Law Commons^™

Criminal Infliction Of Emotional Distress, Avlana K. Eisenberg

Michigan Law Review

This Article identifies and critiques a trend to criminalize the infliction of emotional harm independent of any physical injury or threat. The Article defines a new category of criminal infliction of emotional distress (“CIED”) statutes, which include laws designed to combat behaviors such as harassing, stalking, and bullying. In contrast to tort liability for emotional harm, which is cabined by statutes and the common law, CIED statutes allow states to regulate and punish the infliction of emotional harm in an increasingly expansive way. In assessing harm and devising punishment, the law has always taken nonphysical harm seriously, but traditionally it …

The Banality Of Wrongful Executions, Brandon L. Garrett

Michigan Law Review

What is so haunting about the known wrongful convictions is that those cases are the tip of the iceberg. Untold numbers of unnoticed errors may send the innocent to prison — and to the death chamber. That is why I recommend to readers a trilogy of fascinating new books that peer deeper into this larger but murkier problem. Outside the rarified group of highly publicized exonerations, which have themselves done much to attract attention to the causes of wrongful convictions, errors may be so mundane that no one notices them unless an outsider plucks a case from darkness and holds …

Criminal Justice, Local Democracy, And Constitutional Rights, Stephen J. Schulhofer

Michigan Law Review

Universally admired, and viewed with great affection, even love, by all who knew him, Harvard law professor Bill Stuntz died in March 2011 at the age of fifty-two, after a long, courageous battle with debilitating back pain and then insurmountable cancer. In a career that deserved to be much longer, Stuntz produced dozens of major articles on criminal law and procedure. He was a leader in carrying forward the work of scholars who had analyzed criminal justice through the lens of economic analysis, and he added his own distinctive dimension by insisting on the importance of political incentives, with their …

Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman

Michigan Law Review

Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard of proof in all criminal cases. Experimental studies as well as real world examples indicate, however, that fact finders often adjust the evidentiary threshold for conviction in accordance with the severity of the applicable sanction. All things being equal, the higher the sanction, the higher the standard of proof that fact finders will apply in order to convict. Building on this insight, this Article introduces a new paradigm for criminal punishments-a paradigm that focuses on designing penalties that will reduce the risk of unsubstantiated …

The Forgotten Constitutional Right To Present A Defense And Its Impact On The Acceptance Of Responsibility-Entrapment Debate, Katrice L. Bridges

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that Section 3El.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines must be interpreted to allow defendants who claim entrapment at trial to remain eligible for the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment. To interpret Section 3El.1 in any other way would run afoul of defendants' constitutional right to present a defense. Part I argues that the entrapment defense does not put factual guilt at issue; instead the entrapment defense challenges whether the statute should apply to the defendant's conduct. Part II contends that the legislative intent in creating the sentencing guidelines in general and the acceptance-of-responsibility adjustment in particular are furthered by requiring …

Criminal Procedure, Justice, Ethics, And Zeal, Darryl K. Brown

Michigan Law Review

William Stuntz's recent article, The Uneasy Relationship Between Criminal Procedure and Criminal Justice, offers a series of thoughtful observations on the reasons that criminal procedure doctrines designed to protect defendants have done so little to improve the criminal justice system. Stuntz's article describes the unintended effects of attempts by the United States Supreme Court to improve criminal justice by closely regulating criminal procedure. That procedural focus has had perverse effects because, in a dynamic criminal justice system, other institutional players have responded to procedural rules in ways that undermine appellate courts' goals. Specifically, legislatures have reacted by expanding substantive criminal …

Plain Meaning, Practical Reason, And Cuplability: Toward A Theory Of Jury Interpretation Of Criminal Statutes, Darryl K. Brown

Michigan Law Review

In one of the few existing recordings of American juries deliberating in an actual criminal case, Wisconsin v. Reed, we observe jurors struggling with how they should apply a statute in a case in which the facts are not in real dispute. The defendant is charged with felon in possession of a gun, and all agree that he has a felony record and owned a pistol until he turned it over to the police upon their request. The statute contains three elements. The defendant must (a) have a felony conviction, (b) have possessed a gun, and (c) have known that …

