Law Commons^™

Immigrant Victims, Immigrant Accusers, Michael Kagan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The U visa program provides immigration status to noncitizen victims of crime, ensuring unauthorized immigrants do not become easy prey because they are too afraid to seek help from the police. But under the federal government’s structuring of the U visa program, a victim must also become an accuser to receive immigration benefits. Thus, the U visa implicates the rights of third parties: accused defendants. These defendants are often immigrants themselves who may be deported when U visa recipients level their accusations. Recent state court decisions have created complications in the program by permitting defendants to cross-examine accusers about their …

Systemic Lying, Julia Simon-Kerr

William & Mary Law Review

This Article offers the foundational account of systemic lying from a definitional and theoretical perspective. Systemic lying involves the cooperation of multiple actors in the legal system who lie or violate their oaths across cases for a consistent reason that is linked to their conception of justice. It becomes a functioning mechanism within the legal system and changes the operation of the law as written. By identifying systemic lying, this Article challenges the assumption that all lying in the legal system is the same. It argues that systemic lying poses a particular threat to the legal system. This means that …

Hiding The Elephant: How The Psychological Techniques Of Magicians Can Be Used To Manipulate Witnesses At Trial, Sydney A. Beckman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Child Quasi-Witness, Richard D. Friedman, Stephen J. Ceci

Articles

This Essay provides a solution to the conundrum of statements made by very young children and offered against an accused in a criminal prosecution. Currently prevailing doctrine allows one of three basic outcomes. First, in some cases the child testifies at trial. But this is not always feasible, and when it is, cross-examination is a poor method for determining the truth. Second, evidence of the child's statement may be excluded, which denies the adjudicative process of potentially valuable information. Third, the evidence may be admitted without the child testifying at trial, which leaves the accused with no practical ability to …

Diagnosis Dangerous: Why State Licensing Boards Should Step In To Prevent Mental Health Practitioners From Speculating Beyond The Scope Of Professional Standards, Jennifer S. Bard

Utah Law Review

This Article reviews the use of mental health experts to provide testimony on the future dangerousness of individuals who have already been convicted of a crime that qualifies them for the death penalty. Although this practice is common in many states that still retain the death penalty, it most frequently occurs in Texas because of a statute that makes it mandatory for juries to determine the future dangerousness of the defendant they have just found guilty. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have protested the use of mental health professionals in this setting because there are …

What About The Victims? Domestic Violence, Hearsay, And The Confrontation Clause In The Aftermath Of Davis V. Washington, Stacey Gauthier

University of Massachusetts Law Review

This article analyzes the Sixth Amendment right to confrontation, admission of hearsay statements, and the effect of the Davis decision on the prosecution of domestic violence cases. Part II discusses the history of the Confrontation Clause. Part III discusses hearsay prior to Crawford. Parts IV, V, and VI discuss the landmark cases Crawford v. Washington, Commonwealth v. Gonsalves, and Davis v. Washington, respectively, with regard to whether statements made to police are admissible when the declarant is not available to testify at trial. The reasons why the Supreme Court’s extension of the Confrontation Clause is unwarranted are contained …

Shellfish Contamination: Reducing The Necessity For Scientific Evidence In Natural Resource Damages Under The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, And Liability Act, Matthew J. Koes

University of Massachusetts Law Review

It is indisputable that shellfish contamination creates a negative impact on the economy, poses a serious risk to human health, and has a harmful effect on the fragile coastal ecosystems. However, the litigation designed to redress the harmful effects of shellfish contamination produces uncounted difficulties. Although a general public policy of preventing pollution has led Congress to enact and revise CERCLA, the application of such a statute has proven to be uncertain due to the enormous amount of discretion given to the trial courts in deciding admissibility of scientific evidence and testimony of experts. A CERLA natural resource damage action …

Introduction, Miriam F. Miquelon-Weismann

University of Massachusetts Law Review

Legal educators increasingly use the classroom to import expertise from scientists and social scientists to better prepare law students to engage in specialized and collaborative fields of practice. Indeed, this project grew out of a paper course on Scientific Evidence in Civil and Criminal Cases offered during the spring 2006 semester at the law school. Students heard from accident reconstruction experts, DNA scientists, forensic pathologist and medical malpractice experts. In February 2006, Dr. Aaron Lazare, Dean and Chancellor at the University of Massachusetts, addressed the law school on a cutting-edge legal theory from his recently published book, “On Apology.” Stimulated …

Jack Weinstein And The Missing Pieces Of The Hearsay Puzzle, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

For the first three quarters of the twentieth century, the Wigmore treatise was the dominant force in organizing, setting out, and explaining the American law of evidence. Since then, the first two of those roles have been taken over in large part by the Federal Rules of Evidence (Rules). And the third has been performed most notably by the Weinstein treatise. Judge Jack Weinstein was present at the creation of the Rules and before. Though he first made his name in Civil Procedure, while still a young man he joined two of the stalwarts of evidence law, Edmund Morgan and …

Court Of Appeals Of New York, Courtroom Television Network, Llc V. New York, Courtney Weinberger

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Supreme Court, Bronx County, People V. Paul, Adam D'Antonio

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Virginia's Gap Between Punishment And Culpability: Re-Examining Self-Defense Law And Battered Women's Syndrome, Kendall Hamilton

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The President’S Plan Respecting The Supreme Court, Ignatius M. Wilkinson

Fordham Law Review

To commemorate our founding in 1914, the Board of Editors has selected six influential pieces published by the Law Review over the past 100 years and will republish one piece in each issue.

