Criminal Law Commons^™

The Rise And Fall Of The Miranda Warnings In Popular Culture, Ronald Steiner, Rebecca Bauer, Rohit Talwar

Cleveland State Law Review

While Dickerson's rationale is certainly correct in presuming that those over thirty have already learned about the Miranda warning from decades of television, younger generations only have today's Miranda-less programming on which to form their assumptions about law enforcement. Miranda can still be found on television, but its presence has severely diminished over the years. If this trend continues, how will America's current youth internalize the Miranda warning in the way older generations have? Near-universal awareness of Miranda is an artifact of a shared popular culture in which the repetition of the warnings was pervasive and inescapable. But how can …

Life, Death, And Iq: It's Much More Than Just A Score: Understanding And Utilizing Forensic Psychological And Neuropsychological Evaluations In Atkins Intellectual Disability/Mental Retardation Cases, John Matthew Fabian, William W. Thompson, Jeffrey B. Lazarus

Cleveland State Law Review

This article highlights best practices for assessing MR and ID in capital cases with an emphasis on Atkins trial preparation and potential problems the authors have noted through experience. These best practices in Atkins hearings concern issues for the lawyers, forensic psychologists, and neuropsychologists, which include:

1. Practice effects and IQ testing

2. Consistency of IQ scores over time

3. Flynn Effect

4. Malingering versus cognitive suboptimal effort

5. Lack of records indicating pre-age 18 diagnosis of MR/ID

6. Retrospective assessment of adaptive behaviors

7. Death row trends of increasing IQ over the years while incarcerated

8. Maladaptive behaviors versus …

Forfeiture Of The Right To Counsel: A Doctrine Unhinged From The Constitution, Stephen A. Gerst

Cleveland State Law Review

The author contends that the doctrine of forfeiture of the right to assistance of counsel as a sanction for misconduct by a defendant towards the court or his counsel has no constitutional support in the principles that have defined the Sixth Amendment, is arbitrary in its application within the judicial system, and has become a refuge for courts, which have inadequately complied with established principles to protect fundamental rights.

Evaluating Children's Competency To Testify: Developing A Rational Method To Assess A Young Child's Capacity To Offer Reliable Testimony In Cases Alleging Child Sex Abuse , Laurie Shanks

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article discusses the testimony of young children, the inadequacy of the traditional hearing used to determine the competency of such children to testify, and the ways in which the hearing might be changed to make it a meaningful process for determining the ability of a child to give reliable testimony.

Monetary Recoveries For State Crime Victims , Jeffrey A. Parness, Edmund Laube, Laura Lee

Cleveland State Law Review

In this Article, we explore the constitutional, statutory, and common law foundations of the three recovery avenues available to crime victims. We also explore the federal-state and interstate differences in these avenues, along with the associated barriers to recovery. Finally, we propose better ways in which to facilitate state crime victim recoveries.

Habeas Corpus Writ Of Liberty, Boumediene And Beyond, Scott J. Shackelford

Cleveland State Law Review

This book review focuses on Robert Walker's Habeas Corpus Writ of Liberty: English and American Origins and Development.

The Laboratory Of Judicial Debate: Examining A Commodity Based Approach To Punishing Sex Offences, Lucas R. Franklin

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note will examine commodity theory as a system for assigning punishment for sexual offenses in the context of the 2007 circuit split over defining “crime of violence” under § 2L1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines. Part II will discuss the problem of punishing sex offenses and describe Donald Dripps' proposed commodity theory solution. Part III will discuss criticisms of using commodity theory as a basis for punishing sexual offenses. Part IV will provide background information on the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines generally and § 2L1.2 of the Guidelines specifically and explain why the circuit split serves as an ideal opportunity to …

Through A Scanner Darkly: The Use Of Fmri As Evidence Of Mens Rea, Teneille Brown, Emily R. Murphy

Journal of Law and Health

Tonight we are pleased to host an event exploring fMRI and its legal significance. Although [neuroimaging] is still an emerging technology, it has proven to be very consequential in at least one situation. In September 2008, the New York Times reported that a court in India allowed the use of brain scan images in a criminal case, which ultimately led to the conviction of an Indian woman accused of poisoning her fiance. To this day, the Indian woman maintains her innocence. Hank Greely, a bioethicist at Stanford Law School and a colleague of our speakers, commented on the verdict, [characterizing …

Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony In The Early American Republic , Will Tress

