Law Commons^™

Don't Take His Eye, Don't Take His Tooth, And Don't Cast The First Stone: Limiting Religious Arguments In Capital Cases, John H. Blume, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professors John H. Blume and Sheri Lynn Johnson explore the occurrences of religious imagery and argument invoked by both prosecutors and defense attorneys in capital cases. Such invocation of religious imagery and argument by attorneys is not surprising, considering that the jurors who hear such arguments are making life and death decisions, and advocates, absent regulation, will resort to such emotionally compelling arguments. Also surveying judicial responses to such arguments in courts, Professors Blume and Johnson gauge the level of tolerance for such arguments in specific jurisdictions. Presenting proposed rules for prosecutors and defense counsel who wish to employ religious …

Overlooked Areas Of Federal Sentencing: Federal Enclaves, Indian Country, Transfer Of U.S. Prisoners From Abroad, Nora V. Demleitner, Jon M. Sands

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Where Hannah Arendt Went Wrong, David Abraham

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Backwards Proportionaility Jurisprudence: Comparing Judicial Review Of Excessive Criminal Punishments And Excessive Punitive Damages Award, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Section 6: Criminal Law & Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Editor's Observations: The 2001 Economic Crime Package: A Legislative History, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

On April 6, 2001, the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved a group of amendments to guidelines governing the sentencing of economic crimes. These measures, collectively known to as the “economic crime package,” are the culmination of some six years of deliberations by both the Conaboy and Murphy Sentencing Commissions working together with interested outside groups such as the defense bar, the Justice Department, probation officers, and the Criminal Law Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference, The package contains three basic components. First, the now-separate theft and fraud guidelines, Sections 2B1.1 and 2F1.1, will be consolidated into a single guideline. Second, the …

My Lai: An American Tragedy, William G. Eckhardt

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

Harmonic Convergence? Constitutional Criminal Procedure In An International Context, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Throughout the world, a trend toward a shared - a constitutional - criminal procedure may be detected. It is evident in common-law, civil-law, and mixed systems: individual states like China adopt laws promising once-alien concepts like a presumption of innocence, even as supranational bodies like the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia debate how to adapt certain norms to a hybrid structure. Some have suggested that such developments may herald a harmonic convergence of criminal procedure rules. This Article examines the likelihood of such a convergence. It establishes as a keynote around which harmony may develop the model of constitutional …

Briefing Paper On Problems In Redefining "Loss" (U.S. Sentencing Commission Economic Crime Symposium), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

On October 12-13, 2000, the U.S. Sentencing Commission sponsored its Third Symposium On Crime and Punishment in the United States: Federal Sentencing Policy for Economic Crimes and New Technology Offenses. The afternoon of the first day of the meeting was devoted to discussing the concept of “loss” as a measurement of defendant culpability and offense seriousness. The conferees were divided into small groups to discuss discrete sub-issues relating to “loss” and its place in sentencing economic crimes under the Guidelines. Following the small group discussions, the discussion leaders (“facilitators”) addressed a plenary session of the conference to report on the …

The Emotional Economy Of Capital Sentencing, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

You often hear that one reason capital jurors condemn capital defendants is that jurors don't empathize with defendants. And one reason they don't empathize is that the process of capital sentencing is rigged against empathy. Using data from the South Carolina segment of the Capital Jury Project, I try to examine the role emotion plays in capital sentencing.

Without entering here all the important and necessary caveats, I find that the self-reported emotional responses jurors have toward capital defendants run the gamut from sympathy and pity at one extreme, to disgust, anger, and fear at the other. What causes these …

Sentencing Guidelines: Where We Are And How We Got Here (Panel Remarks), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines were created with two broad goals in mind. One, of course, was to reduce unjustified sentencing disparity, and that was accomplished in two ways. The first was to reduce the scope of front-end judicial discretion through the creation of guidelines. The second, which I think Tom Hutchison touched on,1 was to eliminate altogether the discretion of penological experts in the parole commission at the back end of the punishment process.

Stopping A Vicious Cycle: Release, Restrictions, Re-Offending, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Is Relevant Conduct Relevant - Reconsidering The Guidelines Approach To Real Offense Sentencing, David Yellen

Articles

No abstract provided.

The Criminal Defense Lawyer's Fiduciary Duty To Clients With Mental Disability, Christopher Slobogin, Amy R. Mashburn

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the defense attorney has a multifaceted fiduciary duty toward the client with mental disability. That duty requires, first and foremost, respect for the autonomy of the client. The lawyer shows that respect not only by heeding the wishes of the competent client but by refusing to heed the wishes of the incompetent client. A coherent approach to the competency construct is therefore important. Following the lead of Professor Bonnie, this Article has broken competency into two components: assistance competency and decisional competency. It has defined the former concept in traditional terms, as an understanding of the …

Correcting Deadly Confusion: Responding To Jury Inquiries In Capital Cases, Stephen P. Garvey, Sheri Lynn Johnson, Paul Marcus

