Law Commons^™

Two Truths And A Lie: Stories At The Juncture Of Teen Sex And The Law, Michelle Oberman

Faculty Publications

Laws governing adolescent sexuality are incoherent and chaotically enforced, and legal scholarship on the subject neither addresses nor remedies adolescents’ vulnerability in sexual encounters. To posit a meaningful relationship between the criminal law and adolescent sexual encounters, one must examine what we know about adolescent sexuality from both the academic literature and the adults who control the criminal justice response to such interactions. This article presents an in-depth study of In re John Z., a 2003 rape prosecution involving two seventeen-year-olds. Using this case, I explore the implications of the prosecution by interviewing a variety of experts and analyzing the …

Overcharging, Kyle Graham

Faculty Publications

The prosecutors in several recent high-profile criminal cases have been accused of “overcharging” their quarry. These complaints have implied — and sometimes expressly asserted — that by “overcharging,” the prosecutors engaged in socially undesirable, illegitimate, and even corrupt behavior. United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia also weighed in on the “overcharging” phenomenon not long ago, describing this practice as a predictable though regrettable aspect of modern plea bargaining.

Unfortunately, many of these commentators either have failed to explain precisely what they meant by “overcharging,” or have used the same word to describe different types of charging practices. The various …

Implied Fortitude: California's Defense Of Duress, Russell Stephan Kerr

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Asymmetry Of Ronald Dworkin's Rights Thesis In Criminal Cases: A Troublesome Exception, H. Scott Fairley

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mistreating A Symptom: The Legitimizing Of Mandatory, Indefinite Commitment Of Insanity Acquittees - Jones V. United States, Paul S. Avilla

Pepperdine Law Review

At the end of the 1982 term, in Jones v. United States, the United States Supreme Court upheld a District of Columbia statute requiring the automatic and indefinite commitment of persons acquitted by reason of insanity. While under the D.C. statute the acquittee is periodically given the opportunity to gain release, the practice of involuntarily confining someone who has been acquitted raises serious due process and equal protection issues. This note examines the Court's analysis of these issues, focusing on a comparison of the elements necessary for an insanity defense with the showing required by the due process clause for …

Simplifying Federal Criminal Laws , Robert H. Joost

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Boiler Room Fraud: An Operational Plan Utilizing The Injunction Against Fraud Pursuant To 18 U.S.C. §1345 , Robert M. Twiss

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Thompson V. Oklahoma: Debating The Constitutionality Of Juvenile Executions, Susan M. Simmons

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Coy V. Iowa: A Constitutional Right Of Intimidation, John A. Mayers

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Sentencing Reform Act After Mistretta V. United States, Charles R. Eskridge Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

More Than A "Quick Glimpse Of The Life": The Relationship Between Victim Impact Evidence And Death Sentencing, Jerome E. Deise, Raymond Paternoster

Faculty Scholarship

In striking down the use of victim impact evidence (VIE) during the penalty phase of a capital trial, the Supreme Court in Booth v. Maryland and South Carolina v. Gathers argued that such testimony would appeal to the emotions of jurors with the consequence that death sentences would not be based upon a reasoned consideration of the blameworthiness of the offender. After a change in personnel, the Court overturned both decisions in Payne v. Tennessee, decided just two years after Gathers. The majority in Payne were decidedly less concerned with the emotional appeal of VIE, arguing that it would only …

Mens Rea In Minnesota And The Model Penal Code, Ted Sampsell-Jones

Symposium: 50th Anniversary of the Minnesota Criminal Code-Looking Back and Looking Forward

When Minnesota engaged in the great reform and recodification effort that led to the Criminal Code of 1963, it was part of a nationwide reform movement. That movement was spurred in large part by the American Law Institute and its Model Penal Code. The Minnesota drafters were influenced by the MPC, and at least in some areas, adopted MPC recommendations.

The MPC’s most significant innovation was in the law of mens rea—the body of law concerning the mental state or “guilty mind” necessary for criminal liability. The MPC drafters recognized that the common law of mens rea was fundamentally incoherent …

Teaching The Carceral Crisis: An Ethical And Pedagogical Imperative, Taja-Nia Y. Henderson

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

"Teaching the Carceral Crisis: An Ethical and Pedagogical Imperative," demonstrates that although mass incarceration and mass conviction has increased in the United States, law school curricula has continued to lack any substantive discussion on these issues. The article highlights the need for law schools to improve their current curricula in order to prevent further stigmatization of criminal offenders and the continued increase of incarceration rates.

