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Articles 1 - 17 of 17

Full-Text Articles in Law

Applying The Rule Of Law To All Heads Of State, C. Peter Erlinder Nov 2008

Applying The Rule Of Law To All Heads Of State, C. Peter Erlinder

C. Peter Erlinder

No abstract provided.


Overview Of Environmental Criminal Investigations, Beau James Brock Oct 2008

Overview Of Environmental Criminal Investigations, Beau James Brock

Beau James Brock

Power point presentation overview of Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Criminal Investigation Division investigative guidelines and procedures.


Section 7: Criminal Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School Sep 2008

Section 7: Criminal Law, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.


Speech: Latinas And Their Families In Detention: The Growing Intersection Of Immigration Law And Criminal Law, Sandra Guerra Thompson Feb 2008

Speech: Latinas And Their Families In Detention: The Growing Intersection Of Immigration Law And Criminal Law, Sandra Guerra Thompson

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

In this article, Professor Sandra Guerra Thompson explores the growing enforcement of immigration law within the interior of the United States and the growing intersection of the criminal justice system and immigration law. Through the use of worksite enforcement sweeps and immigration screening by state and local law enforcement, growing numbers of undocumented persons are being taken into custody by federal immigration officials. She examines the plight of women and families held in detention centers under what are often deplorable conditions. Ironically, immigration detention centers offer fewer resources than those available in most state prisons. The immigration law judicial system …


Commercial Fraud: Cases And Commentary, Alex Steel Jan 2008

Commercial Fraud: Cases And Commentary, Alex Steel

Alex Steel

This monograph - published online - is a detailed analysis of theft and fraud laws in NSW. It was developed for UNSW Law students because of a lack of any up to date commercially published text on theft and fraud. It contains extracts and commentary on all key offences and caselaw. The law was current as of 2008.


Tactical Ineffective Assistance In Capital Trials, Kyle Graham Jan 2008

Tactical Ineffective Assistance In Capital Trials, Kyle Graham

American University Law Review

Are defense attorneys sandbagging in their death-penalty cases? In Poindexter v. Mitchell, a habeas corpus case decided in 2006, Chief Judge Danny Boggs of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit wrote that by conducting a deliberately defective investigation into mitigation evidence that might otherwise have been presented at the penalty phase of a capital trial, a defense attorney can virtually guarantee that any death sentence the jury returns will be vacated in later proceedings. The likelihood of such an outcome, Boggs wrote, will more than make up for the somewhat greater chance that a jury that …


The American Prosecutor - Power, Discretion, And Misconduct, Angela J. Davis Jan 2008

The American Prosecutor - Power, Discretion, And Misconduct, Angela J. Davis

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.


Brennan Lecture Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety Through State Sentencing Reform, Michael A. Wolff Jan 2008

Brennan Lecture Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety Through State Sentencing Reform, Michael A. Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

In this speech delivered for the annual Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice, the Honorable Michael Wolff offers a new way of thinking about sentencing. Instead of attempting to limit judicial discretion and increase incarceration, states should aim to reduce recidivism in order to make our communities safer. Judge Wolff uses the example of Missouri's sentencing reforms to argue that states should adopt evidence-based sentencing, in which the effectiveness of different sentences and treatment programs are regularly evaluated. In pre-sentencing investigative reports, probation officers should attempt to quantify - based on historical data - …


Improving Privacy Protection, But By How Much?, Steve Coughlan Jan 2008

Improving Privacy Protection, But By How Much?, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The discussion of reasonable expectation of privacy in R. v. M. (A.) is extremely useful. In the wake of Tessling, many courts had effectively reduced the protection offered by s. 8 based on two arguments: that what was detected was an emanation in the public domain similar to heat coming from a house, and that what was discovered merely related to informational privacy and was not part of the biographical core of such data. Justice Binnie's decision puts paid the notion that either of these arguments is a trump card. He suggests that generalizing about "emanations" is not a useful …


Reforming Homicide Law To Separate Guilt From Sentence: An International Gloss, Steve Coughlan Jan 2008

Reforming Homicide Law To Separate Guilt From Sentence: An International Gloss, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

This article argues that Canadian homicide law is handicapped by trying to combine two contradictory approaches. In general, Canadian criminal law adopts the approach of setting out relatively rigid rules for determining guilt or innocence. That is, the Criminal Code sets out particular offences, and if the elements of an offence can be proven, then failing the presence of any defence (also relatively rigidly defined), any accused will be found guilty. The question of guilt or innocence is not individualized to the circumstances of the offender. On the other hand, sentencing decisions adopt exactly the opposite approach, and are made …


