Law Commons^™

The Right To Remain Silent Helps Only The Guilty, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Mandamus As A Weapon Of "Class Warfare" In Sixth Amendment Jurisprudence: A Case Comment On United States V. Santos, 36 J. Marshall L. Rev. 733 (2003), John F. Costello Jr.

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Bright Line: A Contemporary Right-To-Counsel Doctrine, Pamela R. Metzger

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

The current right-to-counsel doctrine was developed in the 1970's. It created a bright-line rule still in effect today. The right to counsel attaches only at "critical stages" of a criminal prosecution. Under this critical stage doctrine, the right to counsel only attaches after the initiation of formal adversary proceedings and only applies to confrontations between the accused and the prosecution or law enforcement. In the years following the Supreme Court's development of the critical stage doctrine, national trends of mandatory sentencing and sentencing guidelines revolutionized criminal procedure and dramatically altered the roles of the system's key players.

Now, defense counsel's …

The Middle Class Fourth Amendment, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Reconceptualizing Criminal Law Defenses, Victoria Nourse

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 1933, one of the leading theorists of the criminal law, Jerome Michael, wrote openly of the criminal law "as an instrument of the state." Today, criminal law is largely allergic to claims of political theory; commentators obsess about theories of deterrence and retribution, and the technical details of model codes and sentencing grids, but rarely speak of institutional effects or political commitments. In this article, the author aims to change that emphasis and to examine the criminal law as a tool for governance. Her approach is explicitly constructive: it accepts the criminal law that we have, places it in …

Weighing Poison Fruit, Yale Kamisar

Articles

In the simplest cases involving the exclusion of illegally obtained evidence, the items the defense is trying to suppress, such as drugs found during the search of a suspect's pocket, are direct, or primary, in their relationship to the police action. Thus, if the police have acted unlawfully, the evidence must be excluded from trial.

Many times, however, evidence is derivative, or secondary, in character. For example, an illegal search may turn up a key to an airport locker where the proceeds of a bank robbery are being kept. Or a coerced confession may reveal the place where a suspect …

The Death Penalty And Adversarial Justice In The United States, Samuel R. Gross

Book Chapters

In a volume devoted to comparing adversarial and inquisitorial procedures in Western countries, the subject of the death penalty is an anomaly. Any system of adjudication must address several basic tasks: how to obtain information from parties and witnesses, how to evaluate that information, how to utilize expert knowledge, how to act in the face of uncertainty, how to review and reconsider decisions. By comparing how competing systems deal with these tasks we can hope to learn something about the strengths and weaknesses of alternative approaches to common problems. The death penalty, however, is not an essential function of a …

How Much Do We Really Know About Race And Juries? A Review Of Social Science Theory And Research, Samuel R. Sommers, Phoebe C. Ellsworth

Articles

The past decade has witnessed numerous high-profile criminal trials in which controversial verdicts have been attributed to racethe race of the defendant, the racial composition of a jury, an attorney "playing the race card," and so on. A predominantly Black jury's acquittal of O.J. Simpson and White jurors' leniency in the police brutality cases of Rodney King and Amadou Diallo not only sparked public debate, but also led to rioting and violence. In the wake of trials such as these, many have questioned the viability of the American jury system.' More specific questions regarding the influence of race on jury …

Sometimes What Everybody Thinks They Know Is True, Richard D. Friedman, Roger C. Park

Articles

This essay responds to D. Davis and W. C. Follette (2002), who question the value of motive evidence in murder cases. They argue that the evidence that a husband had extramartial affairs, that he heavily insured his wife's life, or that he battered his wife is ordinarily of infinitesimal probative value. We disagree. To be sure, it would be foolish to predict solely on the basis of such evidence that a husband will murder his wife. However, when this kind of evidence is cobmined with other evidence in a realistic murder case, the evidence can be quite probative. We analyze …

Stubbornness Of Pretexts, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

This Article will reflect on (1) how the Whren v. United States failure to acknowledge what counts as a pretext accounts for the residual confusion as to whether or not Whren really has killed off the pretext argument in constitutional criminal procedure, and (2) the extent to which the Court in Sullivan compounded that failure, which I hope to lightly correct here by distinguishing motives from intentions and then by elaborating the role that each plays, or at least should play, in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence.

