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The Quest For Finality: Five Stories Of White Collar Criminal Prosecution, Lucian E. Dervan
The Quest For Finality: Five Stories Of White Collar Criminal Prosecution, Lucian E. Dervan
Law Faculty Scholarship
In this symposium article, Professor Dervan examines the issue of finality and sentencing. In considering this issue, he argues that prosecutors, defendants, and society as a whole are drawn to the concept of finality in various ways during criminal adjudications. Further, far from an aspirational summit, he argues that some outgrowths of this quest for finality could be destructive and, in fact, obstructive to some of the larger goals of our criminal justice system, including the pursuit of truth and the protection of the innocent. Given the potential abstraction of these issues, Professor Dervan decided to discuss the possible consequences …
Overcriminalization 2.0: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Plea Bargaining And Overcriminalization, Lucian E. Dervan
Overcriminalization 2.0: The Symbiotic Relationship Between Plea Bargaining And Overcriminalization, Lucian E. Dervan
Law Faculty Scholarship
In discussing imperfections in the adversarial system, Professor Ribstein notes in his article entitled Agents Prosecuting Agents, that “prosecutors can avoid the need to test their theories at trial by using significant leverage to virtually force even innocent, or at least questionably guilty, defendants to plead guilty.” If this is true, then there is an enormous problem with plea bargaining, particularly given that over 95% of defendants in the federal criminal justice system succumb to the power of bargained justice. As such, this piece provides a detailed analysis of modern-day plea bargaining and its role in spurring the rise of …
New Crimes And Punishments: A Case Study Regarding The Impact Of Over-Criminalization On White Collar Criminal Cases, Lucian E. Dervan
New Crimes And Punishments: A Case Study Regarding The Impact Of Over-Criminalization On White Collar Criminal Cases, Lucian E. Dervan
Law Faculty Scholarship
Over-criminalization takes many forms and impacts the American criminal justice system in varying ways. This article focuses on a select portion of the over-criminalization phenomenon by examining two types of over-criminalization prevalent in white collar criminal law. The first type of over-criminalization discussed in this article is Congress’s propensity for increasing the maximum criminal penalties for white collar offenses in an effort to punish financial criminals more harshly. The second type of over-criminalization addressed in this article is Congress’s tendency to create vague and overlapping criminal provisions in areas already criminalized in an effort to expand the tools available to …