Law Commons^™

Prosecutorial Storytelling Through Intrinsic Evidence, Brian Chen

Pepperdine Law Review

Crimes make for compelling stories. So juries make for an eager audience. Jurors want to—indeed, expect to—learn what the defendant did, how they did it, and why they deserve punishment. Capable prosecutors know how to deliver. Trial narratives empower jurors to link discrete pieces of evidence and infer facts from circumstantial proof. Only then can they render a verdict consistent with their sense of justice. Federal courts thus afford wide leeway for prosecutors to present their case as they please, with the evidence at their disposal. The Federal Rules of Evidence delineates the scope of that discretion. Under Rule 404(b), …

Army Commander’S Role—The Judge, Jury, & Prosecutor For The Article 15, Anthony Godwin

Seattle University Law Review

Service members in the armed forces are bound by a different set of rules when compared to other U.S. citizens. Some of the normal safeguards and protections that civilians enjoy are much more restrictive for military service members, and this is generally for a good reason. Such restrictions are partly due to the complex demands and needs of the United States military. Congress and the President have entrusted military commanders with special powers that enable them to handle minor violations of law without needing to go through a full judicial proceeding. Non-judicial punishments (NJP), also known as Article 15s, are …

Hiding In Plain Language: A Solution To The Pandemic Riddle Of A Suspended Grand Jury, An Expiring Statute Of Limitations, And The Fifth Amendment, Nicole D. Mariani

University of Miami Law Review

Under the statute of limitations applicable to most federal crimes, 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a), “no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after such offense shall have been committed.” That long-standing, generally uncontroversial procedural statute was thrust into the spotlight in 2020, when courts, prosecutors, and criminal defendants confronted an unprecedented and extraordinary scenario.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many federal district courts suspended grand juries to prevent the spread of the highly contagious life-threatening virus through group congregation. Indeed, …

The Prosecutor In The Mirror: Conviction Integrity Units And Brady Claims, Lissa Griffin, Daisy Mason

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In Brady v. Maryland, the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a due process obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence that is material to guilt or punishment. The failure to fulfill this duty is particularly insidious because it bears directly on both whether an innocent defendant may have been convicted as well as on whether the adjudicatory process was fair. The failure to disclose exculpatory evidence has been characterized as “epidemic” and has been documented to have made a major, outsized contribution in cases that resulted in exonerations. It is not surprising, then, that conviction integrity units in prosecutor’s offices …

Prosecutors, Ethics And The Pursuit Of Racial Justice, Roger Fairfax

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The 2020 murder of George Floyd catalyzed a national reckoning on race, and scrutiny of barriers to racial justice, rightfully focused on policing. However, as this Symposium has demonstrated, it is also critical to interrogate the prosecutorial function, given the outsize role prosecutors play in the criminal legal system. Scholars and advocates have utilized a number of frames to explore a key topic of this symposium-the intersection between prosecutorial discretion, prosecutorial ethics, and racial inequity.'

Although the renewed interest in the prosecutor's role in the pursuit of racial justice raises many new questions and opportunities, the scaffolding for such work …

Formation And Development Of The Prosecutor's Supervision Over The Compliance Of Laws In Investigation Of Crimes In The Sphere Of Information Technologies, Atobek Ravshanovich Davronov, Atobek Davronov

ProAcademy

The rapid growth of information technologies naturally determines the interest of researchers in them from various fields of science. Law, including criminal law, is no exception. Currently: a separate branch of law is being formed - information law. Despite this, until now in science unified approaches to the analysis of information and legal phenomena have not been developed. The article analyzes the formation and development of prosecutorial supervision over the execution of laws in the investigation of crimes in the field of information technology, and also studied the process of the emergence of information technology as a type of crime …

Prosecutor's Supervision Over The Legality Of The Preliminary Investigation And Inquiry During The Qualification Of Crimes In The Field Of Information Technology, Atobek Ravshanovich Davronov

