Law Commons^™

The Role Of Innocence Commissions: Error Discovery, Systemic Reform Or Both?, Kent Roach

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This article examines the role of innocence commissions as emerging criminal justice institutions. It draws a distinction between commissions devoted to the correction of errors in individual cases and commissions which make systemic reform recommendations in an effort to prevent wrongful convictions in future cases. The British and Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission and the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission are examined as examples of the former type of commission while Canadian public inquiries and commissions in Illinois, California and Virginia are examined as examples of the latter type of commission. Innocence commissions have had difficulties combining error correction and …

Second Thoughts On Damages For Wrongful Convictions, Lawrence Rosenthal

Chicago-Kent Law Review

After the DNA-inspired wave of exonerations of recent years, there has been widespread support for expanding the damages remedies available to those who have been wrongfully accused or convicted. In this article, Professor Rosenthal argues that the case for providing such compensation is deeply problematic, whether advanced in terms of no-fault or fault-based liability. Although a regime of strict liability is sometimes thought justifiable as a means of creating an economic incentive to scale back such liability-producing conduct to optimal levels, this rationale has little application to the criminal justice system. Instead, a regime of strict liability would operate as …

Intentional Wrongful Conviction Of Children, Victor Streib

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Intentional wrongful convictions in cases involving child offenders may occur when judges have insufficient evidence proving any crime by the child but feel a strong need for the courts to intervene in the child's life and behavior. They believe that the negative factors attached to such a status are worth suffering if the child gains entry into a desired state program. This is wrongfully convicting the child "for the child's own good." Juvenile court judges too often receive knowledge of the child's background and previous record prior to any trial or hearing in order to devise the best result for …

Reliability, Justice And Confessions: The Essential Paradox, Russell L. Weaver

Chicago-Kent Law Review

This paper deals with the issue of "reliability" in the criminal justice process, and the rising number of wrongful convictions that have been identified in recent years. Using modern evidentiary techniques, a rising number of individuals have been found "innocent" of the crimes for which they have been convicted. These instances of wrongful conviction have involved individuals who spent time on death row, awaiting execution, only to be completely exonerated. There are various reasons for these wrongful convictions, including prosecutorial misconduct and systemic failures such as inadequate indigent representation. This paper focuses on another systemic failure: difficulties with the confessions …

The Irrelevancy Of The Fourth Amendment In The Roberts Court, Thomas K. Clancy

Chicago-Kent Law Review

Since John Roberts Jr. became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, there has been a measurable decline in the number of cases addressing Fourth Amendment questions. This article examines the reasons for that decline and predicts the substantial elimination of Fourth Amendment litigation in the Roberts Court. The prediction is based on several premises, including the lack of interest of the Justices on the Court concerning search and seizures principles and two significant recent cases, Pearson v. Callahan and United States v. Herring, which presage a significant decline in the number of lower court cases addressing the merits of …

Mapp V. Ohio'S Unsung Hero: The Suppression Hearing As Morality Play, Scott E. Sundby

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The exclusionary rule is back under the judicial magnifying glass. Recent opinions, most notably by Justice Scalia, have sparked speculation that the Roberts Court is inclined to overrule Mapp v. Ohio and send Fourth Amendment disputes back to the realm of civil suits and police disciplinary actions. As the Court's rulings have made clear, any reevaluation of the exclusionary rule's future will be conducted under the now familiar rubric of whether the rule's "benefit" of deterring police misbehavior outweighs the "cost" of lost evidence and convictions.

This essay argues that if any such reevaluation does occur, the Court must take …

Fourth Amendment Federalism And The Silencing Of The American Poor, Andrew E. Taslitz

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In Virginia v. Moore, police officers searched Moore incident to an arrest for a minor traffic infraction for which Virginia statutory law in fact prohibited arrest. The officers found cocaine on Moore's person, arresting him for that crime too. The United States Supreme Court ultimately found that the arrest for the traffic infraction and the subsequent search were valid under the federal Constitution's Fourth Amendment. Central to the Court's reasoning was its insistence that the state statute was irrelevant. Any contrary conclusion, explained the Court, would wrongly make the Fourth Amendment's meaning vary from place to place. Professor Taslitz …

Melendez-Diaz And The Right To Confrontation, Craig M. Bradley

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In Crawford v. Washington, the Supreme Court overruled Ohio v. Roberts and adopted new law concerning the use of hearsay testimony at criminal trials. This was based on the Sixth Amendment's command that "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him .. " On its face this provision seems to say that the accused has the right to cross-examine anybody who testifies for the prosecution at trial, whether as a live witness or through hearsay. The Supreme Court acknowledged much of this in Crawford, but …

Stacking In Criminal Procedure Adjudication;Symposium On Criminal Procedure: Judicial Proceedings, Luke M. Milligan

