Law Commons^™

Good Policing Practices Are Difficult, Even For The Avengers, Melanie Reid

Cleveland State Law Review

Policing, as a topic, is complicated. Many have strong views as to what police should or should not be doing and how effectively they are doing it. Too often policing has become polarized with various perspectives disagreeing as to the future of policing. Black Lives Matter, Defund the Police, and Policing Abolition movements are on one spectrum compared to the Blue Lives Matter Movement or other mayoral or police union initiatives. This is clearly a time to collaborate and learn from the various perspectives to bring hope and change in the future. Lawyers, academics, community members, and police officers alike …

Filling The Potholes Of Pretextual Traffic Stops: A Better Road Forward For Ohio, Jordan Weeks

Cleveland State Law Review

The Fourth Amendment was one of the driving forces behind the United States Revolution. This Amendment generally protects individuals against “unreasonable” searches and seizures. But what does “reasonable” mean in the context of a traffic stop?

In 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court in Whren v. United States tried answering this question. In so doing, the Court determined that pretextual traffic stops are “reasonable.” Pretextual traffic stops occur where an officer stops a vehicle and cites a lawful reason for the stop, yet the underlying reason is unlawful. The Whren Court determined that an officer’s intent is completely irrelevant to whether …

The New Dread, Part Ii: The Judicial Overthrow Of The Reasonableness Standard In Police Shooting, Kindaka J. Sanders

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article series argues that the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on excessive force from Graham v. Connor to the present has undermined the objectivity of the reasonableness standard. In its place, the Court has erected a standard that reflects modern conservative political ideology, including race conservatism, law and order, increased police discretion, and the deconstruction of the Warren Court’s expansion of civil rights and civil liberties. Indeed, the Court, dominated by law-and-order conservatives, is one of the greatest triumphs of conservatism. Modern conservatism developed as a backlash against various social movements like the Civil Rights Movement and spontaneous urban rebellions during …

Stories That Kill: Masculinity And Capital Prosecutors' Closing Arguments, Pamela A. Wilkins

Cleveland State Law Review

The American death penalty is a punishment by, for, and about men: Both historically and today, most capital prosecutors are men, most capital defendants are men, and killing itself is strongly coded male. Yet despite—or perhaps because of—the overwhelming maleness of the institution of capital punishment, the subject of masculinity is largely absent from legal discourse about the death penalty. This Article addresses that gap in the legal discourse by applying the insights of masculinities theory, an offshoot of feminist theory, to capital prosecutors’ closing arguments. This Article hypothesizes that capital prosecutors’ masculinity is strongly influenced both by white Southern …

Taking The Gavel Away From The Executive Branch: The Indeterminate Sentencing Scheme Under S.B. 201 Is Ripe For Review And Unconstitutional, Jessica Crtalic

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2019, Senate Bill 201, also known as the Reagan Tokes Act, reintroduced an indeterminate sentencing scheme in Ohio whereby sentences are assigned in the form of a range. Under this sentencing scheme, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, through the parole board, has discretion to retain an inmate past the presumptive release date. This fails to afford the accused their guaranteed right to a jury trial, improperly places judiciary power in the hands of the executive branch, and scrutinizes the violation of due process such that the defendant is being denied a fair hearing and notice. Not only …

In Pursuit Of A Modern Standard: The Constitutional Proportions Of Collateral Harm From Pursuits And Police High-Speed Driving, Julian Gilbert

Cleveland State Law Review

Police chases and high-speed driving are common practices that pose a substantial amount of harm and are often unjustified. The benefits of such chases are questionable, and rapid police action at all costs is often unnecessary. When bystanders are injured as a result of police high-speed driving, there are few avenues to have their rights vindicated, and federal court cases require plaintiffs to meet an almost impossible burden. However, under the United States Supreme Court case of County of Sacramento v. Lewis, a plaintiff can put forth evidence that their substantive due process right to life under the Fourteenth …

Re-Imprisonment Without A Jury Trial: Supervised Release And The Problem Of Second-Class Status, Stephen A. Simon