ProAcademy

Correct, that is, consistent with the principles of criminal law and criminal law, qualification of a crime ensures accurate and full application of the complex of norms of criminal and criminal procedure laws. Depending on the qualification of the crime, criminal law issues are resolved about punishment, release from criminal liability and punishment, parole, calculation of convictions, amnesty. The qualification of crimes is important for initiating a criminal case, determining the subject of proof, ensuring the rights of the accused and applying other criminal procedural norms. This scientific and practical article is devoted to the prosecutor's supervision over the correct …

Law School News: Whitehouse, Cicilline To Offer 'Inside View' Of 2nd Trump Impeachment Trial 02-17-2021, Michael M. Bowden

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Public Matters? Comparing Decision-Making By Appointed And Elected Prosecutors In Cases Of Deadly Use-Of-Force By Police In The Hartford Judicial District And Suffolk County, Andrew E. Dubsky

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis dissects prosecutor discretion for appointed and elected prosecutors after a “catalyst” event shifts public opinion. Previous studies have shown that elected prosecutors are more likely to use discretion favoring the opinion of the public than their appointed counterparts (Bandyopadhyay 2014, Nelson 2014, and Valenti 2011). Because elected prosecutors are more likely to follow public opinion, they should also be more likely to respond to the demands of the public than their appointed counterparts. In effect, elected prosecutors are expected to be more likely to exercise discretion in their charging and prosecuting. To test this, I use the 2014 …

State Prosecutors At The Center Of Mass Imprisonment And Criminal Justice Reform, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

State prosecutors around the country have played a crucial role in mass imprisonment. Little supervision and virtually unsurpassed decision making power have provided them with unrivaled influence over the size, growth, and composition of our criminal justice system. They decide which cases to prosecute, whether to divert a case, whether to offer a plea, and what sentence to recommend. Their impact does not stop at sentencing. They weigh in on alternative dockets, supervision violations, parole release, and even clemency requests. But they are also part of a larger system that constrains them. Funding, judicial limits on their power, and legislative …

Constraining Strickland, Michael Cicchini

Texas A&M Law Review

When a convicted defendant pursues an ineffective assistance of counsel (“IAC”) claim on appeal—for example, by alleging that the defense lawyer failed to call an important witness at trial—the defendant must satisfy Strickland’s two-part test. This requires a showing that (1) defense counsel performed deficiently, and (2) this deficient performance prejudiced the defendant’s case.

The Strickland test is intentionally difficult for a defendant to satisfy, and courts reject nearly all IAC claims. The primary justification for this is that prosecutors and judges should not have to retry defendants because of defense counsel’s errors, as such errors are completely outside the …

The Inconvenience Of Justice: How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed The Lives Of Five Young Boys From Harlem, Stefania Bordone, David Wright

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Fictional Pleas, Thea B. Johnson

Faculty Publications

A fictional plea is one in which the defendant pleads guilty to a crime he has not committed with the knowledge of the defense attorney, prosecutor and judge. With fictional pleas, the plea of conviction is totally detached from the original factual allegations against the defendant. As criminal justice actors become increasingly troubled by the impact of collateral consequences on defendants, the fictional plea serves as an appealing response to this concern. It allows the parties to achieve parallel aims: the prosecutor holds the defendant accountable in the criminal system, while the defendant avoids devastating non-criminal consequences. In this context, …

Prosecutorial Discretion: The Difficulty And Necessity Of Public Inquiry, Bruce A. Green

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Prosecutors’ discretionary decisions have enormous impact on individuals and communities. Often, prosecutors exercise their vast power and discretion in questionable ways. This Article argues that, to encourage prosecutors to use their power wisely and not abusively, there is a need for more informed public discussion of prosecutorial discretion, particularly with regard to prosecutors’ discretionary decisions about whether to bring criminal charges and which charges to bring. But the Article also highlights two reasons why informed public discussion is difficult—first, because public and professional expectations about how prosecutors should use their power are vague; and, second, because, particularly in individual cases, …

T H E N O Tio N Of A S S E S S M E N T Of E V Id E N C E In C R Im In A L P R O C Ee D In G S, B Rajabov

ProAcademy

The article analyses the scientific and comperative-legal aspects of the notion of assessment of evidence. Besides, recommendations on improvement of the notion of assessment of evidence.

