Law Commons^™

Brief Of Amici Curiae On Behalf Of Appellants, Paul Dewolfe, Jr., Et Al. V. Quinton Richmond, Et Al., 2011 No. 34, A.J. Bellido De Luna, Michael Pinard

Court Briefs

In this case the appellants sought to overturn a decision by the Circuit Court for Baltimore City that held criminal defendants have a right to representation by an attorney at an initial bail hearing. Due to their concern about the quality of justice given to criminal defendants in the state’s criminal justice process, law professors at both the University of Baltimore and the University of Maryland filed an amicus brief with the Maryland Court of Appeals in support of the appellees.

The amici presented one issue: Did a Court of Appeals decision in 2001 holding that the Maryland Public Defender …

Where Do We Go From Here: Plea Colloquy Warnings And Immigration Consequences Post-Padilla, Vivian Chang

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues for the passage of criminal procedure rules that would require judges to warn criminal defendants about immigration consequences at plea colloquy. Part I addresses the overlap of criminal and immigration law, arguing that the increased use of the criminal justice system to police federal immigration laws calls for greater protection of non-citizen defendants at plea colloquy. Part II then addresses the legal duties imposed on both defense counsel and trial courts in relation to plea colloquy. Padilla merely addressed the duty of defense counsel to provide constitutionally effective assistance before plea colloquy and did not reach the …

Overcriminalization: Is There A Problem To Solve?, Roger Fairfax

Presentations

No abstract provided.

Perpetuating The Marginalization Of Latinos: A Collateral Consequence Of The Incorporation Of Immigration Law Into The Criminal Justice System, Yolanda Vazquez

All Faculty Scholarship

Latinos currently represent the largest minority in the United States. In 2009, we witnessed the first Latina appointment to the United States Supreme Court. Despite these events, Latinos continue to endure racial discrimination and social marginalization in the United States. The inability of Latinos to gain political acceptance and legitimacy in the United States can be attributed to the social construct of Latinos as threats to national security and the cause of criminal activity.

Exploiting this pretense, American government, society and nationalists are able to legitimize the subordination and social marginalization of Latinos, specifically Mexicans and Central Americans, much to …

Proper Crime Recording As An Effective Feedback Tool In Articulating A Crime Policy, Kevin A. Unter

Georgia Journal of Public Policy

Crime policy is subject to the policy process just like other governmental policies. An effective crime policy is one that reduces the amount of crime in a police department’s jurisdiction, e.g., the city. Accordingly, crime policy consists of the same policy components – agenda setting, formulation, implementation, and feedback. The implementation of any crime policy depends on the information collected by police departments, often through crimes reported to the department via 9-1-1 calls or brought to a police officer’s attention through proactive police work. The success of that police work relative to the reported crime first depends on whether the …

Preventive Detention In American Theory And Practice, Adam Klein, Benjamin Wittes

National Security Law Program

It is something of an article of faith in public and academic discourse that preventive detention runs counter to American values and law. This meme has become standard fare among human rights groups and in a great deal of legal scholarship. It treats the past nine years of extra-criminal detention of terrorism suspects as an extraordinary aberration from a strong American constitutional norm, under which government locks up citizens pursuant only to criminal punishment, not because of mere fear of their future acts. This argument further asserts that any statutory counterterrorism administrative detention regime would be a radical departure from …

Quieting Cognitive Bias With Standards For Witness Communications, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

Last year, as part of a project to revise the ABA Criminal Justice Standards for Prosecution and Defense Functions, the ABA Criminal Justice Section initiated roundtable discussions with prosecutors, criminal defense lawyers, and academics throughout the United States. The Standards under review provide aspirational guidance for all criminal law practitioners. This Article stems from the Criminal Justice Section's undertaking. It considers the wording, scope, and propriety of several of the proposed changes that address lawyer-witness communications. It begins with a discussion of the effects of cognitive bias on these communications and explains why carefully tailored Standards may lessen the detrimental …

Jury Nullification, Race, And The Wire, James M. Keneally

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Illusory Right To Counsel, Eve Brensike Primus

Articles

Imagine a woman wrongly accused of murdering her fianc6. She is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. If convicted, she faces a mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole. Her family scrapes together enough money to hire two attorneys to represent her at trial. There is no physical evidence connecting her to the murder, but the prosecution builds its case on circumstantial inferences. Her trial attorneys admit that they were so cocky and confident that she would be acquitted that they did not bother to investigate her case or file a single pre-trial motion. Rather, they waived the …

Why Our Justice System Convicts Innocent People And The Challenges Faced By Innocence Projects Trying To Exonerate Them, Steven A. Krieger

Steven A. Krieger

Despite the prominence and success of the over sixty innocence projects in the United States, there is almost no empirical literature discussing how these organizations operate, what resources or factors contribute to their success, and what challenges they must overcome. This article is a foundational step to fill this void. Following a brief introduction, Part I of the article surveys the reasons why innocent individuals get convicted, including: inaccuracy of eyewitnesses, perjured testimony, availability of DNA testing, accuracy of DNA testing and scientific evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective defense representation, ineffective capital representation, police misconduct: false confessions, and pretrial criminal procedure …