Criminal Law Commons^™

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A central precept of death penalty jurisprudence is that only the "death worthy" should be condemned, based on a "reasoned moral response" by the sentencing authority. Over the past decade, however, the Supreme Court has distanced itself from its painstaking efforts in the 1970s to calibrate death decision making in the name of fairness. Compelling proof of this shift is manifest in the Court's decisions to permit victim impact evidence in capital trials, and to allow jurors to be instructed that sympathy for capital defendants is not to influence capital decisions. This Article examines a novel strategy now being employed …

The Interplay Of Race And False Claims Of Jury Nullification, Nancy S. Marder

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

After the verdicts in the OJ Simpson and Stacey Koon/Laurence Powell cases, many in the press explained the juries' acquittals as instances of jury nullification. However these were unlikely to have been instances of nullification, particularly because the jurors explained that their verdicts were based on reasonable doubt. One motivation for these false claims of jury nullification was the homogeneity of the juries-a largely African-American jury in the case of Simpson and a largely white jury in the case of Koon/Powell. Nullification became the term by which press and public attempted to discredit verdicts rendered by juries they distrusted. A …

The Offense: Interpreting The Indictment Requirement In 21 U.S.C. § 851, Christopher Serkin

Michigan Law Review

Congress enacted the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 ("the Act") to unify and rationalize its treatment of drug offenses. The Act was an enormous piece of legislation, requiring months of congressional hearings before it was passed. Today, the Act encompasses over 150 sections of title 21 of the U.S. Code and regulates behavior ranging from manufacturing and mislabeling to prescribing controlled substances. Like any piece of complex legislation, the Act has spawned its share of litigation. One controversy has defied satisfactory resolution: the meaning of the innocuous phrase, "the offense," in section 851(a)(2). The statute's structure …

How The Grinch Stole Chanukah, Isaac M. Jaroslawicz

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Child Protection As A Judicial Burden On Religion And The Impact Of Religious Liberty Legislation, Robert J. Bruno

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Witch Doctors And Battleship Stalkers: The Edges Of Exculpation In Entrapment Cases, John F. Preis

Vanderbilt Law Review

The bumbling criminal has long been humorous to the law-abiding. Take, for example, a man recently intent on robbing a bank. The man entered a Bank of America bank, grabbed a deposit slip, and wrote on it "This iz a stikkup. Put all your muny in this bag."' While waiting in line for a teller, he became worried that someone had seen him write the note and would inform the police. Thus, he exited the bank, walked across the street to the Wells Fargo bank, and gave the note to a teller. The teller, probably sensing his lack of dangerousness …

Criminal Law, Franklin J. Hogue, Laura D. Hogue

Mercer Law Review

The Georgia Court of Appeals and Supreme Court produce a prodigious number of opinions in criminal cases every year. We reviewed 940 cases for this reporting period. We refrained from straying outside the reporting period, even though one recent case of significance tempted us greatly. Look for it in next year's review. We are trial lawyers, so we organized this article in roughly the order in which issues may arise in the average case. If no opinions of note came out of the appellate courts in a given area of law, such as in the area of bonds and pretrial …

A New Start Calls For A Broadened Perspective, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Corporate Liability, Risk Shifting, And The Paradox Of Compliance, William S. Laufer

Vanderbilt Law Review

The evolution of corporate criminal law is explained by the shifting risks of liability and loss between corporations and their agents in accommodating the illogic of vicarious liability. A vivid example of the effects of this risk shifting is seen with the recent emergence of the good citizen corporation movement. This movement en- courages prosecutors with vast discretion to leverage indictments and convictions of subordinate agents, resort to civil and administrative actions against large and medium-sized corporations in place of criminal indictments, compromise agent indemnification, and enforce corporate self-regulation through elaborate plea agreements. Not surprisingly, organizations tend to conceive of …

When Balance And Fairness Collide: An Argument For Execution Impact Evidence In Capital Trials, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

