Law Commons^™

Pregnant And Detained: Constitutional Rights And Remedies For Pregnant Detainees, Natalie Avery Barnaby

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Over the last thirty years, the United States has increasingly expanded what is already the largest immigration detention system in the world. On a daily basis, the U.S. government holds more than 50,000 people in detention as they wait for their immigration hearings or their removal back to their home country. During the past two decades, presidential administrations have enacted regulations to deter immigrants from entering the United States and narrow their ability to stay in the country, leading to an overall increase in detentions.

There is wide documentation of poor detention conditions, inadequate medical care, and overcrowding in immigration …

Regional International Juvenile Incarceration Models As A Blueprint For Rehabilitative Reform Of Juvenile Criminal Justice Systems In The United States, Robert Laird

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Adolescence marks a unique and transformative time in a person’s physical, emotional, and intellectual development and requires special considerations in the realm of criminal justice. This Comment explores how rehabilitative models of criminal justice are better suited than punitive models to recognize and accommodate the intricacies and special factors inherent in juvenile delinquency and uses examples from regional international bodies to illustrate how the United States can adopt measures that align with modern-day neurology and psychiatry. First, this Comment explores the unique characteristics of juvenile offenders as adolescent, semi-autonomous individuals who are more likely to be incompetent to stand trial …

Capital Felony Merger, William M. Berry Iii

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Capital felony murder statutes continue to enable states to sentence criminal defendants to death. These are often individuals who possessed no intent to kill and, in some cases, did not kill. These statutes remain constitutionally dubious under the basic principles of the Eighth Amendment, but the United States Supreme Court’s evolving standards of decency doctrine has proved an ineffective tool to remedy these injustices. This Article proposes a novel doctrinal approach by which the Court could promote more consistent sentencing outcomes in felony murder cases. Specifically, the Article argues for the adoption of a constitutional felony merger doctrine that “merges” …

Missing The Misjoinder Mark: Improving Criminal Joinder Of Offenses In Capital-Sentencing Jurisdictions, Milton J. Hernandez Iv

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In all state and federal jurisdictions in the United States, joinder allows prosecutors to join multiple offenses against a criminal defendant. Joinder pervades the American criminal justice system, and some jurisdictions see joinder in more than half of their cases. Most states and the federal courts use a liberal joinder system where courts may join offenses regardless of their severity or punishment. These systems derive from judicial efficiency arguments, seeking to avoid unnecessary trials and striving to conserve time, money, and other resources. In a liberal joinder regime, the court may force a defendant to prepare for a trial in …

Minding The Gap In Domestic Violence Legislation: Should States Adopt Course Of Conduct Laws?, Teresa Manring

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

In the United States, there is a gap between the way that sociologists, psychologists, legal scholars, and advocates define domestic violence and the way that criminal laws define domestic violence. Experts largely agree: domestic violence occurs when a partner exercises continuous power and control over the other. In this view, domestic violence occurs via a pattern of abusive behaviors that unfolds over time, and its manifestations include both physically-violent and emotionally-abusive behaviors. In contrast, criminal statutes throughout the United States continue to conceptualize domestic violence as single acts of physical violence or threats of physical violence. During the past several …

Toward A More Perfect Trial: Amending Federal Rules Of Evidence 106 And 803 To Complete The Rule Of Completeness, Louisa M. A. Heiny, Emily Nuvan

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

The common law Rule of Completeness was designed to prevent parties from introducing incomplete—and thereby misleading—statements at trial. It ensured fundamental fairness by ensuring that a fact finder heard an entire statement or series of statements if the whole would “complete” the partial evidence presented. It served this important role in Anglo-American jurisprudence for centuries before the drafters of Federal Rule of Evidence 106 attempted to capture its essence in 1975. Unfortunately, what was once a simple and principled rule has been muddled by Federal Rule of Evidence 106 (FRE 106). The common law rule language was lost when FRE …

Don't (Tower) Dump On Freedom Of Association: Protest Surveillance Under The First And Fourth Amendments, Ana Pajar Blinder

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Government surveillance is ubiquitous in the United States and can range from the seemingly innocuous to intensely intrusive. Recently, the surveillance of protestors—such as those protesting against George Floyd’s murder by a police officer—has received widespread attention in the media and in activist circles, but has yet to be successfully challenged in the courts. Tower dumps, the acquisition of location data of cell phones connected to specific cell towers, are controversial law enforcement tools that can be used to identify demonstrators. This Comment argues that the insufficiency of Fourth Amendment protections for protesters being surveilled by government actors—by tactics such …

Breonna Taylor: Transforming A Hashtag Into Defunding The Police, Jordan Martin

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

How can modern policing be reformed to address police violence against Black women when it can occur at no fault of their own and end with a shower of bullets in the middle of the night while within the sanctity of their own home? What is accomplished when her name is said but justice is never achieved? What good does it do when her story is subsequently overshadowed or overlooked by the reform movements that intend to correct racism and sexism respectively? This Comment analyzes both Black women’s vulnerability to police violence and their invisibility in reform movements. First, police …