Criminal Law Commons^™

Perttu V. Richards: Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Margo Schlanger

Appellate Briefs

Amici are professors of law who have studied, taught, and written about prisoner litigation and about rights to jury trials. They submit this brief to share their views, based on that experience, on the proper interpretation of the Prison Litigation Reform Act) in light of the important jury trial rights at stake and the practical realities of prisoner litigation.

Modern Research Issues And Problems Of The Sociology Of Crime And Future Visions: An Analytical Study, Samah Mohamed Abd Allatif

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The current study aimed to attempt to monitor the most important modern research issues and problems raised at the Arab and Western levels in the field of sociology of crime by identifying and classifying them and identifying the most important global theoretical and methodological trends used in studying and interpreting crime and presenting a critical vision of global studies and research in the field of sociology of crime. The study relied on the content analysis approach in its (qualitative) aspect in addressing all Arab and foreign research and studies published in local and Arab periodicals and magazines by using the …

Cyber Crimes And Mechanisms To Confront Them - The United Arab Emirates As À Model, Aicha Kada Benabdallah, Mohammed Samir Ayad

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The technological factor is a double-edged sword; It is a factor of strength for the state as a result of the development it achieves through exploiting modern technologies and information system, and a factor of weakness for it through exploiting modern technology against it to achieve special interests aimed at destabilizing the security and stability of states.

This research paper attempts to shed light on cybercrimes' various forms and characteristics. Today's crimes are different from yesterday's crimes. Considering that it is rapidly spreading and more complex; This is what puts countries in constant search for ways out and …

Evidence In Cybercrime, Maryam Ghanem Al Kaabi

Journal of Police and Legal Sciences

The research aims to clarify the rules of evidence in cybercrimes, and the importance of the research lies in that it deals with the rules for evidence in cybercrimes, by demonstrating the effectiveness of the application of the general rules of evidence contained in the Federal Code of Criminal Procedure on evidence in cybercrimes, and research on the adequacy of the rules of evidence in cybercrimes brought by the UAE legislator, and the research is important as it deals with a very important topic that benefits jurists and judicial officers. This study identifies the legal framework for proving cybercrime based …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT: "The right to trial by jury is 'of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that any seeming curtailment of the right' has always been and 'should be scrutinized with the utmost care." SEC v. Jarkesy, 144 S. Ct. 2117, 2128 (2024) (quoting Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486 (1935)). The Seventh Amendment reflects and enshrines that tradition, providing that in "[s]uits at common law ... the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." U.S. Const. amend. VII (quoting Dimick; see also City of …

Decriminalizing Disease: A Health Justice Approach To Infectious Diseases And Criminal Law, Sean E. Bland

Arkansas Law Review

Infectious diseases, also called communicable diseases, are largely a public health issue and should not be criminalized. This Article seeks to re-frame the discussion around the legal framework for infectious diseases in a way that moves beyond a punishment mindset and toward a health justice mindset. The focus in this Article is on health justice rather than traditional understandings of public health, defined as the science and practice of improving the health of people and their communities. The Article makes three novel contributions. First, it applies a health justice framework to the critique of infectious disease criminalization. Second, the Article …

The Navajo Nation And The Colorado River: Their Current Statuses And The Tribe's Path Forward, Colton Gregg

American Indian Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Corona Pandemic On Crime Within The Family From The Researchers’ Point Of View In The Ministry Of Social Development In The Southern West Bank, Kifah Manasra, Muhammad Okkeh

Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

The study aimed to identify the extent to which the family crimes in the Palestinian society are spread due to the Corona pandemic. It also aimed to reveal the psychological, economic and social effects of the Corona pandemic on the crimes within the family in the Palestinian society in the Southern West Bank. The researcher s used a questionnaire to collect the data and the descriptive approach to analyze it. The purposive sample consisted of (74) researchers from the total population which was (120) researchers from the Ministry of Social Development in the governorates of Hebron and Bethlehem in the …

The Role Of Criminal Mediation In Achieving Criminal Justice For Juveniles (A Comparative Analytical Study Between Palestinian And Jordanian Legislations), Issam Al-Atrash

