Law Commons^™

The 100-Plus Year Old Case For A Minimalist Criminal Law (Sketch Of A General Theory Of Substantive Criminal Law), Mike C. Materni

Mike C Materni

Criminal law defines the system of government of which it is the political expression; thus having a normative theory of substantive criminal law is paramount. U.S. criminal law has developed in the absence of such overarching theory, and is now plagued by overcriminalization. This article advances a model of a minimalist criminal law grounded on strong normative principles that are presented and defended not from the perspective of metaphysics or moral philosophy; but rather, in a historical and comparative perspective, as a matter of political choice. Core among those principles is the idea that in a liberal democracy the criminal …

Unreasonable Doubt: Warren Hill, Aedpa, And The Unconstitutionality Of Georgia's Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Georgia’s “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard for determining intellectual disability has led to an absurd—and arbitrary—result. A Georgia state court held that defendant Warren Hill was intellectually disabled, yet still sentenced Hill to death. Seven experts—and the court—deemed Hill disabled under a preponderance of the evidence standard. He remains on death row, however, because Georgia’s “preposterous burden of proof” requires that intellectual disability be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, a standard experts have said is nearly impossible to satisfy. It “effectively limits the constitutional right protected in Atkins,” and creates a conditional, not categorical, ban.

Hall V. Florida: The Death Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Standard, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Welcome: We’re Glad Georgia is On Your Mind.

Georgia is on many minds as Warren Hill prepares for a state court hearing to once again begin the process of trying to show that he is intellectually disabled. As Warren Hill continues to flirt with death, one must ask, is Georgia really going to execute someone that nine experts and a lower court twice found to be mentally retarded? The answer is yes, and the Georgia courts do not understand why we are scratching our heads. The answer is simple: executing an intellectually disabled man is akin to strapping a ten-year …

Immigrants Unshackled: The Unconstitutional Use Of Indiscriminate Restraints, Fatma E. Marouf

Fatma E Marouf

This Article challenges the constitutionality of indiscriminately restraining civil immigration detainees during removal proceedings. Not only are immigration detainees routinely placed in handcuffs, leg irons, and belly chains without any individualized determination of the need for restraints, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the prosecuting party, makes the decisions about the use of restraints, rather than the judge. After examining the rationale for the well-established prohibition against the indiscriminate use of restraints during criminal and civil jury trials, and discussing how some courts have extended this rationale to bench trials, this Article contends that ICE’s practice violates substantive and procedural …

Brief Of Amici Curiae -- Heien V. State Of North Carolina, Charles E. Maclean, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

Reasonable suspicion of unlawful activity cannot be predicated on conduct that does not violate the law. Put differently, if reasonableness — or reasonable suspicion — is to mean anything, it means that apparent violations of the law must be based on actual violations of the law. The North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision sends a message to drivers throughout the country that they cannot be wrong about what the law requires, even where law enforcement is wrong — dead wrong — about what the law proscribes.

Montes-Lopez V. Holder: Applying Eldridge To Ensure A Per Se Right To Counsel For Indigent Immigrants In Removal Proceedings, Soulmaz Taghavi

Soulmaz Taghavi

Part I of this Comment reviews the historical and current state of procedural due process and its role in Immigration Law, specifically removal proceedings. Part II extends certain legal arguments in the opinion of Montes-Lopez v. Holder, which held among divided federal Circuit Courts that an immigrant in removal proceedings has a statutory and constitutional right to appointed counsel. Last, Part III demonstrates how a non-citizen in deportation hearing has a per se right to counsel outlined by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) and brought to life by the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.

Restoring Constitutional Equilibrium, Adam Lamparello

Adam Lamparello

In areas such as the Fourteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court's lack of institutional restraint has affected citizens of every political persuasion. In Bush v. Gore, the Florida Supreme Court’s recount order was blocked. ‘Liberals,’ lost. In Roe v. Wade, the Court required state legislatures to allow most abortions in the first trimester. ‘Conservatives’ lost. In Clinton v. City of New York and Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the coordinate branch’s attempt to ensure a more efficient and fairer government was thwarted. Average citizens lost. The problem is not a liberal or conservative one, whatever those words mean. It is …

Amicus Brief: State V. Glover (Maine Supreme Judicial Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean

Adam Lamparello

When law enforcement seeks to obtain a warrantless, pre-arrest DNA sample from an individual, that individual has the right to say “No.” If silence is to become a “badge of guilt,” then the right to silence—under the United States and Maine Constitutions—might become a thing of the past. Allowing jurors to infer consciousness of guilt from a pre-arrest DNA sample violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States and Maine Constitutions.

