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Criminal Procedure

2012

Criminal Law

Selected Works

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Law

Bargained Justice: Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem And The Brady Safety-Valve, Lucian Dervan Dec 2011

Bargained Justice: Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem And The Brady Safety-Valve, Lucian Dervan

Lucian E Dervan

If any number of attorneys were asked in 2004 whether Lea Fastow’s plea bargain in the Enron case was constitutional, the majority would respond with a simple word – Brady. Yet while the 1970 Supreme Court decision Brady v. United States authorized plea bargaining as a form of American justice, the case also contained a vital caveat that has been largely overlooked by scholars, practitioners, and courts for almost forty years. Brady contains a safety-valve that caps the amount of pressure that may be asserted against defendants by prohibiting prosecutors from offering incentives in return for guilty pleas that are …

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Robinson V. California: From Revolutionary Constitutional Doctrine To Model Ban On Status Crimes, Erik Luna Dec 2011

Robinson V. California: From Revolutionary Constitutional Doctrine To Model Ban On Status Crimes, Erik Luna

Erik Luna

No abstract provided.

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The Prosecutor In Transnational Perspective, Erik Luna, Marianne Wade Dec 2011

The Prosecutor In Transnational Perspective, Erik Luna, Marianne Wade

Erik Luna

No abstract provided.

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Massachusetts Firearms Prosecutions In The Wake Of Melendez-Diaz, Kevin P. Chapman Dec 2011

Massachusetts Firearms Prosecutions In The Wake Of Melendez-Diaz, Kevin P. Chapman

Kevin P. Chapman

The Supreme Court ruling in Melendez-Diaz fundamentally changed the way that firearms offenses are prosecuted in Massachusetts. This paper presents the history of firearms prosecutions and the current state of the law, and it raises several unanswered questions that could further change the nature of future firearms prosecutions.

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The Relational Contingency Of Rights, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky Dec 2011

The Relational Contingency Of Rights, Alex Stein, Gideon Parchomovsky

Alex Stein

In this Article, we demonstrate, contrary to conventional wisdom, that all rights are relationally contingent. Our main thesis is that rights afford their holders meaningful protection only against challengers who face higher litigation costs than the rightholder. Contrariwise, challengers who can litigate more cheaply than a rightholder can force the rightholder to forfeit the right and thereby render the right ineffective. Consequently, in the real world, rights avail only against certain challengers but not others. This result is robust and pervasive. Furthermore, it obtains irrespectively of how rights and other legal entitlements are defined by the legislator or construed by …

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"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira P. Robbins Dec 2011

"Bad Juror" Lists And The Prosecutor's Duty To Disclose, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

Prosecutors sometimes use what are known as "bad juror" lists to exclude particular citizens from jury service. Not only does this practice interfere with an open and fair jury-selection process, thus implicating a defendant's right to be tried by a jury of his or her peers, but it also violates potential jurors' rights to serve in this important capacity. But who is on these lists? And is a prosecutor required to disclose the lists to defense counsel? These questions have largely gone unnoticed by legal analysts.
 
This Article addresses the prosecutor's duty to disclose bad-juror lists. It reviews the …

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