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Full-Text Articles in Law
Using Waller To Uphold First And Sixth Amendment Rights Throughout The Covid-19 Pandemic, Maya Chaudhuri
Using Waller To Uphold First And Sixth Amendment Rights Throughout The Covid-19 Pandemic, Maya Chaudhuri
Washington and Lee Law Review Online
In The Right to a Public Trial in the Time of COVID-19, Professor Stephen Smith argued that the COVID-19 pandemic justified an almost categorical suspension of the right to a public trial. Judges have relied on Smith’s Article to justify closure decisions made without the constitutionally required specific findings. These are part of a larger pattern of improper closure determinations, many made without fully considering alternatives to closure, since the beginning of the pandemic that threatens the rights of individuals with criminal cases and the collective rights of the public. But the Constitution has no pandemic exception, and it …
Juries, Democracy, And Petty Crime, John D. King
Juries, Democracy, And Petty Crime, John D. King
Scholarly Articles
The right to trial by jury in criminal cases is basic to the design of American criminal justice and to the structure of American government. Guaranteed by Article III of the Constitution, the Sixth Amendment, and every one of the original state constitutions, the criminal jury was seen as critically important not only to the protection of individual rights but also to the architecture of American democracy. The vast majority of criminal prosecutions today, however, are resolved without even the prospect of community review by a jury. Despite the textual clarity of the guarantee, the Supreme Court has long recognized …