Confrontation As A Hot Topic: The Virtues Of Going Back To Square One, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

I have been working so obsessively on the accused's right to confront the witnesses against him 1 that I am gratified that the organizers of this conference have designated confrontation as one of the "hot topics" of Evidence law. I am not so egotistical as to think that my work has made confrontation into a hot topic; I am just glad to know that I am working where a good deal of action is, and that other scholars recognize that confrontation is an important area in which dramatic changes may be occurring.

To Err Is Human: The Judicial Conundrum Of Curing Apprendi Error, Joshua Fairfield

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Puppy Love: Bioterrorism, Civil Rights, And Public Health, George J. Annas

Faculty Scholarship

Florida has been the state humorists most like to make fun of since the 2000 presidential election, especially when it comes to politics. And humorists are almost the only commentators who can be counted on to tell us the truth about the state of American politics today. When Californians decided to recall their Governor, for example, Conan O'Brien observed: "Yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would run for governor of California. The announcement was good news for Florida residents, who now live in the second-flakiest state in the country."' And when more than 200 people filed to run for Governor, Jay …

Atkins, Adolescence, And The Maturity Heuristic: Rationales For A Categorical Exemption For Juveniles From Capital Punishment, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In Atkins v. Virginia, the U.S. Supreme Court voted six to three to bar further use of the death penalty for mentally retarded offenders. The Court offered three reasons for banning the execution of the retarded. First, citing a shift in public opinion over the thirteen years since Penry v. Lynaugh, the Court in Atkins ruled that the execution of the mentally retarded is "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. Second, the Court concluded that retaining the death penalty for the mentally retarded would not serve the interest in retribution or deterrence that is essential to capital …

Punishment, Proportionality, And Jurisdictional Transfer Of Adolescent Offenders: A Test Of The Leniency Gap Hypothesis, Aaron Kupchik, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Akiva Liberman

Faculty Scholarship

In the past two decades, nearly every state has expanded its authority and simplified its procedures to transfer adolescent offenders from juvenile to criminal (adult) courts. As a result, the use of jurisdictional transfer has grown steadily. These developments reflect popular and political concerns that punishment in juvenile courts is too lenient for serious crimes committed by adolescents. Yet there is mixed evidence that expanded transfer authority has produced more certain or severe punishments for adolescents prosecuted in criminal courts. Some empirical studies show that adolescents transferred to criminal court are more likely to be convicted, sentenced to prison, and …

A Few Reflections On The Model Penal Code Commentaries, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

When Deborah Denno invited me to participate in the panel of the Association of American Law Schools discussing possible revision of the Model Penal Code, I initially declined, not having taught criminal law for more than two decades and having written only sporadically in the field. Professor Denno urged that as one involved in the revision of the Commentary, I might nonetheless have something to contribute. In these reflections, as at the session, I have mainly restricted myself to the relationship between the final commentary and the Code itself.

As Gerard Lynch's essay explains, the Model Penal Code was the …

Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza

Faculty Scholarship

John Walker Lindh. Zacarias Moussaoui. Jose Padilla. Richard Reid. Who reading these lines does not instantly recognize the names of these men? Or at least their assigned noms de guerre: American Taliban, 20th hijacker, dirty bomber, shoe bomber. For two and a half years these names and others have flitted through our daily copies of The New York Times like shadow characters in a play, along with black-and-white photographs underneath which black-and-white text tells us of their alleged (and sometimes proven) wrongdoing and the latest developments in their tribulations (and sometimes trials) with our government. But the men themselves are …

Retribution: The Central Aim Of Punishment, Gerard V. Bradley

Journal Articles

When I worked for the Manhattan District Attorney's Office in the early 1980s, criminal sentences were consistently and dramatically too lenient. Though those years marked the ebb tide for the rehabilitative ideal of punishment and indeterminate "zip-to-ten" sentences, only career felons and those convicted of the most serious crimes were candidates for the sentences they justly deserved. Hamstrung by apparently silly rules of constitutional etiquette and bureaucratic sclerosis, the police were eclipsed in the mind of the public by the cold-blooded Everyman, bound only by the law of the jungle and some elusive sense of justice. Ultimately, popular demand required …

Rethinking The Death Penalty: Can We Define Who Deserves Death – A Symposium Held At The Association Of The Bar Of The City Of New York May 22, 2002, Martin J. Leahy, Norman L. Greene, Robert Blecker, Jeffrey L. Kirchmeier, William M. Erlbaum, David Von Drehle, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

