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Articles 31 - 60 of 61
Full-Text Articles in Law
Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Massachusetts Zappers - Collecting The Sales Tax That Has Already Been Paid, Richard Thompson Ainsworth
Faculty Scholarship
No other New England state is as vulnerable to Zappers as is the State of Massachusetts. Zappers and related software programming, Phantom-ware, facilitate an old tax fraud – skimming cash receipts. In this instance skimming is performed with modern electronic cash registers (ECRs).
Zappers are a global revenue problem, but to the best of this author’s knowledge they have not been uncovered in Massachusetts. A global perspective says: it is highly unlikely that Zappers are not in the Commonwealth – we just need to find them. In fact, using a Quebec template, tax losses from Zappers and related frauds in …
A Witness To Justice, Jessica Silbey
A Witness To Justice, Jessica Silbey
Faculty Scholarship
In the 1988 film The Accused, a young woman named Sarah Tobias is gang raped on a pinball machine by three men while a crowded bar watches. The rapists cut a deal with the prosecutor. Sarah's outrage at the deal convinces the assistant district attorney to prosecute members of the crowd that cheered on and encouraged the rape. This film shows how Sarah Tobias, a woman with little means and less experience, intuits that according to the law rape victims are incredible witnesses to their own victimization. The film goes on to critique what the right kind of witness would …
Analysis Of Videotape Evidence In Police Misconduct Cases, Martin A. Schwartz, Jessica Silbey, Jack Ryan, Gail Donoghue
Analysis Of Videotape Evidence In Police Misconduct Cases, Martin A. Schwartz, Jessica Silbey, Jack Ryan, Gail Donoghue
Faculty Scholarship
Many evidentiary issues arise with respect to the admission of videotape evidence and computer generated simulations at trial, and the authors of this Article address these issues as they arise in police misconduct cases. Professor Schwartz provides insight into and analysis of the evidentiary principles that govern the use of video and computer simulation evidence at trial in cases where police misconduct is at issue. His discussion first addresses the issues that concern the admissibility of videotape evidence, then discusses the role of a videotape on summary judgment, and lastly, analyzes evidentiary issues with respect to computer generated simulations.
Eyewitness Identification Reform In Massachusetts, Stanley Z. Fisher
Eyewitness Identification Reform In Massachusetts, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
This article traces the impact of the new scientific learning upon police eyewitness identification procedures in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Over the past 25 years, experimental psychologists have devised more reliable techniques for gathering eyewitness identification evidence than have been traditionally used by police. Massachusetts has over 350 autonomous municipal police departments, plus approximately 39 college campus police departments, the state police, and the MBTA (transit) Police Department. The decision how to investigate crime rests principally with the police chief responsible for each department. How does such a system of policing absorb new, scientifically superior methods of investigation?
Egypt: Criminal Procedure, Sadiq Reza
Egypt: Criminal Procedure, Sadiq Reza
Faculty Scholarship
This chapter presents the criminal-procedure law of Egypt according to the sources of that law: the 1971 Constitution, the 1950 Code of Criminal Procedure, the 1958 Emergency Law, and other legislation; decisions by the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC), the Court of Cassation, and other organs of the Egyptian judiciary; and administrative and executive regulations. Included are references to controversial aspects of this law and its practice, such as the use of military courts, state security courts, and emergency courts and powers. The chapter thus serves as an introduction to modern Egyptian criminal procedure and a reference source for scholars and …
A Public Choice Theory Of Criminal Procedure, Keith N. Hylton, Vikramaditya Khanna
A Public Choice Theory Of Criminal Procedure, Keith N. Hylton, Vikramaditya Khanna
Faculty Scholarship
We provide an additional justification for the pro-defendant bias in Anglo-American criminal procedure that supplements the most commonly forwarded justifications to date. The most commonly forwarded rationale for the prodefendant bias is that the costs of false convictions-specifically, the sanctioning and deterrence costs associated with the erroneous imposition of criminal sanctions-are greater than the costs of false acquittals. We argue that this rationale provides at best a partial justification for the extent of prodefendant procedural rules. Under our justification, prodefendant protections serve primarily as constraints on the costs associated with rent seeking in the law enforcement process. The theory developed …