Rethinking Guild, Juries, And Jeopardy, George C. Thomas Iii, Barry S. Pollack

Michigan Law Review

We have attempted in this article to "begin over again and concentrate" by taking a fresh look at the interplay between guilt and jury verdicts. Somewhat to our surprise, we discovered that guilt is undefinable without reference to the larger society. We also discovered that our risk-of-error experiments implicated the principle of double jeopardy. When we began this thought experiment, we intended only to test the risk of error in various jury configurations and verdicts. We ended, however, by articulating a more fundamental principle: guilt is nothing more, and nothing less, than the judgment of society. Any verdict that accurately …

Guilt: Henry Friendly Meets The Maharal Of Prague, Irene Merker Rosenberg, Yale L. Rosenberg

Michigan Law Review

So while the overnight deliberation rule is at least partially bound up with the question of reliability and relates to the judicial process itself, the broader and more fundamental issue raised by this law is whether we should free the guilty to preserve a value that we deem necessary to proper working of the criminal justice process, regardless of the culpability of individual defendants. To this Judge Friendly's answer is generally no, 113 and the MaHaRaL's is yes.

Introducing Criminal Law, Stephen J. Morse

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law by Leo Katz, and Crime, Guilt, and Punishment: A Philosophical Introduction by C.L. Ten

Preventative Pretrial Detention And The Failure Of Interest-Balancing Approaches To Due Process, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

This article, echoing Highmore's treatise of 1783, maintains that neither a legitimate nor a very important governmental interest can justify preventive detention in the absence of significant proof of past wrongdoing or an inability to control one's behavior. Both the Supreme Court's neglect of this issue and Congress' similar neglect in the preventive detention provisions of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 reveal the extent to which cost-benefit analysis has captured American law and threatened core concepts of individual dignity.

The article does not oppose all forms of preventive pretrial detention. To the contrary, it recognizes that the detention …

Equality, "Anisonomy," And Justice: A Review Of Madness And The Criminal Law, Andrew Von Hirsch

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Madness and the Criminal Law by Norval Morris

The Insanity Plea: The Uses And Abuses Of The Insanity Defense, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Insanity Plea: The Uses and Abuses of the Insanity Defense by William J. Winslade and Judith Wilson Ross

Mental Disabilities And Criminal Responsibility, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Mental Disabilities and Criminal Responsibility by Herbert Fingarette and Ann Fingarette Hasse

Beating A Rap? Defendants Found Incompetent To Stand Trial, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Beating a Rap? Defendants Found Incompetent To Stand Trial by Henry J. Steadman

The Fifth Amendment And The Inference Of Guilt From Silence: Griffin V. California After Fifteen Years, Donald B. Ayer

Michigan Law Review

This Article will begin with an examination of the historic (and present) purposes underlying the fifth amendment privilege against self-incrimination, upon which any justification of the no-comment rule must ultimately rest. It will explore the danger that these purposes may be thwarted not only when defendants are actually compelled to be witnesses against themselves, but also when significant burdens are placed on defendants who choose not to testify. In Griffin, the Court reasoned that comment on the defendant's silence amounted to such an impermissible burden. But the Court failed to examine the weight of this burden. This failure makes …

Reforming The Federal Grand Jury And The State Preliminary Hearing To Prevent Conviction Without Adjudication, Peter Arenella

Michigan Law Review

It is this Article's thesis that the substitution of plea-bargaining for the criminal trial as our primary method for determining legal guilt requires a fundamental reassessment of our pretrial screening processes. In a system where the prosecutor's decision to file charges is usually followed by a negotiated guilty plea, we can no longer pretend that the pretrial process does not adjudicate the defendant's guilt. Accordingly, this Article argues that it no longer makes sense to rely primarily on the trial to safeguard essential accusatorial principles when pretrial screening devices like the preliminary hearing and the grand jury perform the only …

