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Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Criminal Law-Confessions-- Government Can Satisfy Its Burden of Proving Waiver of Miranda Rights By Showing Warnings Given, Signed Waiver, and Proof of Defendant's Capacity to Understand the Warnings

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Criminal Procedure--Grand Jury-Attorney Work Product Consisting of Written Summaries and Personal Recollections of Interviews Is Privileged Against Disclosure at Federal Grand Jury Investigations

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Public Employees --Freedom of Association-Discharge of Non-policy-making Public Employees on Ground of Political Affiliation Infringes Employees' Freedom of Association

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Torts--Wrongful Death-Common--Law Cause of Action for Wrongful Death Exists Under Massachusetts Law

Covert Contingencies In The Right To The Assistance Of Counsel, Abraham S. Blumberg

Vanderbilt Law Review

On the basis of a sociological survey showing that a very large percentage of guilty pleas are induced by defense counsel, Professor Blumberg concludes that criminal justice is not structured on the adversary model which the Supreme Court's right to counsel decisions presuppose. He submits that the primary loyalty of defense counsel is to the criminal court "system," the informal organization of court officials on which they depend for their professional existence. He suggests further that the additional attorneys which will be required to implement the right to counsel decisions will simply serve to make the"system" more efficient in utilizing …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1964 Tennessee Survey, Graham Parker, Robert E. Kendrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

The substantive criminal law receives little attention from the Tennessee appellate courts. No doubt this observation would be equally true of most jurisdictions. To one who received his legal training in a common law system of criminal law and who yet has had some experience with Canada's federal code of criminal law, the emphasis on criminal procedure is surprising. Does this mean that the state codes of substantive law have reached such heights of perfection and expertise that the efforts of the Model Penal Code draftsmen are unnecessary or, at best, academic? It is unlikely. The position rather reflects a …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1963 Tennessee Survey, Robert E. Kendrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

1. Homicide. A number of years ago the Tennessee Supreme Court adopted the common law principle that one is justified in taking life in defense of his habitation when actually or apparently necessary to repel an attempt by another to enter forcibly or violently under circumstances creating a reasonable apprehension that the assailant's design is imminently to commit a felony therein or to assault or offer personal violence or inflict personal injury on an inmate so that there are reasonable grounds for concluding that life is endangered or great bodily harm is threatened thereby.'

Flippen v. State, a homicide case, …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1960 Tennessee Survey, Robert E. Kendrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

Offenses against the person-(a) Homicide: Parties.-Because of an asserted lack of intention to commit homicide, two persons asked the state supreme court in Eager v. State to reverse their convictions of involuntary manslaughter for allegedly, while intoxicated, killing a pedestrian with an automobile driven by one and directed and aided by the other. In affirming, it would have been enough to dispose of this contention to invoke the statutory provision that "manslaughter is the unlawful killing of another without malice, either express or implied, which may be... involuntary, but in the commission of some unlawful act,"' to call attention to …

Criminal Law And Procedure--1959 Tennessee Survey, Robert E. Kendrick

Vanderbilt Law Review

Conspiracy--Cline v. State was an appeal from a conviction of a conspiracy to dynamite and destroy a public school building in Clinton, Tennessee, in violation of a statute making it a felony for two or more persons to agree "to commit an illegal act capable of producing conditions destructive to life or property.. ." by possessing, transporting or using explosives. Three men, D1, D2 and D3, had been indicated; but, before defendants were put to trial, the state entered a "nolle prosequi" against D1, who became a state's witness. Afterwards, D2 was acquitted in the same trial in which D3, …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1957 Tennessee Survey, James B. Earle

Vanderbilt Law Review

Homicide: The statutory requirement that a killing be "willful; deliberate, malicious, and premeditated" for a finding of murder in the first degree is not applicable to a killing committed while in the perpetration of one of the felonies listed in the statute. This question arose in Farmer v. State, in which it appeared that the killing resulted from the setting on fire of a dwelling, i.e. arson, by the defendant. It was urged on appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court that there was no proof of felonious homicide because there was no showing of an intent to kill nor even …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Austin W. Scott Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Homicide: In Ivy v. State' the defendant, in the course of a fight with A, stabbed B, a peacemaker, killing him. The defendant appealed his conviction of involuntary manslaughter on the theory that the evidence did not support the verdict, since it showed that the defendant was striking at A in self-defense when he unfortunately stabbed B. The court held that the jury could properly find on the evidence either that (1) the defendant, not A, was the aggressor, or (2) even if A were the aggressor, defendant was not in imminent danger or reasonably supposed danger of death or …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1954 Tennessee Survey, Clyde L. Ball

Vanderbilt Law Review

Most of the criminal law cases in the Tennessee courts during the past year have dealt with matters of procedure. The basic principles derived from these cases are treated in the Procedure and Evidence article of this 1954 Survey.' However, those cases of especial interest and significance will be considered here in somewhat greater detail. In addition to procedural matters there were a few cases which turned on concepts basic in the substantive law of crimes.

Substantive Law

Homicide: Tennessee has enunciated and followed a rule which states that driving an automobile while intoxicated is an act malum in se, …

The Background Of The Uniform Code Of Military Justice, Edmund M. Morgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

The Articles of War and the Articles for the Government of the Navy have always constituted the code of criminal law and criminal procedure for the Armed Forces. In contrast to the law governing civilians, the punishments imposable are not specified in the Code but are left to be fixed by the military authorities, except that the later codes do not authorize punishment by death save for specifically designated offenses. The system also provides for summary punishment for minor infractions and a series of courts--a general court having power to try all offenses, a special court with limited power to …