Transnational Criminal Law And Procedure: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza
Transnational Criminal Law And Procedure: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza
Faculty Scholarship
What is “transnational” criminal law? One possibility is foreign criminal law, meaning the scope and substance of what is deemed criminal behavior in other lands and the theories that ostensibly justify punishing for such behavior, indeed deeming it criminal in the first place. Another is foreign criminal procedure, the “how” of foreign criminal law’s “what” and “why”: the rules and practices of investigating crime, prosecuting suspected criminals, and adjudicating criminal cases in other lands or systems. More common meanings, judging from articles in U.S. law reviews, are comparative criminal law and comparative criminal procedure, though these might differ from their …
Archibald Cox And The Genius Of Our Institutions In Memoriam - Celebration Of The Life Of Archibald, Larry Yackle
Archibald Cox And The Genius Of Our Institutions In Memoriam - Celebration Of The Life Of Archibald, Larry Yackle
Faculty Scholarship
I am confident that historians will write that the trend of decisions during the 1950's and 1960's was in keeping with the mainstream ofAmerican history - a bit progressive but also moderate, a bit humane but not sentimental, a bit idealistic but seldom doctrinaire, and in the long run essentially pragmatic - in short, in keeping with the true genius of our institutions. 1 In the dedication of his classic work Democracy and Distrust2 to Chief Justice Earl Warren, the late John Hart Ely wrote "You don't need many heroes if you choose carefully." 3 For several generations of lawyers …
"No Provincial Or Transient Notion": The Need For A Mistake Of Age Defense In Child Rape Prosecutions, Jarrod F. Reich
"No Provincial Or Transient Notion": The Need For A Mistake Of Age Defense In Child Rape Prosecutions, Jarrod F. Reich
Faculty Scholarship
Suppose a state legislature enacted a law making any theft a crime punishable by twenty years' imprisonment. Within this law was a provision precluding an accused from introducing evidence that he unwittingly took property to which he was not entitled. Suppose further that after this law was enacted, an elderly woman hung her black coat in a restaurant's lobby and, upon leaving, mistakenly retrieved another's black coat.1 Under the hypothetical statute, her mistake could neither hinder the prosecution's case against her nor be asserted by her as a defense. By inadvertently taking another's coat from a crowded restaurant, the woman …
Aedpa's 'Adjudication On The Merits' Requirement: Collateral Review, Federalism, And Comity, Robert D. Sloane
Aedpa's 'Adjudication On The Merits' Requirement: Collateral Review, Federalism, And Comity, Robert D. Sloane
Faculty Scholarship
The modern law of federal habeas corpus is a labyrinth of counterfactuals and arcane procedural hurdles that few state petitioners manage to navigate-as Justice Blackmun once wrote less charitably in dissent, "a Byzantine morass of arbitrary, unnecessary, and unjustifiable impediments to the vindication of federal rights." The convoluted inquiries required arise from the need to reconcile three developments of the past four decades that remain in tension with one another: first, the Warren Court's expansion of federal habeas relief, identified with Fay v. Noia and its progeny; second, the Burger and Rehnquist Courts' curtailment of that expansion, identified with Wainwright …
Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza
Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza
Faculty Scholarship
John Walker Lindh. Zacarias Moussaoui. Jose Padilla. Richard Reid. Who reading these lines does not instantly recognize the names of these men? Or at least their assigned noms de guerre: American Taliban, 20th hijacker, dirty bomber, shoe bomber. For two and a half years these names and others have flitted through our daily copies of The New York Times like shadow characters in a play, along with black-and-white photographs underneath which black-and-white text tells us of their alleged (and sometimes proven) wrongdoing and the latest developments in their tribulations (and sometimes trials) with our government. But the men themselves are …
Puppy Love: Bioterrorism, Civil Rights, And Public Health, George J. Annas
