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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Neglected Discovery, Jenia I. Turner, Ronald F. Wright, Michael Braun
Neglected Discovery, Jenia I. Turner, Ronald F. Wright, Michael Braun
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
In recent decades, many states have expanded discovery in criminal cases. These reforms were designed to make the criminal process fairer and more efficient. The success of these changes, however, depends on whether defense attorneys actually use the new discovery opportunities to represent their clients more effectively. Records from digital evidence platforms reveal that defense attorneys sometimes fail to carry out their professional duty to review discovery. Analyzing a novel dataset we obtained from digital evidence platforms used in Texas, we found that defense attorneys never accessed any available electronic discovery in a substantial number of felony cases between 2018 …
The Ethical Limits Of Discrediting The Truthful Witness: How Modern Ethics Rules Fail To Prevent Truthful Witnesses From Being Discredited Through Unethical Means, Todd A. Berger
Marquette Law Review
Whether the criminal defense attorney may ethically discredit the truthful witness on cross-examination and later during closing argument has long been an area of controversy in legal ethics. The vast majority of scholarly discussion on this important ethical dilemma has examined it in the abstract, focusing on the defense attorney’s dual roles in a criminal justice system that is dedicated to searching for the truth while simultaneously requiring zealous advocacy even for the guiltiest of defendants. Unlike these previous works, this particular Article explores this dilemma from the perspective of the techniques that criminal defense attorney’s use on cross-examination and …
"Not Just A Common Criminal": The Case For Sentencing Mitigation Videos, Regina Austin
"Not Just A Common Criminal": The Case For Sentencing Mitigation Videos, Regina Austin
All Faculty Scholarship
Sentencing mitigation or sentencing videos are a form of visual legal advocacy that is produced on behalf of defendants for use in the sentencing phases of criminal cases (from charging to clemency). The videos are typically short (5 to 10 minutes or so) nonfiction films that explore a defendant’s background, character, and family situation with the aim of raising factual and moral issues that support the argument for a shorter or more lenient sentence. Very few examples of mitigation videos are in the public domain and available for viewing. This article provides a complete analysis of the constituent elements of …
Williams V. Illinois And The Confrontation Clause: Does Testimony By A Surrogate Witness Violate The Confrontation Clause?, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman
Williams V. Illinois And The Confrontation Clause: Does Testimony By A Surrogate Witness Violate The Confrontation Clause?, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article comprises a four-part debate between Paul Rothstein, Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center, and Ronald J. Coleman, who works in the litigation practice group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, on Williams v. Illinois, a Supreme Court case that involves the Confrontation Clause, which entitles a criminal defendant to confront an accusing witness in court. The issue at hand is whether said clause is infringed when a report not introduced into evidence at trial is used by an expert to testify about the results of testing that has been conducted by a non-testifying third party. …