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The Emerging International Consensus As To Criminal Procedure Rules, Craig M. Bradley Jan 1993

The Emerging International Consensus As To Criminal Procedure Rules, Craig M. Bradley

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article will demonstrate that these general claims, as well as certain observations about specific countries, were, with one significant exception, substantially wrong when they were written. More importantly, due to significant developments in several countries in the years since those reports came out, they are even more wrong now. That is, not only have the U.S. concepts of pre-interrogation warnings to suspects, a search warrant requirement, and the use of an exclusionary remedy to deter police misconduct been widely adopted, but in many cases other countries have gone beyond the U.S. requirements.


Toward A Partial Economic, Game-Theoretic Analysis Of Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1992

Toward A Partial Economic, Game-Theoretic Analysis Of Hearsay, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In this Article, I offer a fundamentally different and nondoctrinaire way of approaching hearsay questions. In brief, I take the view that the resolution of a hearsay dispute, when the declarant is not on the stand, is essentially a matter of deciding who should bear the burden of producing the declarant, or more precisely, how courts should allocate that burden. Adopting a simple procedural improvement, concerning the examination of the declarant if she is produced as a witness, allows the court to allocate the burden optimally. If live testimony by the declarant would be more probative than prejudicial, then most …


Improving The Procedure For Resolving Hearsay Issues, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1991

Improving The Procedure For Resolving Hearsay Issues, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In this article, I propose two changes in the way hearsay issues are usually resolved. First, in some circumstances courts should divide the burdens of producing the declarant-for example, by imposing the physical burden on the proponent and the financial burden on the opponent. Second, no matter how the declarant is produced as a witness, she should ordinarily testify as part of the proponent's case, subject to cross-examination by the opponent. If the declarant does become a witness, the admissibility of her out-of-court statement should not be resolved until her current testimony about the underlying events is received.


Character Impeachment Evidence: Psycho-Bayesian (!?) Analysis And A Proposed Overhaul, Richard D. Friedman Jan 1991

Character Impeachment Evidence: Psycho-Bayesian (!?) Analysis And A Proposed Overhaul, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

Typically, arguments for restricting character impeachment evidence are based in part on the premise that prior crimes, at least violent crimes, generally indicate little about a person's veracity. The argument advanced here against character impeachment of criminal defendants does not rely on that premise; in fact, it accepts the premise that prior antisocial behavior, even not involving dishonesty, often does indicate a good deal about a person's general truthtelling inclination. A careful analysis of the situation of the accused on the witness stand-rather than an easy assumption about irrelevance-leads to this Article's broad conclusion that character impeachment evidence of criminal …


Remembering The 'Old World' Of Criminal Procedure: A Reply To Professor Grano, Yale Kamisar Jan 1990

Remembering The 'Old World' Of Criminal Procedure: A Reply To Professor Grano, Yale Kamisar

Articles

When I graduated from high school in 1961, the "old world" of criminal procedure still existed, albeit in its waning days; when I graduated from law school in 1968, circa the time most of today's first-year law students were arriving on the scene, the "new world" had fully dislodged the old. Indeed, the force of the new world's revolutionary impetus already had crested. Some of the change that the criminal procedure revolution effected was for the better, but much of it, at least as some of us see it, was decidedly for the worse. My students, however, cannot make the …


The Admission Of Criminal Histories At Trial, Department Of Justice Office Of Legal Policy Jun 1989

The Admission Of Criminal Histories At Trial, Department Of Justice Office Of Legal Policy

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

As part of a continuing series of studies on impediments to the search for truth in criminal investigation and adjudication, the Office of Legal Policy has carried out a review of the law governing the admission of the criminal records of defendants and other persons at trial. The results of this review are set out in this Report.


