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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
Too Vast To Succeed, Miriam H. Baer
Too Vast To Succeed, Miriam H. Baer
Michigan Law Review
If sunlight is, in Justice Brandeis’s words, “the best of disinfectants,” then Brandon Garrett’s latest book, Too Big to Jail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations might best be conceptualized as a heroic attempt to apply judicious amounts of Lysol to the murky world of federal corporate prosecutions. “How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations” is the book’s neutral- sounding secondary title, but even casual readers will quickly realize that Garrett means that prosecutors compromise too much with corporations, in part because they fear the collateral consequences of a corporation’s criminal indictment. Through an innovation known as the Deferred Prosecution Agreement, or DPA, …
In Memory Of Monroe Freedman: The Hardest Question For A Prosecutor, Bennett L. Gershman
In Memory Of Monroe Freedman: The Hardest Question For A Prosecutor, Bennett L. Gershman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
I’ve chosen to honor Monroe Freedman’s iconic essay on the hardest questions for a criminal defense attorney by posing the same question for prosecutors. What is the hardest question for a prosecutor? This in itself is a hard question. The thousands of federal, state, and local prosecutors in the country would likely give widely varying responses – discretionary charging, immunity grants, bargained pleas, unreliable witnesses, police testimony, and disclosure duties, for starters. Too, prosecutors are not a generic group. Just as some defense lawyers might recoil or be indifferent to Freedman’s provocative thesis, so might many prosecutors reject or be …
The Prosecutor’S Duty Of Silence, Bennett L. Gershman
The Prosecutor’S Duty Of Silence, Bennett L. Gershman
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Prosecutors enjoy broad opportunities to communicate with the public outside the courtroom. Justice Holmes’s famous dictum -- “The theory of our system is that conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print” – is just that – a “theory.” The reality is otherwise. Prosecutors, and defense lawyers too, engage in extrajudicial speech frequently, and often irresponsibly. But in contrast to other lawyers, prosecutors have a higher “special” duty to serve justice rather than a private client. And …
Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry
Voices On Innocence, Lucian E. Dervan, Richard A. Leo, Meghan J. Ryan, Valena Elizabeth Beety, Gregory M. Gilchrist, William W. Berry
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
In the summer of 2015, experts gathered from around the country to sit together and discuss one of the most pressing and important issues facing the American criminal justice system – innocence. Innocence is an issue that pervades various areas of research and influences numerous topics of discussion. What does innocence mean, particularly in a system that differentiates between innocence and acquittal at sentencing? What is the impact of innocence during plea bargaining? How should we respond to growing numbers of exonerations? What forces lead to the incarceration of innocents? Has an innocent person been put to death and, if …
Who Shouldn't Prosecute The Police, Kate Levine
Who Shouldn't Prosecute The Police, Kate Levine
Faculty Publications
The job of prosecuting police officers who commit crimes falls on local prosecutors, as it has in the wakes of the recent killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Although prosecutors officially represent “the people,” there is no group more closely linked to prosecutors than the officers they work with daily. This article focuses on the undertheorized but critically important role that conflict of interest law plays in supporting the now-popular conclusion that local prosecutors should not handle cases against police suspects. Surprisingly, scholars have paid little attention to the policies and practices of local district attorneys who are tasked …