Law Commons^™

Insurance And The Price Of Sex, David Seligman

Arizona Governing Comm. v. Norris, 463 U.S. 1073 (1983)

One of the strangest issues you will have to make up your mind about this year i an entry that's usually labeled sex discrimination in insurance. At the moment, the moral high ground seems to be controlled by those who believe there's a big, big problem out there and that government must provide a solution. However, a case can be made for viewing the issue as a big, big nonproblem.

The Hearsay Exception For Public Records In Federal Criminal Trials, Vincent C. Alexander

Faculty Publications

The hearsay exception for "public records" was recognized at common law and has been further developed in most jurisdictions by statute. The reliability of public records is said to derive from the presumption of regularity and accuracy that attends the recording of events by public officials. As with the hearsay exception for recordsmade in the regular course of a private business, the reliability of many public records is enhanced by the routine and repetitive circumstancesunder which such records are made. An additional justificationfor the admission of public records is public convenience: If government employees are continually required to testify in …

Institutional Litigation In The Post-Chapman World, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Homicide In California, 1983, Department Of Justice

California Agencies

No abstract provided.

Meaningful Reform Of Plea Bargaining: The Control Of Prosecutorial Discretion, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Toward A Common Law For Undercover Investigations - A Book Review Of Abscam Ethics: Moral Issues And Deception In Law Enforcement, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Philippines: A Country In Crisis - A Report By Lawyers Committee For International Human Rights, Diane Orentlicher, Marvin E. Frankel, Jack Greenberg

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Thomas E. Baker

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Medical Dependency In Arizona, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

Analysis of In re Cochise County Juvenile Action No. 5666-J, 650 P.2d 459 (Ariz. 1982).

When Blood Is Their Argument: Probabilities In Criminal Cases, Genetic Markers, And, Once Again, Bayes' Theorem, Randolph N. Jonakait

Articles & Chapters

Revolutionary advances in blood typing soon will cause a dramatic increase in the presentation of statistical evidence in criminal trials. Courts have admitted statistics into criminal trials before, and the proper use of this type of evidence has been debated previously. Until now, however, such mathematical evidence has been rare. Recently, however, a number of courts have admitted probability evidence derived from new and complex blood tests. Such evidence may soon be as commonplace as fingerprint testimony. The courts that have admitted this evidence, however, have done so without learning from past discussions about the proper role of statistical evidence. …

A Reassessment Of The Younger Doctrine In Light Of The Legislative History Of Reconstruction, Donald H. Zeigler

Articles & Chapters

Recently the Supreme Court extended the doctrine of Younger v. Harris to preclude federal court reform of state criminal and civil justice systems. In this article, Professor Zeigler argues that Younger and its progeny directly contravene the intent of the Reconstruction Congresses that adopted the fourteenth amendment and enacted numerous pieces of enforcement legislation. His research demonstrates that these Congresses intended the federal courts to be the primary enforcer of Reconstruction reform measures. Professor Ziegler concludes that the federal courts are neglecting their duty to enforce constitutional safeguards in state justice systems.

Rico, Past And Future: Some Observations And Conclusions, Sheldon Jay Plager, Ilene H. Nagel

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Gender And Crime: Offense Patterns And Criminal Court Sanctions, Ilene H. Nagel, John Hagan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The relation between gender and criminality is strong, and is likely to remain so. Women have traditionally been much less likely than men to commit violent crimes, and that pattern persists today. Rates of female involvement in some forms of property crime-notably petty theft and fraud-appear to be increasing. However, while the relative increase in women's property crime involvement is significant, female participation even in these crimes remains far less than that of men.

The relation of gender to case processing decisions in the criminal justice system varies from stage to stage. Although the pertinent literature is plagued by methodological …

The New Sentencing Law, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Element Analysis In Defining Criminal Liability: The Model Penal Code And Beyond, Paul H. Robinson, Jane A. Grall

All Faculty Scholarship

The pursuit of fairness and effectiveness has inspired and guided criminal code reformers of the past two decades. Because penal law protects the most important societal interests and authorizes the most serious sanctions the government may impose - the stigma of conviction, imprisonment, and even death - a criminal code, more than any other body of law, should be rational, clear, and internally consistent. Only a precise, principled code that sufficiently defines forbidden conduct can achieve its goals of condemnation and deterrence. Such a code gives citizens fair warning of what will constitute a crime, limits governmental discretion in determining …

Biblical Atonement And Modern Criminal Law, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Exclusionary Rule In Germany, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The exclusionary rule that the Supreme Court has fashioned to suppress evidence obtained unconstitutionally is directed at least in part toward deterring police conduct that violates constitutional norms. Since the inception of the rule, the value and efficacy of a prescript that excludes otherwise relevant and probative evidence in a factfinding proceeding has been a subject of heated debate. In this Article, Professor Bradley examines the rather different exclusionary rules used in Germany. He argues that a comparison of exclusionary rules in Germany and the United States suggests that a number of different policies of a criminal justice system could …

Amendments To The Federal Rules Of Criminal Procedure, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Numerous changes in the rules governing criminal trials in federal court have been in effect for four months. Some are major and some are minor, but they should be studied carefully by lawyers handling criminal cases. Amendments have been made to:

