Law Commons^™

Manipulation Of Suspects And Unrecorded Questioning, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Fifty years after Miranda, courts still do not have clear guidance on the types oftechniques police may use during interrogation. While first-generation tactics (a.k.a. the third degree) are banned, second-generation tactics such as those found in the famous Reid Manual continue to be used by interrogators. The Supreme Court has sent only vague signals as to which of these second- generation techniques, if any, are impermissible, and has made no mention of newly developed third-generation tactics that are much less reliant on manipulation. This Article divides second-generation techniques into four categories: impersonation, rationalization, fabrication, and negotiation. After concluding, based on …

The Incompatibility Of Due Process And Naked Statistical Evidence, G. Alexander Nunn

Vanderbilt Law Review

Qualitative evidence is a cornerstone of the modern trial system. Parties often invoke eyewitness testimony, character witnesses, or other forms of direct and circumstantial evidence when seeking to advance their case in the courtroom, enabling jurors to reach a verdict after weighing two competing narratives.' But what if testimonial, experience-based evidence were removed from trials? In a legal system that draws its legitimacy from centuries of tradition-emphasizing notions of fairness even above absolute accuracy. Would a jury, not to mention the public at large, reject a verdict that imposes liability or guilt on a defendant in the complete absence of …

The Dilemma Of The Directed Acquittal, Richard H. Winningham

Vanderbilt Law Review

Some of the worst abuses of state criminal due process, the author believes, result from anachronistic and artificial restraints which prevent the trial judge from directing acquittals. Therefore,he advocates for all states a uniform policy and practice recognizing and authorizing directed acquittals where the evidence is legally insufficient to support a conviction.

Rochin And Breithaupt In Context, James R. Richardson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Modern scientific methods of fact-finding present evidentiary problems of admissibility which are grounded in reliability of the process, validity of the technique employed and desired policy objectives. In the final analysis, these three facets of the problem are all indivisibly interrelated since, in order to determine acceptable policy, scientific process and application of that process must inevitably be considered in the light of the concept of due process even though due process as such may not be posed affirmatively in any particular decision.' Moreover, it must be recognized that these factors will be present in varying degrees of intensity, dependent …

Book Reviews, Robert J. Harris (Reviewer), E. M. Morgan (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

The Fifth Amendment Today By Erwin N. Griswold Cambridge)Mass.: Harvard University Press. Pp. vi, 82. $0.50

reviewer: Robert J. Harris

Handbook of the Law of Evidence By Charles T, McCormick St.Paul: West Publishing Co., 1954, pp. xxviii, 774.

reviewer: E. M. Morgan