Defenseless Self-Defense: An Essay On Goldberg And Zipursky's Civil Recourse Defended, Alan Calnan

Alan Calnan

In a recent symposium published by the Indiana Law Journal, Professors John C.P. Goldberg and Benjamin C. Zipursky offer a spirited defense of their theory of civil recourse, which sees the tort system exclusively as a means of empowering victims of wrongs. This essay assails that defense, finding it curiously defenseless in three related respects. First, civil recourse’s key tenets are particularly vulnerable to criticism because they are quietly reductive, inscrutably vague, and highly unstable. Second, even in its most coherent form, civil recourse theory literally lacks any meaningful explanation of the defensive rights at play within the tort system. …

Closing The Widening Net: The Rights Of Juveniles At Intake, Tamar R. Birckhead

Tamar R Birckhead

Should juveniles have more, fewer, the same or different procedural rights than are accorded to adults? This question, posed by Professor Arnold Loewy for a panel at the 2013 Texas Tech Law Review Symposium on Juveniles and Criminal Law, requires us to examine our goals for the juvenile court system. My primary goal, having practiced in both adult criminal and juvenile delinquency forums for over twenty years, is to ensure that the reach of juvenile court is no wider than necessary, as research indicates that when children are processed through the juvenile court system and adjudicated delinquent, the impact is …

Profile Transparency By Design? Re-Enabling Double Contingency, Mireille Hildebrandt

Mireille Hildebrandt

No abstract provided.

Cascading Constitutional Deprivation: The Right To Appointed Counsel For Mandatorily Detained Immigrants Pending Removal Proceedings, Mark Noferi

Mark L Noferi

When a Department of Homeland Security officer mandatorily detains a green card holder without bail pending his removal proceedings, for a minor crime committed perhaps long ago, the immigrant’s life takes a drastic turn. If he contests his case, he likely will remain incarcerated in substandard conditions for months or years, often longer than for his original crime, and be unable to acquire a lawyer, access family whom might assist, or access key evidence or witnesses. In these circumstances, it is all but certain he will lose his deportation case, sometimes wrongfully, and be banished abroad from work, family, and …

Mcdonald V. Chicago. Fourteenth Amendment Incorporation, And Judicial Role Reversals, David T. Hardy

David T. Hardy

McDonald v. Chicago, which incorporated the Second Amendment right to arms, was the first Supreme Court ruling to address incorporation in many decades. It was an unusual ruling, in that the Court’s “conservative wing” took what had been traditionally the liberal approach, while its “liberal wing” suddenly became very conservative. Indeed, Justice Thomas staked out the most liberal position, while Justice Stevens staked out the most conservative one, and for good measure Justice Scalia found that precedent can trump originalism.

This article outlines the virtues, and problems, of the three major opinions in McDonald, and suggests solutions to some of …

Justicia Militar Y Derechos Humanos, Claudio Fuentes Maureira

Claudio Fuentes Maureira

En diciembre de 2010 se publicó una reforma a la justicia militar que excluyó a los civiles de su jurisdicción, lo que fue celebrado por el Gobierno como un significativo paso hacia la democratización de esta jurisdicción, la misma que le valió a Chile una condena internacional en 2005. No obstante, mantuvo la competencia de tribunales militares para conocer delitos cometidos por miembros de las Fuerzas Armadas y de Orden, lo cual sigue estando por debajo de los estándares que obligan a Chile. A ello se suma que aún está pendiente la reforma orgánica y procedimental de la justicia militar, …

Bad Science Makes Bad Law: How The Deference Afforded To Psychiatry Undermines Civil Liberties, Samantha Godwin

Samantha Godwin

Courts and lawmakers trust psychiatric expertise when making judicial and public policy decisions concerning mental health, but is this trust well placed? This paper adopts a philosophy of science approach informed by medical research to evaluating the validity of psychiatric classification. This provides the basis for an interdisciplinary critical analysis of civil commitment law and use of psychiatric expert witnesses in light of legal evidence standards. This analysis demonstrates that involuntary civil commitment as it now stands is incompatible with broader due process and civil rights concerns and affords an unjustifiable evidentiary status to psychiatric diagnosis.

