Criminal Law Commons^™

Lessons From The Past And Strategies For The Future: Using Domestic, International And Comparative Law To Overturn Sodomy Laws, Charlene Smith, James Wilets

Seattle University Law Review

This Article will first discuss the legal importance of challenging sodomy laws, even though those laws are rarely enforced. It will then discuss the importance of incorporating international and comparative law in formulating these challenges. In Section II, Professor Charlene Smith will discuss past and future strategies, focusing on the topics of equal protection, morality, and the difference (or lack thereof) between acts and status. In Section III, Professor Jim Wilets will explore incorporating international and comparative law into domestic challenges to U.S. sodomy laws. This Article will demonstrate that there is binding Supreme Court authority requiring all U.S. courts …

The Bill Of Rights And The Constitution: Facing The Challenge Of The Future, Stephen Wermiel

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

The Importance Of Being Biased, Anthony M. Dillof

Michigan Law Review

The war against bias crimes is far from finished. In contrast, the battle over bias-crime laws is largely over. Bias-crime laws, as commonly formulated, increase the penalties for crimes motivated by bias. The Supreme Court has held that such laws do not violate the First Amendment. Virtually every state has enacted some sort of biascrime law. Even the federal government, which may consider itself without power to enact a general bias-crime law, has made bias a sentence-aggravating factor for the range of federal criminal offenses. Bias-crime laws thus are an established feature of the legal landscape. Against this background, Frederick …

Still Unfair, Still Arbitrary - But Do We Care?, Samuel R. Gross

Other Publications

Welcome. It is a pleasure to see everybody at this bright and cheery hour of the morning. My assignment is to try to give an overview of the status of the death penalty in America at the beginning of the twenty-first century. I will try to put that in the context of how the death penalty was viewed thirty years ago, or more, and maybe that will tell us something about how the death penalty will be viewed thirty or forty years from now.

Insane Fear: The Discriminatory Category Of "Mentally Ill And Dangerous", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article considers the constitutional and moral implications of the distinction the law draws between different classes of dangerous people, depending upon their status as mentally ill or mentally well. Those who are mentally well benefit from the right to freedom from incarceration unless and until they commit a crime. By contrast, dangerous people who are mentally ill are subject to potentially indefinite "civil" preemptive confinement.

In a relatively recent case, Kansas v. Hendricks, the United States Supreme Court upheld the post-prison civil confinement of Leroy Hendricks, a man who had served prison time after pleading guilty to child molestation. …

Punishing Hateful Motives: Old Wine In A New Bottle Revives Calls For Prohibition, Carol S. Steiker

Michigan Law Review

Hate crimes are nothing new: crimes in which the victim is selected because of the victim's membership in some distinctive group (be it racial, ethnic, religious, or other) have been with us as long as such groups have coexisted within legal systems. What is relatively new is their recognition and designation as a discrete phenomenon. But as appellations like "sexual harassment" and "community policing" have begun to teach us, words are only the beginning of the life cycle of a new socio-legal concept. What follows are debates about whether the new category is really a coherent one, what activities should …

Some Thoughts On The Conduct/Status Distinction, Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Unconscious Racism And The Criminal Law, Sheri Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Color Line Of Punishment, Jerome H. Skolnick

Michigan Law Review

If "the color line," (in W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 phrase and prophecy) was to be the twentieth century's greatest challenge for the domestic life and public policy of the United States, the law has had much to do with drawing its shape. No surprise, this. By now, legal theorists accept that law does not advance in preordained fashion, immune from the sway of political interest, belief systems and social structure. Still, it is hard to exaggerate how powerfully the law has shaped the life chances of Americans of African heritage, for good or ill, and in ways that we scarcely …

The Effects Of Inadequate Mental Health Resources On The Operation Of The Mental Disorder Provisions, Giuseppa Bentivegna

LLM Theses

In this thesis, I focus on whether adequate mental health resources exist and are available to a category of persons in the forensic mental health system--those found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder of an offence under the mental disorder provisions, Part XX.1, of the 'Criminal Code '. I argue that adequate mental health services which address the needs of accused persons are necessary for the proper functioning of the mental disorder provisions of the 'Code'. I argue that these provisions were designed to foster the release and re-integration into society of persons within this system as quickly …

A Clash Of The Titans: Judicial Deference To Arbitration And The Public Policy Exception In The Context Of Sexual Harassment, Stephen Buehrer

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Same-Sex Sexual Harassment After Oncale V. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc.:Overcoming The History Of Judicial Discrimination In Light Of The "Common Sense" Standard, Jennifer J. Ator

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Prosecution And Race: The Power And Privilege Of Discretion, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article examines prosecutorial discretion and argues it is a major cause of racial inequality in the criminal justice system. It asserts that prosecutorial discretion may instead be used to construct effective solutions to racial injustice. The article maintains that since prosecutors have more power than any other criminal justice officials, with practically no corresponding accountability to the public they serve, they have the responsibility to use their discretion to help eradicate the discriminatory treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system.