Puppy Love: Bioterrorism, Civil Rights, And Public Health, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Florida has been the state humorists most like to make fun of since the 2000 presidential election, especially when it comes to politics. And humorists are almost the only commentators who can be counted on to tell us the truth about the state of American politics today. When Californians decided to recall their Governor, for example, Conan O'Brien observed: "Yesterday Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he would run for governor of California. The announcement was good news for Florida residents, who now live in the second-flakiest state in the country."' And when more than 200 people filed to run for Governor, Jay …
Convictions Of Innocent Persons In Massachusetts: An Overview, Stanley Z. Fisher
Convictions Of Innocent Persons In Massachusetts: An Overview, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
Scholars documenting the incidence and causes of wrongful convictions in the United States have focused on cases arising all across the country. Because reform of the practices that lead to such errors of justice must largely take place on the state level, there is value in examining wrongful convictions in particular jurisdictions. This article attempts to identify and briefly describe all known cases of conviction of innocent persons in Massachusetts from 1800 to the present time. Part I discusses the criteria for identifying "the innocent." For the purpose of gaining support for needed reforms in the law, the most persuasive …
Unreasonable Probability Of Error, Jed Handelsman Shugerman
Unreasonable Probability Of Error, Jed Handelsman Shugerman
Faculty Scholarship
In Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court sought to create a uniform standard to guarantee effective assistance of counsel to criminal defendants, to "ensure a fair trial," and to assure the reliability of "a just result."' Justice O'Connor's majority opinion created a two-pronged test for overturning a trial verdict: deficient performance and resulting prejudice. The Court explicitly established a difficult burden for proving deficient performance,2 but set a moderate standard for prejudice as the "reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient …
A Proposal For A New Massachusetts Notoriety For Profit Law: The Grandson Of Sam, Sean J. Kealy
A Proposal For A New Massachusetts Notoriety For Profit Law: The Grandson Of Sam, Sean J. Kealy
Faculty Scholarship
In recent years, two women stood convicted of highly publicized major crimes in Massachusetts. Katherine Ann Power ("Power") was a fugitive who committed felony-murder in 1970. She led a life on the run as a fugitive until 1993 when she revealed her true identity and surrendered to authorities to face the consequences of her crimes. Louise Woodward ("Woodward"), an au pair originally from England, gained notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean when she was convicted of killing the baby entrusted to her care. Both women captured the attention of the national media for months and reportedly had opportunities …
Lawyering Up, Jack M. Beermann, Susan Bandes
Lawyering Up, Jack M. Beermann, Susan Bandes
Faculty Scholarship
The widespread dissemination of knowledge about the Miranda protections is often referred to as one of the most successful efforts ever made to educate the American public about its constitutional rights. Studies confirm that a high percentage of the public is aware of Miranda, largely due to television and other mass media. This article asks the question: if television is educating the public about its Miranda rights, what exactly is it teaching us? As fans of the cop show NYPD Blue (a show in which the interrogation and confession are often the dramatic focus) we use that show to explore …
Archibald Cox: Teacher, David J. Seipp
Archibald Cox: Teacher, David J. Seipp
Faculty Scholarship
Archie Cox is a teacher. He taught generations of law students at Harvard Law School and, more recently, at Boston University School of Law. He left the classroom on three occasions, reluctantly, when first President Truman, then President Kennedy, then President Nixon's Attorney General called Professor Cox to Washington to play a part on the national stage. In his first weeks as Watergate Special Prosecutor, Cox carried with him a stack of blue books, Labor Law examinations he still had to grade (p. 263). In the public eye, his straight-backed demeanor, his familiar crew cut, half-glasses, bow tie, and tweeds …
Just The Facts, Ma'am: Lying And The Omission Of Exculpatory Evidence In Police Reports,, Stanley Z. Fisher
Just The Facts, Ma'am: Lying And The Omission Of Exculpatory Evidence In Police Reports,, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
George Jones's ordeal was the product of, and in turn sheds light upon, police practices of investigating crimes and writing reports. Written police reports of criminal incidents and arrests give details such as the time, place, and nature of criminal conduct; the names and addresses of victims and witnesses; physical characteristics of the perpetrator(s) or arrestee(s); weapons used; property taken, recovered, or seized from the arrestee; and injuries to persons and property. Through their reports, the police "have fundamental control over the construction of [the] 'facts' for a case, and all other actors (the prosecutor, the judge, the defense lawyer) …
