Courts Commons^™

The Politics Of Crime And The Threat To Judicial Independence, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

American Servicemembers' Protection Act Of 2002, Lilian V. Faulhaber

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

On July 1, 2002, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court ("ICC") entered into force, establishing the first permanent international criminal tribunal. Although seventy-six countries had ratified the Rome Statute by that date, the United States was not among them. Instead, Congress responded to the creation of the ICC by passing a bill sponsored by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) that Republican legislators had been trying to get through the House and Senate for several years. On August 2, 2002, the American Servicemembers' Protection Act of 2002 ("ASPA") became law. The Act was designed to prevent United States …

Judging Global Justice: Assessing The International Criminal Court, Diane Orentlicher

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Statutory Inflation And Institutional Choice, Lawrence Solan

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Problem-Solving Courts: From Innovation To Institutionalization, Michael C. Dorf, Jeffrey A. Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

The phenomenal growth of drug courts and other forms of "problem-solving" courts has followed a pattern that is characteristic of many successful innovations: An individual or small group has or stumbles upon a new idea; the idea is put into practice and appears to work; a small number of other actors adopt the innovation and have similar experiences; if there is great demand for the innovation – for example, because it responds to a widely-perceived crisis or satisfies an institutional need and resolves tensions within organizations that adopt it – the innovation rapidly diffuses through the networks in which the …

Engaging With The State: The Growing Reliance On Lawyers And Judges To Protect Battered Women, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

The passage of the federal Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (“VAWA II”) marked an important milestone in the evolution of the domestic violence movement. VAWA II created, among other things, a complex system for state and federal funding in all fifty states to provide civil legal assistance to battered women. Its passage completed a process that began in the early 1980s when domestic violence advocates shifted their focus from grass roots efforts to help battered women and their children leave abusive partners to building alliances with government and advocating for legal remedies to assist battered women. This paper looks …

Unprincipled Punishment: The U.S. Sentencing Commission's Troubling Silence About The Purposes Of Punishment, Aaron J. Rappaport

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Criminal Defenders And Community Justice: The Drug Court Example, William H. Simon

Faculty Scholarship

The Community Justice idea and its core institution – the Community Court – is an ambitious innovation intended to generate new solutions and practices. It thus inevitably calls for adaptation of the established roles associated with the court system, and especially the criminal justice system. It asks practitioners to learn new skills, to accept new conventions, and to participate in the elaboration of a rapidly evolving experiment.

It is thus not surprising that many lawyers are anxious about the system. It remains an interesting question, however, whether their anxiety represents something more than the discomfort that change and challenge typically …

Dialectic And Revolution: Confronting Kelsen And Gadamer On Legal Interpretation, Hans Lindahl

Cardozo Law Review

This paper examines the general structure and conditions of legal interpretation that arise from confronting Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics with a determinate conception of legal interpretation suggested by Kelsen's Pure Theory of Law. The Gadamerian question, "What defines legal interpretation as interpretation?", suggests that Kelsen's reference to legal norms as "schemes of interpretation" must be radicalized: a hermeneutic circularity or dialectic is at work in the law, such that the legal interpretation of reality also changes, to a lesser or greater extent, the principle of interpretation - the legal norm. The Kelsenian question, "What defines interpretation as legal interpretation?", suggests …

The Evolution Of The United Nations Position On Terrorism: From Exempting National Liberation Movements To Criminalizing Terrorism Wherever And By Whomever Committed, Malvina Halberstam

Articles

No abstract provided.

Constitutional Dignity And The Criminal Law, James E. Baker

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Criminal law is important because it helps to define who we are as a constitutional democracy. There is much that distinguishes our form of government from others, but certainly much of that distinction is found in the Bill of Rights and in two simple words: due process. All of which help to affirm the value and sanctity of the individual in our society. Broadly then, criminal law helps to define who we are as a nation that values both order and liberty.

That is what many of the greatest judicial debates are about, like those involving Holmes, Hand, Jackson, and …

Productive Silence On Carl Schmitt: Constrained Ignorance Or Concluded Reappraisal? A Reply To Detlev F. Vagts, Carl Schmitt In Context: Reflections On A Symposium, Emanuel Richter

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Uncertain Risk: The United States Military And The International Criminal Court, Christopher M. Van De Kieft

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Linguist On The Witness Stand: Forensic Linguistics In American Courts, Lawrence Solan, Peter Tiersma

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Privileges And Immunities Of The International Criminal Court: Are They Sufficient For The Proper Functioning Of The Court Or Is There Still Room For Improvement, Stuart Beresford

San Diego International Law Journal

[T]o determine whether the ICC has the privileges and immunities necessary to ensure the proper functioning of the organization, this Article will first discuss the historical development of privileges and immunities for international organizations, including the legal foundation of the privileges and immunities of the Court. It will then examine the privileges and immunities of the organization as a legal entity, before turning to the privileges and immunities accorded to the various categories of individuals who have to attend the institution in an official capacity. Lastly, because a number of other categories of individuals play an essential role in the …

Do Attorneys Really Matter? The Empirical And Legal Case For The Right Of Counsel At Bail, Douglas L. Colbert, Ray Paternoster, Shawn Bushway

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Juries, Drug Laws & Sentencing (Symposium), Nancy S. Marder

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Federal Guilty Pleas Under Rule 11: The Unfilled Promise Of The Post-Boykin Era, Julian A. Cook

Scholarly Works

Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure governs perhaps the most essential and common practice in the federal criminal justice system--the guilty plea. Despite the public's focus on the excitement and drama engendered by real and fictional criminal trials, the overwhelming majority of criminal matters reach a negotiated resolution. Indeed, the importance of the guilty plea to the judiciary, prosecutors, and even defense attorneys cannot be overstated. Without guilty pleas, the criminal justice system would malfunction; the system is simply incapable of accommodating the constitutional exercise of a defendant's trial right in each instance.

