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Full-Text Articles in Law
Renewing The Vagueness Challenge To Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude, Melissa London
Renewing The Vagueness Challenge To Crimes Involving Moral Turpitude, Melissa London
Washington Law Review
Noncitizens who have been convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” (CIMT) under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) can be deported. However, the INA fails to provide a definition for “moral turpitude” or a list of crimes that necessarily involve “moral turpitude.” As a result, judges are given wide discretion to decide when a crime is morally reprehensible enough to render a noncitizen deportable. This moral determination in the CIMT analysis has led to disparate results among the lower courts, which deprives noncitizens of meaningful notice of what conduct could render them deportable. In 1951, the Supreme Court held …
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah M. Litman, Shakeer Rahman
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah M. Litman, Shakeer Rahman
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay argues that if the Supreme Court grants habeas relief in Beckles v. United States, then it should spell out certain details about where a Beckles claim comes from and who such a claim benefits. Those details are not essential to the main question raised in the case, but the federal habeas statute takes away the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear just about any case that would raise those questions. For that reason, this Essay concludes that failing to address those questions now could arbitrarily condemn hundreds of prisoners to illegal sentences and lead to a situation where the …
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah Litman, Shakeer Rahman
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah Litman, Shakeer Rahman
Articles
This Essay argues that if the Supreme Court grants habeas relief in Beckles v. United States, then it should spell out certain details about where a Beckles claim comes from and who such a claim benefits. Those details are not essential to the main question raised in the case, but the federal habeas statute takes away the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear just about any case that would raise those questions. For that reason, this Essay concludes that failing to address those questions now could arbitrarily condemn hundreds of prisoners to illegal sentences and lead to a situation where the …
How The Sentencing Commission Does And Does Not Matter In Beckles V. United States, Leah Litman, Luke C. Beasley
How The Sentencing Commission Does And Does Not Matter In Beckles V. United States, Leah Litman, Luke C. Beasley
Articles
Two years ago, in Johnson v. United States, the Supreme Court held that the so-called “residual clause” of the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) is unconstitutionally vague. Last spring, the Court made this rule retroactive in Welch v. United States. Then in June, the Court granted certiorari in Beckles v. United States to resolve two questions that have split lower courts in the wake of Johnson and Welch: (1) whether an identically worded “residual clause” in a U.S. Sentencing Guideline—known as the career offender Guideline—is unconstitutionally void for vagueness; and (2) if so, whether the rule invalidating the Guideline’s residual …
The Future Of Confession Law: Toward Rules For The Voluntariness Test, Eve Brensike Primus
The Future Of Confession Law: Toward Rules For The Voluntariness Test, Eve Brensike Primus
Michigan Law Review
Confession law is in a state of collapse. Fifty years ago, three different doctrines imposed constitutional limits on the admissibility of confessions in criminal cases: Miranda doctrine under the Fifth Amendment, Massiah doctrine under the Sixth Amendment, and voluntariness doctrine under the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. But in recent years, the Supreme Court has gutted Miranda and Massiah, effectively leaving suspects with only voluntariness doctrine to protect them during police interrogations. The voluntariness test is a notoriously vague case-by-case standard. In this Article, I argue that if voluntariness is going to be the framework for …
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Residual Impact: Resentencing Implications Of Johnson's Potential Ruling On Acca's Constitutionality, Leah Litman
Articles
In January 2015, the Supreme Court directed the parties to brief and argue an additional question in Johnson v. United States: “Whether the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act of 1984, 18 U.S.C. § 924(e)(2)(B)(ii), is unconstitutionally vague.” The order represents an unusual move because the defendant had not raised the vagueness issue and the Court issued the order after it had already heard argument on the question raised in the petition for certiorari. Commentators therefore view the order as a signal that the Court will likely invalidate the residual clause. This decision will have been several years …
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
Copyright And The Vagueness Doctrine, Bradley E. Abruzzi
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Constitution's void-for-vagueness doctrine is itself vaguely stated. The doctrine does little to describe at what point vague laws-other than those that are entirely standardless-become unconstitutionally vague. Rather than explore this territory, the Supreme Court has identified three collateral factors that affect its inclination to invalidate a law for vagueness: (1) whether the law burdens the exercise of constitutional rights, (2) whether the law is punitive in nature, and (3) whether the law overlays a defendant-protective scienter requirement. Measured against these factors, copyright law does not meet the vagueness doctrine's minimum requirement of fair notice to the public. Copyright, by …