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Globalization, State Sovereignty, And The Development Of International Criminal Law, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

"Today, virtually all nation-states have gradually become enmeshed in and functionally a part of a larger pattern of global transformations and global flows. Transnational networks and relations have developed across virtually all areas of human activity. Goods, capital, people, knowledge, communications, and weapons, as well as crime, pollutants, fashions and beliefs, rapidly move across territorial boundaries. Far from being a world of "discrete civilizations, "or simply an international society of states, it has become a fundamentally interconnected global order, marked by intense patterns of exchange as well as by clear patterns of power, hierarchy and unevenness."

"To speak of globalization …

The Ukraine Crisis And The Future Of International Courts And Tribunals, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Ukraine crisis is an example of modern-day conflict which poses various accountability challenges and demonstrates that not a single existing prosecutorial mechanism is capable of achieving a full measure of accountability while fulfilling the different goals of international criminal justice. As discussed in this Article, the prosecution of a sufficient number of Russian perpetrators of atrocities, as well as of Russian leaders, conducted legitimately and effectively, will necessitate the utilization of almost all accountability models - Ukrainian courts, a war crime chamber, the ICC, as well as an ad hoc aggression tribunal. The Ukrainian crisis demonstrates that all international …

Miranda In Taiwan: Why It Failed And Why We Should Care, Shih-Chun Steven Chien

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In 1997, the Taiwanese legislature amended the Code of Criminal Procedure to incorporate the core of the American Miranda rule into the legal system. The Miranda rule requires police officers and prosecutors to notify criminal suspects subject to custodial interrogation of their right to remain silent and their right to retain legal counsel. In subsequent amendments, the legislature enacted a series of laws to further reform interrogation practices in the same vein.

What happened next is a study in unintended consequences and the interdependence of law and culture. Using ethnographic methods and data sources collected over the past four years …

Darryl Robinson's Model For International Criminal Law: Deontic Principles Developed Through A Coherentist Approach, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Darryl Robinson’s new book, Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law, presents a compelling argument: that international criminal law would benefit from deontic reasoning. According to Robinson, this type of deontic reasoning “requires us to consider the limits of personal fault and punishability,” and is a “normative reasoning that focuses on our duties and obligations to others.” Moreover, Robinson argues in this book that coherentism is the best method for identifying and defining deontic principles. Robinson explains that coherentism is an approach where “[w]e use all of our critical reasoning tools to test past understandings …

Who Wants To Be A Prosecutor? And Why Care? Law Students’ Career Aspirations And Reform Prosecutors’ Goals, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Stephen Daniels

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Often called “progressive” or “reform” prosecutors, a number of reform-minded prosecutors have been elected recently across the United States—promising a distinctive vision of criminal justice and signaling that their role will be more attuned to issues of race and equity than “law and order.” Furthering this vision requires dramatic changes to the working cultures—the norms, practices, and even personnel—of their offices. Diversity plays a major role.

One central challenge is identifying, attracting, and hiring newly-minted lawyers who can, over time, be socialized into and sustain a changing organizational culture. This article empirically examines that challenge, which involves two sides of …

Women As Judges At International Criminal Tribunals, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article analyzes the presence of female judges within international criminal tribunals, starting with the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals in the 1990s. In particular, the Article discusses specific numbers of female judges at the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the newly created Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and the International Criminal Court.

While the presence of women as prosecutors, defense attorneys, victim representatives, and other professionals at these tribunals is equally important, this Article focuses on the number of female judges, as such data …

Crime And Punishment In Gold Country : A Historical Case-Study, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Lawrence M. Friedman

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Rural life, small town life, is not and has never been idyllic. It has always had its share of pathology, sometimes deep pathology. Small town life is not necessarily traditional life, close-knit family life, neighborly life. That kind of life certainly exists; but America was never a traditional society in that sense. Its small towns were full of strangers. The population of El Dorado County, small as it was, had been growing rapidly. Like America in general, El Dorado County had its share of anomie; rootless men (and women), without strong relationships: ships without anchors, driftwood on the sea of …

