Criminal Law Commons^™

She Blinded Me With Science: Wrongful Convictions And The "Reverse Csi-Effect", Mark A. Godsey, Marie Alou

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Prosecutors in the United States are often heard to complain these days of the "CSI-effect."' When they make this complaint, they mean that the popularity of television shows like CSI has made it unduly difficult for them to obtain convictions of guilty defendants. Jurors today have become spoiled as a result of the proliferation of these "high-tech" forensic shows, and now unrealistically expect conclusive scientific proof of guilt before they will convict. The unfortunate result is that guilty defendants are acquitted because of a lack of forensic evidence in cases where, in reality, no such forensic evidence was possible or …

Moral Character, Motive, And The Psychology Of Blame, Janice Nadler, Mary-Hunter Morris Mcdonnell

Faculty Working Papers

Blameworthiness, in the criminal law context, is conceived as the carefully calculated end product of discrete judgments about a transgressor's intentionality, causal proximity to harm, and the harm's foreseeability. Research in social psychology, on the other hand, suggests that blaming is often intuitive and automatic, driven by a natural impulsive desire to express and defend social values and expectations. The motivational processes that underlie psychological blame suggest that judgments of legal blame are influenced by factors the law does not always explicitly recognize or encourage. In this Article we focus on two highly related motivational processes – the desire to …

Simplifying Discovery And Production: Using Easy Frameworks To Evaluate The 2009 Term Of Cases, Eric R. Carpenter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

A three-year-old child, while being bathed by her babysitter, innocently mentions that her “pee-pee” hurts. When the babysitter asks the child how she hurt it, she says, “Uncle Ernie (her mother’s boyfriend) told me not to tell.” A subsequent medical examination reveals that the child has gonorrhea, a sexually transmitted disease.

By the time of trial, the child is four and-a-half-years old. When questioned by the trial judge, she cannot explain to the judge’s satisfaction, “the difference between the truth and a lie.” Moreover, she has no long term memory of the incident. The judge rules the child incompetent to …

Ethical Guidance For A Grander Jury, Anna Offit

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Real Rape, Too, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Hearsay After Crawford: A Practitioner's Guide, Marcia G. Cooke

St. Thomas Law Review

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to be confronted with the witnesses against him." Although it may appear simple, concise and direct, the language of the Sixth Amendment has been the subject of much discussion.' The Confrontation Clause has been inevitably comingled with the hearsay rules, and determining when an out-of-court statement violates the rights of criminal defendants has been no easy task. For many years, it was uncontested, as established in Ohio v. Roberts, that to avoid violating a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment rights, the …

Regulating The Science Of Forensic Evidence: A Broken System Requires A New Federal Agency, Jessica D. Gabel, Ashley D. Champion

Faculty Publications By Year

Professor Gabel and Ms. Champion agree with Mr. Goldstein's argument that serious validity and reliability problems plague forensic science, but, using the recent Troy Davis case in Georgia as an illustration, they argue for federal rather than state oversight. Gabel and Champion assert that many states lack the funding to construct an adequate system and that the fragmentation caused by different state systems would be a significant impediment to reform. They suggest a federal agency that, like the Environmental Protection Agency, would set minimum standards but allow states to experiment with enhanced regulation.

Williams V. Illinois And The Confrontation Clause: Does Testimony By A Surrogate Witness Violate The Confrontation Clause?, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article comprises a four-part debate between Paul Rothstein, Professor of Law at Georgetown Law Center, and Ronald J. Coleman, who works in the litigation practice group at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, on Williams v. Illinois, a Supreme Court case that involves the Confrontation Clause, which entitles a criminal defendant to confront an accusing witness in court. The issue at hand is whether said clause is infringed when a report not introduced into evidence at trial is used by an expert to testify about the results of testing that has been conducted by a non-testifying third party. …

Life, Death, And Neuroimaging: The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Defense's Use Of Neuroimages In Capital Cases - Lessons From The Front, John H. Blume, Emily C. Paavola

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The use of neuroimaging in capital cases has become increasingly common. An informal survey of cases produced over one hundred opinions from reported decisions alone discussing the use of computed tomography (CT) scanning, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRI, positron emission tomography (PET) scans, single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scans, and similar technology in capital cases. This article gives practical advice to defense counsel considering the use of neuroimaging in a capital case. We discuss how, in the right case, this technology can be a valuable investigative tool used to produce an important component of a successful mitigation story. However, …

The Association Of Adult Businesses With Secondary Effects: Legal Doctrine Social Theory, And Empirical Evidence, Alan C. Weinstein, Richard Mccleary

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Home Is Where The Crime Is, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unraveling The Exclusionary Rule: From Leon To Herring To Robinson - And Back?, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule began to unravel in United States v. Leon. The facts were compelling. Why exclude reliable physical evidence from trial when it was not the constable who blundered, but “a detached and neutral magistrate” who misjudged whether probable cause was present and issued a search warrant? Later cases applied the exception for “good faith” mistakes to a police officer who, pursuing a grudge against a suspect, arrested and searched him and his truck on the basis of a false and negligent report from a clerk in another county of an outstand­ing arrest warrant. The California Supreme …

