Criminal Law Commons^™

Am I Under Arrest? Why The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Need A Strict Definition Of What Constitutes An Intervening Arrest, Rebekah R. Runyon

Florida Law Review

Congress provided for the creation of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines to promote fairness and produce proportional and uniform sentences. The Guidelines provide judges with a guideline range for sentencing based on a defendant’s criminal history score and the offense level of the defendant’s criminal conduct. A defendant’s prior “intervening arrests” are considered in computing her criminal history score. But the current version of the Guidelines does not clearly define what constitutes an intervening arrest for the purposes of calculating an offender’s score. Consequently, a split has developed between circuit courts as to whether a criminal traffic citation constitutes an intervening …

What Is Federal Habeas Worth?, Samuel R. Wiseman

Florida Law Review

Federal habeas review of state non-capital cases under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) is widely regarded as deeply flawed for producing a huge volume of costly litigation and very little relief. Many scholars have called for AEDPA’s repeal and a return to more robust federal review, but recently, several prominent commentators have suggested more dramatic change— radically limiting federal habeas in exchange for more fruitful reform efforts. In an era of limited criminal justice budgets and an increasing focus on efficiency, these proposals are likely to proliferate. This Article lays out a needed empirical and …

Bouncing The Proverbial Blank Check: An Argument For Including Candidates For Public Office Within The Scope Of The Hobbs Act, Jennifer Lada

Florida Law Review

The Hobbs Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1951, criminalizes bribery of and extortion by public officials. Under the statute, “‘extortion’ means the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right.” But the meaning of “under color of official right” remains ambiguous. This Note examines the ambiguity created by the phrase “under color of official right” to decide whether a candidate for public office can be held accountable under the Hobbs Act for extortion. More specifically, this Note addresses whether a candidate …

Mental Capacity: Reevaluating The Standards, Eulen E. Jang

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Reducing The Rate Of Prison Recidivism In Florida By Providing State Corporate Income Tax Credits To Businesses As An Incentive For Employment Of Ex-Felons, Heidi A. Hillyer

Barry Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Collision Of Practice And The Law In U.S. Schools And School Districts, Yvonne Pratt-Johnson

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

Ballin In The Boardroom: Changing The Social Context Of Sexual Harassment, Todd J. Clark

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

No abstract provided.

Fixing Bail, Samuel R. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

A large portion of the jail population consists of criminal defendants whose guilt has yet to be established. A growing number of states have attempted to reduce jail populations in light of budget concerns, and many federal and state statutes already direct judges to detain defendants only if alternative conditions will not protect society or prevent pretrial flight. Despite these legislative directives, judges continue to jail too many defendants pretrial. Indeed, although statutes often direct judges not to impose financial conditions leading to detention, many pretrial detainees are in jail because they could not afford the bond set by a …

Inconsistencies In Georgia's Sex-Crime Statutes Teach Teens That Sexting Is Worse Than Sex, Emily L. Evett

Mercer Law Review

Jack and Jane are high school sweethearts. Jane is a sixteen-year-old high school junior, and Jack is a nineteen year old freshman in college. Last night, the teenage couple had sexual intercourse. Tonight, they decide to send sexually suggestive photographs to each other using their cell phones. Neither Jack nor Jane sent the photographs to anyone else. In Georgia, no crime was committed by either of them when they had sexual intercourse because Jane is over the age of sixteen. But, Jack committed a misdemeanor of high and aggravated nature when he sent a sexually explicit photograph of himself to …

The Prosecutor's Turn, Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Location, Location, Mis-Location: How Local Land Use Restrictions Are Dulling Halfway Housing's Criminal Rehabilitation Potentia, Michael J. Mcgowan

Student Scholarship

Part I of this Article begins with a brief historical explanation of halfway houses as a model of criminal rehabilitation. Part II addresses why recidivism rates provide the most appropriate metric gauging halfway houses' success and how they apparently have failed to improve recidivism rates. Part III then delves into the body of scholarship that explains how an individual's likelihood of landing back behind bars is to some extent demonstrably tied to their location, meaning their surrounding cultural, economic, and criminogenic environment. Part IV discusses the sparse data on the sorts of neighborhoods where halfway houses ultimately end up and …

Birchfield V. North Dakota:Why The United States Supreme Court Should Rely On Riley V. California To Hold That Criminalizing A Suspect’S Refusal To Consent To A Warrantless Blood Test Violates The Fourth Amendment, Adam Lamparello, Cynthia Swann

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Humane Proposals For Swift And Painless Death, Bryce Buchmann

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

This comment will provide reasons why lethal injection is not the appropriate method of execution in the United States, discuss factors that should be considered in selecting a method of execution and conclude that several alternative methods of punishment are preferable to lethal injection. Part I of this comment will detail the history of lethal injection in the United States and the issues associated with the practice. Part II examines how the government determines which method of execution is appropriate. Finally, Part III provides proposals for more humane punishment and concludes the comment.

Humane Proposals For Swift And Painless Death, Bryce Buchmann

Law Student Publications

This comment will provide reasons why lethal injection is not the appropriate method of execution in the United States, discuss factors that should be considered in selecting a method of execution and conclude that several alternative methods of punishment are preferable to lethal injection. Part I of this comment will detail the history of lethal injection in the United States and the issues associated with the practice. Part II examines how the government determines which method of execution is appropriate. Finally, Part III provides proposals for more humane punishment and concludes the comment.

“One Of The Worst:” The School-To-Prison Pipeline In Richmond, Virginia, Cassie Powell

Law Student Publications

Virginia tops the nation in the rate of referrals of students to law enforcement, at three times the national average. Students with disabilities and children of color are far more likely to be referred. Some Richmond area school districts and local government leaders are taking steps to counteract this trend.

