Law Commons^™

The Modest Impact Of The Modern Confrontation Clause, Jeffrey Bellin, Diana Bibb

Faculty Publications

The Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause grants criminal defendants the right "to be confronted with the witnesses against" them. A strict reading of this text would transform the criminal justice landscape by prohibiting the prosecution's use of hearsay at trial. But until recently, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Clause was closer to the opposite. By tying the confrontation right to traditional hearsay exceptions, the Court's longstanding precedents granted prosecutors broad freedom to use out-of-court statements to convict criminal defendants.

The Supreme Court's 2004 decision in Crawford v. Washington was supposed to change all that. By severing the link between the …

The Evidence Rules That Convict The Innocent, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

Over the past decades, DNA testing has uncovered hundreds of examples of the most important type of trial errors: innocent defendants convicted of serious crimes like rape and murder. The resulting Innocence Movement spurred reforms to police practices, forensic science, and criminal procedure. This Article explores the lessons of the Innocence Movement for American evidence law.

Commentators often overlook the connection between the growing body of research on convictions of the innocent and the evidence rules. Of the commonly identified causes of false convictions, only flawed forensic testimony has received sustained attention as a matter of evidence law. But other …

Professor Jeffrey Bellin: Reflections On The Fall 2020 Semester, Jeffrey Bellin

Law School Personal Reflections on COVID-19

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Convincing Ethical Prosecutors That Their Profession Has A Brady Problem, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

In recent decades, both the media and legal scholars have documented the widespread problem of prosecutors failing to disclose favorable evidence to the defense – so called Brady violations. Despite all of this documentation however, many ethical prosecutors reject the notion that the criminal justice system has a Brady problem. These prosecutors – ethical lawyers who themselves have not been accused of misconduct – believe that the scope of the Brady problem is exaggerated. Why do ethical prosecutors downplay the evidence that some of their colleagues have committed serious errors?

This essay, in honor of Professor Bennett Gershman, points to …

Policing The Admissibility Of Body Camera Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin, Shevarma Pemberton

Faculty Publications

Body cameras are sweeping the nation and becoming, along with the badge and gun, standard issue for police officers. These cameras are intended to ensure accountability for abusive police officers. But, if history is any guide, the videos they produce will more commonly be used to prosecute civilians than to document abuse. Further, knowing that the footage will be available as evidence, police officers have an incentive to narrate body camera videos with descriptive oral statements that support a later prosecution. Captured on an official record that exclusively documents the police officer’s perspective, these statements—for example, “he just threw something …

Deconstructing The Epistemic Challenges To Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Mass atrocity prosecutions are credited with advancing a host of praiseworthy objectives. They are believed to impose much-needed retribution, deter future atrocities, and affirm the rule of law in previously lawless societies. However, mass atrocity prosecutions will accomplish none of these laudable ends unless they are able to find accurate facts. Convicting the appropriate individuals of the appropriate crimes is a necessary and foundational condition for the success of mass atrocity prosecutions. But it is a condition that is frequently difficult to meet, as mass atrocity prosecutions are often bedeviled by pervasive and invidious obstacles to accurate fact-finding. This Article …

Grave Crimes And Weak Evidence: Fact-Finding Evolution In International Criminal Law, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

International criminal courts carry out some of the most important work that a legal system can conduct: prosecuting those who have visited death and destruction on millions. Despite the significance of their work--or perhaps because of it--international courts face tremendous challenges. Chief among them is accurate fact-finding. With alarming regularity, international criminal trials feature inconsistent, vague, and sometimes false testimony that renders judges unable to assess with any measure of certainty who did what to whom in the context of a mass atrocity. This Article provides the first-ever empirical study quantifying fact-finding in an international criminal court. The study shines …

The Case For Ehearsay, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Symposium On The Challenges Of Electronic Evidence, Daniel J. Capra, Sidney A. Fitzwater, Peter Pitegoff, Jeffrey S. Sutton, Paul Grimm, John Haried, Richard W. Vorder Bruegge, Jeffrey Bellin, Paul Scechtman, Deirdre M. Smith, Shira A. Scheindlin, David Shonka, Daniel Gelb, Andrew Goldsmith, George Paul, Paul Lippe

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Section 6: Criminal, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Trial By Google: Judicial Notice In The Information Age, Jeffrey Bellin, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Faculty Publications