The Law As A Path To The World, Francis A. Allen

Michigan Law Review

Many years ago the late Mr. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes observed: "The law is a small subject (though ... it leads to all things) .... " The comments that follow are an elaboration of Justice Holmes's theme. It will be asserted that one characteristic of legal studies, properly pursued, is that they lead to a fuller understanding of the larger world of which the law and its institutions are a part. Because the law leads to a larger world of persons, events, and ideas, it claims the attention even of those possessing no interest in acquiring professional legal skills. This …

Professional Responsibility Of The Criminal Defense Lawyer: The Three Hardest Questions, Monroe H. Freedman

Michigan Law Review

In almost any area of legal counseling and advocacy, the lawyer may be faced with the dilemma of either betraying the confidential communications of his client or participating to some extent in the purposeful deception of the court. This problem is nowhere more acute than in the practice of criminal law, particularly in the representation of the indigent accused.

Criminal Law-Failure Of Accused To Testify--Extent Of Judge's Instruction In Federal Courts, Carson C. Grunewald

Michigan Law Review

In a prosecution against defendant for violation of the White Slave Traffic Act, the trial judge instructed the jury that defendant's failure to testify should not be considered by them in determining his guilt or innocence. On appeal from conviction, held, there was no error in this instruction. United States v. Fleenor, (C.C.A. 7th, 1947) 162 F. (2d) 935.

Constitutional Law-Protection Of Civil Liberties-Federal Criminal Prosecution Of State Police Officers-Constitutionality And Construction Of Section 20 Of Criminal Code, George Brody

Michigan Law Review

In United States v. Classic the Civil Liberties Unit of the Department of Justice resurrected the long dormant section 20 of the United States criminal code to prosecute successfully election officials in Louisiana for altering and falsely counting ballots cast in a Louisiana primary for representatives to Congress. Although the acts of the defendants were also in violation of state law the court asserted that "misuse of power possessed by virtue of state law and made possible only because the wrongdoer is clothed with authority of state law, is action taken under color of state law" and therefore within the …

Just War-A Legal Concept?, Arthur Nussbaum

Michigan Law Review

During the century preceding the First World War the topic of "just war," frequently and intensely treated in earlier periods, had almost disappeared from the writings on international relations. Since the end of the war, however, the issue has been revived by writers within and without the legal profession. The present article purports, principally by an inquiry into its historical background, to determine its legal relevance.

Criminal Law And Procedure -- Privilege Against Self-Incrimination -- Duty To Give Requested Instruction That No Significance Should Be Attached To Defendant's Failure To Testify, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, charged with conspiracy to import and sell narcotics, requested a special instruction that failure of defendant to take the witness stand does not create any presumption against him. A federal statute specifically provides that no such presumption shall arise. The trial court refused the instruction, and after the circuit court of appeals affirmed the conviction, the case was taken to the United States Supreme Court. Held, the statute gave defendant a right upon request to have such an instruction given. The error committed by its refusal was not a mere "technical error," but one affecting defendant's substantial rights. …

Criminal Law And Procedure - Admissibility Of Confessions - Exhortations To Tell The Truth, Dan K. Cook

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, while in the custody of police officers, confessed to the crime of murder. It was shown that the police officers during the course of defendant's examination, stated to the defendant that "it was better for him to tell the whole truth," and ''You are not telling the truth, give us the truth on this," "You might as well tell the truth; to me now," "I advise you to tell the truth in this case." In the subsequent prosecution of the defendant for murder, it was held that the confession was properly admissible notwithstanding these statements by the officers. Commonwealth …

Practice And Procedure - Reversal On Confession Of Error By Prosecutor

Michigan Law Review

On appeal accused assigned as error the failure of the trial court to sustain his motion for a directed verdict of not guilty. The prosecutor, convinced by facts dehors the record of the innocence of the accused, confessed error. Held, confession of error does not per se justify reversal; the court must find error in the record. Parlton v. United States, (App. D. C. 1935) 75 F. (2d) 772.

Some Inadequacies In The Law Of Arrest, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

Suppose that a farmer whose orchard borders the highway happens on the spot in time to see a truck, with the license tag of a foreign state, conveniently parked while the driver loads it with apples which he picks from the farmer's trees. What can the farmer-owner do in respect to the situation?