Law Commons^™

A Formulaic Recitation Will Not Do: Why The Federal Rules Demand More Detail In Criminal Pleading, Charles Eric Hintz

All Faculty Scholarship

When a plaintiff files a civil lawsuit in federal court, her complaint must satisfy certain minimum standards. Specifically, under the prevailing understanding of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a), a complaint must plead sufficient factual matter to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face, rather than mere conclusory statements. Given the significantly higher stakes involved in criminal cases, one might think that an even more robust requirement would exist in that context. But in fact a weaker pleading standard reigns. Under the governing interpretation of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 7(c), indictments that simply parrot the …

A Response To Professor Steinberg’S Fourth Amendment Chutzpah, Fabio Arcila

Scholarly Works

Professor David Steinberg believes that the Fourth Amendment was intended only to provide some protection against physical searches of homes through imposition of a specific warrant requirement because the Framers' only object in promulgating the Fourth Amendment was to ban physical searches of homes under general warrants or no warrants at all. This response essay takes issue with his thesis by (1) discussing its implications, (2) reviewing some concerns with his methodology in reviewing the historical record, and (3) examining the theoretical implication underlying his thesis that, except as to homes, we have a majoritarian Fourth Amendment, and questioning whether …

In The Trenches: Searches And The Misunderstood Common-Law History Of Suspicion And Probable Cause, Fabio Arcila

Scholarly Works

A detailed analysis of the common law during the Framers’ era, and of how it reflected the Fourth Amendment’s restrictions, shows that many judges believed they could issue search warrants without independently assessing the adequacy of probable cause, and that this view persisted even after the Fourth Amendment became effective. This conclusion challenges the leading originalist account of the Fourth Amendment, which Professor Thomas Davies published in the Michigan Law Review in 1999.

Learned treatises in particular, and to a lesser extent a few case decisions, had articulated a judicial duty to monitor probable cause. But it is a mistake …

Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

THE COURT: I don't think I have time to listen .... I am not going to reexamine your guilt or innocence here. That is not the purpose of a sentence.. THE DEFENDANT: I did not have the chance to tell you .... THE DEFENDANT: But, your Honor, listen to me-1 Should the court hear this defendant? Is the story of innocence relevant at allocution-the defendant's opportunity to speak on his or her own behalf at the sentencing hearing prior to the imposition of sentence? Or, is the purpose of allocution something different, as the judge suggests? The answers depend on …

Common Law Police Powers And Exclusion Of Evidence: The Renaissance Of Good Faith, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Canadian courts have become far more willing in recent years to rely on the common law as a source of new police powers. Where once the test from R. v. Waterfield was an exception and an afterthought to what was otherwise the general rule of insistence upon statutory sources for police powers, more recently that test seems to be in the forefront of judges' minds as they decide cases. That 1963 British decision has been cited by Canadian courts roughly as often in the last eight years as in the first 35 years after it was decided. Since 1999 the …

Book Review. The Convergence Of The Continental And The Common Law Model Of Criminal Procedure, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

A Holistic Approach To Criminal Justice Scholarship, William T. Pizzi

Publications

No abstract provided.

Mistake In The Model Penal Code: A False False Problem, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

No solution seems more gratifying to the modern theorist than to claim that an apparently serious problem is not really a problem at all. By branding nonfalsifiable propositions as nonsense, the Vienna circle of logical positivists discovered that the metaphysical concerns of others were really false problems. By ridding philosophy of false problems, Wittgenstein thought that he could let the fly escape from the bottle; he could release the philosophical spirit from its confounding constraints. Brainerd Currie brought this method to the law with his justly famous theory of false conflicts in the conflicts of laws. There was no need …

Hunger Strikes And The State's Right To "Force Feed": Recent Australian Experience, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Whether or not it is the nature of the protest itself which makes it unsuitable for resolution in a court-room situation, the case law relating to "hunger strikes" (and State's response) is both sparse and insignificant. Perhaps on the basis of its uniqueness alone, the case of Schneidas v. Corrective Services Commission(New South Wales) and Others should be of particular interest to jurists on both sides of the Irish border.

On Recognizing Variations In State Criminal Procedure, Jerold H. Israel

Articles

Everyone recognizes that the laws governing criminal procedure vary somewhat from state to state. There is often a tendency, however, to underestimate the degree of diversity that exists. Even some of the most experienced practitioners believe that aside from variations on some minor matters, such as the number of peremptory challenges granted, and variation on a few major items, such as the use of the grand jury, the basic legal standards governing most procedures are approximately the same in a large majority of states. I have seen varied evidence of this misconception in practitioner discussions of law reform proposals, particularly …

Science And Morality Of Criminal Law, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.