Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Death Penalty, Josh D. Moore
Death Penalty, Josh D. Moore
Mercer Law Review
Between June 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012, the Georgia Supreme Court addressed several significant points of law in the context of death penalty litigation. The court grappled with two challenging speedy trial issues, one constitutional and the other statutory, in Phan v. State and Walker v. State, respectively. The court announced a new rule on the calculation of time limitations for impeachable convictions in Clay v. State. The court revisited the subject of burden of proof in mental retardation cases in Stripling v. State. And the court articulated a clear standard for evaluating prejudice in a …
Crack, Congress, And The Normalization Of Federal Sentencing: Why 12,040 Federal Inmates Believe That Their Sentences Should Be Reduced, And Why They And Others Like Them May Be Right, Michael Mcneill
Mercer Law Review
The 1980s was a transitionary period in American history, when the general acceptance of casual drug use, which is still associated with the 1960s and 1970s, began to turn to widespread disapproval. The practice and dangers of "freebasing"-smoking cocaine that had been purified with ether and inhaled over an open flame-came into the public spotlight in 1980 when a prominent comedian immolated himself in an accident blamed on the dangerous practice. Beginning in 1984, a cheaper, more accessible form of freebase cocaine, called "crack," began growing in popularity in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. In November 1985, newspapers began …
Municipal Liability? Not So Fast: What Connick V. Thompson Means For Future Prosecutorial Misconduct, T. Owen Farist
Municipal Liability? Not So Fast: What Connick V. Thompson Means For Future Prosecutorial Misconduct, T. Owen Farist
Mercer Law Review
In Connick v. Thompson, the United States Supreme Court held that, under section 1983 of title 42 of the United States Code, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's actions failed to rise to the level of deliberate indifference required for municipal liability. The Court affirmed the possibility of "single-incident" municipal liability hypothesized in City of Canton v. Harris as an exception to the ordinary requirement of a pattern of similar violations necessary to prove the stringent standard of deliberate indifference to a known or obvious consequence. Despite upholding the validity of the exception, the Court found that Thompson's case did …
Davis And The Good Faith Exception: Pushing Exclusion To Extinction?, Eleanor De Golian
Davis And The Good Faith Exception: Pushing Exclusion To Extinction?, Eleanor De Golian
Mercer Law Review
To mitigate the effects of unlawful searches and remain faithful to the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the United States Supreme Court created the exclusionary rule, which requires lower courts to suppress evidence obtained from illegal searches. The Court, however, has recognized exceptions to the exclusionary rule, many of which involve police officers' "good faith" reliance on what they believe to be legal authority to search. In Davis v. United States, the Supreme Court held that, where a police officer relies on binding precedent in performing a search, the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule will not be used …