Beyond “Life And Liberty”: The Evolving Right To Counsel, John D. King

Scholarly Articles

The majority of Americans, if they have contact with the criminal justice system at all, will experience it through misdemeanor courtrooms. More than ever before, the criminal justice system is used to sort, justify, and reify a separate underclass. And as the system of misdemeanor adjudication continues to be flooded with new cases, the value that is exalted over all others is efficiency. The result is a system that can make it virtually painless to plead guilty (which has always been true for low-level offenses), but that is now overlaid with a new system of increasingly harsh collateral consequences. The …

Ham Sandwich Nation: Due Process When Everything Is A Crime, Glenn Harlan Reynolds

Scholarly Works

Though extensive due process protections apply to the investigation of crimes, and to criminal trials, perhaps the most important part of the criminal process -- the decision whether to charge a defendant, and with what -- is almost entirely discretionary. Given the plethora of criminal laws and regulations in today's society, this due process gap allows prosecutors to charge almost anyone they take a deep interest in. This Essay discusses the problem in the context of recent prosecutorial controversies involving the cases of Aaron Swartz and David Gregory, and offers some suggested remedies, along with a call for further discussion.

Understanding Immigration: Satisfying Padilla's New Definition Of Competence In Legal Representation, Yolanda Vazquez

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Panel Discussion on Padilla v. Kentucky.

The Marshall Hypothesis And The Rise Of Anti-Death Penalty Judges, Dwight Aarons

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Mens Rea Of The Crime Of Aggression, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

This article, written in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the International Criminal Court (ICC), explores the mens rea of the crime of aggression. The definition and jurisdictional conditions of the crime of aggression was recently incorporated into the ICC’s Rome Statute, thereby reviving a crime used during the Nuremberg trials to prosecute Nazi leaders after World War II. Mens rea is an important, even central, consideration when judging whether a defendant has satisfied all of the elements of the crime of aggression.

The starting point for this exploration of the mens rea of the crime of aggression is its …

Regression To The Mean: How Miranda Has Become A Tragicomical Farce, Alfredo Garcia

St. Thomas Law Review

In my original article, I examined Miranda's historical and social background, discussed its precursors, traced the evolution of the case, and documented the dismantling of the Miranda doctrine. I also argued that the doctrine's "seductive appeal" lulled defense counsel into a false sense of security, thereby deflecting reliance on the "voluntariness" standard as a failsafe to Miranda. Further, I maintained that a waiver of Miranda in some instances served to sanitize an otherwise involuntary confession. Finally, I proposed to "do away" with Miranda, to return to the voluntariness standard with one caveat: that the government be precluded from relying on …

The Dilemma Of Piratical Ransoms: Should They Be Paid Or Not: On The Human Rights Of Kidnapped Seamen And Their Families, Barry H. Dubner, Kimberly Chavers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Making The Fair Sentencing Act Retroactive: Just Think Of The Savings . . . Clause, Jeff Lazarus

Cleveland State Law Review

This article advocates for the retroactive application of the Fair Sentencing Act. Part II of this Article will detail the history of the federal crack cocaine sentencing laws, from 1986 through the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act. Part III will detail the recent cases dealing with attempts at retroactivity in the lower courts. Part IV outlines the Supreme Court’s holding in United States v. Dorsey, which was a ground-breaking step towards the FSA’s retroactive effect. Part V offers arguments in support of retroactivity. Part VI offers legal challenges in which inmates can seek relief in the courts. In Part …

Junk Science And The Execution Of An Innocent Man, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

Cameron Todd Willingham was tried and executed for the arson deaths of his three little girls. The expert testimony offered against him to establish arson was junk science.