'Comparative Reprehensibility' And The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, Yale Kamisar Oct 1987

'Comparative Reprehensibility' And The Fourth Amendment Exclusionary Rule, Yale Kamisar

Articles

It is not . . . easy to see what the shock-the-conscience test adds, or should be allowed to add, to the deterrent function of exclusionary rules. Where no deterrence of unconstitutional police behavior is possible, a decision to exclude probative evidence with the result that a criminal goes free to prey upon the public should shock the judicial conscience even more than admitting the evidence. So spoke Judge Robert H. Bork, concurring in a ruling that the fourth amendment exclusionary rule does not apply to foreign searches conducted exclusively by foreign officials. A short time thereafter, when an interviewer …


A Subject Matter Approach To Hearsay Reform, Roger Park Oct 1987

A Subject Matter Approach To Hearsay Reform, Roger Park

Michigan Law Review

None of the three major reform proposals - the Model Code, the Uniform Rules, or the original Federal Rules - incorporated a systematic distinction between civil and criminal cases. The thesis of this article is that this distinction should be adopted. This article will explore the reasons for excluding hearsay, and conclude that they support different sets of rules in civil and criminal cases. In civil cases, rules excluding hearsay should be curtailed. Hearsay that fits under an established exception should be admitted, and other hearsay, without discretionary screening by the trial judge, should be admitted on proper notice. In …


18 U.S.C. § 3501 And The Admissibility Of Confessions Obtained During Unnecessary Prearraignment Delay, Matthew W. Frank Aug 1986

18 U.S.C. § 3501 And The Admissibility Of Confessions Obtained During Unnecessary Prearraignment Delay, Matthew W. Frank

Michigan Law Review

Part I thus argues that the admissibility of post-sixth-hour confessions is governed by Mallory, under which a voluntary confession is inadmissible if, but only if, it follows a period of unnecessary delay. Part II addresses a possible objection to this conclusion - namely, that, with limited exceptions, subsection 350l(c) renders all post-sixth hour confessions inadmissible without regard to the reasonableness of the prearraignment delay. This interpretation is derived by negative implication from the proviso in subsection 350l(c) and would require courts to suppress confessions even though there has been no unnecessary delay, and even though the confessions would be …


The Admissibility Of Prior Silence To Impeach The Testimony Of Criminal Defendants, Rex A. Sharp Apr 1985

The Admissibility Of Prior Silence To Impeach The Testimony Of Criminal Defendants, Rex A. Sharp

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note focuses on whether a defendant who was called as a witness at the prior, severed trial of a codefendant and refused to testify by invoking the fifth amendment can subsequently be impeached by this silence at his own trial. In addition to the obvious implications this issue has for severed criminal trials, the factors considered when deciding whether impeachment by silence should be allowed generally are in sharpest focus in this factual setting. Thus, the analysis of the constitutional and evidentiary questions this Note enlists to argue that impeachment by silence in this context is permissible applies as …


Introduction: Trends And Developments With Respect To That Amendment 'Central To Enjoyment Of Other Guarantees Of The Bill Of Rights', Yale Kamisar Apr 1984

Introduction: Trends And Developments With Respect To That Amendment 'Central To Enjoyment Of Other Guarantees Of The Bill Of Rights', Yale Kamisar

Articles

Seventy years ago, in the famous Weeks case,' the Supreme Court evoked a storm of controversy by promulgating the federal exclusionary rule. When, a half-century later, in the landmark Mapp case,2 the Court extended the Weeks rule to state criminal proceedings, at least one experienced observer assumed that the controversy "today finds its end." 3 But as we all know now, Mapp only intensified the controversy. Indeed, in recent years spirited debates over proposals to modify the exclusionary rule or to scrap it entirely have filled the air - and the law reviews.'


