Criminal Law Commons^™

The Use Of Risk Assessment At Sentencing: Implications For Research And Policy, Steven L. Chanenson, Jordan M. Hyatt

Working Paper Series

At-sentencing risk assessments are predictions of an individual’s statistically likely future criminal conduct. These assessments can be derived from a number of methodologies ranging from unstructured clinical judgment to advanced statistical and actuarial processes. Some assessments consider only correlates of criminal recidivism, while others also take into account criminogenic needs. Assessments of this nature have long been used to classify defendants for treatment and supervision within prisons and on community supervision, but they have only relatively recently begun to be used – or considered for use – during the sentencing process. This shift in application has raised substantial practical and …

A New Sentencing Blueprint: The Third Circuit Allows Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Fraud Convictions To Be Offset By Construction Contract Performance In United States V. Nagle, Christopher C. Reese

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Say Hello To My Little Friend Civil Rico: The Third Circuit Green Lights Insurance Shakedown Of Big Pharma With In Re Avandia, Marie Bussey-Garza

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Smith And Hogan At Villanova: Reflections On Anglo-American Criminal Law, The Definition Of Rape, And What America Still Needs To Learn From England, Michelle Madden Dempsey

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Cost Of Raising A Killer -- Parental Liability For The Parents Of Adult Mass Murderers, Shaundra K. Lewis

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Consequences Of Reform: Penny Pether On Rape Law In Illinois And Australia, Mark Sanders

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

United States V. Barry Bonds V. Bronston: Can Section 1503 Handle The Truth?, Donald K. Kazee

Jeffrey S. Moorad Sports Law Journal (1994 - )

No abstract provided.

Mandatory Reporting Of Abuse: A Historical Perspective On The Evolution Of States' Current Mandatory Reporting Laws With A Review Of The Laws In The Commonwealth Of Pennsylvania, Leonard G. Brown Iii, Kevin Gallagher

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Abstract Risk And The Politics Of The Criminal Law, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

Much of the criminal law contains what theorists call “abstract endangerment” statutes — crimes that punish not actual, but hypothetical, creation of risk. Consider the case of underage alcohol possession: age does not necessarily imply immaturity, and possession does not necessarily lead to consumption. The crime is therefore doubly “abstract”: many violations will create no risk of harm at all but the conduct is nevertheless prohibited. Theoretical defenses of these overinclusive laws proceed mainly by emphasizing the deficiencies of individuals in assessing their own cases of risk. What these defenses implicitly assume, though, is that the entity the individual must …

Pulling On The Thread Of The Insanity Defense, R. George Wright

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Residual Clause Interpretation: "Shanking" The Commentary And Simplifying Sentencing Enhancement Analysis After United States V. Mobley, Nicholas A. Novy

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Taxpayers As Victims: Taxpayer Harm & Criminalization, Brenner M. Fissell

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Twenty-First Century Fingerprints: The Third Circuit's Approval Of Dna Collection Upon Arrest In United States V. Mitchell, Megan Pownall

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Perverted Justice: Why Courts Are Ruling Against Restitution In Child Pornography Possession Cases, And How A Victim Compensation Fund Can Fix The Broken Restitution Framework, Tyler Morris

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Intentional Discrimination In Farrakhan V. Gregoire: The Ninth Circuit's Voting Rights Act Standard "Results In" The New Jim Crow, Jonathan Sgro

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Public Wrongs And The ‘Criminal Law’S Business’: When Victims Won’T Share, Michelle Madden Dempsey

Working Paper Series

Amongst the many valuable contributions that Professor Antony Duff has made to criminal law theory is his account of what it means for a wrong to be public in character. In this chapter, I sketch an alternative way of thinking about criminalization, one which attempts to remain true to the important insights that illuminate Duff’s account, while providing (it is hoped) a more satisfying explanation of cases involving victims who reject the criminal law’s intervention.

"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill

Working Paper Series

This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …

Lawyers Judging Experts: Oversimplifying Science And Undervaluing Advocacy To Construct An Ethical Duty?, David S. Caudill

Working Paper Series

My focus is on an apparent trend at the intersection of the fields of evidentiary standards for expert admissibility and professional responsibility, namely the eagerness to place more ethical responsibilities on lawyers to vet their proffered expertise to ensure its reliability. My reservations about this trend are not only based on its troubling implications for the lawyer’s duty as a zealous advocate, which already has obvious limitations (because of lawyers’ conflicting duties to the court), but are also based on the problematic aspects of many reliability determinations. To expect attorneys—and this is what the proponents of a duty to vet …

Is Innocence Irrelevant To Aedpa's Statute Of Limitations - Avoiding A Miscarriage Of Justice In Federal Habeas Corpus, Angela Ellis

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

The article discusses the debate on recognizing the innocence exception to the statute of limitations for original petitions for habeas corpus as provided in the Anti-terrorism and Effective Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Those who oppose cite the need for judicial economy and the absence of congressional intent. The author stresses the primordial concern of protecting the innocent and preventing miscarriage of justice as upheld by the history of habeas corpus and Supreme Court jurisprudence.