The case has since become infamous, the subject of an award-winning New Yorker article, numerous newspaper accounts, and several television shows. It also became enmeshed in the death penalty debate and the reelection of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who refused to grant a stay of execution after a noted arson expert submitted a report debunking the “science” offered at Willingham’s trial. The governor then attempted to derail an investigation by the Texas …

Law, Language, Crime, And Culture: The Value And Risks Of Comparative Law, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

Words, language, culture, and literature are so important to us human beings that it should come as little surprise that they are part of our law. This article considers language and law in general with a focus on issues of criminal justice, both domestic and international. I examine how and why comparative law is valuable in a criminal procedure course, and generally for domestic and international criminal justice. My examination begins by looking back to our common roots in crime, punishment, and expiation, with a special focus on the role of torture and its impact on current criminal justice systems. …

Freeing Morgan Freeman: Expanding Back-End Release Authority In American Prisons, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This article, written for a symposium hosted by the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy on “Finality in Sentencing,” makes four arguments, three general and one specific. First, the United States incarcerates too many people for too long, and mechanisms for making prison sentences less “final” will allow the U.S. to make those sentences shorter, thus reducing the prison population surplus. Second, even if one is agnostic about the overall size of the American prison population, it is difficult to deny that least some appreciable fraction of current inmates are serving more time than can reasonably be justified on …

Defunding State Prisons, W. David Ball

Faculty Publications

Local agencies drive criminal justice policy, but states pick up the tab for policy choices that result in state imprisonment. This distorts local policies and may actually contribute to increased state prison populations, since prison is effectively “free” to the local decisionmakers who send inmates there. This Article looks directly at the source of the “correctional free lunch” problem and proposes to end state funding for prisons. States would, instead, reallocate money spent on prisons to localities to use as they see fit — on enforcement, treatment, or even per-capita prison usage. This would allow localities to retain their decision-making …

Maryland V. King: Terry V. Ohio Redux, Tracey Maclin

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Maryland v. King, the Supreme Court addressed whether forensic testing of DNA samples taken from persons arrested for violent felonies violated the Fourth Amendment. The purpose behind DNA testing laws is obvious: collecting and analyzing DNA samples advances the capacity of law enforcement to solve both "cold cases" and future crimes when the government has evidence of the perpetrator's DNA from the crime scene. In a 5-4 decision, the Court, in an opinion by Justice Kennedy, upheld Maryland's DNA testing statute, and presumably the similar laws of twenty-seven other states and the federal government. Although Justice Kennedy's opinion suggests …

Fifty State Survey Of Criminal Laws Prohibiting Sexual Abuse Of Individuals In Custody, Brenda V. Smith

The Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Surveys

This document provides information regarding enacting state, statute number, statute title, coverage, definition and notes, penalties, and defenses (if given) for criminal laws prohibiting sexual abuse of inmates by staff.

Shame: A Different Criminal Law Proposal For Bullies, Xiyin Tang

Cleveland State Law Review

Public concern over bullying has reached an all-time high. The absence of a sensible criminal charging and sentencing regime for the problem recently reared its head in the highly publicized prosecution of Dharun Ravi, who was convicted of fifteen counts and faced the possibility of ten years in prison. This Essay argues that existing criminal statutes used to address the problem, like bias intimidation and invasion of privacy, do not fit neatly with the specific wrongs of bullying. However, recently-enacted “cyber bullying” laws, which give complete discretion to school administrators, are weak and ineffective. I propose another solution: first, to …

The Loeb And Leopold Trial, Daniel Hanson

A with Honors Projects

In 1924, Nathan Leopold, Jr., and Richard Loeb, two privileged and intelligent students from the University of Chicago, initiated a plan to kidnap and hold for ransom a boy from a wealthy neighboring family, all the while intending to kill him. The sensational trial that followed, in which Clarence Darrow delivered a 12-hour closing argument for life imprisonment rather than the death penalty, would have implications far broader than the crime itself. This trial became the focus of the nascent culture war brewing in the 1920’s, a culture war that pitted radically different philosophies against each other in a battle …

The Rise And Fall Of Duress (Or How Duress Changed Necessity Before Being Excluded By Self-Defence), Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Supreme Court of Canada decision in R. v. Ryan significantly reshaped both the common law and statutory defenses of duress, harmonizing them and, in the case of the common law defense, fully articulating it for the first time. The decision is admirable for that reason. This paper argues that two further results can also be seen. First, the defense of necessity is a common law one which is conceptually similar to duress. The Court's reasoning at a policy level about duress ought therefore to be applicable to necessity: this paper traces the ways in which that latter defense ought …