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In Weeks v. Angelone, 528 U.S. 225 (2000), the members of the capital sentencing jury asked for clarification of the jury instructions on the essential question of whether they were required to sentence Weeks to death upon the finding of certain aggravating factors. The judge merely informed the jurors to reread the instruction. The jurors returned with a death penalty sentence. The Supreme Court held that these jurors likely understood the instructions and at most Weeks had shown a slight possibility that the jurors believed they were precluded from considering mitigating evidence. However, the results of a mock jury study …

Assessing Proposals For Mandatory Procedural Protections For Sentencings Under The Guidelines, Steven D. Clymer

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The federal sentencing guidelines have received sustained criticism from scholars, judges, and practitioners. Critics claim that the guidelines unwisely shift sentencing discretion from federal judges to prosecutors and probation officers; often mandate undeservedly harsh sentences; are complex, mechanistic, and bureaucratic; fail to achieve their goal of reducing sentencing disparity; and clog both district and appellate courts with litigation. Despite the attacks, some critics acknowledge that the guidelines will remain in force for the foreseeable future. While some nonetheless continue to urge abolition, others propose less ambitious reform, including enhancing the procedural protections available to criminal defendants at sentencing. Recommendations include …

Breaking The Code Of Silence: Rediscovering "Custom" In Section 1983 Municipal Liability, Myriam E. Gilles

Articles

No abstract provided.

Measuring Culpability By Measuring Drugs? Three Reasons To Re-Evaluate The Rockefeller Drug Laws, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Coercion, Pop-Psychology, And Judicial Moralizing: Some Proposals For Curbing Judicial Abuse Of Probation Conditions, Andrew Horwitz

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Evidence: 1998-1999 Survey Of New York Law, Faust Rossi

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Judicious Solution: The Criminal Law Committee Draft Redefinition Of The Loss Concept In Economic Crime Sentencing, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

In December 1999, the United States Sentencing Commission (Commission), an institution that had been in suspended animation for over a year with all seven voting seats vacant, fluttered its eyelids and came back to life. An agreement between the Senate and the White House produced seven new Commissioners: five sitting federal judges, the former General Counsel of the Commission, and a law professor. The new group began work immediately, making itself accessible in meetings with lawyers and judges around the country, exuding an air of intelligence and collegiality, and dispensing in short order with a backlog of amendments to the …

Completing The Sentencing Revolution: Reconsidering Sentencing Procedure In The Guidelines Era, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

The central innovation of the guidelines sentencing revolution has been the creation of a regime in which facts other than those required for conviction have necessary consequences at sentencing. In days of yore, judges mulling a sentence were entitled to receive information from virtually any source on virtually any subject, but they were never obliged to pass public judgment on the truth or falsity of what they heard because no finding of fact could constrain their discretion to set a sentence anywhere within the boundaries set by statutory maxima and minima. No more. The project of the original United States …

When Does A Retroactive Decrease In The Frequency Of Parole Reconsideration Hearings Violate The Ex Post Facto Clause?, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

No abstract provided.

Does The Ex Post Facto Clause Bar Texas From Retroactively Limiting The Need For Proof That A Sex-Offense Victim Made An "Outcry"?, Rachel A. Van Cleave

Publications

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Violence/Reconstructing Community, Anthony V. Alfieri

Articles

For two centuries, the private violence of American history has paraded into courts for public trial. Often dramatized by the spectacle of rape and murder, the public trials of private violence increasingly are seen to decide the fates of both the accused and the victim of crime. The fate of community, whether the community of the victim, the accused, or the public, seems at first blush untouched by such trials. Like victims and their families, however, communities struck by violence suffer profound loss. That loss is expressed in the destruction of public discourse, reason, and citizenship. This public ruin is …

Science Fact Or Science Fiction? The Implications Of Court-Ordered Genetic Testing Under Rule 35, 34 U.S.F. L. Rev. 295 (2000), Anthony Niedwiecki

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Finality Of Judgment And Sentence Prerequisite In The United States-Peru Bilateral Prisoner Transfer Treaty: Calling Congress And The President To Reform And Justifying Jurisdiction Of The Inter-American Human Rights Commission And Court, 15 Am. U. Int'l L. Rev. 1071 (2000), Ralph Ruebner, Lisa Carroll

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Balancing Hearsay And Criminal Discovery, John G. Douglass

Law Faculty Publications

and prosecutors. Part I of this Article argues that the conventional theory of hearsaydiscovery balance does not reflect the reality of modem federal practice. An imbalance has arisen because, in the last quarter century, developments in the law of evidence and confrontation are at odds with developments-or one might say nondevelopments-in the law of criminal discovery. Since enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975, both the law of evidence and modem Confrontation Clause doctrine have evolved toward broader admission of hearsay in criminal cases. Contrary to conventional theory, that evolution has at least matched-and probably has outpaced-the trend …

Is “Relevant Conduct” Relevant? Reconsidering The Guidelines’ Approach To Real Offense Sentencing, David N. Yellen

Faculty Publications & Other Works

No abstract provided.

The Inefficiency Of Mens Rea, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.