Part I of the Article explains the importance and impact of the prosecution function. Part II discusses …

Putting Sex To Work, Katherine M. Franke

Faculty Scholarship

When I was living in New Haven a number of years ago, a miracle happened that drew people by the thousands to witness evidence of the Divine. A crucifix had been found to appear in the body of an oak tree in the middle of Worchester Square. I went – after all, how often do you get to see that kind of thing? Not surprisingly, at first I couldn't see anything but the usual trunk and limbs of a tree. Yet a believer took the time to show me what was really there, something that my untrained eye could not …

Genetic Technology And Its Impact On Culpability For Criminal Actions , Marcia Johnson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article addresses only one issue, one which our judicial system ultimately must address: the criminal responsibility one will bear for committing a crime when the actions are determined by the actor's genetic make-up. Part I of the article traces the roots of genetic research from Darwinism to eugenics and Nazi racial purity theories. Part II reviews theories and studies which support the concept of genetic influence on social, particularly criminal, behavior. Part III considers the impact of the genetic revolution on our criminal justice system with special emphasis on the effect on our system's fundamental concept of free will. …

Batson Ethics For Prosecutors And Trial Court Judges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Advanced Issues For Elderlaw Practitioners, Oregon Law Institute, Michael E. Haglund, Penny L. Davis, Richard A. Pagnano, Donna R. Meyer, Tim Nay, Sam Friedenberg

Oregon Law Institute, 1997

Course Materials from the April 18, 1997 Program in Portland

Lynching Ethics: Toward A Theory Of Racialized Defenses, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

So much depends upon a rope in Mobile, Alabama. To hang Michael Donald, Henry Hays and James "Tiger" Knowles tied up "a piece of nylon rope about twenty feet long, yellow nylon." They borrowed the rope from Frank Cox, Hays's brother-in-law. Cox "went out in the back" of his mother's "boatshed, or something like that, maybe it was in the lodge." He "got a rope," climbed into the front seat of Hays's Buick Wildcat, and handed it to Knowles sitting in the back seat. So much depends upon a noose. Knowles "made a hangman's noose out of the rope," thirteen …

Punishing Bias: An Examination Of The Theoretical Foundations Of Bias Crime Statutes, Anthony M. Dillof

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Race, Redistricting And A Republican Poll Tax: The Supreme Court's Voting Rights Decisions Of The 1995-96 Term, Frank Parker

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race-Based Jury Nullification: Rebuttal (Part A), 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 923 (1997), Andrew D. Leipold

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race-Based Jury Nullification: Case-In-Chief, 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 911 (1997), Paul D. Butler

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The O.J. Simpson Case Revisited, George Anastaplo

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Race-Based Jury Nullification In American Criminal Justice: Foreword, 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 907 (1997), Timothy P. O'Neill

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Ex Post Facto Laws: Supreme Court New York County People V. Griffin (Decided December 5, 1996

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policing Hatred: Police Bias Units And The Construction Of Hate Crime, Jeannine Bell

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Much of the scholarly debate about hate crime laws focuses on a discussion of their constitutionality under the First Amendment. Part of larger empirical study of police methods of investigating hate crimes, this Note attempts to shift thinking in this area beyond the existing debate over the constitutionality of hate crime legislation to a discussion of how low-level criminal justice personnel, such as the police, enforce hate crime laws. This Note argues that, since hate crimes are an area in which police have great discretion in enforcing the law, their understanding of the First Amendment and how it relates to …

Disparate Effects In The Criminal Justice System: A Response To Randall Kennedy's Comment And Its Legacy, Janai S. Nelson

Faculty Publications

For many African Americans, the criminal justice system symbolizes an oppressive force, and yet, is a necessary institution in an increasingly lawless society. African Americans are at the same time its victims and beneficiaries, although various sentiments exist regarding the extent to which they are either. It is precisely this paradox, coupled with the promulgation of certain criminal legislation and legal precedent which directly and, potentially, adversely affect the African-American community that inspired the author to address the issues and arguments raised in Randall Kennedy's The State, Criminal Law, and Racial Discrimination: A Comment, 107 Harv. L. Rev. 1255 (1994), …

Limiting Liability Through Education: Do School Districts Have A Responsibility To Teach Students About Peer Sexual Harassment?, Diane M. Welsh

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Crushing Equality: Gender Equal Sentencing In America, Christopher M. Alexander

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Sexual Harassment Proscriptive Polices Of The European Community, Ireland, And New Zealand, John C. Penn

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.