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The Exclusionary Rule In Historical Perspective: The Struggle To Make The Fourth Amendment More Than 'An Empty Blessing', Yale Kamisar Jan 1979

The Exclusionary Rule In Historical Perspective: The Struggle To Make The Fourth Amendment More Than 'An Empty Blessing', Yale Kamisar

Articles

In the 65 years since the Supreme Court adopted the exclusionary rule, few critics have attacked it with as much vigor and on as many fronts as did Judge Malcolm Wilkey in his recent Judicature article, "The exclusionary rule: why suppress valid evidence?" (November 1978).


Opinions And Expert Testimony, John W. Reed Jan 1978

Opinions And Expert Testimony, John W. Reed

Book Chapters

Article VI of the Michigan Rules of Evidence contains the rules dealing with witnesses. Trials bring to mind testimonial evidence. There surely are other kinds of evidence, such as docmnents, guns, automobile tires, chemical substances, and the like. But most evidence comes from the mouths of witnesses, and even demonstrative evidence usually is admitted only after a witness has taken the stand and testified to foundation facts. So it is important and appropriate that we turn to the provisions of the rules that deal with qualifications and credibility of witnesses. I would like to direct your attention to MRE 601 …


Brewer V. Williams, Massiah And Miranda: What Is 'Interrogation'? When Does It Matter?, Yale Kamisar Jan 1978

Brewer V. Williams, Massiah And Miranda: What Is 'Interrogation'? When Does It Matter?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

On Christmas Eve, 1968, a ten-year-old girl, Pamela Powers, disappeared while with her family in Des Moines, Iowa.2 Defendant Williams, an escapee from a mental institution and a deeply religious person, 3 was suspected of murdering her, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.4 Williams telephoned a Des Moines lawyer, McKnight, and on his advice surrendered himself to the Davenport, Iowa, police.5 Captain Learning and another Des Moines police officer arranged to drive the 160 miles to Davenport, pick up Williams, and return him directly to Des Moines. 6 Both the trial court 7 and the federal district court8 …


Is The Exclusionary Rule An 'Illogical' Or 'Unnatural' Interpretation Of The Fourth Amendment?, Yale Kamisar Jan 1978

Is The Exclusionary Rule An 'Illogical' Or 'Unnatural' Interpretation Of The Fourth Amendment?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

More than 50 years have passed since the Supreme Court decided the Weeks case, barring the use in federal prosecutions of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and the Silverthorne case, invoking what has come to be known as the "fruit of the poisonous tree" doctrine. The justices who decided those cases would, I think, be quite surprised to learn that some day the value of the exclusionary rule would be measured by-and the very life of the rule might depend on-an empirical evaluation of its efficacy in deterring police misconduct. These justices were engaged in a less …


Fred E. Inbau: 'The Importance Of Being Guilty', Yale Kamisar Jan 1977

Fred E. Inbau: 'The Importance Of Being Guilty', Yale Kamisar

Articles

As fate would have it, Fred Inbau graduated from law school in 1932, the very year that, "for practical purposes the modern law of constitutional criminal procedure [began], with the decision in the great case of Powell v. Alabama."1 In "the 'stone age' of American criminal procedure,"2 Inbau began his long fight to shape or to retain rules that "make sense in the light of a policeman's task,"3 more aware than most that so long as the rules do so, "we will be in a stronger position to insist that [the officer] obey them."4


Evidence Problems In Criminal Cases, John W. Reed Jan 1977

Evidence Problems In Criminal Cases, John W. Reed

Book Chapters

The Federal Rules of Evidence, enacted by Congress, became effective on July 1, 1975. Ten states have adopted state versions of the Federal Rules to govern trials in their courts, and about half the remaining states are considering whether to follow suit. Michigan is one of these latter states. Early in 1977 a committee appointed by the Supreme Court of Michigan proposed rules of evidence for Michigan closely patterned on the Federal Rules, and, if all goes well, the Court will promulgate rules for the Michigan courts to become effective in 1977 or soon thereafter. Michigan lawyers should be aware …


A Review Of The Proposed Michigan Rules Of Evidence, James K. Robinson, John W. Reed Jan 1977

A Review Of The Proposed Michigan Rules Of Evidence, James K. Robinson, John W. Reed