Shoot First And Ask Legal Questions Later: Evaluating The Legality Of Us Policy Of The Targeted Killing Of Us Citizens Suspected Of Terrorism, Sarah M. Riley Esq.

Sarah M. Riley Esq.

In February, 2010, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair admitted that it is U.S. policy to deliberately target and kill U.S. citizens who are suspected of being involved in terrorism abroad. Such a policy raises serious legal questions at the international and domestic levels. This article exams the international legal issue of assassination and targeted killings, exploring when such killings are extra-legal. Determinations of the international legal categorization of the “war on terror” are made. While the conclusion that the United States is involved in non-international armed conflict with Al Qadea clarifies the international legal parameters of targeted killings, domestic …

The Rule Of Law At The Crossroads: Consequences Of Targeted Killing Of Citizens, Ryan P. Alford

Ryan P Alford

In December 2010 (in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama) the District Court held that the President's decision to authorize the targeted killing of American citizen could not be reviewed in any court. The article discusses whether this decision is compatible with the vision of the rule of law embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which is illuminated with an explanation of the historical analysis of the key influences on the Framers. It concludes that the Al-Aulaqi decision is a more significant threat to our constitutional order than the indefinite detention enjoined by Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, and accordingly this warrants …

The Medical Device Federal Preemption Trilogy: Salvaging Due Process For Injured Patients, Demetria D. Frank-Jackson

Demetria D Frank-Jackson

Ignoring over a century of tort law precedence, ultimately leaving thousands of people all over the country injured by medical devices without remedy, the prevailing jurisprudence on medical device federal preemption is both current and relevant. Due to the inherent ambiguity of the preemption provision Medical Device Amendments of 1976, where contemporary medical device litigation had its beginnings, the regulatory nature of common law tort claims against medical device manufacturers has been overwhelming called into question. Given this socio-judicial backdrop, the Article focuses on two rapidly developing areas of law: (1) preemption of certain medical device claims following the U.S. …

Prosecuting Charles Taylor’S Son For Torture: A Step Toward The Domestication Of International Law, Thomas J. G. Scott

Thomas J. G. Scott

Several federal statutes criminalize conduct by foreigners that has no relation to the United States. These statutes, and the prosecutions conducted pursuant to them, raise questions about Congress’s legislative authority and individuals’ Due Process rights in a globalized world. In part to avoid thorny issues about the relationship between constitutional law and international law, the U.S. has not – aside from piracy cases – pursued any prosecutions based purely on universal jurisdiction. Despite these challenges, human rights activists remain hopeful that U.S. courts will soon exercise jurisdiction over – and thus end impunity for – atrocities committed abroad. The 2008 …

Perpetuating Ageism Via Adoption Standards And Practices, Sara C. Mills

Sara C Mills

More than a quarter of Americans consider adoption at some point in their lives. During the adoption process, courts strive to promote and foster the children’s best interests, but this often involves discriminatory decisions that deprive older adoptive parents of the same opportunities as younger adoptive parents. Discrimination in adoption proceedings is nothing new, and legislators, courts, and scholars have explored how it impacts minorities, same-sex couples, single parents, and divorcees. However, age discrimination in adoption also exists, and courts condone it by approving placements that are dictated by private agencies’ discriminatory ideologies. This article thus provides the first systematic …

State V Fowler: North Carolina Dwi Procedure Considered, Jeffrey Martin

Jeffrey Martin

This case has its origin in attempts by the government of North Carolina to reduce drunk driving fatalities and improve road safety.

Filling The Due Process Donut Hole: Abuse And Neglect Cases Between Disposition And Permanency, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Josh Gupta-Kagan

A state child protection agency removes a child from his mother and convinces a family court judge to rule that the child’s mother neglected him and to place the child in foster care. The judge orders the agency to work with the mother to remedy the conditions that led her to neglect him with the plan of reunifying the child with her. One year later the family returns to family court. The social worker files a report asserting that the mother has not cooperated with the agency’s efforts to help her and remains incapable of taking care of the child. …

Security Council Targeted Sanctions, Due Process And The 1267 Ombudsperson, Grant L. Willis