The End Of Constitutional Exemptions, Steve Coughlan Jan 2008

The End Of Constitutional Exemptions, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In R. v. Ferguson (reported ante p. 197) the Supreme Court decided that constitutional exemptions are not available as a remedy when a mandatory minimum sentence is said to violate section 12 of the Charter. This is a well reasoned and sensible decision. As mandatory minimum sentences are the context in which the possibility of the constitutional exemption as a Charter remedy has most frequently arisen, as a practical matter Ferguson largely disposes of the issue. Nonetheless, a further clarification at some point that constitutional exemptions are not available in any context, for other violations of section 12 or of …


Arbitrary Detention: Whither - Or Wither? - Section 9, Steve Coughlan Jan 2008

Arbitrary Detention: Whither - Or Wither? - Section 9, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

It is a remarkable fact that more than 25 years after the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect, we still have no section 9 jurisprudence. It is not that there have been no decisions at all concerning the right not to be arbitrarily detained, of course, but taken in total they do not come anywhere near setting out an analytical framework. This stands in contrast to most other legal rights in the Charter. Section 7 jurisprudence has established the two-step approach to take in assessing claims under that section, including a three-step test for determining whether a …


Who Is A Terrorist - Drawing The Line Between Criminal Defendants And Military Enemies, Benjamin Priester Jan 2008

Who Is A Terrorist - Drawing The Line Between Criminal Defendants And Military Enemies, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

The threat of terrorist attacks by al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist organizations is a constant topic of public discourse in the United States. Despite its prominence, the nature of that threat is notoriously difficult to define. On the one hand, terrorists might be compared to other kinds of organized, dangerous criminals who should be prosecuted and punished using the federal criminal law. On the other hand, terrorists might be compared to enemy soldiers engaged in warfare against the United States. There are problems with either approach, however, because the threat posed by al Qaeda and other transnational terrorist organizations …


Self-Defense: Reasonable Beliefs Or Reasonable Self-Control?, Kenneth Simons Jan 2008

Self-Defense: Reasonable Beliefs Or Reasonable Self-Control?, Kenneth Simons

Faculty Scholarship

The reasonable person test is often employed in criminal law doctrine as a criterion of cognitive fault: Did the defendant unreasonably fail to appreciate a risk of harm, or unreasonably fail to recognize a legally relevant circumstance element (such as the nonconsent of the victim)? But it is sometimes applied more directly to conduct: Did the defendant depart sufficiently from a standard of reasonable care, e.g. in operating a motor vehicle, that he deserves punishment? A third version of the reasonable person criterion, which has received much less attention, asks what degree of control a reasonable person would have exercised. …


Punishing Cruelly: Punishment, Cruelty, And Mercy, Paulo Barrozo Dec 2007

Punishing Cruelly: Punishment, Cruelty, And Mercy, Paulo Barrozo

Paulo Barrozo

What is cruelty? How and why does it matter? What do the legal rejection of cruelty and the requirements of mercy entail? This essay asks these questions of Lucius Seneca, who first articulated an agent-based conception of cruelty in the context of punishment. The hypothesis is submitted that the answers to these questions offered in Seneca's De clementia constitute one of the turning points in the evolution of practical reason in law. I conclude, however, by arguing that even the mainstream punitive practices of contemporary western societies fail to meet the modest imperatives of the rejection of cruelty and the …


Drugs And Justice, Erik Luna, Margaret Battin Dec 2007

Drugs And Justice, Erik Luna, Margaret Battin

Erik Luna

No abstract provided.


In Defense Of "Self-Defence In Criminal Law"; And On "Killing In Self-Defence" - A Reply To Fiona Leverick, Boaz Sangero Dec 2007

In Defense Of "Self-Defence In Criminal Law"; And On "Killing In Self-Defence" - A Reply To Fiona Leverick, Boaz Sangero

Prof. Boaz Sangero

Recently, Fiona Leverick published a review of my book, Self-Defence in Criminal Law. In the same year that my book was released, Leverick published her own monograph on this subject, Killing in Self-Defence. We basically take two different approaches to the subject of self-defense. One approach seeks only “permission” for killing and views the right to life as a sufficient rationale. The other approach seeks a justification for self-defense and proposes a more complex rationale suited to all cases of self-defense and not just the extreme situation of a life versus a life. This rationale is based on three main …