Criminal Law Commons^™

Evidence - Physician - Patient Privilege - Applicability To Communication Between State Mental Hospital Psychiatrist And Criminal Internee, Norman A. Zilber S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was committed to a public mental hospital before standing trial on an indictment for robbery. One year later he was brought to trial after being discharged from the hospital as mentally competent. His only defense was insanity. The psychiatrist who had been appointed by the court to examine the defendant testified in support of this defense. The prosecution, in turn, introduced the testimony of the hospital psychiatrist who had attended the defendant during his internment. This psychiatrist was instructed by the trial court that communications between him and the defendant were not privileged. Accordingly, he testified that the defendant …

Book Reviews, Donald H. Wollett, Peter Ward, John E. Mcaniff, Arthur H. Sherry, Bertel M. Sparks, A. L. Eno Jr., Charles O. Galvin, Emerson G. Spies, Benjamin Carlin, Charles H. Miller, Erwin C. Surrency, Albert B. Jones, W. Friedmann, Alfred I. Maleson, Douglas H. Parker, Clarence F. Hyrne Jr., Elvin R. Latty

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Judge And The Crime Burden, John Barker Waite

Michigan Law Review

One does not happily charge the judiciary with responsibility for the country's burden of crime, but the responsibility does in fact exist. Judges, though they may not encourage crime, interfere with its prevention in various ways. They deliberately restrict police efficiency in the discovery of criminals. They exempt from punishment many criminals who are discovered and whose guilt is evident. More seriously still, they so warp and alter the public's attitude toward crime and criminals as gravely to weaken the country's most effective crime preventive.

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1955 Tennessee Survey, Austin W. Scott Jr.

Vanderbilt Law Review

Homicide: In Ivy v. State' the defendant, in the course of a fight with A, stabbed B, a peacemaker, killing him. The defendant appealed his conviction of involuntary manslaughter on the theory that the evidence did not support the verdict, since it showed that the defendant was striking at A in self-defense when he unfortunately stabbed B. The court held that the jury could properly find on the evidence either that (1) the defendant, not A, was the aggressor, or (2) even if A were the aggressor, defendant was not in imminent danger or reasonably supposed danger of death or …

Criminal Law - Contradictory Statements Under Oath As Grounds For Perjury In The Federal Courts, Richard M. Adams S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Perjury has frequently been described as one of the more difficult convictions to obtain, and the truth of this saying is no better illustrated than in the case of Harvey Matusow. During the two years in which ex-Communist Matusow served as a professional government witness, he accused 180 or more persons as being members of the Communist Party or Communist sympathizers. This same witness has now described himself as a "habitual and perpetual liar" and has publicly admitted that all of his previous testimony was false. On the strength of this recantation, motions were filed for a new trial in …

Criminal Law - Scope Of Lawful Search And Seizure Without Warrant When Incident To Arrest, Richard M. Adams S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Acting on information that defendants were engaged in the "numbers racket" in violation of the Michigan gambling laws, police officers picked up three of the defendants in an automobile, took them to the police station, and proceeded to the home of their accomplice, Abbey Clay. On being admitted to the residence, the officers placed Abbey Clay under arrest and, despite her objections, promptly searched the L-shaped room in which they were standing when the arrest was made. Although the officers did not have a search warrant, they looked through defendant's pocketbook, magazine rack, and a cardboard box which was in …

Constitutional Law - Right To Effective Assistance Of Counsel In Federal Courts And Waiver Thereof, Richard M. Adams S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Indicted for illegal traffic in narcotics, petitioner and his trial counsel allegedly attempted to fabricate an alibi on the false testimony of petitioner's girl friend. The evidence indicated that on several occasions before trial, the girl was invited to the office of petitioner's attorney, given narcotics, and told to memorize certain false testimony to be used in petitioner's defense. Later the girl bad a change of mind and agreed to testify for the government Despite the strenuous objections of defendant's counsel, a description of this alleged fraud on the court was given in the prosecution's opening statement, and the witness …