Grant L Willis

Since its inception the Security Council’s 1267 sanctions regime has come under fire from UN member states, listed individuals and entities, domestic and international courts and tribunals, human rights NGO’s and even other organs of the UN, that all claim the 1267 sanctions regime does not secure targeted individuals’ procedural due process rights, particularly the right to an effective remedy. For instance, in June 2009 a Canadian Federal Court Judge noted that the 1267 sanctions regime creates a situation for the listed individual that is “not unlike that of Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial, who awakens one morning, and …

Changing The Rules Of The Game: Deriving New Rules And Practices From Caperton V. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Aman L. Mcleod

Aman L McLeod

In 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., in which it ruled that judges must recuse themselves in cases involving those who have provided a disproportionate amount of financial support to their campaigns. This decision has forced states to reconsider their campaign finance laws and their judicial recusal rules. This article proposes practical and modest reforms that states could adopt that would effectively respond to the Caperton decision.

Rethinking Children As Property, Kevin Noble Maillard

Kevin Noble Maillard

Despite the collective view in law and social practice that it is intrinsically taboo to consider human beings as chattel, the law persists in treating children as property. Applying principles of property, this Article examines paternity disputes to explain and critique the law’s view of children as property of their parents. As evidenced in these conflicts, I demonstrate that legal paternity exposes a rhetoric of ownership, possession, and exchange. The law presumes that a child born to a married woman is fathered by her husband, even when irrefutable proof exists that another man fathered the child. Attempts by the non-marital …

Specialized Courts For Terrorism Trials, Sudha Setty

Sudha Setty

On the campaign trail in 2008, presidential candidate and then-Senator Barack Obama promised to restore America’s place in the world by breaking with many of the national security policies put into effect by President George W. Bush. In January 2009, President Obama made numerous changes to United States foreign policy, including signing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and announcing that the United States would not engage in interrogation techniques that constitute torture. In some aspects of national security law and policy, however, Obama has followed the example of President Bush—for example, in his announcement …

Back To The Future: Discovery Cost Allocation And Modern Procedural Theory, Martin H. Redish, Colleen Mcnamara

Martin H Redish

It has long been established that as a general rule, discovery costs are to remain with the party from whom discovery has been sought. While courts have authority to "shift" costs in an individual instance, the presumption against such an alteration in traditional practice is quite strong. Yet at no point did the drafters of the original Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ever make an explicit decision to allocate discovery costs in this manner. Nor, apparently, did they (or anyone since) ever explain why such an allocation choice is to be made in the first place. As a result, our …

Nottebohm's Nightmare: Have We Exorcised The Ghosts Of Wwii Detention Programs Or Do They Still Haunt Guantanamo?, Cindy G. Buys

Cindy G. Buys

Frederich Nottebohm was the subject of a famous 1956 International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision that still has resonance today. The story of how Mr. Nottebohm, a wealthy German-born businessman living in Guatemala, came to be the subject of a case before the world court exposes a little known program run by the United States during World War II in which the United States pressured Latin American countries like Guatemala to identify persons of German nationality or ancestry and turn them over to the United States for internment for the duration of the war. Many of these persons were assumed …

Completing Caperton And Clarifying Common Sense Through Using The Right Standard For Constitutional Judicial Recusal, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Jeffrey W Stempel

In Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., Inc., the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a state supreme court decision in which a justice who had received $3 million in campaign support from a company CEO cast the deciding vote to relieve the company of a $50 million liability. The Caperton majority adopted a “probability of bias” standard for constitutional due process review of judicial disqualification decisions that differs from the ordinary “reasonable question as to impartiality” standard for recusal. Four dissenters objected to the majority’s limited supervision of state court disqualification practice, minimized the danger of biased judging presented by the …

Debacle: How The Supreme Court Has Mangled American Sentencing Law And How Justice Sotomayor Might Help Fix It, Frank O. Bowman

Frank O. Bowman III

This Article argues that the line of Supreme Court Sixth Amendment jury right cases that began with McMillan v. Pennsylvania in 1986, crescendoed in Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker in 2004-2005, and continues in 2009 in cases such as Oregon v. Ice, has been a colossal judicial failure. First, the Court has failed to provide a logically coherent, constitutionally based answer to the fundamental question of what limits the Constitution places on the roles played by the institutional actors in the criminal justice system. It failed to recognize that defining, adjudicating and punishing crimes implicates both the …