Cleveland State Law Review

This Article concludes that the new definition of felony adopted in 1829 by the New York revisors reflected their pragmatic approach of choosing a middle path between the common law traditionalists, exemplified by Maryland, and the radical reforms enshrined in Livingston's penal code. Their choice was an expedient one, redefining an outdated term rather than writing it out of the law. Yet underlying their efforts was a belief that punishment was an instrument of moral reformation, a way of returning the convicted felon to the community as a productive citizen. Creating barriers to a convict's reentry into society with continuing …

Stripped Of Justification: The Eleventh Circuit's Abolition Of The Reasonable Suspicion Requirement For Booking Strip Searches In Prisons, Andrew A. Crampton

Cleveland State Law Review

Part II of this Note will provide an historical judicial background of the decisions leading up to the Powell v. Barrett decision. This section will first take a brief look at the history of the prison strip search before conducting an in-depth analysis at the Bell v. Wolfish decision, including the facts, rationale, and ambiguities of the decision. Next, this Note will examine the subsequent use of the Bell v. Wolfish decision by the federal courts in the context of strip searches conducted pursuant to facilities' booking policies, focusing on the rise of the “reasonable suspicion” standard. Part III of …

Violence, Fear, And Jason's Law: The Needless Expansion Of Social Control Over The Non-Dangerous Mentally Ill In Ohio, Jessica L. Mackeigan

Cleveland State Law Review

Ohio House Bill 299, known as Jason's Law in memory of Officer Jason West, proposes involuntary outpatient care for treatment resistant mentally ill individuals. Jason's Law should not be enacted as written because it will compel respondents to adhere to outpatient treatment based upon predictions of future danger to self or others rather than findings of imminent danger or incompetence, it will remove treatment flexibility currently guaranteed by Ohio law by extending the duration of treatment and limiting a treatment provider's discretion, it will compel the use of unproven medication over the objections of a presumably competent individual without requiring …

Death Is Not Different: The Transfer Of Juvenile Offenders To Adult Criminal Courts, Christopher A. Mallett

Social Work Faculty Publications

The US Supreme Court first reviewed a state's statutory procedure for juvenile transfer to adult criminal courts in Kent v. US 1 Morris Kent was a fourteen-year-old first convicted for purse snatching and house-breaking, placed on probation, and later charged at the age of sixteen with robbery and rape. 2 Kent was arrested, presumably admitted to involvement in these crimes after seven hours of interrogation, and placed in a receiving home for one week.

The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity On Trial, Phillip J. Resnick

Cleveland State Law Review

On June 20, 2001, Andrea Yates drowned each of her five children in her bathtub. The nation struggled to understand how a loving mother could systematically kill her children in apparent cold blood. No crime evokes more intense feelings than a mother killing her own children. There was extraordinary media coverage of her trial in Houston, Texas in 2002. Her defense attorneys, George Parnham and Wendell Odom entered a defense of not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) to multiple counts of first degree murder with death penalty specifications. The 2002 trial jury verdict of guilty was overturned on appeal. …

Punishing Women: The Promise And Perils Of Contextualized Sentencing For Aboriginal Women In Canada, Toni Williams

Cleveland State Law Review

This article examines the failure of Canadian sentencing reforms to remedy the over-incarceration of Aboriginal woman through exploration of a sentencing methodology that judges may employ to give effect to the reforms: the social contextualization of women's lawbreaking. Social context analysis developed as a critique of how the state controls and punishes women and as a way to expose failures of justice. More recently, commentators have suggested that the insertion of social context analysis into the sentencing process might allow courts to find new and more robust justifications for lowering the penalties they impose on women lawbreakers from marginalized communities. …

Assessing Legal Responses To Prenatal Drug Use: Can Therapeutic Responses Produce More Positive Outcomes Than Punitive Responses, Elizabeth E. Coleman, Monica K. Miller

Journal of Law and Health

Expressing a growing concern for fetal well being, the 2006 Idaho Senate passed legislation that permits criminal charges to be brought against women who abuse illegal drugs while pregnant. This bill allows for the potential incarceration of violators for up to five years, as well as a possible $50,000 fine. In some locations, women have the option of choosing to go to drug court instead of serving time in jail or prison. These drug courts provide drug treatment, case management, drug testing, and supervision, while requiring women who abuse illegal drugs to regularly report to scheduled status hearings before a …

Inconsistent Methods For The Adjudication Of Alleged Mentally Retarded Individuals: A Comparison Of Ohio's And Georgia's Post-Atkins Frameworks For Determining Mental Retardation, Scott R. Poe

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note compares Ohio's and Georgia's post-Atkins frameworks for determining mental retardation. Ohio's framework offers a fairer application of Atkins and should serve as a guide for a national legal standard for use by state trial courts to determine mental retardation. Specifically, Ohio's use of preponderance of the evidence is a more appropriate standard of proof for determining mental retardation because it better reaches the overall goal in Atkins. Allowing the judge to make the mental retardation determination protects the alleged mentally retarded defendant from potential jury bias. Because Ohio's and Georgia's definitions of mental retardation are substantially similar and …

