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Full-Text Articles in Law
Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs
Rehabilitating Charge Bargaining, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
Nobody likes plea bargaining. Scholars worldwide have excoriated the practice, calling it coercive and unjust, among other pejorative adjectives. Despite its unpopularity, plea bargaining constitutes a central component of the American criminal justice system, and the United States has exported the practice to a host of countries worldwide. Indeed, plea bargaining has even appeared at international criminal tribunals, created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity--the gravest crimes known to humankind. Although all forms of plea bargaining are unpopular, commentators reserve their harshest criticism for charge bargaining because charge bargaining is said to distort the factual basis of the defendant's …
The Myth Of Preliminary Due Process For Misdemeanor Prosecutions In New York, Anjali Pathmanathan
The Myth Of Preliminary Due Process For Misdemeanor Prosecutions In New York, Anjali Pathmanathan
Faculty Publications
The existing criminal procedure laws of New York do not afford the misdemeanor accused any meaningful preliminary opportunity to fight the substantiation of the accusations against them. This is problematic given that a criminal prosecution can have extreme consequences on an individual’s life, including the loss of liberty, employment, housing, child custody or freedom from immigration removal proceedings. This article therefore analyzes the weaknesses in the existing criminal procedure laws for these prosecutions, and assesses how historical protections dissolved into the myth of preliminary due process for misdemeanor cases today. Ultimately, since the current procedures are ineffective in protecting against …
Increasing Police Accountability: Restoring Trust And Legitimacy Through The Appointment Of Independent Prosecutors, Kami Chavis Simmons
Increasing Police Accountability: Restoring Trust And Legitimacy Through The Appointment Of Independent Prosecutors, Kami Chavis Simmons
Faculty Publications
Criminal prosecution of police officers raises a myriad of issues that this Article will begin to explore. First, while there has been a paradigmatic shift in police accountability in recent decades from remedies focusing on individual officers to those focusing on broad organizational reform, this Article will explore the important role that the deterrence rationale of criminal prosecution might play as one tool to address police misconduct. Second, other than deterrence, criminal prosecutions serve numerous goals, including retribution for the harms imposed upon the victims and society for the crimes. Historically, many racial minorities, when compared with their white counterparts, …
The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants, Adam M. Gershowitz, Laura R. Killinger
The State (Never) Rests: How Excessive Prosecutor Caseloads Harm Criminal Defendants, Adam M. Gershowitz, Laura R. Killinger
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Departing Is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Year Of Judicial Revolt On "Substantial Assistance" Departures Follows A Decade Of Prosecutorial Indiscipline (Prosecution Law Symposium), Frank O. Bowman Iii
Departing Is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Year Of Judicial Revolt On "Substantial Assistance" Departures Follows A Decade Of Prosecutorial Indiscipline (Prosecution Law Symposium), Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
the first section of this essay is devoted to demonstrating the courts' errors. Nonetheless, considered together, these opinions are perhaps an understandable reflection of judicial unease with an important component of the federal sentencing system — the longstanding, but increasingly common, practice of making deals with criminal defendants to reduce their sentences in return for testimony against their accomplices. This Article's second section will consider the most common criticisms of the system of bargaining for testimony under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines) to determine whether Singleton and Sealed Case may be good policy even if they are bad …