Resolving The Dilemma Of The Exclusionary Rule: An Application Of Restitutive Principles Of Justice, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Discussions of the merits of the exclusionary rule usually begin and end with a dilemma not unlike the classic "prisoner's dilemma." Suppression of illegally obtained, but reliable, evidence that leads to the release of a guilty defendant may constitute an injustice and a threat to the safety of innocent citizens. Admitting illegally obtained evidence, however, may encourage police officers to engage in illegal conduct to the detriment of countless numbers of citizens. The premise of the prisoner's dilemma is that the prisoner's choices have been limited by his captor to two, each of which is morally objectionable. The debate over …

Confessions, Yale Kamisar

Book Chapters

The entry for 'Confessions' in the Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice, 1983

Methodological Issues In Court Research: Pretrial Release Decisions For Federal Defendants, Ilene H. Nagel, Robin Stryker, John Hagan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Combining elements of “response as outcome” studies and “response as process” studies overcomes deficiencies resulting from methodological bifurcation, improves our understanding of court outcomes, and leads to theoretical transformation. Using observational and in-depth interview data to inform hypotheses and to create contextual variables, we develop and test models of the pretrial release decision for federal defendants. These models suggest that the emphasis in outcome research on defendants' ascribed status characteristics has been exaggerated. It is asserted that too little attention has been devoted to processual factors, including labeling, and to jurisdictional and organizational factors determining court outcomes.

The Metastasis Of Mail Fraud: The Continuing Story Of The Evolution Of A White-Collar Crime, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Justice Cardozo observed that legal principles have a tendency to expand to the limits of their logic, and Judge Friendly has added the corollary that sometimes the expansionary momentum carries the principle even beyond those limits. So it has been with the recent growth in the federal mail fraud law, as courts have applied a standardized formula- known as the "intangible rights" doctrine- to a broad range of fact patterns having relatively little in common. The result has been both to extend the net of the federal criminal sanction over an extraordinarily vast terrain and to arm the federal prosecutor …

Violence – Legal Justification And Moral Appraisal, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Thought about a "Right to Violence," the subject of this symposium, is difficult. Once one has adjusted to the paradoxical conjunction of the terms "right" and "violence," and recognized that people may have rights to commit violent acts in some circumstances, one must face the disturbing fact that feelings about violence are highly colored by peculiar psychological dispositions and political ideologies. Especially in respect to violence that is committed in defiance of law, the search for fair bases of moral judgment proves elusive.

The main theme of this essay is that the law itself can provide illuminating points of reference …

Punishment, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Although punishment has been a crucial feature of every legal system, widespread disagreement exists over the moral principles that can justify its imposition. One fundamental question is why (and whether) the social institution of punishment is warranted. A second question concerns the necessary conditions for punishment in particular cases. A third relates to the degree of severity that is appropriate for particular offenses and offenders. Debates about punishment are important in their own right, but they also raise more general problems about the proper standards for evaluating social practices.

The main part of this theoretical overview of the subject of …

The Justice Of Restitution, Randy E. Barnett

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A restitutive theory of justice is a rights-based approach to criminal sanctions that views a crime as an offense by one individual against the rights of another calling for forced reparations by the criminal to the victim. This is a sharp departure from the two predominant sanctioning theories-retribution and crime prevention. Rights-based analysts have criticized this approach for failing to include mens rea, or criminal intent into the calculation of sanctions, thereby ignoring the traditional distinction between crime and tort. Such a distinction is problematic, however, since punishment for an evil mind cannot be made compatible with a coherent individual …

Rescuing The Private Attorney General: Why The Model Of The Lawyer As Bounty Hunter Is Not Working, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Forty years ago, Judge Jerome Frank coined the term "private Attorney General" to recognize the role of private litigation in the enforcement of law. In the intervening years, the "private attorney general" concept has become both a cliche and a crutch, receiving polite lip service from nearly all, but critical analysis from relatively few. As most college sophomores know, the private attorney general is someone who sues "to vindicate the public interest" by representing collectively those who individually could not afford the costs of litigation; and, as every law student knows, our society places extensive reliance upon such private attorneys …

The Impact Of Executions On Homicides: A New Look In An Old Light, Richard Lempert

Articles

Ehrlich's first point is that if one is searching for deterrence it is the law in action (i.e., the actual incidence of executions) rather than the law on the books (i.e., the presence or absence of the death penalty) which is crucial. His second point is that in order to spot deterrent effects other factors which might affect homicide rates, such as conviction rates and unemployment rates, must be held constant. Many of those who believe that Ehrlich's work is fundamentally flawed nevertheless accept these criticisms. This article follows Sellin's approach but takes account of Ehrlich's criticisms. Instead of comparing …

Extraordinary Writ Practice In Criminal Cases: Analogies For The Military Courts, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

Extraordinary writs have two central functions in the hands of appellate courts. One is to enforce the court's mandate; there is no particular difficulty with this use of the writs, and no more need be said about it. The other function is to circumvent the ordinary channels of appellate review. In this function, writs operate as appeals in all but name. As this use has become more and more routine, it would be more appropriate to speak of them as "appeals writs" rather than extraordinary writs. My assignment is to speak of the experience with appeals writs in criminal cases …