Evidence - Validity Of Statutory Presumption Of Intoxication From A Finding Of 0.15 Percent Concentration Of Alcohol In The Blood, Donald F. Oosterhouse S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was tried and convicted of the statutory crime of driving an automobile while under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The state introduced into evidence the result of a blood test, voluntarily submitted to by the defendant, which showed 0,20% concentration of alcohol in the defendant's blood. Arizona statutes established a rebuttable presumption of no intoxication if such tests showed a concentration of 0.05%, or less, of alcohol in one's blood, and of intoxication if the tests showed a concentration of 0.15%, or more. Breath, urine, and direct blood tests are authorized by the statute. Defendant argued that the statute …

Evidence - Attorney-Client Privilege - Communications Relating To Future Criminal Transactions, Robert B. Fiske, Jr. S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was subpoenaed in connection with a grand jury investigation of gambling and corruption of public officials. He had been retained by one 'Willie" Moretti as attorney for five of his associates in October, 1950 after a complaint charging a gambling conspiracy had been filed against them. During some two hundred conferences with Moretti in the following year, defendant learned that protection money was being paid to certain high ranking state officials, Moretti at one point complaining of the frequent demands of these officials for more· money. Moretti also discussed with defendant a visit he had paid to the home …

Criminal Responsibility And Mental Disorder: New Approaches To An Old Problem

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Evidence—Effect Of Federal Immunity Statute On State Proceedings, Eileen Tomaka

Buffalo Law Review

Adams v. Maryland, 347 U. S. 179 (1954).

Evidence - Statutory Rape - Right Of Accused To Compulsory Blood Test Of Prosecutrix And Child, Edward Pastucha S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was convicted of statutory rape on the strength of complaining witness' uncorroborated testimony. Testimony of the prosecutrix was to the effect that she had had sexual relations with defendant only once, that she had become pregnant and had given birth to a child prior to the trial, and that she had had sexual relations with no other men. Defendant moved for an order requiring that blood tests be taken of the child and the mother. The motion was denied. On appeal, held, affirmed. Assuming power, absent statute, to compel the taking of blood-grouping tests, the trial court did …

Criminal Law And Procedure -- 1954 Tennessee Survey, Clyde L. Ball

Vanderbilt Law Review

Most of the criminal law cases in the Tennessee courts during the past year have dealt with matters of procedure. The basic principles derived from these cases are treated in the Procedure and Evidence article of this 1954 Survey.' However, those cases of especial interest and significance will be considered here in somewhat greater detail. In addition to procedural matters there were a few cases which turned on concepts basic in the substantive law of crimes.

Substantive Law

Homicide: Tennessee has enunciated and followed a rule which states that driving an automobile while intoxicated is an act malum in se, …

Criminal Law--Principal In Second Degree--Conviction Of Attempt, R. L. Dep.

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.

Evidence - Admissibility Of Confessions, John Getreu

William and Mary Review of Virginia Law

No abstract provided.

Federal Control Over Use Of Coerced Confessions In State Criminal Cases-Some Unsettled Problems, Austin W. Scott Jr.

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Protection Against Illegal Meansof Obtaining Evidence, Raymond W. Haman, James H. Flippen, Jr.

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Book Reviews, Thomas Reed Powell, Bernard D. Meltzer, Louis L. Jaffe, Edward D. Morgan, Paul H. Sanders, Neill H. Alford Jr., Carl M. Franklin, Fowler Harper, Robert E. Childs, David E. Watts, Joseph L. Frascona, Maynard E. Pirsig, Samuel M. Fahr, Robert S. Stevens, Corwin W. Johnson, W. Friedmann, Thomas A. Cowan

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Some Developments In The Law Concerning Confessions, William Wicker

Vanderbilt Law Review

Our system of administering criminal laws is predicated upon accusatorial rather than inquisitorial proceedings. To maintain inviolate the safeguards consonant with this principle, we have placed upon the State an ever-increasing burden in proving the commission of the crime charged. That this burden has begun to weigh heavily, and perhaps onerously, becomes unmistakably evident from a study of recent developments in the law of confessions.

Evidence-Admissibility Of Confessions In Federal Courts Under The Mcnabb Rule, Harry T. Baumann S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, after proper arraignment on a charge of as· sault, was questioned intermittently about and confessed to a murder. This confession, introduced at the trial in the District Court of Alaska, was instrumental in convicting the defendant of the graver charge. The court of appeals reversed because of a failure to file the murder complaint within a reasonable time. On certiorari, held, the confession, made after proper detention on a lesser charge, was legal and admissible if given freely; but case affirmed as modified on other grounds. United States v. Carignan, 342 U.S. 36, 72 S.Ct. 97 (1951).