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The institutionalist branch of "Law and Courts" studies how judges incorporate institutional constraints into their decision-making processes. Congressional constraints on judicial review, as the literature currently stands, fall into one of two general classes: overrides and Court-curbing measures. This taxonomy, however, is incomplete. Neither overrides nor curbing measures are needed to explain the not uncommon situation where a policy-oriented Justice deviates from a preferred vote based on the belief that such a vote will prompt Congress to alter an "insulated base rule" in a way that disrupts the Justice's larger policy agenda. An "insulated base rule" is a Congressional policy …

No Tax For "Phantom Income": How Congress Failed To Encourage Responsible Housing Consumption With Its Recent Tax Legislation, Rue Toland

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In the midst of the recent housing crisis, Congress passed two key pieces of federal tax legislation in an attempt to stem the tide of foreclosures and prevent further economic collapse. These two bills, the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act in 2007 and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act in 2008, both sought competing goals: lessening the harm to existing homeowners, and encouraging purchases by new homebuyers. However, neither bill adequately addressed one of the root causes of the housing crisis, namely homeowners obtaining mortgages that, for whatever reason, they could not afford. Indeed, the tax incentives these bills created …

Free Speech & Tainted Justice: Restoring The Public's Confidence In The Judiciary In The Wake Of Republican Party Of Minnesota V. White, Gregory W. Jones

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The United States Supreme Court's 2002 decision in Republican Party of Minnesota v. White was the first shot fired in an ongoing battle over judicial campaign ethics. The White decision invalidated a Minnesota Canon of Judicial Conduct prohibiting judicial candidates from announcing their views on disputed legal or political topics. Subsequent to White, numerous states have faced challenges to their judicial canons of conduct by groups advocating for an increased breadth of permissible speech in judicial campaigns. While White and its progeny have safeguarded the first amendment rights of judicial candidates, significant concerns have been raised regarding how best to …

Separating Church And State: Transfers Of Government Land As Cures For Establishment Clause Violations, Paul Forster

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The note examines one of the issues currently before the Supreme Court in Salazar v. Buono, the case concerning a Latin cross war memorial in the Mojave desert. The issue is whether the government may, by transferring land to private parties, cure Establishment Clause violations caused by permanent displays that contain religious imagery. The article surveys the Court's Establishment Clause jurisprudence as it applies to permanent displays, discussing the sometimes-used and sometimes-ignored Lemon-endorsement standard and the potential shift to a coercion standard. It concludes by arguing that even under the Lemon-endorsement standard, courts should often allow the …

Wyeth V. Levine And Agency Preemption: More Muddle, Or Creeping To Clarity, Ashutosh Bhagwat

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

Do Nfl "Signing Bonuses" Carry A Substantial Risk Of Forfeiture Within The Meaning Of Section 83 Of The Internal Revenue Code?, Andre L. Smith

Seton Hall Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law

No abstract provided.

Editorial Board - Vol. 19, No. 2 2009

Seton Hall Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law

No abstract provided.

Toward A Theory Of Procedural Justice For Juveniles, Tamar R. Birckhead

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Diversity V. Colorblindness, Patrick S. Shin

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Fair Housing And Roommates: Contesting A Presumption Of Constitutionality, Brooke Wright

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Truth About Physician Participation In Lethal Injection Executions, Ty Alper

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Presidential Control Of The Elite Non-Agency, Kimberly N. Brown

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dusting Off The Ak-47: An Examination Of Nfl Players' Most Powerful Weapon In An Antitrust Lawsuit Against The Nfl, Sean W. L. Alford

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

To Form A More Perfect Union: Taxation, Economic Efficiency, And The Dormant Commerce Clause In Department Of Revenue V. Davis, Casey J. Jennings

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Volume 86 Errata, North Carolina Law Review

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

December Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

Obama's speech to the United Nations General Assembly (September, 2009).

and

Does Obama believe in human rights? By Bret Stephens. The Wall Street Journal. October 19, 2009.

The Statesman's Dilemma: Peace Or Justice? Or Neither?, Henry Krisch

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Just as I sat down to comment on President Obama and human rights, I glanced today's (November 19, 2009) The New York Times and found several opinion essays-careful in fact, thoughtful in tone, reasonable in argument-critical of Obama's approach during his recent visit to China toward Chinese human rights violations (mainly concerning Tibet but including also imprisoned lawyers, internet censorship, and persecution of Falun Gong.) The essayists considered various tactics for exerting American pressure on China regarding human rights. Common to all of them was a tone of rueful admiration for the political and diplomatic skill with which China fended …

The Stigma Of Conviction: Coram Nobis, Civil Disabilities, And The Right To Clear One's Name, David Wolitz

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court Section 1983 Decisions - October 2008 Term, Martin A. Schwartz

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bachelors Beware: The Current Validity And Future Feasibility Of A Cause Of Action For Breach Of Promise To Marry, Kelsey M. May

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Letters I’Ve Written, Never Meaning To Send …”: Conditional Relevance, Evidence Rule 104(B), And Mark Edwards’ Curious Murder Trial, James Fayette, Stephanie Busalacchi

Alaska Law Review

No abstract provided.

Just Go Away: Representation, Due Process, And Preclusion In Class Actions, Debra Lyn Bassett

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.