Cleveland State Law Review

The Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in United States v. Haymond shone a light on a practice that has not yet received attention commensurate with its significance: the re-imprisonment of individuals on supervised release without a jury trial. At first blush, the decision is most notable for setting bounds on the government’s ability to re-imprison individuals on supervised release without observing the constitutional rights normally available to defendants in criminal prosecutions. However, examination of the opinions reveals that the decision’s immediate doctrinal impact was quite limited. Moreover, although the three opinions issued in the case reflected disagreements among the Justices, all …

Are Federal Exonerees Paid?: Lessons For The Drafting And Interpretation Of Wrongful Conviction Compensation Statutes, Jeffrey S. Gutman

Cleveland State Law Review

In this third of a series of articles on wrongful conviction compensation statutes, Professor Jeffrey Gutman tackles the first statute attempted to be passed in the United States – the federal wrongful conviction compensation statute. Championed in concept by Edwin Borchard, it was in fact poorly drafted, and recommendations by Attorney General Homer Cummings to improve it were only partly successful. This Article retraces the long legislative history of the statute which is dotted with sloppy language and reasoning, unexplained amendments and an unfortunate focus on who was not to benefit from it, rather than who was. This tangled legislative …

Private Affairs: Public Employees And The Right To Sexual Privacy, Susan A. Jacobsen

Cleveland State Law Review

Currently, the federal circuit courts split on whether public employers can discipline their employees for legal, off-duty sexual activity. The Fifth and Tenth Circuits permit discipline in these scenarios; the Ninth Circuit does not. At issue is whether certain public employees, like police officers, should be held to a higher standard because of their duty to the public or whether the Constitution entitles them to privacy rights that shield them from discipline. This Note concludes the latter and argues against punishing the legal, off-duty sexual conduct of all public employees. Because the right to sexual privacy already exists within the …

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Guideline To Remedy Ohio's Sentencing Disparities For White-Collar Criminal Defendants, Joelle Livorse

Cleveland State Law Review

Over the past few decades, white-collar crimes have significantly increased across the country, especially in Ohio. However, Ohio’s judges are ill-equipped to handle the influx of cases. Unlike federal judges who are guided by the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Ohio’s judges have significantly more sentencing discretion because the Ohio legislature provides minimal guidance for these crimes. As a result, Ohio’s white-collar criminal defendants are experiencing dramatic sentencing variations. To solve this problem, Ohio should look to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and neighboring states to adopt and create an innovative sentencing model tailored to white-collar crime. Unlike the federal …

Online Sex Trafficking Hysteria: Flawed Policies, Ignored Human Rights, And Censorship, Regina A. Russo

Cleveland State Law Review

On April 11, 2018, President Donald Trump signed the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) into law. The law, passed with bipartisan support, created a new federal offense that prohibits the use or operation of websites with the intent to "promote" or "facilitate" prostitution, expanded existing liability for federal sex trafficking offenses, and amended Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Touted as the "most important law protecting Internet speech," section 230 provides broad protection for online intermediaries that host or republish speech. It immunizes online intermediaries from liability for the things that third-party users …

Ohio's Targeted Community Alternative To Prison Program: How A Good Idea Is Implemented Through Bad Policy, Samantha Sohl

Cleveland State Law Review

Just because a legislature can make a law doesn’t mean that they should. The Ohio General Assembly enacted the Targeted Community Alternatives to Prison (T-CAP) program to decrease the number of convicted defendants sent to state prison and to increase funding for community control efforts. While the law may be upheld under the Ohio Constitution’s Uniformity Clause, the law should still be repealed because legislative control and financial influence have no place in the judicial branch, specifically the criminal sentencing process. However, the law is rooted in good intentions, and many judges have found the additional funding useful, but the …

Punishing Women: The Promise And Perils Of Contextualized Sentencing For Aboriginal Women In Canada, Toni Williams

Cleveland State Law Review

This article examines the failure of Canadian sentencing reforms to remedy the over-incarceration of Aboriginal woman through exploration of a sentencing methodology that judges may employ to give effect to the reforms: the social contextualization of women's lawbreaking. Social context analysis developed as a critique of how the state controls and punishes women and as a way to expose failures of justice. More recently, commentators have suggested that the insertion of social context analysis into the sentencing process might allow courts to find new and more robust justifications for lowering the penalties they impose on women lawbreakers from marginalized communities. …

