Criminal Law Commons^™

Criminal Law Drafting Manual, Jean Mangan

Books

This textbook was created under a Round 19 Mini-Grant. It is hosted on the Open ALG (Affordable Learning Georgia) Projects platform. 2024 edition.

Protecting The Innocent: How To Prevent The Consequences Of Misidentification And Doxing By Volunteers Helping With Open Source Investigations, Leigh M. Dannhauser

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Individuals performing open source investigations can misidentify alleged perpetrators and dox innocent parties online, which can subsequently lead to threats and harassment against innocent parties and their loved ones. For example, threats were made against Sunil Tripathi’s family after he was wrongly identified as one of the Boston Marathon bombers and doxed on Reddit and Twitter. In 2020, the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations was published as a guide, and it includes a set of principles to govern open source investigations. However, the Berkeley Protocol is limited to open source investigations performed by those working for organizations. It …

A Fractured Supreme Court: Select Criminal Law And Procedure Cases From The Supreme Court’S 2023-24 Term, Eve Brensike Primus, Jordan Schuler

Articles

In its 2023-2024 Term, the Supreme Court outlined the contours of when a former President of the United States would be immune from criminal prosecution; issued important decisions interpreting the scope of the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, the Double Jeopardy Clause, the Confrontation Clause, and the Second Amendment right to bear arms; decided a number of important statutory interpretation cases; and continued to avoid Fourth Amendment issues, only addressing them in the context of a malicious prosecution charge. Perhaps more striking than the Court’s decisions in these cases, though, was the Justices’ lack of consensus. Of the 16 criminal …

State V. Morillo, 285 A.3d 995 (R.I. 2022)., Ryan J. Becker

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Female Offenders: Exploring Risk Factors For Adulthood Violence, Lauren N. Fowler

Theses and Dissertations

The number of females under correctional supervision has been increasing in the last four decades. For adult women, these offenses are generally drug offenses; however, there have also been increases in the number of women committing violent crimes. Unfortunately, violent females are an understudied population, which limits the data available to inform programs and policies that could address the problem. This study explored potential factors related to violent behavior among adult females by analyzing public-use data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Survey of Prison Inmates, 2016. More specifically, violent and nonviolent state and federal female inmates were assessed regarding …

The Mistaken Law Of Mistakes Of Law: Mistakes Negating Culpability Under The Model Penal Code, Scott England

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines the relationship between two core principles of American criminal law. On one hand, ignorance of the law is no excuse. On the other hand, criminal liability requires not just a guilty act but also a guilty mind. As the criminal law has become more complex, criminal offenses have increasingly raised issues about whether they require culpability as to issues of law, often bringing culpability requirements and the ignorance maxim into apparent conflict.

In 1962, the American Law Institute published the Model Penal Code (“MPC” or “the Code”). The MPC changed American criminal law significantly, and the Code’s …

Elements Of The Criminal Mind, Kelsie A. Esposito Ms.

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Studying human behavior and societal dynamics has captivated scholars across time. From ancient philosophers like Plato to contemporary researchers, the quest to comprehend our distinctiveness and the mechanisms that enable harmonious coexistence remains paramount. This thesis examines the enigmatic realm of the “criminal class,” looking at their identity and actions and the cognitive processes underpinning their behavior. Focusing on violent criminal offenders, this thesis seeks to provide greater meaning and understanding of the criminal mind.

The Brady Database, Brandon L. Garrett, Adam M. Gershowitz, Jennifer Teitcher

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brady v. Maryland turns sixty this year. The Brady doctrine, which requires the government to disclose favorable and material evidence to the defendant, is one of the most frequently litigated criminal procedure issues. Yet, despite decades of Brady cases in federal and state courts, we still know relatively little about how Brady claims are litigated, adjudicated, and what such claims can tell us about the criminal justice system writ large. Scholars are in the dark about how often Brady violations occur, whether it is primarily the fault of prosecutors or the police, whether violations …

Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

American criminal law is facing a crisis of meaning. On one hand, the “traditional school” invokes the archetype of the violent criminal—a murderer, rapist, or thief—who must be prosecuted and punished. On the other hand, the “critical school” invokes the archetype of the low-level drug offender, sentenced to a draconian prison term for mere possession of low levels of marijuana. On this account, the criminal legal system is itself systemically pathological, perhaps even warranting abolition. Like ships passing in the night, the two schools appear irreconcilable. This Article helps break this impasse and builds toward a justification for criminal law …

Race, Racial Bias, And Imputed Liability Murder, Perry Moriearty, Kat Albrecht, Caitlin Glass

Faculty Scholarship

Even within the sordid annals of American crime and punishment, the doctrines of felony murder and accomplice liability murder stand out. Because they allow states to impose their harshest punishments on defendants who never intended, anticipated, or even caused death, legal scholars have long questioned their legitimacy. What surprisingly few scholars have addressed, however, is who bears the brunt.

This Article is one of the first to explore the racialized impact of the two most controversial and ubiquitous forms of what we call “imputed liability murder.” An analysis of ten years of murder prosecutions in the state of Minnesota reveals …