Articles

On January 6, 1977, the Supreme Court of Michigan entered an order stating that it is considering adoption of the proposed Michigan Rules of Evidence which were submitted to the Court by the committee which it appointed in March 1975. The Court has solicited comments from interested persons regarding the proposed rules. A copy of the Supreme Court's order is published in this issue of the Bar Journal. The proposed rules are published in the January 26, 1977, issue of North Western Reporter, Second Series (Michigan Edition). The purpose of this article is to review in general the background and …


Kauper's 'Judicial Examination Of The Accused' Forty Years Later—Some Comments On A Remarkable Article, Yale Kamisar Nov 1974

Kauper's 'Judicial Examination Of The Accused' Forty Years Later—Some Comments On A Remarkable Article, Yale Kamisar

Articles

For a long time before Professor Paul Kauper wrote "Judicial Examination of the Accused" in 1932, and for a long time thereafter, the "legal mind" shut out the de facto inquisitorial system that characterized American criminal procedure. Paul Kauper could not look away. He recognized the "naked, ugly facts" (p. 1224) and was determined to do something about them -more than thirty years before Escobedo v. Illinois' or Miranda v. Arizona.2


Developments In Evidence Of Other Crimes, Nickolas J. Kyser Jan 1974

Developments In Evidence Of Other Crimes, Nickolas J. Kyser

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

If the defendant in a criminal trial has a record of other offenses or is suspected of a number of crimes although charged with only one, the admissibility of evidence of these other offenses can be crucial. Admissibility depends in part on the purpose for which the evidence is offered. For instance, the prosecution is severely limited in its use of evidence of character. Until the defendant submits evidence of his good character, the subject cannot be raised and even after character is put in issue particular acts are not allowed to show character. The defendant's prior convictions may be …


Searches Without Warrants, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1971

Searches Without Warrants, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

My primary area of concentration today is the search made without a warrant. Studies indicate that 95 percent or more of all searches are without warrants. It is quite understandable, then, that most of the search-and-seizure litigation concerns the validity of searches without warrants.


Recent Developments In The Law Of Search And Seizure, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1968

Recent Developments In The Law Of Search And Seizure, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

This article is designed to provide a survey of recent decisions dealing with several important issues in the area of search and seizure. It is intended primarily as a basic collection of sources. I have, therefore, sought to keep my own commentary at a minimum and the citations to relevant cases at a maximum. Wherever space permits, I have let the courts speak for themselves. In most instances, however, it has been necessary to provide fairly general descriptions of the cases.


'Custodial Interrogation' Within The Meaning Of Miranda, Yale Kamisar Jan 1968

'Custodial Interrogation' Within The Meaning Of Miranda, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

The primary conceptual hurdle confronting the Miranda Court was the "legal reasoning" that any and all police interrogation is unaffected by the privilege against self-incrimination because such interrogation does not involve any kind of judicial process for the taking of testimony; inasmuch as police officers have no legal authority to compel statements of any kind, there is no legal obligation, ran the argument, to which a privilege can apply. See, e.g., the discussion and authorities collected in Kamisar, A Dissent from the Miranda Dissents: Some Comments on the "New" Fifth Amendment and the Old "Voluntariness" Test, 65 MICH. L. REv. …


The Citizen On Trial: The New Confession Rules, Yale Kamisar Jan 1967

The Citizen On Trial: The New Confession Rules, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Commenting on why it has taken the United States so long to apply "the privilege against self-incrimination and the right to counsel to the proceedings in the stationhouse as well as to those in the courtroom" - as the Supreme Court did in Miranda v. Arizona - this author notes that, "To a large extent this is so because here, as elsewhere, there has been a wide gap between the principles to which we aspire and the practices we actually employ."


Police Interrogation And The Supreme Court--The Latest Round, Jerold H. Israel Jan 1967

Police Interrogation And The Supreme Court--The Latest Round, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

My first task is to explain to some degree the nature of the problem embodied in our title. This book has been designated as "Escobedo-The Second Round." What we will be discussing is a series of cases, decided in June, 1966, the most noteworthy of which is Miranda v. Arizona [384 U.S. 436 (1966)]. In these cases, the United States Supreme Court prescribed a new set of standards governing the introduction in evidence of statements obtained from the defendant through police interrogation. Actually, to a degree these standards were not entirely new. They had been suggested, at least in part, …


Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review Feb 1965

Evidence Of The Absence Of Fresh Complaint Is Admissible In Sodomy Prosecution-United States V. Goodman, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of two counts of sodomy by a general court martial. The alleged victims of the defendant had failed to complain immediately following the incidents, and evidence of such failure on the part of one of the witnesses had been admitted at trial. A Navy board of review affirmed the conviction, modifying the sentence. Defendant appealed to the United States Court of Military Appeals on the ground that it had been prejudicial error for the law officer to refuse to give a proffered instruction to the court-martial panel respecting the victim's failure to make fresh complaints. On appeal, …


Evidence-Hearsay-Admissbility Of Accident Reports Under The Federal Business Records Act, Thomas G. Dignan Jr. May 1963

Evidence-Hearsay-Admissbility Of Accident Reports Under The Federal Business Records Act, Thomas G. Dignan Jr.