The second piece selected by the Board is the testimony of Ignatius M. Wilkinson, the fourth and longest-serving dean of Fordham Law School (1923–1954), to the Judicial Committee of the U.S. Senate. Speaking to the Committee on the Judiciary, Wilkinson criticized the Franklin D. Roosevelt Judiciary Reorganization Bill of 1937 because it would “undermine the independence of the courts” and “shake[] the foundations of our constitutional structure.” …

The (Un?)Constitutionality Of Compelling Non-Immunized Testimony In Deceptive Trade Practices Investigations Conducted By The Attorney General Of The State Of Arkansas, Terrence Cain

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reducing Court-Related Stress Through Court Education: Examining Child Witnesses, Attorneys And Parents, Brittnie Turquoise Watkins

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Court education presents a useful approach to addressing children's stress, anxiety or fear related to testifying. The current study uses a pretest-posttest design to evaluate whether Kids' Court School (KCS), a court education program in Clark County, Nevada, reduces court-related stress in child witnesses. In addition, attorneys' and parents' concerns related to various elements of the child's impending testimony, are evaluated. The measure used to assess stress was the Court-Related Stress Scale (CRSS), a 10-item Likert scale adapted from the Stressfulness of Life Scale. In addition, open-ended questions were posed at the time of posttest. The CRSS was administered to …

Supreme Court, New York County, Hughes V. Farrey, Eric Pack

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Reliability Of Eyewitness Testimony, Nathan Roberts

Senior Honors Theses

As perhaps the single most effective method of proving the elements of a crime, eyewitness testimony has been vital to the trial process for centuries. However, the reliability of eyewitness testimony has recently come into question with the work of organizations such as The Innocence Project, which works to exonerate the wrongfully convicted. This thesis examines previous experiments concerning eyewitness testimony as well as court cases in which eyewitnesses provided vital evidence in order to determine the reliability of eyewitness testimony as well as to determine mitigating or exacerbating factors contributing to a lack of reliability.

Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Felony sentencing courts have discretion to increase punishment based on un-cross-examined testimonial statements about several categories of uncharged, dismissed, or otherwise unproven criminal conduct. Denying defendants an opportunity to cross-examine these categories of sentencing evidence undermines a core principle of natural law as adopted in the Sixth Amendment: those accused of felony crimes have the right to confront adversarial witnesses. This Article contributes to the scholarship surrounding confrontation rights at felony sentencing by cautioning against continued adherence to the most historic Supreme Court case on this issue, Williams v. New York. This Article does so for reasons beyond the unacknowledged …

Postadjudicatory Juvenile Defense Attorneys: More Thoughts On Reimaging Juvenile Justice, Megan F. Chaney

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sweet Caroline: The Backslide From Federal Rule Of Evidence 613(B) To The Rule In Queen Caroline's Case, Katharine T. Schaffzin

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Since 1975, Rule 613(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence has governed the admission of extrinsic evidence of a prior inconsistent statement in federal court. Rule 613(b) requires the proponent of the prior inconsistent statement to provide the declarant an opportunity to explain or deny it. There is no requirement that the proponent provide that opportunity at any particular time or in any particular sequence. Rule 613 reflected a change from the common law that had fallen out of fashion in the federal courts. That common law rule, known as the Rule in Queen Caroline’s Case, required the proponent of …

The Mold That Shapes Hearsay Law, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

In response to an article previously published in the Florida Law Review by Professor Ben Trachtenberg, I argue that the historical thesis of Crawford v. Washington is basically correct: The Confrontation Clause of the Sixth Amendment reflects a principle about how witnesses should give testimony, and it does not create any broader constraint on the use of hearsay. I argue that this is an appropriate limit on the Clause, and that in fact for the most part there is no good reason to exclude nontestimonial hearsay if live testimony by the declarant to the same proposition would be admissible. I …

Expert Mining And Required Disclosure, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Limits Of Textualism In Interpreting The Confrontation Clause, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Some Thoughts On The Fundamentals Of An Evidence Code From The U.S. American Perspective, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In the U.S. American trial system proof mainly consists of live witnesses presented in open court under oath before the judge, jury, and parties, subject to perjury laws. Cross-examination of the witnesses in that setting is the principal (though not the only) form of testing their reliability. It is for these reasons that we have a rule against hearsay (second-hand reporting in court of what someone has said outside of court).

Adaptation And The Courtroom: Judging Climate Science, Kirsten Engel, Jonathan Overpeck

Michigan Journal of Environmental & Administrative Law

Climate science is increasingly showing up in courtroom disputes over the duty to adapt to climate change. While judges play a critical role in evaluating scientific evidence, they are not apt to be familiar with the basic methods of climate science nor with the role played by peer review, publication, and training of climate scientists. This Article is an attempt to educate the bench and the bar on the basics of the discipline of climate science, which we contend is a distinct scientific discipline. We propose a series of principles to guide a judge’s evaluation of the reliability and weight …

Testifying Minors: Pre-Trial Strategies To Reduce Anxiety In Child Witnesses, Dawn Hathaway Thoman

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Ringers Revisited, Richard H. Underwood

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

In this short essay, Professor Underwood addresses an important development in the law dealing with eyewitness testimony and the New Jersey case of State v. Henderson. He gets at the subject by looking back to a 1950s television play starring fellow Kentucky resident, William Shatner. However, in this particular instance, William Shatner would not change the world.

The Admissibility Of Hypnotically Enhanced Testimony In Criminal Trials, Gary Shaw

Gary M. Shaw

No abstract provided.

The Military Trial At Rennes: Text And Subtext Of The Dreyfus Affair, Vivian G. Curran

Touro Law Review

Discusses the Dreyfus affair and how the outside world viewed France's conduct. This article provides insight into how the trial was conducted and the evidence that was offered.

Boyd Briefs - April 2013, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School Of Law

Boyd Briefs / Road Scholars

Boyd Briefs provides monthly information regarding the scholarly and other activities of the faculty of the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.