Gates, 'Probable Cause', 'Good Faith', And Beyond, Yale Kamisar Jan 1984

Gates, 'Probable Cause', 'Good Faith', And Beyond, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Illinois v. Gates1 was the most eagerly awaited constitutional-criminal procedure case of the 1982 Term. I think it fair to say, however, that it was awaited a good deal more eagerly by law enforcement officials and the Americans for Effective Law Enforcement than by defense lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union. As it turned out, of course, the Gates Court, to the disappointment of many, did not reach the question whether the exclusionary rule in search and seizure cases should be modified so as not to require the exclusion of evidence obtained in violation of the fourth amendment when …


Does (Did) (Should) The Exclusionary Rule Rest On A 'Principled Basis' Rather Than An 'Empirical Proposition'?, Yale Kamisar Jan 1983

Does (Did) (Should) The Exclusionary Rule Rest On A 'Principled Basis' Rather Than An 'Empirical Proposition'?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

[U]ntil the [exclusionary rule] rests on a principled basis rather than an empirical proposition, [the rule] will remain in a state of unstable equilibrium. Mapp v. Ohio, which overruled the then twelve-year-old Wolf case and imposed the fourth amendment exclusionary rule (the Weeks doctrine) on the states as a matter of fourteenth amendment due process, seemed to mark the end of an era. Concurring in Mapp, Justice Douglas recalled that Wolf had evoked "a storm of constitutional controversy which only today finds its end."' But in the two decades since Justice Douglas made this observation, the storm of controversy has …


Constitutional Constraints On The Admissibility Of Grand Jury Testimony: The Unavailable Witness, Confrontation, And Due Process, Barbara L. Strack Oct 1982

Constitutional Constraints On The Admissibility Of Grand Jury Testimony: The Unavailable Witness, Confrontation, And Due Process, Barbara L. Strack

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Defendants, however, have raised serious constitutional objections to the introduction of grand jury testimony when the witness is unavailable to testify at trial. These claims have focused on the confrontation clause of the sixth amendment and the due process clauses of the fifth and fourteenth amendments. Defendants have contended that the introduction of testimony from a grand jury proceeding which cannot be subjected to cross-examination fatally compromises the defendant's right to a fair trial. Lower courts are split over admitting grand jury testimony in these circumstances, and the Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue. As a result, …


The Exclusionary Rule In Historical Perspective: The Struggle To Make The Fourth Amendment More Than 'An Empty Blessing', Yale Kamisar Jan 1979

The Exclusionary Rule In Historical Perspective: The Struggle To Make The Fourth Amendment More Than 'An Empty Blessing', Yale Kamisar

Articles

In the 65 years since the Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule, few critics have attacked it with as much vigor and on as many fronts as did Judge Malcolm Wilkey in his recent Judicature article, "The exclusionary rule: why suppress valid evidence?" (November 1978).


Exclusionary Rule: Reasonable Remarks On Unreasonable Search And Seizure, Yale Kamisar Jan 1979

Exclusionary Rule: Reasonable Remarks On Unreasonable Search And Seizure, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Can we live with the so-called exclusionary rule, which bars the use of illegally gained evidence in criminal trials? Can the Fourth Amendment live without it? A growing number of lawyers and judges, including Chief Justice Warren Burger, have called for abandonment of the rule, usually on the ground that it has not prevented illegal searches and seizures and on the ground that the rule has contributed significantly to the increase in crime. No one has convincingly demonstrated a causal link between the high rate of crime in America and the exclusionary rule, and I do not believe that any …


Is The Exclusionary Rule An 'Illogical' Or 'Unnatural' Interpretation Of The Fourth Amendment?, Yale Kamisar Jan 1978

Is The Exclusionary Rule An 'Illogical' Or 'Unnatural' Interpretation Of The Fourth Amendment?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

More than 50 years have passed since the Supreme Court decided the Weeks case, barring the use in federal prosecutions of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and the Silverthorne case, invoking what has come to be known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. The justices who decided those cases would, I think, be quite surprised to learn that some day the value of the exclusionary rule would be measured by-and the very life of the rule might depend on-an empirical evaluation of its efficacy in deterring police misconduct. These justices were engaged in a less …


