Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 10 of 10

Full-Text Articles in Law

Prosecution Of Minor Subcontractors Under The Major Fraud Act Of 1988, Chris Liro Dec 2000

Prosecution Of Minor Subcontractors Under The Major Fraud Act Of 1988, Chris Liro

Michigan Law Review

In the late 1980s, a series of well-publicized defense contractor abuses brought the ordinarily obscure topic of government contracting into the public eye. These abuses included not only instances of seemingly wasteful charges, like the infamous $600 toilet seat, approved by a complicit Department of Defense, but also examples of truly fraudulent activity such as knowingly overbilling and supplying inferior quality goods. The fraud cases grabbed the public attention for three primary reasons. First, enormous sums of money were involved. Second, the nature of the fraud often posed a direct danger to United States troops, potentially compromising "national security." Finally, …


Aggravated Assaults With Chairs Versus Guns: Impermissible Applied Double Counting Under The Sentencing Guidelines, Carolyn Barth Oct 2000

Aggravated Assaults With Chairs Versus Guns: Impermissible Applied Double Counting Under The Sentencing Guidelines, Carolyn Barth

Michigan Law Review

In a bar called Andrea's Attic, David and Victor were having a drink when they got into an argument. The argument escalated until Victor said something that infuriated David. David looked at Victor, and, wanting to hurt Victor, grabbed the nearest object, a chair, and then threw it at Victor. The chair hit Victor and he fell to the ground, but was not hurt. In a bar called Barb's Barn down the street, Valerie was having a drink. Dorothy walked into the bar, grabbed Valerie by the arm and dragged her outside onto the street. As Valerie was dragged, she …


"Ready? Induce. Sting!": Arguing For The Government's Burden Of Proving Readiness In Entrapment Cases, David D. Tawil Jun 2000

"Ready? Induce. Sting!": Arguing For The Government's Burden Of Proving Readiness In Entrapment Cases, David D. Tawil

Michigan Law Review

For over 100 years the United States judiciary has struggled with the sting and the entrapment defense, examining whether government agents deviously manufacture crimes or merely afford criminals the opportunity to commit them. The sentiments of Justice Holmes were rare for his time, but today they are reflected in a growing sympathy for sting victims. While courts are now more willing than ever to find entrapment, they still differ over the burden of proof that the government must satisfy to overthrow an entrapment defense. Specifically, courts disagree about whether the burden includes proof that the defendant had the ability and …


Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji May 2000

Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

Once again, issues of race, ethnicity, and class within our criminal justice system have been thrust into the public spotlight. On both sides of the country, in our nation's two largest cities, police are being called to account for acts of violence directed toward poor people of color. In New York City, a West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers, who fired forty-one bullets at the unarmed man as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in a poor section of the Bronx. Did race influence the officers' decisions to fire the …


Rationalizing Juvenile Justice, Carolyn J. Frantz May 2000

Rationalizing Juvenile Justice, Carolyn J. Frantz

Michigan Law Review

Few issues have occupied the public mind so much in recent years as the problem of youth violence. Due to sensational school shootings and public paranoia about the violence of youth gangs, America is concerned - very concerned - about the growing criminality of its children. In our concern, we find ourselves caught in the classic conundrum of criminal responsibility: reconciling the unavoidable knowledge that much of human behavior is determined with our strong instincts about free will. We blame violent television and video games, we blame single mothers, we blame low church attendance, but when all is said and …


The Universal Grammar Of Criminal Law, Stuart P. Green May 2000

The Universal Grammar Of Criminal Law, Stuart P. Green

Michigan Law Review

There is something about the criminal law that invites comparative analysis. The interests it protects are so basic, and its concerns so fundamental, that it is natural to ask whether there are aspects of criminal law that are somehow universal. We want to know whether familiar concepts such as murder and manslaughter, intent and negligence, and insanity and mistake, are characteristic of other systems of criminal law as well, and, if so, what role they play there. In the last generation, no criminal law scholar has made better use of comparative law techniques than George Fletcher, the Cardozo Professor of …


The Perils Of Courtroom Stories, Stephan Landsman May 2000

The Perils Of Courtroom Stories, Stephan Landsman

Michigan Law Review

As Janet Malcolm1 tells it, Sheila McGough was a middle-aged single woman living at home with her parents and working as an editor and administrator in the publications department of the Carnegie Institute when she decided to switch careers and go to law school. She applied and was admitted to the then recently accredited law school at George Mason University. After graduation, she began a solo practice in northern Virginia that involved a significant amount of stateappointed criminal defense work. In 1986, approximately four years after her graduation from law school, McGough received a call requesting assistance from an incarcerated …


Sentencing Equality For Deportable Aliens: Departures From The Sentencing Guidelines On The Basis Of Alienage, Jason Bent Mar 2000

Sentencing Equality For Deportable Aliens: Departures From The Sentencing Guidelines On The Basis Of Alienage, Jason Bent

Michigan Law Review

Peter Bakeas, a thirty-three-year-old Greek citizen living in West Lynn, Massachusetts and working in an entry-level position at the First National Bank of Greece in Massachusetts, developed a cocaine habit he could not afford. Mounting debt from his cocaine habit pressured him to find alternative means for obtaining income. Bakeas, using his position at First National Bank of Greece, began to embezzle money from the accounts of a distant relative and some family friends. When his scheme was discovered, he confessed and made arrangements to repay the money he had taken. Bakeas pled guilty to embezzlement by a bank officer, …


Judicial Review & The Policy Of Federal Abstention: A Juvenile's Right To Ensure The Existence Of A "Substantial Federal Interest", Matthew Drexler Feb 2000

Judicial Review & The Policy Of Federal Abstention: A Juvenile's Right To Ensure The Existence Of A "Substantial Federal Interest", Matthew Drexler

Michigan Law Review

The problem of juvenile delinquency must be dealt with in an effective and meaningful manner if we are to reduce the ever increasing levels of crime and improve the quality of life in America. With these words, the United States Senate opened its report in support of the first major federal juvenile delinquency statute in almost forty years. The goal of the statute and of federal involvement in juvenile delinquency proceedings was to give the highest attention to preventing juvenile crime and to minimizing the involvement of juveniles in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Until 1974, the federal government …


The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof Jan 2000

The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof

Michigan Law Review

The war against bias crimes is far from finished. In contrast, the battle over bias-crime laws is largely over. Bias-crime laws, as commonly formulated, increase the penalties for crimes motivated by bias. The Supreme Court has held that such laws do not violate the First Amendment. Virtually every state has enacted some sort of biascrime law. Even the federal government, which may consider itself without power to enact a general bias-crime law, has made bias a sentence-aggravating factor for the range of federal criminal offenses. Bias-crime laws thus are an established feature of the legal landscape. Against this background, Frederick …