The Heat Of Passion And Blameworthy Reasons To Be Angry, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article seeks to resolve a longstanding conceptual puzzle plaguing the "heat of passion" doctrine--how courts should determine which features, beliefs, or characteristics of a defendant are properly relevant to assessing whether the defendant was sufficiently provoked, and which of those features should be disregarded. This article argues that provocation is not adequate if the reason the defendant became extremely angry is due to some blameworthy belief or attribute of the defendant. A belief is blameworthy if it contradicts the fundamental values of the political community. The blameworthiness principle distinguishes those aspects of the defendant that cannot form a basis …

Individual Criminal Responsibility For The Destruction Of Religious And Historic Buildings: The Al Mahdi Case, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi, also known as Abou Tourab, was a member of the radical Islamic group Ansar Eddine, serving as one of four commanders during its brutal occupation of Timbuktu in 2012. The International Criminal Court (ICC) indicted Al Mahdi on several charges of war crimes for intentional attacks against ten religious and historic buildings and monuments. All the buildings that Al Mahdi was charged with attacking had been under UNESCO protection and most had been listed as world heritage sites.

The case against Al Mahdi at the ICC unfolded relatively quickly and efficiently, from the official Malian …

Husbands Who Drug And Rape Their Wives: The Injustice Of The Marital Exemption In Ohio’S Sexual Offenses, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This article argues that Ohio's marital rape exemption fails to vindicate the sexual autonomy and physical integrity of all persons in the state to be free from non-consensual sexual conduct. This protection from unwanted, non-consensual sexual violation should be afforded to Ohioans regardless of the victim's marital relationship to the perpetrator. Furthermore, the state's sexual offense provisions are plagued with inconsistencies and illogical distinctions with respect to the marital immunity. Ohio's partially abolished marital exemption cannot be justified under any coherent theory of justice, appears to survive merely due to inertia, and certainly does not serve the best interests of …

The Fatal Flaws Of The 'Sneak And Peek' Statute And How To Fix It, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress authorized delayed notice search warrants — warrants authorizing a “sneak and peek” search, in which investigators conduct covert searches, notifying the occupant weeks or months after the search. These warrants also sometimes authorize covert seizures — a “sneak and steal” search — in which investigators seize evidence, often staging the scene to look like a burglary.

Covert searches invade the privacy of the home and should be used only in exceptional cases. The current legal rules governing delayed notice search warrants are conceptually flawed. The statute uses a legal doctrine — “exigent circumstances” — …

A Curious Omission From Ohio's Rape Statute: Sexual Assault When The Victim Consents To Medical Or Dental Drugging, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

No abstract provided.

"Because Ladies Lie": Eliminating Vestiges Of The Corroboration And Resistance Requirements From Ohio's Sexual Offenses, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In response to alarming statistics about the dearth of rape cases brought to successful fruition, feminist critiques of rape law, and changing attitudes about sexual autonomy, rape and sexual assault statutes in America have undergone enormous revision during the last few decades. The barriers to successful prosecution of rape cases-including the corroboration and resistance requirements-have been slowly eroding in modern statutory law. Despite rampant rape reform, these old-fashioned requirements have been remarkably persistent, and vestiges of them remain in twenty-first-century statutory enactments.

Juvenile Pirates: "Lost Boys" Or Violent Criminals?, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Piracy off the coast of Somalia has flourished over the past decade, and has both caused a global crisis in maritime shipping and destabilized regional security in East Africa. In addition, piracy attacks have spread more recently to the coast of West Africa, and in particular, the Gulf of Guinea. Thus, piracy is an ongoing global issue that should continue to occupy many maritime nations in the near future, and one that should command continuous scholarly attention.

This article examines the issue of juvenile piracy, with a specific focus on the treatment of juvenile piracy suspects by both the capturing …

It's Good To Be Autonomous: Prospective Consent, Retrospective Consent, And The Foundation Of Consent In The Criminal Law, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

What is the foundation of consent in the criminal law? Classically liberal commentators have offered at least three distinct theories. J.S. Mill contends we value consent because individuals are the best judges of their own interests. Joel Feinberg argues an individual’s consent matters because she has a right to autonomy based on her intrinsic sovereignty over her own life. Joseph Raz also focuses on autonomy, but argues that society values autonomy as a constituent element of individual well-being, which it is the state’s duty to promote.The criminal law’s approach to the problem of non-contemporaneous consent—prospective consent and retrospective consent—casts a …