Sexual Misconduct And The Government: Time To Take A Stand , Andrea B. Daloia

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note analyzes law enforcement's use of one particularly troublesome tactic-the use of sexual acts or romantic promises to encourage a defendant to participate in illegal activities or to obtain information that can be used against the defendant at trial. The first part of this Note gives a brief history of the outrageous government conduct defense, including its distinction from entrapment, its origin and its lack of success in the courts. Although the entrapment defense and the outrageous conduct defense have some similarities, they are in fact quite different. The second section of this Note discusses the perception of sex …

State V. Lovejoy: Hung Juries And Retrial Vs. Double Jeopardy And Collateral Estoppel, Nicole M. Ellis

Cleveland State Law Review

This article argues that the Supreme Court of Ohio's decision in Lovejoy helps to preserve the purpose of our criminal laws, which is to protect society. The article starts by recapping the events leading up to trial, then it breaks down the court decisions on appeal. The analysis of these decisions arrives at the conclusion that allowing a defendant to be retried on charges in which the accused was not previously acquitted, but rather the jury was hung or there was a mistrial, does not frustrate justice but instead greatly increases the opportunities for justice. In addition, the accused is …

The Deterrent Effect Of The Death Penalty For Murder In Ohio: A Time-Series Analysis, William C. Bailey

Cleveland State Law Review

One thing is abundantly clear from the analysis reported in this article: if Ohio is to reinstate capital punishment, its justification will have to be based upon grounds other than the deterrent effect of the death penalty for murder. Notwithstanding the opinion of some members of the United States Supreme Court, and possibly a majority of the Ohio House and Senate, the present analysis of Ohio's experience with capital punishment provides no justification for reinstating the death penalty as an effective means of dealing with the state's murder problem.

Due Process As A Management Tool In Schools And Prisons, Elisabeth T. Dreyfuss, Jane C. Knapp

Cleveland State Law Review

This article will explore due process as an effective tool for the management of schools and prisons through a close scrutiny of the fourteenth amendment. The authors will attempt to identify emerging trends in case law and give special attention to Bell v. Wolfish, which may point to a new direction in due process analysis under the Burger Court. The purpose of this article is to propose radical reform of schools and prisons through the involvement of their populations and staffs in the rule-making process. Spawned by a firm belief that only through such democratic processes can the violence and …

The Decline Of The Rehabilitative Ideal In American Criminal Justice, Francis A. Allen

Cleveland State Law Review

At this point I am going to advance a proposition. It is an analytic proposition, not an empirical statement, and relates to what characteristics a society must possess in order to maintain a flourishing rehabilitative ideal. Then I shall try to test that proposition by looking at two very different societies in which the rehabilitative ideal flourished. Finally, I shall ask whether those conditions are satisfied in modem America. My proposition is in two parts. First, you cannot have a flourishing rehabilitative ideal unless the society as a whole has a strong faith in the malleability of human behavior and …

Book Review, G. S. Friedman

Cleveland State Law Review

This entry reviews Prisons: Houses of Darkness by Leonard Orland. The book presents a short history on prisons and their development while also noting the major weaknesses of prisons today. Orland closes this text by suggesting possible reforms to the penal system. He writes that eliminating indeterminate sentences and capping sentences to five years would help to improve America's prison system.

Behavior Modification: Winners In The Game Of Life, Richard L. Aynes

Cleveland State Law Review

It is because the officials who administer the penal institutions are firmly committed to "behavior control" as a method of penological re-form that it is important to consider this "new approach" and all of its ramifications. It is to that end that this note will consider the extent and intensity of behavior control programs; the legal ramifications of such programs; and prospects for the future.

Police Liability For Invasion Of Privacy, Mildred Schad

Cleveland State Law Review

No reasonable man would contend that there can be no valid invasion of privacy by police officers. But, just when do the rights of society accede to the privileges of the individual? Certain guides as to the reasonableness of a search have been determined. A search, without a search warrant, is lawful if it is incident to a lawful arrest and if the essential element of a lawful arrest, probable cause, exists.

