tom And The Substantive Use Of Post-Arrest, Pre-Miranda Silence To Infer Consciousness Of Guilt, Joshua Bornstein

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article argues that the increasingly prevalent critiques of the War on Drugs apply to other areas of criminal law. To highlight the broader relevance of these critiques, the Article uses as its test case the criminal regulation of gun possession. The Article identifies and distills three lines of drug-war criticism, and argues that they apply to possessory gun crimes in much the same way that they apply to drug crimes. Specifically, the Article focuses on: (1) race- and class-based critiques; (2) concerns about police and prosecutorial power; and (3) worries about the social costs of mass incarceration. Scholars have …

Training For Bargaining, Jenny M. Roberts, Ronald F. Wright

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

While plea bargaining dominates the practice of criminal law, preparation for trial remains central to defense attorneys’ training. Negotiation is still peripheral to that training. Defense lawyers enter practice with little exposure to negotiation techniques and strategies in the plea bargaining context, the most significant skills they use every day.

Empirical research on plea negotiations has concentrated on outcomes of negotiations rather than the process itself. Our multi-phase field study examines the negotiation techniques that attorneys use during plea bargaining, as well as their preparation and training for negotiation. This Article explores the data on the training aspects of our …

Moving Beyond Miranda: Concessions For Confessions, Scott Howe

Scott W. Howe

Abstract: The law governing police interrogation provides perverse incentives. For criminal suspects, the law rewards obstruction and concealment. For police officers, it honors deceit and psychological aggression. For the courts and the rest of us, it encourages blindness and rationalization. This Article contends that the law could help foster better behaviors. The law could incentivize criminals to confess without police trickery and oppression. It could motivate police officers involved in obtaining suspect statements to avoid chicanery and duress. And, it could summon courts and the rest of us to speak more truthfully about whether suspect admissions are the product of …