Humane Proposals For Swift And Painless Death, Bryce Buchmann

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

This comment will provide reasons why lethal injection is not the appropriate method of execution in the United States, discuss factors that should be considered in selecting a method of execution and conclude that several alternative methods of punishment are preferable to lethal injection. Part I of this comment will detail the history of lethal injection in the United States and the issues associated with the practice. Part II examines how the government determines which method of execution is appropriate. Finally, Part III provides proposals for more humane punishment and concludes the comment.

Plea Bargain Negotiations: Defining Competence Beyond Lafler And Frye, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

In the companion cases of Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye the U.S. Supreme Court held that there is a right to effective assistance of counsel during plea bargaining. However, the Court defined effective assistance of counsel in only one narrow phase of plea bargaining: the client counseling phase. The Court said it would not look more broadly at the negotiation process itself as "[b]argaining is, by its nature, defined to a substantial degree by personal style.” This statement indicates that the Court does not fully understanding developments in the field of negotiation over the last thirty years. Negotiation …

Thinking Outside The Jury Box: Deploying The Grand Jury In The Guilty Plea Process, Roger Fairfax

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

There is near-universal agreement that the engine of the modern American criminal justice system is plea bargaining.'Given the ubiquity of plea bargaining, the Supreme Court and the rest of the legal community have begun setting their sights on how the practice might be better regulated. At the same time, many hold the view that the grand jury has outlived its usefulness in the administration of criminal justice and is a relic of a time gone by. Even before recent calls for the abolition of the grand jury in the wake of high-profile cases that seemed to cast the institution in …

Tucker V. Louisiana: Motion For Leave To File And Brief Of Amici Curiae Law And Political Science Scholars In Support Of Petitioner, Samuel R. Gross

Appellate Briefs

Amici are scholars of law and political science. Among them are academics who have analyzed data indicating the frequency with which death sentences are rendered and carried out, and have written scholarly articles on capital punishment.

In the 40 years since Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S 238, 242 (1972), our Nation's standards of decency - the prism through which this Court evaluates the protections of the Eighth Amendment -have evolved. Death sentences and executions have drastically declined over the last 20 years, reflecting the powerful shift in public opinion against capital punishment.

As evidenced by so many states having …

An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn

Animal Sentience

Legislation throughout the U.S. recognizes animal sentience and the importance of veterinary reporting to combat the ongoing suffering of these animal victims: All 50 states have felony penalties available for animal cruelty crimes, and veterinary reporting is permitted or required in the majority of states. The remaining minority of U.S. states should take action to require veterinarians to report animal cruelty and render veterinarians immune for good faith reporting.

Rippo V. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 11 (Feb. 25, 2016), Kristian Kaskla

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Rippo’s claim, that the ineffective assistance of the counsel who represented him in the first post conviction hearing excused the procedural bars to claims raised in the second petition, was rejected. The Court provided guidance on two issues related to whether an ineffective-assistance-of-postconviction-counsel claim has been raised in a timely fashion: (1) when does a postconviction-counsel claim reasonably become available, and (2) what is a reasonable time thereafter in which the claim must be asserted. They held on (1) that the factual basis for such a claim is not reasonably available until the conclusion of postconviction proceedings in which the …

Quisano V. State, 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 9 (February 18, 2016), Michael Hua

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

This court affirmed an appeal from a judgment of conviction, pursuant to an Alford plea, of voluntary manslaughter and child abuse, neglect, or endangerment with substantial bodily harm holding:

(1) Brady violations do not occur when the evidence in question is not favorable to the defendant;

(2) Prosecutors have a strict duty to disclose under their own open-file policy until sentencing proceedings; and,

(3) Media outlets require a written by the district court to electronically cover proceedings unless nonconstitutional or harmless error results in such coverage.

Padilla V. Kentucky: Sound And Fury, Or Transformative Impact, Steven Zeidman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Realizing Padilla’S Promise: Ensuring Noncitizen Defendants Are Advised Of The Immigration Consequences Of A Criminal Conviction, Yolanda Vàzquez

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Conference Report: Padilla And The Future Of The Defense Function, Joel M. Schumm

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

You Are The Last Lawyer They Will Ever See Before Exile: Padilla V. Kentucky And One Indigent Defender Office's Account Of Creating A Systematic Approach To Providing Immigration Advice In Times Of Tight Budgets And High Caseloads, Carlos J. Martinez, George C. Palaidis, Sarah Wood Borak

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

A View Through The Looking Glass: How Crimes Appear From The Immigration Court Perspective, Hon. Dana Leigh Marks, Hon. Denise Noonan Slavin

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Evolving Standards Of Reasonableness: The Aba Standards And The Right To Counsel In Plea Negotiations, Margaret Colgate Love

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The ABA Criminal Justice Standards have been recognized by the Supreme Court as one of the most important sources for determining lawyer competence in right to counsel cases. Because the constitutional test under the Sixth Amendment is whether defense counsel’s performance was “reasonable” under “prevailing professional norms,” the standard of competence is necessarily an evolving one. The Supreme Court's decision in Padilla v. Kentucky underscores the defense bar’s stake in participating in the ABA standard-setting process to guide the development of defense counsel's obligations in plea negotiations. In addition, to the extent the courts give the ABA Standards credence in …

Padilla And Beyond: The Future Of The Defense Function, Hon. Jonathan Lippman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Collateral Consequences: How Reliable Data And Resources Can Change The Way Law Is Practiced, Christopher Gowen, Erin Magary

Fordham Urban Law Journal

No abstract provided.