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Preventive Detention, Character Evidence, And The New Criminal Law, Ted Sampsell-Jones
Preventive Detention, Character Evidence, And The New Criminal Law, Ted Sampsell-Jones
Faculty Scholarship
A new criminal law has emerged in the last quarter century. The dominant goal of the new criminal law is preventive detention-incarceration to incapacitate dangerous persons. The emergence of the new criminal law has remade both sentencing law and definitions of crimes themselves. The new criminal law has also begun to remake the law of evidence. As incapacitation has become an accepted goal of criminal punishment, the rationale of the character rule has become less compelling, and the rule itself has begun to wane in criminal practice. These changes have been subtle, but they have also been both radical and …
Spreigl Evidence: Still Searching For A Principled Rule, Ted Sampsell-Jones
Spreigl Evidence: Still Searching For A Principled Rule, Ted Sampsell-Jones
Faculty Scholarship
This article first examines how Minnesota’s character evidence doctrine developed, with a particular focus on the historical confusion regarding the propriety of the propensity inference. It then examines current case law and argues that Minnesota’s current Spreigl doctrine routinely allows propensity evidence. It finally proposes a choice between abandoning the current Spreigl doctrine and repealing the character rule itself. The author takes no position on which alternative should be chosen, but either is better than the status quo. The current doctrine in Minnesota is a Potemkin village.