The Great Writ In Action: Empirical Light On The Federal Habeas Corpus Debate, Larry Yackle
The Great Writ In Action: Empirical Light On The Federal Habeas Corpus Debate, Larry Yackle
Faculty Scholarship
The national debate regarding federal habeas corpus for state prisoners is fueled in the main by ideology. To some, the authority of the federal courts to entertain constitutional challenges to state criminal convictions is the embodiment of all that was right about the Warren Court and the vision that Court offered of a meaningful system of American liberty, underwritten by independent federal tribunals willing and able to check the coercive power of government. By this account, the Bill of Rights is the protean source of safeguards for individual freedom - commanding generous, imaginative, and insightful elaboration by federal courts at …
Form And Function In The Administration Of Justice: The Bill Of Rights And Federal Habeas Corpus, Larry Yackle
Form And Function In The Administration Of Justice: The Bill Of Rights And Federal Habeas Corpus, Larry Yackle
Faculty Scholarship
Part I critiques the Report's insistence that accurate fact finding exhausts, or nearly exhausts, the objectives of criminal justice, identifies the fundamental role of the Bill of Rights in the American political order, and situates federal habeas corpus within that framework. Part II traces the Report's historical review of the federal habeas jurisdiction and critiques the Report's too-convenient reliance on selected materials that, on examination, fail to undermine conventional understandings of the writ's development as a postconviction remedy. Part III responds to the Report's complaints regarding current habeas corpus practice and refutes contentions that the habeas jurisdiction overburdens federal dockets …
In Search Of The Virtuous Prosecutor: A Conceptual Framework, Stanley Z. Fisher
In Search Of The Virtuous Prosecutor: A Conceptual Framework, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
Questions about the scope and content of the duty to "seek justice" pervade prosecutorial work. Prosecutors are required to serve in a dual role: they are both advocates seeking conviction and "ministers of justice." Observers have complained about a tendency on the part of prosecutors to prefer the former of these "schizophrenic" obligations to the latter. This is commonly described as a tendency to behave overzealously or according to a "conviction psychology. ' "
Conflicts-Of-Interest Disqualification In Medical Malpractice Litigation, George J. Annas
Conflicts-Of-Interest Disqualification In Medical Malpractice Litigation, George J. Annas
Faculty Scholarship
Less than two decades ago it was thought sufficient to say, "When a practitioner is in doubt on an ethical question, the best answer is usually No." A more recent commentator has suggested, however, that "[s]uch platitudes have become increasingly inadequate to guide the attorney facing conflicts of interests in the private practice of law." Because of the general vagueness of the American Bar Association's Model Code of Professional Responsibility, and of state codes based on it, courts have begun to fashion a vast "common law" of conflicts of interest A particularly controversial entry to this body of common law …
Timing Under A Unified Wealth Transfer Tax, Theodore S. Sims
Timing Under A Unified Wealth Transfer Tax, Theodore S. Sims
Faculty Scholarship
The United States taxes gifts made while an individual is living more leniently than it taxes wealth transfers at death. Although in some measure this disparity has existed since the enactment of the modern estate and gift taxes in 1916 and 1932, it was significantly narrowed by the Tax Reform Act of 1976 (the 1976 Act). That statute replaced the separate gift and estate taxes with a regime that taxes the cumulative total of an individual's lifetime taxable gifts and his taxable estate at death, under a single (or "unified") graduated table of rates. Nevertheless, there remains a signficant difference …
The Disposition Process Under The Juveniles Justice Standards Project, Stanley Z. Fisher
The Disposition Process Under The Juveniles Justice Standards Project, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