Aedpa Statute Of Limitations: Is It Tolled When The United States Supreme Court Is Asked To Review A Judgment From A State Post-Conviction Proceeding, Diane E. Courselle

Cleveland State Law Review

This thirty-seven word provision [the tolling provision in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act] has been construed by the United States Supreme Court three times since 1996, and yet several questions remain unanswered. One such unanswered question is whether tolling occurs when a petitioner files a petition for writ of certiorari to the United State Supreme Court from the state court postconviction decision. In other words, does seeking the United States Supreme Court's review from a state court's final decision on an "application for State post-conviction or other collateral review" keep the state post-conviction application "pending?" That is the …

Booker And Our Brave New World: The Tension Among The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Judicial Discretion, And A Defendant's Constitutional Right To Trial By Jury, Kristina Walter

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note examines the inherent conflict among the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, judicial discretion, and a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a trial by jury. Part two of this Note will provide a historical overview of the Guidelines. Part three will discuss the application of the Guidelines and the role of juries and judges at sentencing hearings. Part four will highlight criticisms relating to how the Guidelines often usurp power from juries and judges. Part five will examine the milestone cases of Blakely v. Washington, United States v. Booker, and United States v. Fanfan (hereinafter "Booker" refers to the combined cases …

Shame And The Meaning Of Punishment, Chad Flanders

Cleveland State Law Review

This Essay critiques the shaming punishments debate, not in the interest of defending one side or the other, but to make more explicit the paradox with which this Essay began. This Essay also advances the proposal that a consistent liberalism, one that demands that all citizens be respected equally, is incompatible with any punishment that requires the infliction of hard treatment (treatment which inflicts pain or suffering) or humiliation on the offender. It is important to bracket the practical consequences of this proposal. Perhaps it was proposals like this one that made Nietzsche worry about the progressive softening of societies …

Gps Monitoring: A Viable Alternative To The Incarceration Of Nonviolent Criminals In The State Of Ohio, Matthew K. Kucharson

Cleveland State Law Review

This article will discuss the emergence of GPS technology in the field of criminal law and propose that Ohio embrace GPS monitoring as an alternative to the incarceration of nonviolent offenders. Part II will begin by briefly outlining the history of GPS technology. Part II will then discuss the use of GPS monitoring in the field of law enforcement. Specifically, this Part will illustrate the different components necessary for the implementation of an effective GPS monitoring program and explain the use of inclusion and exclusion zones. Part III will examine the status of Ohio's state prison system and will focus …

Prayer Or Prison: The Unconstitutionality Of Mandatory Faith-Based Substance Abuse Treatment, Christopher M. Meissner

Cleveland State Law Review

Whether faith-based substance abuse treatments are effective is certainly a valid question in its rightful place, but it is not the inquiry pursued here. Rather, this Note argues that a drug court's act of assigning unwilling offenders to twelve-step or otherwise religiously-based residential treatment centers violates the Establishment Clause guarantee. Specifically, such centers regulate the offenders' beliefs and compel them to affirm whatever tenets are professed at the individual treatment center. Moreover, a court's subsequent act of threatening or actually imposing criminal sanctions upon offenders for refusing to complete such treatment programs constitutes punishment for refusing to be religiously indoctrinated …

Ohio's Sex Offender Residency Restriction Law: Does It Protect The Health And Safety Of The State's Children Or Falsely Make People Believe So, Margaret Troia

Journal of Law and Health

The fact of the matter is that residency laws often force all registered sex offenders to pay the price for a few high-profile cases and the public's fear and beliefs regarding sex offenders is often misguided and not well-founded. Sex offender residency laws may actually increase recidivism rates while placing unjustified burdens on sex offenders and their family members. Furthermore, because these laws target stranger perpetrators, they do not prevent the majority of sex crimes committed by acquaintances or family members of the victim. This results in parents being lulled into a false sense of security that their children are …

Removing The Roadblocks To Successful Domestic Violence Prosecutions: Prosecutorial Use Of Expert Testimony On The Battered Woman Syndrome In Ohio, Matthew P. Hawes

Cleveland State Law Review

This note contends that Ohio should join the modern trend and allow expert testimony on the battered woman syndrome in a limited form in domestic violence prosecutions. Part II of this note explores the syndrome and its origins. Part III provides background on the evidentiary uses of the syndrome in Ohio. It discusses the emergence of the battered woman syndrome in Ohio courts, and then examines the unsuccessful initial attempts by prosecutors in Ohio to use expert testimony on the syndrome.Part IV looks at how several jurisdictions outside of Ohio have addressed this issue. Part V presents the argument that …