Interrogation And The Roberts Court, Jonathan Witmer-Rich

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Through 2010, the Roberts Court decided five cases involving the rules for police interrogation under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments: Kansas v. Ventris; Montejo v. Louisiana; Florida v. Powell; Maryland v. Shatzer; and Berghuis v. Thompkins. This Article argues that these decisions show the Roberts Court reshaping constitutional interrogation rules according to a new (as-yet unarticulated) principle: “fair play” in interrogations. The Warren Court believed that suspects in police interrogation were vulnerable to inherent compelling pressures; the Court correspondingly created procedural interrogation rules under the Fifth and Sixth Amendments (Miranda and Massiah) to protect suspects. The Roberts Court does not …

Appointed But (Nearly) Prevented From Serving: My Experience As A Grand Jury Foreperson, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In summer 2003, I was a grand jury foreperson for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland, Ohio. The service of this grand jury, and my tenure as foreperson, were unique in the annals of grand juries. We were selected and sworn in the same manner as any grand jury, but heard cases for only one day of our four-month term-the last day. In the interim, the prosecutor filed cases in two courts, seeking to discharge us, as being “tainted” by our supervising judge's initial instructions about our duties and the law. I begin this essay with basic …

Not To Decide Is To Decide: The U.S. Supreme Court's Thirty-Year Struggle With One Case About Competency To Waive Death Penalty Appeals, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed Rees v. Peyton, a case that had been on its docket since 1965. Rees was a death penalty case in which the petitioner sought to withdraw his petition for writ of certiorari so that he could be executed. The Court stayed the proceedings after Rees was found incompetent to waive his appeal, but the Court did not dismiss the case until after Rees died of natural causes. Rees pended in the Court during the terms of three Chief Justices. Even though the Court underwent major changes in personnel and philosophy during those years, …

Rape By Drugs: A Statutory Overview And Proposals For Reform, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The methods by which human beings accomplish nonconsensual sexual activity with fellow humans are almost limitless. They use physical force; they beat, choke, and knock their victims unconscious. They kidnap and restrain them. They use weapons and threats of immediate force to subdue their quarry. They come in groups with the superior strength of their number. They exploit the element of surprise. They coerce, extort, and blackmail others into sexual submission. They lie, pretend, impersonate, and defraud, trapping the unwary in webs of deceit. They victimize mentally ill, mentally disabled, physically weak, and physically incapacitated persons. They abuse their positions …

Muzzling Death Row Inmates: Applying The First Amendment To Regulations That Restrict A Condemned Prisoner's Last Words, Kevin F. O'Neill

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article asserts that the privilege to deliver a last dying speech— uttered in the presence of, and made audible to, the assembled witnesses in the moments just before one's execution—is a First Amendment right, and that prison policies departing from its traditional exercise are unconstitutional. After canvassing the state prison policies that govern last words, this Article will recount the long historical tradition surrounding their utterance—a history that reveals the extraordinary degree to which Anglo-American governments have honored the privilege.Next, this Article will draw a parallel between the right to utter one's last words and the well-established right of …

Crossing The Line: Rape-Murder And The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

When a woman is raped and then murdered, it is among the most horrifying of crimes. It is also, often, among the most sensational, notorious, and galvanizing of cases. In 1964, Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in Queens, New York. Her murder sparked soul-searching across the country because her neighbors heard her cries for help and did not respond: it made us question whether we had become an uncaring people. During the 1970s and 80s a number of serial killers raped and murdered their victims: including Ted Bundy in Florida and William George Bonin, the “Freeway Killer,” in Southern …

Childhood Abuse And Adult Murder: Implications For The Death Penalty, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

A jury that convicts a defendant of capital murder must then decide whether that defendant deserves a life sentence or death. Mitigating evidence is crucial to the defense at this stage because such evidence may provide the jury with a basis for imposing a life sentence. In this article, Professor Crocker argues that evidence that a defendant was abused as a child is paradigmatic mitigating evidence. A detailed presentation of the defendant's childhood experience and a cogent explanation of its long-term repercussions will enable the jury to understand why the defendant committed the crime, perhaps allowing the jury to sympathize …