This Article presents a theory of judicial notice for the information age. It argues that the ease of accessing factual data on the Internet allows judges and litigants to expand the use of judicial notice in ways that raise significant concerns about admissibility, reliability, and fair process. State and federal courts are already applying the surprisingly pliant judicial notice rules to bring websites ranging from Google Maps to Wikipedia into the courtroom, and these decisions will only increase in frequency in coming years. This rapidly emerging judicial phenomenon is notable for its ad hoc and conclusory nature—attributes that have the …

Promising Protection: 911 Call Records As Foundation For Family Violence Intervention, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ehearsay, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Text Messages And The Hearsay Rule In The Aaron Hernandez Case, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Facebook, Twitter, And The Uncertain Future Of Present Sense Impressions, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

The intricate legal framework governing the admission of out-of-court statements in American trials is premised on increasingly outdated communication norms. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the hearsay exception for “present sense impressions.” Changing communication practices typified by interactions on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter herald the arrival of a previously uncontemplated—and uniquely unreliable—breed of present sense impressions. This Article contends that the indiscriminate admission of these electronic present sense impressions (e-PSIs) is both normatively undesirable and inconsistent with the traditional rationale for the present sense impression exception. It proposes a reform to the exception that would …

Finding Evidence On Facebook, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

More On The Impeachment Of Criminal Defendants, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

More On The Future Of Present Sense Impressions, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Usefulness Of . . . Evidence, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Evidentiary Significance Of “Tweets,” Texts And Status Updates (Starring Justin Bieber), Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Rule 609 And The Frustratingly Unkillable Five-Factor Mahone Framework, Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Password Protected? Can A Password Save Your Cell Phone From A Search Incident To Arrest?, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Over the last few years, dozens of courts have authorized police to conduct warrantless searches of cell phones when arresting individuals. Under the “search incident to arrest” doctrine, police are free to search text messages, call histories, photos, voicemails, and a host of other data if they arrest an individual and remove a cell phone from his pocket. Given that courts have offered little protection against cell-phone searches, this Article explores whether individuals can protect themselves by password protecting their phones. The Article concludes, unfortunately, that password protecting a cell phone offers minimal legal protection when an individual is lawfully …

The Preservation Obligation: Regulating And Sanctioning Pre-Litigation Spoliation In Federal Court, A. Benjamin Spencer

Faculty Publications

The issue of discovery misconduct, specifically as it pertains to the prelitigation duty to preserve and sanctions for spoliation, has garnered much attention in the wake of decisions by two prominent jurists whose voices carry great weight in this area. In Pension Committee of University of Montreal Pension Plan v. Banc of America Securities LLC, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin-of the Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC2 e-discovery casespenned a scholarly and thorough opinion setting forth her views regarding the triggering of the duty to preserve potentially relevant information pending litigation and the standards for determining the appropriate sanctions for various breaches …

Judicial Gatekeeping And The Seventh Amendment: How Daubert Infringes Upon The Constitutional Right To A Civil Jury Trial, Brandon L. Boxler

W&M Law Student Publications

This Article begins by reviewing the history, purpose, and function of the Seventh Amendment within the American constitutional system. It then discusses the Supreme Court‘s analytical framework for preserving the fundamental features of the right to a civil jury trial while simultaneously permitting rational legal development of the jury system. Next, the Article provides a brief overview of the Court‘s Daubert jurisprudence, and argues that the creation of judicial gatekeeping has caused an institutional shift of adjudicatory authority away from juries and into the hands of judges in violation of the Seventh Amendment. The Article concludes by suggesting three legal …

Evidence, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Fact Finding Without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations Of International Criminal Convictions, Linda A. Malone

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

When Facts Are Thin On The Ground, Julia Romasevych, Paul Antiss, Nancy Amoury Combs

Popular Media

Fact-finding at the international tribunals is not as precise as we think. Nancy Combs, Professor of Law at William and Mary Law School, explores this in her new book 'Fact-finding without facts: the uncertain evidentiary foundations of international criminal convictions'.

Wired: What We've Learned About Courtroom Technology, Fredric I. Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

The Legality And Practicality Of Remote Witness Testimony, Fredric Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Testimonial Deficiencies And Evidentiary Uncertainties In International Criminal Trials, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

In this article, the author describes the flaws inherent in the process of international criminal tribunals which seek to punish the inhumane actions of dictators. The author first describes how international criminal trials confront severe impediments to accurate factfinding. It continues on to discuss the failure of witnesses in these tribunals to accurately convey the information needed to make a fully- informed decision. This problem is compounded by the fact that what clear information is provided during witness testimony often is inconsistent with the information that the witness previously provided in a pre-trial statement. The author also explores the causes …