The federal plea process …

International Criminal Courts And Fair Trials: Difficulties And Prospects, Jacob Katz Cogan

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

The question "Can international criminal courts provide defendants with fair trials?" is one that has barely been posed, let alone answered. The realm of international criminal justice is distinguished from domestic criminal justice not simply because accountability and sovereignty weigh heavier in this context, but also because of the absence of an effective counterweight to check these interests. One approach to the fair trial issue focuses on the rights delineated in the tribunals' statutes, rules of procedure and evidence, and case law. A second approach to the problem of fair trials asks, instead, whether these international courts have the independence …

Mitigation Evidence And Capital Cases In Washington: Proposals For Change, Mary Pat Treuthart, Anne Branstad, Matthew Kite

Seattle University Law Review

Part II of this article examines the United States Supreme Court's recognition of the importance of mitigation evidence in capital cases. Part III then focuses on the role of mitigation evidence in Washington's death penalty scheme. The following section, Part IV, addresses the public policy implications when mitigation evidence is not presented. Finally, Part V proposes changes to the current sentencing procedure in Washington involving capital crimes.

One Small Step For Women: Female-Friendly Provisions In The Rome Statute Of The International Criminal Court, Rana R. Lehr-Lehnardt

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

A Community Of Courts: Toward A System Of International Criminal Law Enforcement, William W. Burke-White

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article argues that, for political reasons, the future of international criminal law enforcement will largely be at the domestic level. It anticipates the emergence of a community of courts-domestic, semi-internationalized, and supranational. A decentralized system of international criminal law enforcement may give pause for concern: How can such a system be regulated? How can uniformity and effectiveness be assured? It is the claim of this Article that, in a world in which information is power, the relationships between these courts-the exchange of information, ideas, and personnel-brings order and regularity to the system. These interdependent relationships are defined by the …

Treat Your Women Well: Comparisons And Lessons From An Imperfect Example Across The Waters, Rana R. Lehr-Lehnardt

Faculty Works

A young woman could not endure another night with the elderly man she was forced to marry, so she slipped out of the house and spent the night with the young man she had loved for years and desperately wanted to marry. When the woman's father learned of the illicit behavior, he entered the police station where she had sought refuge and fired four shots at her. He shed his daughter's blood to cleanse the family's honor. Jordan, 1999

A jealous husband returned home from an evening at the mosque and accused his pregnant wife of having an affair. The …

The Unnecessary Alternate Juror, Mary Kaluk Lanning

University of Colorado Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Owing To The Extreme Youth Of The Accused”: The Changing Legal Response To Juvenile Homicide, David S. Tanenhaus, Steven A. Drizin

Scholarly Works

In this essay, the authors seek to dispel the myth that the juvenile court was never intended to deal with serious and violent offenders; a myth that has largely been unchallenged, especially in the mainstream media, and one that critics of the juvenile court have used to undermine its legitimacy. The discovery of homicide data from the Chicago police department from the early twentieth century, the era in which modern juvenile justice came of age, provides us with new historical date with which to put this dangerous myth to rest, by showing that the nation’s model juvenile court—the Cook County …

A Question Of Revenge: Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy And A Proposed Diminished Capacity Defense For Homicidal Mothers, E. Selene Steelman

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) should be legally recognized as a severe mental disorder, allowing defendants to use a diminished capacity defense in cases of accidental filicide. The author critiques the legal system's inconsistent treatment of MSBP, which often focuses on the physical harm to the child while neglecting the mother's mental state. By acknowledging MSBP as a psychiatric disorder, the law could achieve more nuanced outcomes that consider both the act and the defendant's mental condition, reducing stigma and promoting fairness in criminal liability assessments.

Quiet Rebellion Ii: An Empirical Analysis Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences Including Data From The District Level, Frank O. Bowman, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This is the second of two articles in which we seek an explanation for the hitherto unexamined fact that the average length of prison sentences imposed in federal court for narcotics violations declined by more than 15% between 1991-92 and 2000.

Our first article, Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly a Decade of Declining Federal Drug Sentences, 86 Iowa Law Review 1043 (May 2001) ( "Rebellion I" ), examined national sentencing data in an effort to determine whether the decline in federal drug sentences is real (rather than a statistical anomaly), and to identify and analyze possible causes of the decline. We …

Past Violence, Future Danger?: Rethinking Diminished Capacity Departures Under Federal Sentencing Guidelines Section 5k2.13, Eva E. Subotnik

Faculty Publications

Under section 5K2.13 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, a judge is permitted to reduce a defendant's sentence on the grounds of diminished capacity. Most courts construing this provision have ruled that defendants whose offenses involved violence or the threat of violence are ineligible for a reduction in sentence. This Note argues that such an interpretation, which makes past violence a proxy for predicting future dangerousness, is problematic. Medically or psychologically treated, defendants may no longer pose a danger to society. This Note urges that, in accordance with section 5K2.13's language and history, courts should focus more broadly on whether the …

The Impossible Dream Come True: A Criminal Law Professor Becomes Juror #7, Stacy Caplow

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Adding Value To Families: The Potential Of Model Family Courts, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

The Harlem Community Justice Center (Justice Center) officially opened in July 2000 with all the fanfare of a major civic event. The Chief Judge of the State of New York, Judith Kaye, and the Mayor of the City of New York, Rudolph Guiliani, were keynote speakers, lauding the combined efforts of private administrators and public officials in reopening a deteriorating but magnificent 1892 court building in the center of Harlem. The ceremony began and ended with gospel sung by the Addicts Rehabilitation Center Choir, a musical reflection of one component of the Justice Center's jurisdiction. The new Juvenile Intervention Court …