Opinions And Expert Testimony, John W. Reed Jan 1978

Opinions And Expert Testimony, John W. Reed

Book Chapters

Article VI of the Michigan Rules of Evidence contains the rules dealing with witnesses. Trials bring to mind testimonial evidence. There surely are other kinds of evidence, such as docmnents, guns, automobile tires, chemical substances, and the like. But most evidence comes from the mouths of witnesses, and even demonstrative evidence usually is admitted only after a witness has taken the stand and testified to foundation facts. So it is important and appropriate that we turn to the provisions of the rules that deal with qualifications and credibility of witnesses. I would like to direct your attention to MRE 601 …


A Review Of The Proposed Michigan Rules Of Evidence, James K. Robinson, John W. Reed Jan 1977

A Review Of The Proposed Michigan Rules Of Evidence, James K. Robinson, John W. Reed

Articles

On January 6, 1977, the Supreme Court of Michigan entered an order stating that it is considering adoption of the proposed Michigan Rules of Evidence which were submitted to the Court by the committee which it appointed in March 1975. The Court has solicited comments from interested persons regarding the proposed rules. A copy of the Supreme Court's order is published in this issue of the Bar Journal. The proposed rules are published in the January 26, 1977, issue of North Western Reporter, Second Series (Michigan Edition). The purpose of this article is to review in general the background and …


Evidence Problems In Criminal Cases, John W. Reed Jan 1977

Evidence Problems In Criminal Cases, John W. Reed

Book Chapters

The Federal Rules of Evidence, enacted by Congress, became effective on July 1, 1975. Ten states have adopted state versions of the Federal Rules to govern trials in their courts, and about half the remaining states are considering whether to follow suit. Michigan is one of these latter states. Early in 1977 a committee appointed by the Supreme Court of Michigan proposed rules of evidence for Michigan closely patterned on the Federal Rules, and, if all goes well, the Court will promulgate rules for the Michigan courts to become effective in 1977 or soon thereafter. Michigan lawyers should be aware …


Developments In Evidence Of Other Crimes, Nickolas J. Kyser Jan 1974

Developments In Evidence Of Other Crimes, Nickolas J. Kyser

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

If the defendant in a criminal trial has a record of other offenses or is suspected of a number of crimes although charged with only one, the admissibility of evidence of these other offenses can be crucial. Admissibility depends in part on the purpose for which the evidence is offered. For instance, the prosecution is severely limited in its use of evidence of character. Until the defendant submits evidence of his good character, the subject cannot be raised and even after character is put in issue particular acts are not allowed to show character. The defendant's prior convictions may be …


Searches Without Warrants, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1971

Searches Without Warrants, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

My primary area of concentration today is the search made without a warrant. Studies indicate that 95 percent or more of all searches are without warrants. It is quite understandable, then, that most of the search-and-seizure litigation concerns the validity of searches without warrants.


'Custodial Interrogation' Within The Meaning Of Miranda, Yale Kamisar Jan 1968

'Custodial Interrogation' Within The Meaning Of Miranda, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

The primary conceptual hurdle confronting the Miranda Court was the "legal reasoning" that any and all police interrogation is unaffected by the privilege against self-incrimination because such interrogation does not involve any kind of judicial process for the taking of testimony; inasmuch as police officers have no legal authority to compel statements of any kind, there is no legal obligation, ran the argument, to which a privilege can apply. See, e.g., the discussion and authorities collected in Kamisar, A Dissent from the Miranda Dissents: Some Comments on the "New" Fifth Amendment and the Old "Voluntariness" Test, 65 MICH. L. REv. …


Recent Developments In The Law Of Search And Seizure, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1968

Recent Developments In The Law Of Search And Seizure, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

This article is designed to provide a survey of recent decisions dealing with several important issues in the area of search and seizure. It is intended primarily as a basic collection of sources. I have, therefore, sought to keep my own commentary at a minimum and the citations to relevant cases at a maximum. Wherever space permits, I have let the courts speak for themselves. In most instances, however, it has been necessary to provide fairly general descriptions of the cases.