Initial Consent Rape: Inherent And Statutory Problems, Brett M. Kyker

Cleveland State Law Review

First, this Note will examine the impetus behind the introduction of Senate Bill 406. Second, this Note will examine the legal effect of Senate Bill 406 on Illinois' sexual assault laws. Third, this Note will address problems with the statutory recognition of the crime of “initial consent” rape. Fourth, this Note will address problems with the crime of “initial consent” rape within the context of the Illinois statutory code. Fifth, this Note will examine the effects of rape on the victim. Sixth, this Note will discuss potential solutions to the problems of Illinois' amended rape law.

Neurocops: The Politics Of Prohibition And The Future Of Enforcing Social Policy From Inside The Body , Richard Glen Boire

Journal of Law and Health

Over the next decade an increasing number of new "pharmacotherapy" medications will become available with the potential to tremendously impact the use and abuse of illegal drugs and the overall direction of national and international drug policy. These pharmacotherapy medications are designed to block or significantly reduce the "highs" elicited by illegal drugs. Used as part of a drug treatment program, pharmacotherapy medications may provide valuable assistance for people voluntarily seeking a chemical aid in limiting or eliminating the problem drug use. However, the tremendously politicized nature of the "drug war" raises substantial concerns that, in addition to those who …

Pregnant Women Inmates: Evaluating Their Rights And Identifying Opportunities For Improvements In Their Treatment, Kelly Parker

Journal of Law and Health

Pregnant women incarcerated at the time of our nation's founding faced the prospect of giving birth in their cells alone and a considerable likelihood that their infants would die. This is somewhat unsurprising. At this time infant mortality rates were high. Given the pace of advances in the treatment of pregnant women since that time, one might expect that the experience of pregnant women incarcerated in today's correctional facilities would have improved as it has for their peers on the outside. That, however, would be an unrealistic assumption. In addition to facing decidedly substandard environments in some facilities - inappropriate …

How Ohio V. Talty Provided For Future Bans On Procreation And The Consequences That Action Brings: Ohio V. Talty: Hiding In The Shadow Of The Supreme Court Of Wisconsin, Evelyn Holmer

Journal of Law and Health

This Note discusses the constitutionality of antireproduction restrictions as they relate to the purposes and goals of probation, in the context of the Talty, Oakley, and Tramnell decisions. This Note addresses the ramifications and implications of these restrictions in relation to the deadbeat parent crisis, and it proposes more adequate means to accomplish the competing goals of child welfare and adherence to constitutional doctrine. Section II introduces and dissects the fundamental right to procreate as it is found under two concepts: the right itself and the right to privacy. Section III discusses the purposes of probation, generally, and articulates two …

Male Sexual Assault: Issues Of Arousal And Consent, Siegmund Fred Fuchs

Cleveland State Law Review

This Note argues that an erection under these circumstances does not indicate consent to engage in sexual activity. Part II of this Note explores the reality of male sexual assault and offers various medical, psychological, sociological, and cultural reasons to explain why a male victim may maintain an erection while being sexually assaulted and/or raped. Part II also explores the complex relationship between physical arousal and sexual desire. Part III provides a legal background to both the law's treatment of male sexual assault generally and in specific instances where the male victim maintained an erection during his assault. This part …

The Failure Of Ohio's Drug Treatment Initiative, Tamara Karel

Cleveland State Law Review

In the summer of 2002, proponents of Issue 1 "The Ohio Drug Treatment Initiative," (hereafter referred to as the Initiative) succeeded in getting the proposal on the November ballot. The Initiative proposed an amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would have required courts to approve requests for treatment when made by eligible nonviolent drug offenders. The Amendment sought to (1) allocate a fixed amount of the state's General Revenue Fund to pay for the opening and operating of new treatment centers, (2) limit prison sentences for users and possessors to ninety days, and (3) provide for the sealing and expungement …

Appointed But (Nearly) Prevented From Serving: My Experience As A Grand Jury Foreperson, Phyllis L. Crocker

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

In summer 2003, I was a grand jury foreperson for the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland, Ohio. The service of this grand jury, and my tenure as foreperson, were unique in the annals of grand juries. We were selected and sworn in the same manner as any grand jury, but heard cases for only one day of our four-month term-the last day. In the interim, the prosecutor filed cases in two courts, seeking to discharge us, as being “tainted” by our supervising judge's initial instructions about our duties and the law. I begin this essay with basic …