The Juvenile Justice Standards Project volumes were publicly discussed for months prior to their publication. Unavoidably, much of the discussion was based upon rumor regarding their contents. In that context, critics charged that the proposed Standards would "destroy the nation's juvenile court system and replace it with a 'junior criminal system' "1 and claimed that the Standards substitute the philosophy of "just deserts" for the traditional rehabilitative goals of juvenile justice.' The news media described the Standards on disposition of delinquents as designed to "fit the penalty to the crime, no matter what the age of the perpetrator. '3 I …
The Standards' Recommendations On Dispositions: A Panel Discussion Panel Discussion, Stanley Z. Fisher
The Standards' Recommendations On Dispositions: A Panel Discussion Panel Discussion, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
ROFESSOR STANLEY FISHER, MODERATOR: Good evening. I'd like to welcome you all here. Of all of the volumes of the Juvenile Justice Standards Project, I suppose the most controversial are those dealing with the disposition stage. They have elicited a good deal of critical comment, even though they haven't yet been published, and many of the comments and criticisms have apparently been on the basis of speculation and rumor as to what the Standards actually say. We have with us tonight to discuss these Standards two persons who have a great deal of expertise in this field. The first, on …
The Indigent's Right To A Transcript Of Record, Larry Yackle
The Indigent's Right To A Transcript Of Record, Larry Yackle
Faculty Scholarship
There is no more fascinating subject in the field of federal constitutional law than the relationship between due process and equal protection, concepts brought together in the fourteenth amendment. Governmental action that is fundamentally unfair and a denial of due process may also involve discriminatory treatment and a denial of equal protection.' Accordingly, in a number of cases the distinction between the two concepts has been blurred. In Douglas v. California, the Supreme Court held that on first appeal counsel must be furnished to indigents at state expense because the failure to provide professional representation is both fundamentally unfair and …
Traditional Criminal Procedure In Ethiopia, Stanley Z. Fisher
Traditional Criminal Procedure In Ethiopia, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
In the decade 1955-1965 the Ethiopian government completely revolutionized its legal system by promulgating comprehensive legal codes and a new constitution. These laws have a predominantly Western flavor, and seem to bear little relation to the traditional patterns of life which still prevail in the Empire-one of the least "developed" areas of Africa. This state of affairs has led some to characterize the new codes as "fantasy law," which may serve to put a modern "face" on the country but, at least for some time to come, will not have any serious impact on the conduct of its affairs.
Criminal Procedure For Juvenile Offenders In Ethiopia, Stanley Z. Fisher
Criminal Procedure For Juvenile Offenders In Ethiopia, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
The purpose of this article is to set out, in summary fashion, the law concerning juvenile offenders in Ethiopia. Our focus will be on procedural rather than substantive aspects-insofar as it is possible to separate the two-and particularly upon the enforcement of constitutional guarantees in the process.
Review Of H.L.A. Hart, The Morality Of The Criminal Law, Oxford University Press (1965), Stanley Z. Fisher
Review Of H.L.A. Hart, The Morality Of The Criminal Law, Oxford University Press (1965), Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
This slim volume contains the text of two lectures given by Professor Hart at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1964. The first lecture, "Changing Conceptions of Responsibility," expresses concern at the turn in which the "liberal" criminal law reform movement in England has taken in connection with the law of criminal responsibility. Professor Hart takes issue with the stand of a leading reformer, Lady Wootton, who advocates abolition of the mens rea prerequisite to penal liability. In her view, the mental state of a harm-doer is relevant not to determining his penal liability (conviction), but only to the decision …
Involuntary Confessions And Article 35, Criminal Procedure Code, Stanley Z. Fisher
Involuntary Confessions And Article 35, Criminal Procedure Code, Stanley Z. Fisher
Faculty Scholarship
Improper methods of police interrogation are known to every country in the world. And everywhere, it is agreed that an accused's confession of guilt which has been procured through physical violence, psychological intimidation, or improper inducements or promises cannot be considered in evidence against him at trial. The primary reason why involuntary confessions are excluded from evidence is that they are unreliable indices of truth; men have been known to admit crimes of which they are innocent, simply to escape the pain of torture or to obtain an irresistible benefit.