Michigan Law Review

The United States, as assignee of a civilian seaman's claim, brought an action against the defendant for injuries received when the seaman slipped on a walkway which the defendant had contracted to maintain in good repair. At the trial plaintiff sought to introduce into evidence a report compiled by the seaman's superior, such report being required to accompany the seaman's claim for compensation from the Government. Admission of the report under the Federal Business Records Act was denied, and the Government's case was thereby materially weakened. Judgment was entered on a jury verdict for the defendant. On appeal, held, …


Evidence- Hearsay-Scope Of Federal Rule 43(A), David K. Kroll S. Ed Nov 1961

Evidence- Hearsay-Scope Of Federal Rule 43(A), David K. Kroll S. Ed

Michigan Law Review

The clocktower of plaintiff county's courthouse buckled and collapsed into the courtroom below. Charred timbers were found in the wreckage. Several residents reported that they saw lightning strike the tower five days before the collapse. Plaintiff carried insurance for loss by fire or lightning, and sued the insurers when they denied liability. Defendant claimed that the tower collapsed of its own weight because of faulty design, deterioration, and overloading. To account for the charred timbers defendant introduced into evidence a fifty-eight-year-old newspaper article from the files of the city newspaper describing a fire in the courthouse during its construction. The …


Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Admissibility In A Federal Court Of Evidence Illegally Obtained By State Officers, Robert J. Paley Mar 1959

Constitutional Law - Search And Seizure - Admissibility In A Federal Court Of Evidence Illegally Obtained By State Officers, Robert J. Paley

Michigan Law Review

In response to a call from a citizen whose suspicions had been aroused by the actions of the defendant and a companion, Maryland police unlawfully arrested the companion and searched the premises occupied by him and the defendant. & a result of this search, money was found which had been stolen in the District of Columbia. Although the search was illegal under Maryland law and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, this money was used as evidence to convict the defendant of housebreaking and larceny in the District of Columbia federal court. On appeal, held, conviction reversed and remanded …


Evidence - Admissibility - Extent To Which Juror's Affidavit May Be Used To Impeach Verdict, Herbert R. Brown S.Ed. May 1956

Evidence - Admissibility - Extent To Which Juror's Affidavit May Be Used To Impeach Verdict, Herbert R. Brown S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree and made a motion for a new trial on the basis of a juror's affidavit which asserted that the jury had been divided eight to four in favor of life imprisonment over the death sentence, that subsequently several jurors introduced into the deliberations the fact that the defendant had been charged, in another indictment, with assault with intent to kill, that this became a part of the jury's deliberation, and that, as a result, the jury did not recommend life imprisonment and, instead, the death sentence was imposed. On appeal, held …


Criminal Procedure - Searches And Seizures - Admissibility Of Evidence Obtained Through Unlawful Search And Seizure, Neil Flanagin S.Ed. Jan 1956

Criminal Procedure - Searches And Seizures - Admissibility Of Evidence Obtained Through Unlawful Search And Seizure, Neil Flanagin S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendants were prosecuted and convicted of conspiring to engage in horserace bookmaking and related offenses. The police had secured evidence of defendants' activities by concealing a listening device in premises occupied by them and also by unauthorized and forcible searches. The trial court admitted the evidence so obtained, notwithstanding the fact that the police action in securing it was clearly in violation of both federal and state constitutions and statutes. After conviction, the trial court denied defendants' motion for a new trial. On appeal, held, reversed, three justices dissenting. Evidence obtained in violation of the defendants' constitutional rights is …


Evidence-Police Regulation By Rules Of Evidence-Results Of The Mcnabb Case, John B. Waite Apr 1944

Evidence-Police Regulation By Rules Of Evidence-Results Of The Mcnabb Case, John B. Waite