In light of the defects of the capital punishment system and recent calls for a moratorium on executions, many are calling for serious reform of the system. Even some who would not eliminate the death penalty entirely propose reforms that they contend would result in fewer executions and would limit the death penalty to a category that they call the "worst of the worst." This program asks the question: Is there a category of defendants who are the "worst of the worst?" Can a crime be so heinous that a defendant can be said to "deserve" to be executed? Would …

Summary Of Daniel V. State, Clarke Walton

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appellant, Donald M. Mosely, shot and killed Frederick Washington and Mark Payne. At the same time, Terhain Woods and Antione Hall were also shot by Mosely, but both survived. On July 28, 1997, Moseley was convicted in district court of firstdegree murder, attempted murder with use of a deadly weapon, and burglary while in possession of a firearm. During Mosely’s trial, a number of errors occurred, which brought rise to this appeal. Because of these cumulative errors, the Nevada Supreme Court reversed appellant’s conviction and remanded the case for a new trial. In analyzing the issues raised by appellant on …

Summary Of Salazar V. State, Rick Rawson

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from district court judgment of conviction on one count of battery with use of a deadly weapon with substantial bodily harm, one count of battery with a deadly weapon, and one count of mayhem with use of a deadly weapon.

Summary Of Hathaway V. State, Melanie Koep

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Proper person appeal from an order of the Eighth Judicial District Court, Honorable John S. McGroarty, denying appellant’s post-conviction petition for writ of habeas corpus.

Summary Of Mack V. State, Kristen L. Gallagher

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A neighbor found Betty May murdered in her room at a boarding house. An autopsy determined that May died by strangulation and suffered a traumatic sexual penetration just prior to her death. Semen and blood samples were taken from May’s body and clothing at the time of her death, and after twelve years passed, a detective ordered DNA testing of the evidence. Defendant Daryl Linnie Mack was charged with the first-degree murder of Betty May. Law enforcement obtained a blood and saliva sample from Mack at two different times during the investigation. Both the semen and the blood stains matched …

Summary Of State V. Gameros-Perez, Mike Feliciano

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Jose Simon Gameros-Perez and Isidro Benitez-Medina, Respondents, were believed to be in possession of illegal narcotics and paraphernalia in their apartment. The Washoe County Sheriff telephonically applied for and obtained a warrant to search the respondents’ apartment pursuant to NRS 179.045(2). The magistrate issued the warrant based on sworn oral statements that were later transcribed. The warrant contained a statement that probable cause existed to believe the respondents were in possession of illegal narcotics and paraphernalia. It did not, however, contain an actual recitation of the probable cause for the search. Upon execution of the warrant, heroin was found in …

Summary Of West V. State, Amanda Yen

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

On February 5, 2001, the general manager of Canyon Gate Mini Storage discovered the decomposing body of Christine Smith in the storage unit owned by Smith and her daughter, appellant Brookey Lee West. Smith’s body was sealed in a garbage can wrapped with duct tape, garbage bags and cellophane wrap. A white plastic bag, knotted at the back of her head, covered Smith’s nose and mouth. Upon searching West’s apartment, police discovered Smith’s bank statements. The police determined that there were numerous ATM withdrawals on Smith’s bank account after February 1998, when Smith was last seen alive. West was charged …

Searches, Seizures, And Warrants: A Reference Guide To The United States Constitution, Robert Bloom

Robert M. Bloom

No abstract provided.

Sharing Sacred Secrets: Is It (Past) Time For A Dangerous Person Exception To The Clergy-Penitent Privilege?, R. Michael Cassidy

R. Michael Cassidy

In this article, the author discusses the important and previously unexplored topic of whether the law should recognize a future harms exception to the clergy-penitent privilege, similar to that recognized in the area of psychotherapist-patient and attorney-client privileges. After tracing the origins and current application of the clergy-penitent privilege in America, the author discusses how the privilege as currently applied in most states admits of no exceptions, and is unnecessarily expansive in breadth. Using the hypothetical of a homicidal spouse who reveals to his minister an intent to murder his wife, the article compares the ethical and legal duties of …

Policing And Equal Protection, Lawrence Rosenthal

Lawrence Rosenthal

For urban policing, it is the best of times and the worst of times. The innovative and proactive policing techniques that have come into widespread use over the past decade -- sometimes referred to as the "New Policing" -- are credited by many with producing significant reductions in urban crime. The vocal and numerous critics of these tactics, however, claim that the cure has been worse than the disease, by imposing enormous and unwarranted burdens on high crime minority communities where use of these new tactics is concentrated. In this paper, I offer a defense for New Policing as faithful …