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Articles 1 - 25 of 25
Full-Text Articles in Law
Revisiting The Voluntariness Of Confessions After State V. Sawyer, Michael Theodore Bigos
Revisiting The Voluntariness Of Confessions After State V. Sawyer, Michael Theodore Bigos
Maine Law Review
Every individual in our society needs confidence in our criminal justice system to know that one cannot be convicted of a crime unless a fact finder is convinced of every necessary element with the highest assurances of the truth. The process of establishing facts in a criminal trial is highly dependent upon how decision-making power is allocated between the judge and the jury and upon the fairness of that allocation. This Note discusses the areas of confession law and burdens of proof in the context of how federal criminal constitutional doctrines that affect the fact-finding process offer less than clear …
Close Enough For Government Work: Proving Minimal Nexus In A Federal And Firearms Conviction: United States V. Corey, Barbara H. Taylor
Close Enough For Government Work: Proving Minimal Nexus In A Federal And Firearms Conviction: United States V. Corey, Barbara H. Taylor
Maine Law Review
In United States v. Corey, Alvin Scott Corey was found guilty of possessing a firearm as a felon. Although Corey's possession of a Smith and Wesson shotgun violated Maine law, Corey was prosecuted in the United States District Court under the federal statute 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and its penalty statute, § 924(e). On appeal, Corey argued that one of the requirements for his conviction, proof of the statute's jurisdictional element, had not been satisfied because that proof rested on expert testimony based, in part, on hearsay. The First Circuit Court of Appeals, in a split decision, affirmed Corey's conviction, …
Scientific Evidence And Forensic Science Since Daubert: Maine Decides To Sit Out On The Dance, Thomas L. Bohan
Scientific Evidence And Forensic Science Since Daubert: Maine Decides To Sit Out On The Dance, Thomas L. Bohan
Maine Law Review
In 1993, the Supreme Court of the United States stated that with the federal adoption of statutory rules of evidence in 1975, the common law rule for determining admissibility of scientific testimony was superseded, and that thenceforth admissibility of scientific testimony was to be determined solely by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (Rule 702). The Frye standard had been adopted in one form or another by most of the federal circuits and by many of the state courts during the 70 years preceding Daubert. Referred to as the “general acceptance” standard, the Frye standard--although adopted in a variety of forms--had …
Distinguished Jurist-In-Residence Lecture: Sentencing Reform: When Everyone Behaves Badly, Nancy Gertner
Distinguished Jurist-In-Residence Lecture: Sentencing Reform: When Everyone Behaves Badly, Nancy Gertner
Maine Law Review
Sentencing is different from almost all functions of the government and surely different from the other functions of the judiciary. It is the moment when state power meets an individual directly. It necessarily involves issues that are distinct from those in other areas of the law. It requires a court to focus on the defendant, to craft a punishment proportionate to the offense and to the offender. It should come as no surprise that in countries across the world, common law and civil code, totalitarian and free, judges have been given great discretion in sentencing. To be sure, that power …
Calling Crawford: Minnesota Declares A 911 Call Non-Testimonial In State V. Wright, Alistair Y. Raymond
Calling Crawford: Minnesota Declares A 911 Call Non-Testimonial In State V. Wright, Alistair Y. Raymond
Maine Law Review
In State v. Wright, 1 the State of Minnesota charged David Wright with possession of a firearm by a felon and two counts of second-degree assault against his girlfriend and her sister. A jury found Wright guilty on all charges and sentenced him to sixty months in jail for each crime, with sentences served concurrently. Wright’s girlfriend, R.R., and her sister, S.R., did not testify against him at trial. The prosecution, however, used the transcript of a 911 call placed by R.R. against Wright in the trial. Although the 911 call was hearsay, the court admitted it under Minnesota’s excited …
United States V. Pho: Defining The Limits Of Discretionary Sentencing, John G. Wheatley
United States V. Pho: Defining The Limits Of Discretionary Sentencing, John G. Wheatley
Maine Law Review
In the consolidated case of United States v. Pho, the government appealed two district court rulings that imposed criminal sentences outside of the range provided in the Federal Sentencing Guidelines Manual (Guidelines). At separate trials, both defendants pied guilty to the crime of possession with intent to distribute five grams or more of cocaine base (commonly known as crack). Rejecting the Guidelines' disparate treatment of crack and powder cocaine, the district court imposed sentences that were below the Guidelines' range, but above the statutory mandatory minimum. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated both sentences and remanded the …