Feminism And Defending Men On Death Row, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In this Essay I explore the relationship between being a feminist and representing men on death row. It is appropriate to engage in this inquiry in considering how the law has developed in the twenty-five years since Furman v. Georgia. During that time both Furman and the advent of feminist legal theory have required a restructuring in the way we think about two fundamental legal questions: for death penalty jurisprudence, how and why we sentence an individual to death; and for feminist jurisprudence, how the law views crimes of violence against women. The relationship between these two developments becomes apparent …

Rape By Fraud And Rape By Coercion, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

For more than a century, courts, legislatures, and legal commentators have struggled with the controversial and highly charged question of whether accomplishing sexual intercourse by means of fraud or coercion is blameworthy and appropriately condemnable as rape. In 1986 Professor Susan Estrich suggested that rape law should "prohibit fraud to secure sex to the same extent we prohibit fraud to secure money, and prohibit extortion to secure sex to the same extent we prohibit extortion to secure money." (Susan Estrich, Rape, 95 Yale L. J. 1087, 1120 (1986)). Such suggestion spawned the latest cycle of discussion about this age-old conundrum …

Concepts Of Culpability And Deathworthiness: Differentiating Between Guilt And Punishment In Death Penalty Cases, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The punishment of death is supposed to be reserved for those defendants who commit the most grievous murders and deserve the most extreme punishment. It is constitutionally insufficient to conclude that because a defendant is guilty of committing murder, death is the only deserved punishment. The judgment that a defendant is one of the few who will be sentenced to death requires an inquiry that looks beyond the defendant's guilt to consider whether the defendant is worthy of a death sentence. This article argues that the distinction between a defendant's guilt and deathworthiness is so often obscured that defendants who …

Novel Theories Of Criminal Defense Based Upon The Toxicity Of The Social Environment: Urban Psychosis, Television Intoxication, And Black Rage, Patricia J. Falk

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In recent years, defendants have proffered a multitude of novel theories of criminal defense in seeking to explain their criminal behavior in terms of internal and external influences beyond their control, including biological processes, chemical reactions, intra-psychic dynamics, social conditions, and cross cultural stresses. This Article focuses on one subset of this burgeoning class of defenses: those based upon the central premise that the defendant's criminal conduct was caused, or significantly influenced, by his exposure to social environmental factors or, if you will, toxins affecting his mental functioning. While a wide panoply of toxins exist within the fabric of our …

Gates, Leon And The Compromise Of Adjudicatory Fairness: (Part Ii)-Aggressive Majoritarianism, Willful Deafness, And The New Exception To The Exclusionary Rule, Joel J. Finer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

This Article will offer an elaboration of the idea of judicial "aggressiveness" (which Professor Stone, by and large, leaves undefined) through examination of the majority opinion in United States v. Leon and its application in Massachusetts v. Sheppard. It will also advance the thesis that the majority in Leon exhibited a particular kind of aggressiveness--willful deafness.

Terror And Terrorism: There Is A Difference, David F. Forte

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

To formulate an effective legal and moral response to terrorism, fundamental differences must be acknowledged. We must realize that all acts of terror are not legally interchangeable. We should not create legal instruments that confound essential dissimilarities. We should acknowledge that terrorism is an organized, low level attack by groups trying to destroy the Western legal and moral order. We should recognize that many such terrorist groups have been given purported legitimacy by a distorted notion of self-determination and by recognition within many international bodies. Also, we should face the fact that the effectiveness of terrorism is immeasurably enhanced by …

Introduction To Debate (Between N. Morris And R. Bonnie): Should The Insanity Defense Be Abolished?, Joel J. Finer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The author introduces a debate between Professor Norval Morris and Professor Richard Bonnie on the insanity defense.

Gates, Leon And The Compromise Of Adjudicatory Fairness: (Part I)-A Dialogue On Prejudicial Concurrences, Joel J. Finer

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

On July 5, 1984, the Supreme Court in Leon v. United States held that where law enforcement officials execute a search warrant issued in violation of the dictates of the fourth amendment but act in the "good faith," "objectively-reasonable" belief that the warrant was constitutionally valid, the fruits of the search should not (with a few exceptions) be excluded from evidence under the exclusionary rule. On June 8, 1983, in Illinois v. Gates, the Supreme Court, after calling for and receiving briefs and arguments on the same issue of whether the exclusionary rule should be modified, concluded, for reasons of …