A central precept of death penalty jurisprudence is that only the "death worthy" should be condemned, based on a "reasoned moral response" by the sentencing authority. Over the past decade, however, the Supreme Court has distanced itself from its painstaking efforts in the 1970s to calibrate death decision making in the name of fairness. Compelling proof of this shift is manifest in the Court's decisions to permit victim impact evidence in capital trials, and to allow jurors to be instructed that sympathy for capital defendants is not to influence capital decisions. This Article examines a novel strategy now being employed …

Neonaticide And The Misuse Of The Insanity Defense, Megan C. Hogan

William & Mary Journal of Race, Gender, and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Patterns Of Injustice: Police Brutality In The Courts, Susan Bandes

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conclusion, Jonathan S. Greene

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Extradition From Israel: The Samuel Sheinbein Case, Dina Maslow

Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law

The note examines the legal complexities surrounding the extradition case of Samuel Sheinbein, a dual citizen of Israel and the United States, who fled to Israel after being implicated in a murder in Maryland. The case highlights tensions between Israel's citizenship laws, which prohibit the extradition of its citizens, and international extradition norms. The Israeli Supreme Court ultimately ruled that Sheinbein could not be extradited due to his Israeli citizenship, prompting efforts to revise the extradition agreement between Israel and the United States to prevent similar outcomes in the future. The case underscores the challenges of balancing national sovereignty with …

High Crimes And Misdemeanors: Defining The Constitutional Limits On Presidential Impeachment, Frank O. Bowman Iii, Stephen L. Sepinuck

Faculty Publications

This Article had its genesis in a statement by the authors submitted to the House Judiciary Committee during its proceedings regarding the impeachment of President Clinton. This final much expanded version appears after the conclusion of the Clinton impeachment proceedings in the Senate, and it is certainly informed by the course those proceedings took. Strictly speaking, however, this is not an article “about” the Clinton impeachment. Although this Article draws some conclusions from the treatment by the House and Senate of the fundamental allegations against President Clinton, it does not address in detail the specific facts underlying those allegations. The …

Section 7: Criminal Law And Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Rights For The Rape Victim: Lifting Statute Of Limitations For Prosecution Of Violent Crimes, Suzanne M. Knight

Buffalo Women's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Brzonkala Case & The Violence Against Women Act Of 1994, Jacqueline Druar

Buffalo Women's Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Criminalizing Money Laundering As A Method And Means Of Curbing Corruption, Organized Crime, And Capital Flight In Russia, Sam Chung

Washington International Law Journal

In the wake of the post-Soviet privatization in the Russian Federation, corruption and organized crime have flourished, contributing to capital flight, economic instability, and the collapse of Russia's financial system. Over the same period, Russian legislators have worked to reform the legal system in order to facilitate their country's transition to democracy and the rule of law. In 1997, legislative efforts led to the enactment of a new criminal code that emphasizes the rights of the individual as opposed to the power of the government. More recently, several draft bills targeting money laundering activities and banking reform have been introduced …

Could "Bad Kids" Be Saved By Better Laws? A Comparison Of Current Federal Legislation Of The United States And Canada, Jessica Elaine Becker

Penn State International Law Review (1982 - 2011)

No abstract provided.

Formal Legal Truth And Substantive Truth In Judicial Fact-Finding – Their Justified Divergence In Some Particular Cases, Robert S. Summers

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Truth is a fundamental objective of adjudicative processes; ideally, ‘substantive’ as distinct from ‘formal legal’ truth. But problems of evidence, for example, may frustrate finding of substantive truth; other values may lead to exclusions of probative evidence, e.g., for the sake of fairness. ‘Jury nullification’ and ‘jury equity’. Limits of time, and definitiveness of decision, require allocation of burden of proof. Degree of truth-formality is variable within a system and across systems.