Thinking Inside The Box: Placing Form Over Function In The Application Of The Statutory Sentencing Procedure In State Of Maine V. Eugene Downs, Matthew E. Lane
Thinking Inside The Box: Placing Form Over Function In The Application Of The Statutory Sentencing Procedure In State Of Maine V. Eugene Downs, Matthew E. Lane
Maine Law Review
In State v. Hewey, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court found that the sentencing court erred in imposing a sentence that exceeded the maximum applicable period of incarceration for a Class A crime and accordingly vacated the sentence. Perhaps more importantly, the Law Court used the case as an “opportunity for clarification of [its] review of an appeal from a sentence imposed by the trial court.” A unanimous court sought to clear up some inconsistencies in previous decisions regarding “the terminology used to define each of the three steps” of the sentencing process by better describing the procedure “by which the …
The Supreme Court's Long And Perhaps Unnecessary Struggle To Find A Standard Of Culpability To Regulate The Federal Exclusionary Remedy For Fourth/Fourteenth Amendment Violations, Melvyn H. Zarr
Maine Law Review
On January 14, 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Herring v. United States. In Herring, the defendant moved to suppress evidence that he alleged was seized as a result of an arrest that violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court approved the decision below to deny suppression of the evidence. The decision set off a flurry of speculation that the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule would not see its 100th birthday in 2014. A headline in the New York Times of January 31 declared: “Supreme Court Edging Closer to Repeal of Evidence Ruling.” Another …
Establishing Guidelines For Attorney Representation Of Criminal Defendants At The Sentencing Phase Of Capital Trials, Adam Lamparello
Establishing Guidelines For Attorney Representation Of Criminal Defendants At The Sentencing Phase Of Capital Trials, Adam Lamparello
Maine Law Review
In Strickland v. Washington, the United States Supreme Court issued a seminal holding that single-handedly rendered it nearly impossible for a capital defendant to demonstrate that he was the victim of ineffective assistance of counsel at the underlying trial or at sentencing. Indeed, due in substantial part to the fact that "Strickland was not intended to impose rigorous standards on criminal defense attorneys," the Court found ineffective assistance of counsel in only one case over the next sixteen years. Critically, however, during this time, both state and federal courts bore witness to some of the most horrific examples of death …
State V. Thurston: An Examination Of Assualt, Self-Defense, And Trespass In Relation To Domestic Violence, Megan E. Magoon
State V. Thurston: An Examination Of Assualt, Self-Defense, And Trespass In Relation To Domestic Violence, Megan E. Magoon
Maine Law Review
Darrell Thurston and Suzanne Harmon were romantically involved on an intermittent basis for five years and had one child together. As a result of an altercation that took place at Harmon’s home in Sullivan, Maine, on September 27, 2007, between Thurston and Harmon, Thurston was charged with assault, criminal mischief, and obstructing report of crime or injury. The testimony during the trial illuminated the major factual differences between Thurston’s and Harmon’s accounts of the night the incident took place. Thurston requested a self defense jury instruction based on his version of what had happened, which the trial court ultimately denied. …
Findings Of Fact Vs. Conclusions Of Law: How The Law Court Complicated The Case Of State V. Connor, Christopher S. Boulos
Findings Of Fact Vs. Conclusions Of Law: How The Law Court Complicated The Case Of State V. Connor, Christopher S. Boulos
Maine Law Review
In State v. Connor, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, upheld a trial judge’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence. Although the evidence presented in the suppression hearing seemed adequate to support the denial of the motion, the trial judge failed to clearly state his conclusions of law when denying the motion. However, the Law Court mistook the ambiguous conclusions of law as ambiguous findings of fact. Because the findings of fact were ambiguous in the court’s view, the majority and dissenting opinions spent the bulk of their energies discussing how the court should review …
Too Low A Price: Waiver And The Right To Counsel, Zachary L. Heiden
Too Low A Price: Waiver And The Right To Counsel, Zachary L. Heiden
Maine Law Review
Easy waiver of the right to counsel is at the heart of the problem with inadequate funding for criminal defense counsel for the indigent: without freely granted waiver of the right to counsel, the crisis in funding for indigent defense would, in the short term, be greatly magnified. But, the ready acceptance of the waivability of the right to counsel devalues and diminishes the significance of the assistance of counsel in criminal matters.
Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland, Christopher M. Johnson
Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland, Christopher M. Johnson
Maine Law Review
In 2011, two murder cases involving defendants who professed their innocence came to dramatic conclusions in appellate courts. In Finland in August 2011, the murder prosecution of Anneli Auer ended with her acquittal by an appellate court. In the United States in September 2011, the murder prosecution of Troy Davis ended in his execution in Georgia’s death chamber, despite exculpatory information developed after his trial about the reliability of some eyewitnesses identification evidence. The Finish case arose out if the December 2006 death if Jukka Lahti in Ulvila. His wife, Auer, called the police and claimed that an intruder entered …
"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain
Maine Law Review
Young children are frequently precluded from testifying at trial on the grounds of incompetency because they cannot answer questions about abstract concepts regarding “truth” and “lies.” In this situation, should the child’s earlier, out-of-court statements disclosing the abuse and identifying the abuser also be inadmissible? The stakes are huge. If young children cannot testify, and their out-of-court statements are precluded, they simply become safe prey, unprotected by the judicial system. The pivotal question becomes, are there procedures that can ensure fairness both to children and to their alleged abusers? This article argues that a child’s testimonial incapacity at trial ought …
Adjudicated Juveniles And Collateral Relief, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider
Adjudicated Juveniles And Collateral Relief, Joshua A. Tepfer, Laura H. Nirider
Maine Law Review
Collateral relief is a vital part of the American criminal justice system. By filing post-conviction petitions after the close of direct appeal, defendants can raise claims based on evidence outside the record that was not known or available at the time of trial. One common use of post-conviction relief is to file a claim related to a previously unknown constitutional violation that occurred at trial, such as ineffective assistance of counsel. If a defendant’s trial attorney performed ineffectively by failing to call, for instance, an alibi witness, then that omission is unlikely to be reflected in the trial record—but in …
Commissioning Innocence And Restoring Confidence: The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission And The Missing Deliberative Citizen, Mary Kelly Tate
Commissioning Innocence And Restoring Confidence: The North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission And The Missing Deliberative Citizen, Mary Kelly Tate
Maine Law Review
Since 1989, the United States has witnessed 289 DNA exonerations, with exonerees serving an average of thirteen years in prison. Although DNA an its unmatched power for the conclusive results is what brought popular attention to wrongful convictions, the scope of the problem is vastly larger than the number of known DNA exonerations. The actual number of convicted individuals who are factually innocent is unknown. The state of North Carolina has recently responded to this national crisis via a newly created state agency. This essay applauds North Carolina’s response, but urges that ordinary citizens, qua jurors, be active participants in …
Contingent Compensation Of Post-Conviction Counsel: A Modest Proposal To Identify Meritorious Claims And Reduce Wasteful Government Spending, Christopher T. Robertson
Contingent Compensation Of Post-Conviction Counsel: A Modest Proposal To Identify Meritorious Claims And Reduce Wasteful Government Spending, Christopher T. Robertson
Maine Law Review
It costs about $25,000 a year to pay for the housing, food, medical care, and security for each of the 2.3 million residents of America’s prisons. In a world of limited public budgets, each of these expenditures represents an opportunity cost—a teacher’s aide not hired, a section of road not widened. Local, state, and federal governments pay such incarceration costs, which amount to $75 bullion in the aggregate, while slashing budgets for essential services for the rest of the citizenry including medical care, biomedical research, infrastructure, and educational funding—investments which arguably provide greater returns to taxpayers.
