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Full-Text Articles in Law
Post-Conviction Release And Defacto Double Jeopardy: Making The Case For Felons As A Quasi-Suspect Class Due To The Collateral Consequences Of A Felony Conviction
Florida A & M University Law Review
Felons are a prime example of a sub-class of individuals that, once convicted in a court of law, are classified, punished, stigmatized, stripped of their rights as American citizens, and discriminated against. Could this be a form of De Facto double jeopardy? While felons are not literally subjected to a second trial within the judicial system for the same offense, felons face a pseudo trial with society, as its jury, upon re-entry into society, based on the continual discrimination for crimes they have already served time for. The enactment of discriminatory laws against felons dehumanizes the individual by discarding their …
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 …
Lie To Me: Examining Specific Intent Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001, 1035
Lie To Me: Examining Specific Intent Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001, 1035
Florida A & M University Law Review
One court notes that the Supreme Court of the United States (“SCOTUS”) has previously not found specific intent to be required under similar language within Section 1001.9 While there are many similarities between Sections 1001 and 1035, there are salient differences. Notwithstanding the differences, this Article argues that Sections 1001 and 1035 should be interpreted without “intent to deceive” and rather be interpreted as a strict liability offense. This argument began with Part I, which provided a brief introduction regarding specific intent under Sections 1001 and 1035. Part II examines the purpose of criminalizing false statements, which identifies why the …
Stare Decisis On Death Row: How The Florida Supreme Court Has Abandoned Stare Decisis Since 2020
Stare Decisis On Death Row: How The Florida Supreme Court Has Abandoned Stare Decisis Since 2020
Florida A & M University Law Review
This comment will analyze how the Florida Supreme Court has disregarded the doctrine of Stare Decisis throughout 2020 and the consequences of the four significant changes to Florida’s death penalty law. Part II discusses how the doctrine of stare decisis is defined and its origins. Part III addresses the need for certainty and reliability of the law for its survival as an institution. Part IV discusses how the court’s new composition has led the court to overturn precedent in death penalty law. Part V delves into the four major changes that the Florida Supreme Court has made relating to the …
Grant Of Clemency To Cyntoia Brown Highlights Deep Rooted Social Issues, Cheryl Page
Grant Of Clemency To Cyntoia Brown Highlights Deep Rooted Social Issues, Cheryl Page
Journal Publications
Society and our criminal justice system place a value on victims and defendants. We manifest this valuation in how we mete out punishment, how we choose who will be stopped, frisked, searched, arrested, charged, given probation, have charges dismissed and even expunged. We show the worth we place in people by the fact that 95% of elected prosecutors are white males and they have control and say over a jail and prison population that is increasingly People of Color.
A Warrant Requirement Resurgence: The Fourth Amendment In The Roberts Court, Benjamin Priester
A Warrant Requirement Resurgence: The Fourth Amendment In The Roberts Court, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Over many years, the United States Supreme Court has developed an extensive body of precedent interpreting and enforcing the provisions of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures by law enforcement agents conducting criminal investigations. Commonly called the "warrant requirement," one key component of this case law operates to deem some police investigatory techniques to be unconstitutional unless they are conducted pursuant to a search warrant issued in advance by a judge. The terms of the doctrine and its exceptions also authorize other investigatory actions as constitutionally permissible without a search warrant. The …
Racial Justice And Federal Habeas Corpus As Postconviction Relief From State Convictions, Leroy Pernell
Racial Justice And Federal Habeas Corpus As Postconviction Relief From State Convictions, Leroy Pernell
Journal Publications
It is the purpose of this Article not to simply document the influence of race on our criminal system and its role in the current racial crisis of overrepresentation of minorities in our prisons, but rather to focus on the future and importance of a key tool in the struggle for racial equity – federal habeas corpus as a postconviction remedy. By looking first at the racial context of several “landmark” criminal justice reform decisions, this Article considers how race serves as the root of the procedural due process reform that began in earnest during the Warren Court. This Article …
From Jones To Jones: Fifteen Years Of Incoherence In The Constitutional Law Of Sentencing Factfinding, Benjamin Priester
From Jones To Jones: Fifteen Years Of Incoherence In The Constitutional Law Of Sentencing Factfinding, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
For over 15 years, the United States Supreme Court has struggled to define the constitutional constraints upon a ubiquitous practice in contemporary American criminal justice: the exercise of factfinding authority by sentencing judges in the course of determining the specific punishment to be imposed upon an individual convicted of a criminal offense. While the Court has permitted much sentencing factfinding to continue unabated, its decisions have identified certain scenarios in which an offender's constitutional rights are violated when a fact found at sentencing creates particular impacts on the punishment. Unfortunately, from the beginning this new constitutional doctrine in criminal procedure …
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 …
A Latina Law Professor's Personal Perspective After The Zimmerman Trial Verdict, Maritza I. Reyes
A Latina Law Professor's Personal Perspective After The Zimmerman Trial Verdict, Maritza I. Reyes
Journal Publications
No abstract provided.