Dna Database Trawls And The Definition Of A Search In Boroian V. Mueller, David H. Kaye

Faculty Scholarship

As a general matter, once the government acquires information from a permissible search or seizure, it can use this information in later criminal investigations. Courts have applied this simple rule to uphold the indefinite reuse of DNA samples acquired from convicted offenders. This essay describes the First Circuit Court of Appeals’ reliance on the rule in rejecting a convicted offender’s claim that his DNA sample and profile had to be removed from the federal DNA databank after he completed his sentence. Acknowledging that the rule permitting reuse should not be applied mechanically, I argue that the rule's application to DNA …

"I'M Going To Dinner With Frank": Admissibility Of Nontestimonial Statements Of Intent To Prove The Actions Of Someone Other Than The Speaker—And The Role Of The Due Process Clause, Lynn Mclain

All Faculty Scholarship

A woman tells her roommate that she is going out to dinner with Frank that evening. The next morning her battered body is found along a country road outside of town. In Frank’s trial for her murder, is her statement to her roommate admissible to place Frank with her that night? Since the Court’s 2004 Crawford decision, the confrontation clause is inapplicable to nontestimonial hearsay such as this.

American jurisdictions are widely divided on the question of admissibility under their rules of evidence, however. Many say absolutely not. A sizeable number unequivocally say yes. A small number say yes, but …

"I'M Going To Dinner With Frank": Admissibility Of Nontestimonial Statements Of Intent To Prove The Actions Of Someone Other Than The Speaker - And The Role Of The Due Process Clause, Lynn Mclain

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Remodeling The Classified Information Procedures Act (Cipa), Afsheen John Radsan

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex And The Supremes: Towards A Legal Theory Of Sexuality, Elaine Craig

PhD Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Supreme Court of Canada, across legal contexts, has tended to conceptualize sexuality. It focuses primarily on areas of public law including sexual assault law, equality for sexual minorities, sexual harassment and obscenity and indecency laws. There were a number of trends revealed upon reviewing the jurisprudence in this area. First, the Court’s decisions across legal contexts reveal a tendency to conceptualize sexuality as innate, as a pre-social naturally occurring phenomenon and as an essential element of who we are as individuals. This is true whether one is speaking of the approach to gay and lesbian …

Tipsy/Waukell Dave Feud, Susie Van Kirk

Susie Van Kirk Papers

Newspaper references from the Daily Humboldt Times and the Del Norte Record and historical analysis of the feud between Tipsy Frank and Waukel Dave in the late 1800s.

"DHT (1 Jan. 1887) From Alex Dewar, who has just returned from the Klamath country, we learn of the killing of an Indian bearing the sobriquet of 'Tipsy Frank.' During the past four or five years this Indian has killed several of his brethren and has been considered as a very hard character. Recently he stole a horse from another Indian called 'Waukel Dave.' Dave did not relish the idea of losing …

Emotionally Charged: The Prosecutorial Charging Decision And The Innocence Revolution, Daniel S. Medwed

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

New Perspectives On Brady And Other Disclosure Obligations: Report Of The Working Groups On Best Practices

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Anatomy Of A Search: Intrusiveness And The Fourth Amendment, Renée Mcdonald Hutchins

University of Richmond Law Review

In this essay, I contend that when evaluating the constitutionality of enhanced surveillance devices, the existing test for assessing the occurrence of a Fourth Amendment search should be modified. Specifically, I suggest that intrusiveness should be unambiguously adopted by the Court as the benchmark for assessing and defining the existence of a search under the Fourth Amendment. Moreover, intrusiveness should be clearly defined to require an examination of two factors: the functionality of a challenged form of surveillance and the potential for disclosure created by the device.

Appealing To The Legislature: A Comparative Analysis Of The Georgia Statutes Regarding Evidence Preservation And Access To Post-Conviction Dna Testing, Joy D. Aceves-Amaya

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

DNA evidence testing is the leading cause of exonerations in criminal cases throughout the United States.2 Yet, without the preservation of evidence in these cases and the ability to subject this evidence to advancing technology in DNA testing, many claims of innocence go unheard and defendants remain incarcerated while the real perpetrators of crime go unpunished. As of September 2009, seven Georgia men have been exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing.3 Such exonerations should be considered "victories for our criminal justice system: they free the innocent, correct miscarriages of justice that undermine public confidence in our criminal justice system, and allow …

Documentation, Documentary, And The Law: What Should Be Made Of Victim Impact Videos?, Regina Austin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Description And The Evidentiary Production Of Images, Kyle J. Mcgee

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reasonable Grounds Evidence Involving Sexual Violence In Darfur (With J. Hagan & R. Brooks), Todd Haugh

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Thinking Like A Public Interest Lawyer: Theory, Practice, And Pedagogy, Jocelyn Simonson

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Scope Of The Good-Faith Exception To The Exclusionary Rule To Include A Law Enforcement Officer's Reasonable Reliance On Well-Settled Case Law That Is Subsequently Overruled , Ross M. Oklewicz

American University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Photo Enforcement Programs: Are They Permissible Under The United States Constitution?, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 463 (2010), Paul Mcnaughton

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Unintentional Rapist, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.