Punishment As Atonement, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

How would punishment work in an ideal community, one in which the members of the community identify with one another? In this article, Professor Stephen Garvey argues that punishment in such a community would be understood as a form of secular penance and would form part of the process by which the wrongdoer atones for his wrongdoing. Compared to this account of punishment, which Garvey calls "punishment as atonement," other accounts fall short. The older and dominant approaches of utilitarianism and retributivism offer justifications for punishment that ignore the goal of atonement. Newer approaches, restorativism and libertarianism, recognize the importance …

Defending Substantial Assistance: An Old Prosecutor's Meditation On Singleton, Sealed Case, And The Maxfield-Kramer Report, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This essay begins with a brief analysis of the panel and en banc opinions in Sealed Case and Singleton, and then turns to the more arresting question of whether the panel decisions were transitory aberrations or something more. Particularly if one considers Singleton and Sealed Case together with the Sentencing Commission's staff report on substantial assistance practice (the “Maxfield - Kramer Report”), it is difficult to escape the conclusion that unease with the current substantial assistance regime is growing. Unlike many observers, I view §5K1.1 as a very good thing, an invaluable prosecutorial tool against group criminality, but a tool …

Departing Is Such Sweet Sorrow: A Year Of Judicial Revolt On "Substantial Assistance" Departures Follows A Decade Of Prosecutorial Indiscipline (Prosecution Law Symposium), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

the first section of this essay is devoted to demonstrating the courts' errors. Nonetheless, considered together, these opinions are perhaps an understandable reflection of judicial unease with an important component of the federal sentencing system — the longstanding, but increasingly common, practice of making deals with criminal defendants to reduce their sentences in return for testimony against their accomplices. This Article's second section will consider the most common criticisms of the system of bargaining for testimony under the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines) to determine whether Singleton and Sealed Case may be good policy even if they are bad …

Federal Sentencing Guidelines, James T. Skuthan, Rosemary T. Cakmis

Mercer Law Review

The Eleventh Circuit decided several cases this past year covering a broad range of United States Sentencing Guidelines ("U.S.S.G.") issues. Two areas of particular concern were firearms and departures.

Due to the 1995 Supreme Court decision in Bailey v. United States, several defendants had their firearm convictions vacated and were resentenced. Thus, the Eleventh Circuit in 1998 was faced with reviewing these resentencings to determine the applicability of guideline enhancements for firearms.

The court also decided several cases relating to downward departures based on cultural differences, a defendant's impulse control disorder, the over-representation of a career offender's prior record, …

Liberty Interests In The Preventive State: Procedural Due Process And Sex Offender Community Notification Laws, Wayne A. Logan

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Moving Toward A Clearer Definition Of Insider Trading: Why Adoption Of The Possession Standard Protects Investors, Lacey S. Calhoun

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In recent years, insider trading has become a publicized focus of securities law enforcement. The definition of insider trading has emerged slowly through case law, and the term has been clarified by new theories of liability. The use and possession tests are two standards of liability used to judge the treatment of inside information. The use standard offers a defense to insider trading liability while the possession standard premises liability on mere possession of inside information. This Note argues that courts should adopt the possession standard because this standard better protects investors, a primary goal of the Securities Exchange Act …

Insane Fear: The Discriminatory Category Of "Mentally Ill And Dangerous", Sherry F. Colb

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This article considers the constitutional and moral implications of the distinction the law draws between different classes of dangerous people, depending upon their status as mentally ill or mentally well. Those who are mentally well benefit from the right to freedom from incarceration unless and until they commit a crime. By contrast, dangerous people who are mentally ill are subject to potentially indefinite "civil" preemptive confinement.

In a relatively recent case, Kansas v. Hendricks, the United States Supreme Court upheld the post-prison civil confinement of Leroy Hendricks, a man who had served prison time after pleading guilty to child molestation. …

Say It Loud: Indirect Speech And Racial Equality In The Interrogation Room, C. Antoinette Clarke

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sex, Culture, And The Biology Of Rape: Toward Explanation And Prevention, Owen D. Jones

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

For all that has been written about rape, its multiple causes remain insufficiently understood for law to deter it effectively. This follows, in part, from inadequately interdisciplinary study of rape causation. This Article argues that integrating life science and social science perspectives on sexual aggression can improve law's model of rape behavior, and further our efforts to reduce its incidence.

The Article first explains biobehavioral theories of sexual aggression, and offers a guide to common but avoidable errors in assessing them. It then compares a number of those theories' predictions with existing data and demonstrates how knowledge of the effects …