Michigan Law Review

In McNabb v. United States the Supreme Court promulgated novel judicial legislation, the gist of which is that confessions or admissions of crime made while the accused is in custody without having been brought before a magistrate as required by law are inadmissible in evidence. That judicial pronouncement assumed that the utterances were made without compulsion, and prohibited their use solely because at the time they were made the officers of justice were themselves disregarding the law-the procedural requirement that persons arrested be taken immediately before a magistrate. In Justice Frankfurter's phrase, "a conviction resting on evidence secured through such …


Evidence - Degrees Of Secondary Evidence - Problems In Application Of The So-Called "American" Rule, William H. Klein Apr 1940

Evidence - Degrees Of Secondary Evidence - Problems In Application Of The So-Called "American" Rule, William H. Klein

Michigan Law Review

Since 1710 the courts of the Anglo-American juridical system have been seeking a solution to the problem of the existence of degrees of secondary evidence. Those courts which have determined that there are degrees have been confronted with the second problem concerning the circumstances under which the secondary evidence rule will actually preclude the admission of the evidence offered. In the majority of decisions the courts have relied on precedent, or on statements of text writers, stripped of their context, and have failed to. seek the solution in terms of the purposes for which rules of evidence have been devised. …


Evidence-Best Evidence Rule-Use Of Summaries Of Voluminous Originals, Benjamin H. Dewey Jan 1939

Evidence-Best Evidence Rule-Use Of Summaries Of Voluminous Originals, Benjamin H. Dewey

Michigan Law Review

The best evidence rule usually requires that in proving the contents of documents, the documents themselves must be produced. However, the doctrine is firmly established that where the fact or facts to be ascertained can only be determined by the inspection of a large number of records, papers, books of account, or other like documents, the best evidence rule will be relaxed, and an oral or written summary of such voluminous mass of data may be allowed in evidence. This is done on the basis that the production of the originals is impractible, inexpedient and time-devouring, and because the summary …


Evidence - The Use Of Corporate Minutes In Evidence, Francis T. Goheen Dec 1937

Evidence - The Use Of Corporate Minutes In Evidence, Francis T. Goheen

Michigan Law Review

In their treatment of the principles applicable to the use of corporate minutes in evidence, the courts and the text writers have, with little or no explanation, used the language of both the parol evidence rule and the best evidence rule. Most often the question is rather summarily dismissed, and the court's opinion generally discloses very little in the way of enlightening information regarding the reasons for the exclusion or the admission and effect of the offered minutes. If general propositions are to be formulated relative to the use of corporate minutes under given conditions, such propositions must be based …


The Nature Of Proof, Thomas E. Atkinson, Raymond H. Wheeler Jun 1932

The Nature Of Proof, Thomas E. Atkinson, Raymond H. Wheeler

Michigan Law Review

A Review of THE PRINCIPLES OF JUDICIAL PROOF. By John Henry Wigmore.


Wills-Interlineation-Incorporation By Reference May 1931

Wills-Interlineation-Incorporation By Reference

Michigan Law Review

A will was completely executed on one side of the page. In the margin, but above the testator's signature, were written the words, "See other side for completion." On the reverse side were the words, "Continuation from the other side," followed by a dispositive clauses. There was no signature on the second page, but it was proved that these clauses were written before the testator signed on the first page. Under 15 Viet; c. 24, sec.1 no signature shall be operative to give effect to any disposition which is. underneath or which follows it. Held, that the writing on …


Evidence--Physician-Patient Privilege--Express And Implied Waiver Dec 1930

Evidence--Physician-Patient Privilege--Express And Implied Waiver

Michigan Law Review

Defendant's intestate applied for insurance with "plaintiff, expressly waiving, for himself and beneficiaries, the privilege of excluding testimony of physicians who had then attended him or might do so later. The policy lapsed, but the insured, falsely representing that he was in good health and had consulted no doctor for any cause, secured a reinstatement. He died six months later. Plaintiff sued for cancellation, and defendant objected to the testimony of physicians who had been consulted before and after the reinstatement. Held, the testimony was admissible, since the privilege was waived; also the mere fact that there were consultations …


The Law Of Expert Testimony, Henry Wade Rogers Dec 1882

The Law Of Expert Testimony, Henry Wade Rogers

Books

The purpose which the writer had in mind in the preparation of this monograph, was to furnish to the practitioner a more extended presentation of the law relating to expert testimony, than is afforded in the treatises on evidence. It seemed desirable that the law on this important subject should be set forth with more of detail than it has been found practicable to do in the general treatises of the law of evidence. The cases relating to expert testimony are so numerous and so diversified in character, that any attempt to bring them all together, and give to them …