Legal Aspects Of Police Radar, William K. Mccarter

Cleveland State Law Review

As a vehicle approaches the radar unit, it enters its operating zone or "zone of influence." The length and width of the zone depends on such factors as the strength of the signal and the transmittor height above the ground. The unit will record the speed of only one vehicle at a time, determined by the vehicle presenting the best target by reason of reflecting surface, position, or speed. Based on this, many courts have pointed out possible defenses to proof of speed by radar. One court has stated in its opinion there are many more defenses that can be …

Police Liability For False Arrest Or Imprisonment, John M. Manos

Cleveland State Law Review

It is difficult to arrive at a valid distinction between false arrest and false imprisonment. The two causes of action are practically indistinguishable. When there is a false arrest there is a false imprisonment, but in a false arrest detention is based on asserted legal authority to enforce the processes of the law. A false imprisonment can arise between private persons for a private end with no relevance to the administration of criminal law. Our primary concern here, of course, is solely with a detention under color of law. This article purports to describe the various situations in which an …

Negligent Operation Of A Police Vehicle, Harvey S. Morrison

Cleveland State Law Review

As a general rule a police officer on an emergency call is required to exercise the care which a reasonable, prudent man would exercise in the discharge of official duties of a like nature under like circumstances. Comparing this standard of care to that required of a civilian driver, one finds not that a lesser degree of care is required of the police officer but that the care exercised must be commensurate with the circumstances. The ordinary driver under ordinary circumstances uniformly has the duty to exercise ordinary care toward other travelers to avoid injury or property damage. The police …

Liability Of Police Officers For Misuse Of Their Weapons, Herbert E. Greenston

Cleveland State Law Review

The focus of this article is twofold: it will begin by examining the historical development of the body of law which deals with the liability of the police officer for the negligent use of his weapons, and it will attempt to consider the practical problems confronting the attorney for the injured plaintiff in marshalling his evidence and presenting his case.

Fourth Amendment Limitations On Eavesdropping And Wire-Tapping, David H. Hines

Cleveland State Law Review

The subject of eavesdropping, wiretapping, and electronic surveillance has induced many legal writers to comment on the law and urge legislative changes.This paper will analyze the constitutional aspects of eavesdropping as well as the common law concerning eavesdropping as it exists today.

Police Tort Liability For Defamation, John Maxey

Cleveland State Law Review

There are many communications an officer of the law makes during the discharge of his duty. Some of these statements are made to other officers, some to the public, some to prisoners, and some to those whose aid they are soliciting in the course of their duty. Many statements which an officer makes during a day would definitely be slanderous, except for a degree of privilege which is accorded to policemen.

Municipal Immunity In Police Torts, Carol F. Dakin

Cleveland State Law Review

This article summarizes and analyzes municipal immunity from liability for torts committed by police officers. Despite the existence of a strong minority, the climate in the United States is not one in favor of the abrogation of the doctrine of governmental immunity in the near future. It should be hoped that in the states where the legislatures have failed to act, the courts will see it as their duty to overturn this anachronism, and that in the states where the courts have refused to part with the past, the legislatures will enact laws to abolish the doctrine. Until such changes …

A Sentencing Problem: How Far Is A Fall From Grace, H. H. A. Cooper

Cleveland State Law Review

It is now almost universally accepted that there are three possible bases underlying sentences imposed by the Courts, following some breach of the criminal law. These are generally described as retribution, deterrence and reformation. Occasionally these qualities are considered in combination under some such title as the "aims of penal measures." Another factor, ever present in a vague though influential form, now seems to be emerging from the shadows to assume more definite shape. Yet to materialize is its relationship to the other established, uncontroverted aims. The emergent element may conveniently be termed "public disapproval," under which may be subsumed …

Nature Of The Problem Of Police Brutality, Robert J. Bowers

Cleveland State Law Review

To properly appraise the oft-bruited problem of police brutality, one should first consider how investigatory duties came to devolve upon the police in the United States.