Yikes! Was I Wrong? A Second Look At The Viability Of Monitoring Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, Celestine Richards Mcconville
Yikes! Was I Wrong? A Second Look At The Viability Of Monitoring Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, Celestine Richards Mcconville
Maine Law Review
When Albert Holland’s capital post-conviction counsel filed his state post-conviction motion in September 2002, twelve days remained in the one-year statute of limitations for filing a federal habeas petition. While Holland might not have known exactly how much time was left in the federal limitations period, he knew he wanted to preserve his right to federal review, that the limitations period was tolled during non-discretionary state post-conviction review, and that he would be under the gun to get the federal petition filed once the Florida Supreme Court issued its decisions. And he made no ones about his desire to file …
A Comment On Christopher Johnson's "Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland", Malick W. Ghachem
A Comment On Christopher Johnson's "Post-Trial Judicial Review Of Criminal Convictions: A Comparative Study Of The United States And Finland", Malick W. Ghachem
Maine Law Review
Christopher Johnson has dug deeply into a neglected corner of comparative law and emerged with some fascinating and important contrasts. Finland does not appear often on the radar screen of American legal scholars, even those who primarily focus is comparative law. And so we are indebted to Johnson for reminding us that critical comparative insights can arise out of studying the experiences of nations deemed “marginal” to the international system, and to mainstream comparative law scholarship (which itself occupies a position of uncertain import in American legal scholarship generally). Johnson’s findings are all the more significant because they come from …
Retributive Medication: A Discussion Of A Maine Law Allowing Involuntary, Forcible Medication Of A Pretrial Defendant For The Purpose Of Rendering The Defendant Competent To Stand Trial, Ashley T. Perry
Maine Law Review
Innocent until proven guilty—it’s a phrase we have all heard, know, and accept. But there are circumstances where this simple concept is strained in its application, such as when a legally incompetent defendant is facing trial. After all, how can a defendant be proven guilty if he cannot stand trial? The Supreme Court of the United States has determined that forcibly medicating an incompetent defendant solely to render the defendant competent to stand trial is permissible under the Federal Constitution. However, the Federal Constitution provides only the floor-level of civil rights; states are free to set their own ceilings. The …
Kids Will Be Kids: Time For A "Reasonable Child" Standard For The Proof Of Objective Mens Rea Elements, Christopher M. Northrop, Kristina R. Rozan
Kids Will Be Kids: Time For A "Reasonable Child" Standard For The Proof Of Objective Mens Rea Elements, Christopher M. Northrop, Kristina R. Rozan
Maine Law Review
In a line of recent cases that have rocked the world of juvenile law, the Supreme Court relied on the latest brain science research with the timeless knowledge of parents to state forcefully and repeatedly that children are more impetuous, more vulnerable to outside pressures, less depraved, and less culpable for their actions than adults are. Yet criminal statutes refer to the “reasonable person” standard, which does not take into account the age of the accused as the benchmark for guilt or innocence. In doing so, we hold children to an irrelevant and arguably unfairly demanding behavioral ideal, and criminalize …
What Constitutes "Custody" Under Miranda?: An Examination Of Maine's Test As Applied In State V. Kittredge, Elizabeth L. Tull
What Constitutes "Custody" Under Miranda?: An Examination Of Maine's Test As Applied In State V. Kittredge, Elizabeth L. Tull
Maine Law Review
In recent years, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has issued several opinions addressing whether a defendant’s statements are admissible when made to law enforcement in the absence of “Miranda warnings.” These cases have similar features: a defendant made a personally incriminating statement; raised an appeal arguing that Miranda warnings should have been, but were not, read to him or her; and the Court—in many cases—determined that the defendant was not technically in police custody, and thus there was no requirement to recite Miranda warnings to him or her. Miranda warnings are an important safeguard that …
State V. Lovejoy: Should Pre-Arrest, Pre-Miranda Silence Be Admissible During The State's Case-In-Chief As Substantive Evidence Of Guilt?, Mark A. Rucci
Maine Law Review
Article 1, section 6 of Maine Constitution reads in part that “[t]he accused shall not be compelled to give evidence against himself or herself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, property, or privileges . . . .” Further, the Law Court has held that “the State constitutional protection against self-incrimination is the equivalent of the Fifth Amendment." However, as with most provisions of the Constitution, the protection against self-incrimination is open to interpretation. While the Supreme Court has answered some questions surrounding the Fifth Amendment’s protections, it has left many decisions regarding its scope largely within the purview of the …
Knock And Talk No More, Jamesa J. Drake
Knock And Talk No More, Jamesa J. Drake
Maine Law Review
The Supreme Court has set out a roadmap for challenging one of the most common and insidious police tactics used today: the knock-and-talk. The path is short and clear and it leads to the inescapable conclusion that the knock-and-talk—as it is actually employed in practice—is unconstitutional. Although the Court has yet to squarely consider the issue, some Justices have already taken pains to say, in dictum, that knock-and-talks are lawful. Practitioners should not be dissuaded. What this faction of the Court describes is a highly romanticized—and utterly inaccurate—conception of what a knock-and-talk actually entails. The sort of activity that these …
Common Sense And The Law Of "Voluntary" Confessions: An Essay, John C. Sheldon
Common Sense And The Law Of "Voluntary" Confessions: An Essay, John C. Sheldon
Maine Law Review
By admitting to the police Inspector that he murdered two people, Raskolnikov delivers literature's mist famous criminal confession. The Inspector has done virtually nothing to procure the confession; all he did was tell Raskolnikov that he knows Raskolnikov committed the murder. The marvel of the Crime and Punishment is its exploration of Raskolnikov's relentless, multi-faceted conscience, which alone drives him to admit his guilt. Would Raskolnikov's confession be admissible under Maine law? It depends. Here, from its 2013 decision in State v. Wiley,2 is how the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, states the pertinent law: A …