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Full-Text Articles in Law

Criminal Procedure, Justice, Ethics, And Zeal, Darryl K. Brown Jun 1998

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 Mar 1998

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 …