Law Commons^™

Implementing The Lessons From Wrongful Convictions: An Empirical Analysis Of Eyewitness Identification Reform Strategies, Keith A. Findley

Keith A Findley

Learning about the flaws in the criminal justice system that have produced wrongful convictions has progressed at a dramatic pace since the first innocent individuals were exonerated by postconviction DNA testing in 1989. Application of that knowledge to improving the criminal justice system, however, has lagged far behind the growth in knowledge. Likewise, while considerable scholarship has been devoted to identifying the factors that produce wrongful convictions, very little scholarly attention has been devoted to the processes through which knowledge about causes is translated into reforms.

Using eyewitness misidentification—one of the leading contributors to wrongful convictions and the most thoroughly …

Visualizing Dna Proof, Nicholas L. Georgakopoulos

Nicholas L Georgakopoulos

DNA proof inherently involves the use of probability theory, which is often counterintuitive. Visual depictions of probability theory, however, can clarify the analysis and make it tractable. A DNA hit from a large database is a notoriously difficult probabi­li­ty theory issue, yet the visuals should enable courts and juries to handle it. The Puckett facts are an example of a general approach: A search in a large DNA database produces a hit for a cold crime from 1972 San Francisco. Probability theory allows us to process the probabilities that someone else in the database, someone not in the database, or …

Gay Panic And The Case For Gay Shield Laws, Kelly Strader, Molly Selvin, Lindsey Hay

Kelly Strader

In a highly publicized “gay panic” case, Brandon McInerney shot and killed Larry King in their middle school classroom. King was a self-identified gay student who sometimes wore jewelry and makeup to school and, according to those who knew him, was possibly transgender. Tried as an adult for first-degree murder, McInerney asserted a heat of passion defense based upon King’s alleged sexual advances. The jury deadlocked, with a majority accepting McInerney’s defense. Drawing largely upon qualitative empirical research, this article uses the Larry King murder case as a prism though which to view the doctrinal, theoretical, and policy bases of …

Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting The Appellate Standard Of Review For Hearsay, Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson

Matthew J. Peterson, Discretion Abused: Reinterpreting the Appellate Standard of Review for Hearsay

Abstract:

The decision by a federal a court to exclude or admit hearsay can be crucial to the case of either party. Despite this prospective impact, the federal courts of appeal currently defer to district courts’ expertise by reviewing a district court’s decision to admit or exclude hearsay for an abuse of discretion. Such deference often insulates district courts’ incorrect interpretation of the rule against hearsay and the improper application of the exclusions and exceptions to the rule from appellate reversal.

Lowering the standard of review for …

Rationality, Insanity, And The Insanity Defense: Reflections On The Limits Of Reason, Theodore Y. Blumoff

Theodore Y. Blumoff

Individuals who suffer from chronic paranoid ideations live with deeply embedded conspiratorial delusions that are sometimes accompanied by unwanted visual and/or auditory stimuli, sometime neither: just psychotic delusions in which they feel as if they have lost control of their lives – and of course they have, albeit not from the performances of foreign forces. When those perceived forces persevere for even a fairly short period of time, they can dictate the performance of evil deeds that the individual ultimately feels helpless to oppose. What observations and findings from neuroscience make clear is that such individuals do not lack knowledge, …

Finding The Foregone Conclusions Of Encryption, Timothy A. Wiseman

Timothy A Wiseman

Encryption is commonly used to protect private information, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. Courts have been struggling to determine when, within the bounds of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the Courts may compel a defendant in a criminal case to decrypt their data.

This article argues that a broad use of the Forgone Conclusion doctrine would permit the Courts to order a defendant to decrypt their data when the prosecution can show with reasonable particularity the existence and location of the encrypted documents, that they are likely to be incriminating, and that the government can authenticate them without the …

Back To The Future: The Constitution Requires Reasonableness And Particularity—Introducing The “Seize But Don’T Search” Doctrine, Adam Lamparello, Charles E. Maclean

Adam Lamparello

Issuing one-hundred or fewer opinions per year, the United States Supreme Court cannot keep pace with opinions that match technological advancement. As a result, in Riley v. California and United States v. Wurie, the Court needs to announce a broader principle that protects privacy in the digital age. That principle, what we call “seize but don’t search,” recognizes that the constitutional touchstone for all searches is reasonableness.

When do present-day circumstances—the evolution in the Government’s surveillance capabilities, citizens’ phone habits, and the relationship between the NSA and telecom companies—become so thoroughly unlike those considered by the Supreme Court thirty-four years …

Timeless Trial Strategies And Tactics: Lessons From The Classic Claus Von Bülow Case, Daniel M. Braun

Daniel M Braun

In this new Millennium -- an era of increasingly complex cases -- it is critical that lawyers keep a keen eye on trial strategy and tactics. Although scientific evidence today is more sophisticated than ever, the art of effectively engaging people and personalities remains prime. Scientific data must be contextualized and presented in absorbable ways, and attorneys need to ensure not only that they correctly understand jurors, judges, witnesses, and accused persons, but also that they find the means to make their arguments truly resonate if they are to formulate an effective case and ultimately realize justice. A decades-old case …

The System Of Modern Criminal Conspiracy, Steven R. Morrison

Steven R Morrison

Something has changed in the modern system of American criminal conspiracy law compared to its prior iterations. This article explores that change, arguing that the system of modern criminal conspiracy now gives to the government such great discretion to charge and prove a conspiracy that unpopular ideas and the speech that expresses them have become ready subjects of prosecution. At its center, this article defines the system of modern conspiracy law, which is one of uniformity rather than dynamism. Where dynamic systems of law contain distinct components that perform different tasks (proving actus reus and mens rea, for example), the …