A Step Toward Robust Criminal Discovery Reform In Virginia: The Disclosure Of Witness Statements Before Trial, Jennifer Horan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Prosecutors Rule The Criminal Justice System—And What Can Be Done About It, Jed S. Rakoff

Northwestern University Law Review

Most recognize that federal and state laws imposing high sentences and reducing judicial sentencing discretion have created America’s current plague of mass incarceration. Fewer realize that these draconian laws shift sentencing power to prosecutors: defendants fear the immense sentences they face if convicted at trial, and therefore actively engage in the plea-bargaining process. This allows prosecutors, rather than judges, to effectively determine the sentences imposed in most cases, which creates significant sentencing discrepancies that most often are unrecorded and cannot be measured. This Essay proposes a solution that would not require legislative change to be put into effect: to have …

Jeffries V. State, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 47 (July 6, 2017), Hayley Cummings

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In denying appellant’s motion for a mistrial, the Court held that (1) to prove prosecutorial misconduct, an appellant must show that a prosecutor’s statements resulted in a denial of due process; and (2) to prove juror misconduct, an appellant must show that misconduct occurred and that the misconduct was prejudicial. The Court also clarified Bowman v. State’s applicability by stating that when juror misconduct occurs before the verdict, and defense counsel is aware of the misconduct, it is defense counsel’s responsibility to request an investigation regarding prejudice. Finally, the Court defined the scope of Gonzalez v. State by stating …

Nearsighted And Colorblind: The Perspective Problems Of Police Deadly Force Cases, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

In dealing with the recently publicized instances of police officers' use of deadly force, some reform efforts have been focused on the entities that are central to the successful prosecutions of police–the prosecutor and the grand jury. Some have suggested special, independent prosecutors for these cases so that the process of deciding whether to seek charges against police officers remains untainted by the necessary cooperative relationship between the police department and the prosecutor's office. Others have urged more transparency in the grand jury process so that the public can scrutinize a prosecutor's efforts in presenting evidence for an indictment. Still …

Newsroom: Good Reason For Secrecy On 38 Studios 8/12/2016, Niki Kuckes, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Law Professor's Sabbatical In District Attorney's Office, Bobby Marzine Harges

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Pink Cadillac, An Iq Of 63, And A Fourteen-Year-Old From South Carolina: Why I Can No Longer Support The Death Penalty, Mark Earley Sr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Race, Poverty, Intellectual Disability, And Mental Illness In The Decline Of The Death Penalty, Stephen B. Bright

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Death As A Bargaining Chip: Plea Bargaining And The Future Of Virginia's Death Penalty, John G. Douglass

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Anti-Justice, Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

This Article contends that, despite their unique, ethical duty to “seek justice,” prosecutors regularly fail to fulfill this ethical norm when removed from the traditional, adversarial courtroom setting. Examples abound. For instance, in 2013, Edward Snowden leaked classified information revealing a government-operated surveillance program known as PRISM. That program allows the federal government to collect metadata from phone companies and email accounts and to monitor phone conversations. Until recently, prosecutors relied on some of this covertly acquired intelligence to build criminal cases against American citizens without informing the accused. In failing to notify defendants, prosecutors violated the explicit statutory directives …

Toward A Common Law Of Plea Bargaining, Wesley Macneil Oliver

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Double Jeopardy Violations As "Plain Error" Under Federal Rule Of Criminal Procedure 52(B), Gabriel J. Chin

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Seal On White-Collar Criminal Search Warrant Materials , David Horan

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

No Secrets Allowed: A Prosecutor’S Obligation To Disclose Inadmissible Evidence, Abigail B. Scott

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Innocence Is Different: Taking Innocence Into Account In Reforming Criminal Procedure, D. Michael Risinger, Lesley C. Risinger

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.