What Is Due To Others: Speaking And Signifying Subject(S) Of Rape Law, Penelope J. Pether

Working Paper Series

Australian journalist Paul Sheehan's representation of the alleged and convicted immigrant Muslim/Arab rapists he demonises in 'Girls Like You', like his representation of the rape survivors in that text, has much to tell us about the law's production of rape law's speaking and signifying subjects, “real rape” victims and survivors, false accusers and perpetrators. This article uses a variety of texts, including 'Girls Like You', recent Australian rape law jurisprudence and legislative reform, texts involving two controversial recent US rape cases — one from Maryland and one from Nebraska — and a recent UK study on attrition in rape prosecutions, …

Conflicts Of Interest In Criminal Cases: Should The Prosecution Have A Duty To Disclose?, Anne Poulin

Working Paper Series

This article addresses two types of conflicts of interests that arise in criminal cases: 1) when defense counsel has an employment relation to the prosecutor’s office, and 2) when defense counsel faces criminal investigation or charges. Both these situations threaten both the defendant’s representation and the actual as well as apparent fairness of the proceeding. Yet, only in extreme cases are these conflicts likely to result in a reversal of the defendant’s conviction. As a result, protection of the defendant and the fairness of the process often depends on early intervention, which allows the court to advise the defendant of …

Should Using Facebook At Work Be A Federal Crime: The Third Circuit Applies Honest Services Fraud To Private Individuals In United States V. Mcgeehan, Derek Hines

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Self-Love And Forgiveness: A Holy Alliance?, Patrick Mckinley Brennan

Working Paper Series

Forgiving is not pardoning, excusing, condoning, forgetting, or reconciling, nor is forgiving just about a change in emotions on the part of a victim. This paper pursues a virtue-theoretic account of the human person in the context of the theology of Thomas Aquinas, arguing that human forgiveness is the form love takes by an offended toward her offender. The paper argues, first, for the priority of the offended person's self-love and, second, for such self-love's extension into love of the offender as another self. The paper explores in depth the challenges of seeing one's enemy as "another self." Forgiving, the …

``No One Does That Anymore": On Tushnet, Constitutions, And Others, Penelope J. Pether

Working Paper Series

In this contribution to the Quinnipiac Law Review’s annual symposium edition, this year devoted to the work of Mark Tushnet, I read his antijuridification scholarship “against the grain,” concluding both that Tushnet’s later scholarship is neo-Realist rather than critical in its orientation, and that both his early scholarship on slavery and his post-9/11 constitutional work reveal an ambivalence about the claim that we learn from history to circumscribe our excesses, which anchors his popular constitutionalist rhetoric.

The likeness of Tushnet’s scholarship to the work of the Realists lies in this: while the Realists’ search for a science that would satisfy …

Presidential Authority And The War On Terror, Joseph W. Dellapenna

Working Paper Series

Immediately after the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush claimed, among other powers, the power to launch preemptive wars on his own authority; the power to disregard the laws of war pertaining to occupied lands; the power to define the status and treatment of persons detained as “enemy combatants” in the war on terror; and the power to authorize the National Security Agency to undertake electronic surveillance in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. With the exception of the power to launch a preemptive war on his own authority (for which he …

The Geography Of Justice Wormholes: Dilemmas From Property And Criminal Law, Hari M. Osofsky

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

What Is A Business Crime?, Richard A. Booth

Working Paper Series

Criminal prosecution has been used with increasing frequency recently in connection with a variety of business failures and other financial offenses. Indeed, it appears that there are few such offenses that cannot be prosecuted criminally even though they also give rise to civil remedies. While some such offenses seem to be quite serious frauds, others seem to be as minor as getting the accounting rules wrong. Thus, the question addressed in this essay is how to define a business crime and what should be the proper role of criminal prosecution in connection with business offenses. I start with the proposition …

Credibility: A Fair Subject For Expert Testimony?, Anne Poulin

Working Paper Series

This article explores the ways in which experts can assist the jury to assess the credibility of other witnesses and suggests analytical approaches to such expert testimony. The article argues that the courts should be more receptive to expert testimony bearing on witness credibility and engage in a more nuanced consideration of the role played by proffered expert testimony and how the role of the evidence affects its admissibility. Doing so should lead the courts to embrace the promise of the modern rules of evidence and permit experts to assist juries as they assess credibility.

Facilitated Plagiarism: The Saga Of Term-Paper Mills And The Failure Of Legislation And Litigation To Control Them, Darby Dickerson

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.

Justice Department's Policy On Corporate Prosecutions Under Attack: United States V. Stein Assails Thompson Memorandum, Lauren E. Taigue

Villanova Law Review (1956 - )

No abstract provided.