Five Answers And Three Questions After United States V. Jones (2012), The Fourth Amendment Gps Case, Benjamin Priester
Five Answers And Three Questions After United States V. Jones (2012), The Fourth Amendment Gps Case, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Each year, the United States Supreme Court's docket includes a range of "high profile" cases that attract attention not merely from law professors and others with an acquired fascination with the Court, but also from a general audience of law students, lawyers, scholars and commentators on American politics and society, as well as, occasionally, the public at large. During the 2011 Term, one of those cases was "the GPS case," formally known as United States v. Jones.' Media coverage of the case spread far beyond the legal blogosphere to a wide variety of mainstream and popular sources, both in print …
Apprendi Land Becomes Bizarro World: Policy Nullification And Other Surreal Doctrines In The New Constitutional Law Of Sentencing, Benjamin Priester
Apprendi Land Becomes Bizarro World: Policy Nullification And Other Surreal Doctrines In The New Constitutional Law Of Sentencing, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Imagine a final exam essay answer in constitutional law premised upon the following doctrinal principles: (i) identical findings of fact that produce identical effects on the outcome of a decision should sometimes be constitutional and should sometimes be unconstitutional based on formalistic doctrinal lines unrelated to the substantive merits of the issue being decided; (ii) decision-makers should preferably give vague explanations grounded in moral philosophy rather than specific explanations connected to particular findings; (iii) appellate review of trial court decision-making is unconstitutional; and (iv) courts are entitled to substitute their own policy preferences for those enacted by the legislature on …
Terrorist Detention: Directions For Reform, Benjamin Priester
Terrorist Detention: Directions For Reform, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Counterterrorism efforts by the U.S. government since 2001 have produced numerous legal controversies. One of the most controversial subjects has been the detention of individuals allegedly involved with terrorist organizations or activities. Unlike traditional criminal detainees, such persons are not held pursuant to indictment on charges pending trial or to a verdict of conviction. Unlike traditional military detainees, they are not battlefield captives from combat in a war zone against the military forces of another nation. Rather, terrorist detainees are held based on the individual's alleged connections to terrorist organizations and activities, without more. Terrorist detention, so defined, is an …
Who Is A Terrorist - Drawing The Line Between Criminal Defendants And Military Enemies, Benjamin Priester
Who Is A Terrorist - Drawing The Line Between Criminal Defendants And Military Enemies, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
The threat of terrorist attacks by al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist organizations is a constant topic of public discourse in the United States. Despite its prominence, the nature of that threat is notoriously difficult to define. On the one hand, terrorists might be compared to other kinds of organized, dangerous criminals who should be prosecuted and punished using the federal criminal law. On the other hand, terrorists might be compared to enemy soldiers engaged in warfare against the United States. There are problems with either approach, however, because the threat posed by al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist organizations …
The Canine Metaphor And The Future Of Sentencing Reform: Dogs, Tails, And The Constitutional Law Of Wagging, Benjamin Priester
The Canine Metaphor And The Future Of Sentencing Reform: Dogs, Tails, And The Constitutional Law Of Wagging, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Over the last seven years, in what is commonly referred to as the Apprendi line of cases, the United States Supreme Court has promulgated an audacious and controversial constitutional law of sentencing characterized by thinly veiled disdain for legislative sentencing reform measures and high regard for judicial discretion in punishing offenders. The Court's opinions have asserted that its newfound constitutional principle is necessary to safeguard defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury against legislative encroachment. In truth, the only interest being preserved is judges' assessment of their own importance. The doctrinal and practical effects of the new sentencing doctrine …
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 …
Structuring Sentencing: Apprendi, The Offense Of Conviction, And The Limited Role Of Constitutional Law, Benjamin Priester
Structuring Sentencing: Apprendi, The Offense Of Conviction, And The Limited Role Of Constitutional Law, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Every year hundreds of thousands of convicted criminal defendants are sentenced for their crimes, often through the implementation of a broad range of laws of relatively recent vintage such as mandatory minimum provisions and regulations of judicial discretion like the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The policies underlying these sentencing laws are perhaps the most hotly contested issues in all of criminal procedure, with legislative amendments and calls for reform being made every year. Despite their tremendous importance and the constant political activity concerning them, however, the constitutionality of these laws is surprisingly uncertain-the United States Supreme Court has heard an astounding …
Constitutional Formalism And The Meaning Of Apprendi V. New Jersey, Benjamin Priester
Constitutional Formalism And The Meaning Of Apprendi V. New Jersey, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
In June 2000, the United States Supreme Court decided Apprendi v. New Jersey,' a case that likely will have a significant impact on the administration of criminal justice in federal and state courts. The Court imposed a procedural limitation on prosecutors by restricting the types of facts that may be proven at sentencing rather than at trial. Specifically, the Court adopted a constitutional principle that "any fact that increases the penalty for a crime beyond the prescribed statutory maximum" is an element of the offense of conviction. Under wellestablished constitutional doctrine, the Constitution's full procedural protections, especially the necessity of …
Sentenced For A Crime The Government Did Not Prove: Jones V. United States And The Constitutional Limitations On Factfinding By Sentencing Factors Rather Than Elements Of The Offense, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
The tension between the two principles set out above is an unresolved dilemma for the United States Supreme Court. On the one hand, not every fact relevant to sentencing a criminal defendant warrants the Constitution's full criminal procedure protections. On the other hand, if those protections apply only to the facts selected by the legislature to determine guilt or innocence, the sentencing proceeding may overwhelm the trial in importance because the sentencing facts will determine the defendant's fate to a far greater extent. Justice Scalia described this tension bluntly: Suppose that a State repealed all of the violent crimes in …
No Penetration - And It's Still Rape, Lundy Langston
No Penetration - And It's Still Rape, Lundy Langston
Journal Publications
This Article explores the penetration requirement and considers the following: (1) whether it is a male or reasonable person understanding of what is so violative of a woman's body that it should be referred to as rape; and (2) what punishment should be imposed. This Article explores problems raised by the "foreplay" issue. Understanding that rape is not sex, in order to deem a violation, one must understand how a violation is characterized. In addition to defining what is violative, the foreplay issue raises questions about characterizations from a male perspective concerning when a male is placed on notice by …