The Citizen On Trial: The New Confession Rules, Yale Kamisar Jan 1967

The Citizen On Trial: The New Confession Rules, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Commenting on why it has taken the United States so long to apply "the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to counsel to the proceedings in the stationhouse as well as to those in the courtroom" - as the Supreme Court did in Miranda v. Arizona - this author notes that, "To a large extent this is so because here, as elsewhere, there has been a wide gap between the principles to which we aspire and the practices we actually employ."


Police Interrogation And The Supreme Court--The Latest Round, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1967

Police Interrogation And The Supreme Court--The Latest Round, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

My first task is to explain to some degree the nature of the problem embodied in our title. This book has been designated as "Escobedo-The Second Round." What we will be discussing is a series of cases, decided in June, 1966, the most noteworthy of which is Miranda v. Arizona [384 U.S. 436 (1966)]. In these cases, the United States Supreme Court prescribed a new set of standards governing the introduction in evidence of statements obtained from the defendant through police interrogation. Actually, to a degree these standards were not entirely new. They had been suggested, at least in part, …


Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review Feb 1965

Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of two counts of sodomy by a general court martial. The alleged victims of the defendant had failed to complain immediately following the incidents, and evidence of such failure on the part of one of the witnesses had been admitted at trial. A Navy board of review affirmed the conviction, modifying the sentence. Defendant appealed to the United States Court of Military Appeals on the ground that it had been prejudicial error for the law officer to refuse to give a proffered instruction to the court-martial panel respecting the victim's failure to make fresh complaints. On appeal, …


Evidence-Hearsay-Admissbility Of Accident Reports Under The Federal Business Records Act, Thomas G. Dignan Jr. May 1963

Evidence-Hearsay-Admissbility Of Accident Reports Under The Federal Business Records Act, Thomas G. Dignan Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The United States, as assignee of a civilian seaman's claim, brought an action against the defendant for injuries received when the seaman slipped on a walkway which the defendant had contracted to maintain in good repair. At the trial plaintiff sought to introduce into evidence a report compiled by the seaman's superior, such report being required to accompany the seaman's claim for compensation from the Government. Admission of the report under the Federal Business Records Act was denied, and the Government's case was thereby materially weakened. Judgment was entered on a jury verdict for the defendant. On appeal, held, …


Evidence- Hearsay-Scope Of Federal Rule 43(A), David K. Kroll S. Ed Nov 1961

Evidence- Hearsay-Scope Of Federal Rule 43(A), David K. Kroll S. Ed

Michigan Law Review

The clocktower of plaintiff county's courthouse buckled and collapsed into the courtroom below. Charred timbers were found in the wreckage. Several residents reported that they saw lightning strike the tower five days before the collapse. Plaintiff carried insurance for loss by fire or lightning, and sued the insurers when they denied liability. Defendant claimed that the tower collapsed of its own weight because of faulty design, deterioration, and overloading. To account for the charred timbers defendant introduced into evidence a fifty-eight-year-old newspaper article from the files of the city newspaper describing a fire in the courthouse during its construction. The …


Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Admissibility In A Federal Court Of Evidence Illegally Obtained By State Officers, Robert J. Paley Mar 1959

Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Admissibility In A Federal Court Of Evidence Illegally Obtained By State Officers, Robert J. Paley

Michigan Law Review

In response to a call from a citizen whose suspicions had been aroused by the actions of the defendant and a companion, Maryland police unlawfully arrested the companion and searched the premises occupied by him and the defendant. & a result of this search, money was found which had been stolen in the District of Columbia. Although the search was illegal under Maryland law and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, this money was used as evidence to convict the defendant of housebreaking and larceny in the District of Columbia federal court. On appeal, held, conviction reversed and remanded …