Evidence: Admissibility Of Uncommunicated Threats Of A Deceased Person--Griffin V. United States, Cecil Walden

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Evidence-Admissibility Of Uncommunicated Threats, Thomas Hartwell S. Ed.

Michigan Law Review

The defendant was convicted of murder in the first degree, following his killing of one Hunter as the outcome of a quarrel. The defendant had pleaded self-defense, contending that Hunter had appeared to threaten him. The defendant was the only witness to testify as to any aggression on the part of Hunter, while the four eyewitnesses to the killing all testified that the accused had attacked Hunter without warning and had fired upon Hunter's wife and child. Defendant's motion for new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence showing that Hunter had in his pocket an open knife, which …

Criminal Law: Psychiatric Aid In Evaluating The Credibility Of A Prosecuting Witness Charging Rape

Indiana Law Journal

Recent Cases

Criminal Law-Proof Of The Corpus Delicti By The Use Of Extra-Judicial Confessions, Theodore Sachs

Michigan Law Review

Defendant, a physician, was accused of the murder of his cancer-ridden patient by the injection of 40 c.c. of air into a vein of the patient's arm shortly before her death. The defendant had noted on the patient's medical chart the fact of the injection and that of her death, apparently a few minutes later. He subsequently dictated the same facts to his nurse, and later made similar admissions to local enforcement authorities and others making such statements on the day of his arrest and immediately thereafter. At the trial, a pathologist, called as an expert witness on behalf of …

Admissibility In Criminal Prosecutions Of Proof Of Other Offenses As Substantive Evidence, Clinton J. Morgan

Vanderbilt Law Review

"The general rule has been well established that on prosecution for a particular crime evidence which in any manner shows or tends to show that the accused has committed another crime wholly independent of that for which he is on trial, even though it be a crime of the same character, is irrelevant and inadmissible." This statement by the Tennessee court announces the basic rule regarding the matter of proof of other crimes as substantive evidence--a rule which is quoted and adhered to in virtually every American jurisdiction. The evidence is not excluded because it has no probative value, but …

Criminal Law-Indictment And Information-Variance Between Allegation And Proof, Daniel A. Isaacson S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In a Texas prosecution for drunken driving, the complaint and information charged that the defendant " . . . on or about the 11th day of April, A.D. 1948 . . . did then and there unlawfully while intoxicated and while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, drive a motor vehicle . . . upon a public highway within said county, to-wit: U.S. Highway #108 about two miles north of the City of Stephenville, Texas .... " Upon conviction, defendant appealed, one ground being that the State had introduced evidence to the effect that he drove his automobile on Highway …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Recent Cases

Automobiles--Family Purpose Doctrine--Automobile Owned by other than Head of Family

Contracts--Effect of Illegality--Recover Where No Moral Turpitude involved and Purpose of Statute Not Violated

Corporations--Liability of Officer to Creditors for Excessive Salary--Burden of Proof on Defendant to Show Reasonableness

Criminal Law--Proximate Cause--Responsibility for Death Due to Acts of Persons Opposing a Felony

Criminal Law--Violation of the Mann Act--Actual Transportation Entirely within a Single State

Evidence--Confidential Communications between Spouses--Admissibility of Testimony as to Conduct of Party Spouse

Insurance--Commercial--Radius Endorsement in Automobile Insurance--Effect of Breach after Return to Designated Area

Personal Property--Finding Lost Goods--Chambermaid's Right to Goods Found by Her …

Admissibility Of Evidence Of Prior Crimes In Murder Trials

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Variations In Burden Of Proof In South Carolina, M. S. Whaley

South Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law-Procedure-Right Of Defendant To Inspect Grand Jury Minutes, L. W. Larson, Jr.

Michigan Law Review

Defendant was indicted for murder by a grand jury. The trial court denied a motion by defendant requesting that the district attorney be ordered to furnish him with a transcript of the evidence offered before the grand jury. On appeal, held, affirmed. It was within the discretion of the trial court to grant or refuse the motion. Commonwealth v. Galvin, (Mass. 1948) 80 N.E. (2d) 825.