Law Commons^™

The Right To A Jury Decision On Sentencing Facts After Booker: What The Seventh Amendment Can Teach The Sixth, Paul F. Kirgis

Faculty Law Review Articles

(the) Supreme Court's Sixth and Seventh Amendment jurisprudence has not created a more expansive jury right for criminal defendants. Instead, it has produced a system in which a civil litigant may demand a jury decision on questions that, if presented in a criminal case, would fall within the exclusive province of the judge. This Article explores this anomaly and argues that the Supreme Court in Booker missed a critical opportunity to redress the constriction of the criminal defendant's right to have a jury decide those facts that lead to the deprivation of the defendant's liberty.

My argument (on these points) …

Crawford V. Washington: The End Of Victimless Prosecution?, Andrew King-Ries

Faculty Law Review Articles

Domestic violence offenses are difficult to prosecute because the batterer's actions often make the victim unavailable to testify. Since the mid- 1990s, prosecutors have pursued "victimless" prosecutions' to combat the problem.2 Victimless prosecutions seek to introduce reliable evidence without the victim's in-court testimony, often to maintain the victim's safety or to avoid re-victimizing the victim.3 The victimless prosecution is based largely on the admission of hearsay statements that a victim makes to 911 operators, police officers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, and social workers.4 Victimless prosecution has been a highly successful tool in society's efforts to eradicate domestic violence and it is …