Journal of the Arab American University مجلة الجامعة العربية الامريكية للبحوث

This study aimed to identify the role of criminal mediation in achieving criminal justice for juveniles. To achieve this purpose, the researcher used the descriptive analytical approach, the comparative approach and the historical approach. The study also addressed the provisions of criminal mediation in the Palestinian Juvenile Law No. 4 of 2015, and the Jordanian Juvenile Law No. 32 of 2014 regarding the parties of the criminal mediation of the juveniles, the conditions of criminal mediation for the juveniles, and the consequences thereof. The study concluded that the most prominent result was that the criminal mediation of juveniles in the …

Law School News: Community Building Third-Year Gina George Takes Helm Of Student Bar Association 01-06-2025, Suzi Morales, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Book Review, Jens Meierhenrich, The Violence Of Law: The Formation And Deformation Of Gacaca Courts In Rwanda (2024)., Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

In The Violence of Law, Jens Meierhenrich—currently professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science—offers a detailed, erudite, and encyclopedic analysis of the gacaca system.

The Eighth Amendment’S Paper Tiger: Pain, Executions, And The Cruel And Unusual Punishment Clause, Alexandra L. Klein

Scholarly Articles

The Eighth Amendment prohibits “cruel and unusual punishments.” This prohibition applies to the way states carry out executions: states may impose capital punishment but may not do so in a way that is unconstitutionally cruel. Over a trilogy of cases that began with Baze v. Rees in 2008, the Court developed a test for analyzing whether a state’s proposed method of execution violated the Eighth Amendment. Under Baze/Glossip/Bucklew, a person challenging a state’s method of execution must show that the method of execution poses a severe risk of “superadded” pain and suffering that can be alleviated by a readily …

Criminal Caselaw Notebook 2025, Hon. Ronald Kessler

Washington State Books

This publication from King County Superior Court judge Ronald Kessler is updated semi-annually and is distributed free of charge. It includes citations to Washington state case law on a variety of criminal law topics.

Not Demented Enough: Dementia And Competency To Stand Trial, Rashmi Goel

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Although competency to stand trial holds a vaunted position among the due-process rights in our criminal justice system, its current application is a mere shadow of the original promise articulated in Dusky v. United States. The competency-to-stand-trial requirement is supposed to protect the mentally ill and the mentally impaired from criminal trial, but the requirement has been continually chipped away, both doctrinally and practically. As a result, it no longer protects the most vulnerable. People with dementia, most often elderly with cognitive impairments, face a perilous ordeal when caught in the criminal justice system. And, as dementia rates increase, more …

Policing As General Warrants, Warren Buff, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

The drafters of the Bill of Rights and its proponents envisioned a document constitutionalizing protections against some of the worst abuses they had experienced under English rule. Prominent businessmen—many of them engaged in smuggling— found their homes ransacked in search of contraband on flimsy evidence and without any reason given for the disruption of their business and consequent enrichment of government agents. The Fourth Amendment addressed the use of general warrants and writs of assistance to allow government agents to conduct broad searches with limited scrutiny. In the early years of the Constitution, this had little practical effect, because public …

On Becoming And Being A Criminal Defense Attorney, Steven B. Duke

Touro Law Review

Steven B. Duke grew up in a tiny farming community in Arizona. In college, he experienced injustice during an encounter with the police and decided to attend law school. As a result of his success at the University of Arizona Law School, Duke was offered a clerkship with Justice William O. Douglas for the 1959-60 Supreme Court term. As Duke describes in this article, working for Justice Douglas was a rewarding and demanding experience. Douglas, probably the most liberal Justice ever to serve on the Supreme Court, had a dazzling intellect and wrote many books on all manner of subjects. …

Battered Woman Syndrome: A Legal Defense To Homicide, Savannah Plaisted

Northwestern Law Journal des Refusés

No abstract provided.

Legalist Realism, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This essay explores the scholarly footprint of Professor Megan Fairlie. This is a footprint of "legalist realism." Professor Fairlie was greatly concerned with legalism, in other words, the centrality of due process, the rights of the defendant, and human dignity in trials of individuals accused of the most heinous crimes. She was committed to put the law in international criminal law. And her view was one of realism, notably, that the structure of international institutions must be mindful of power politics, and expectations and ambitions ought to recognize the limitations and possibilities of politics in order to retain legitimacy and …

Introduction, In Children And Violence: Agency, Experience, And Representation In And Beyond Armed Conflict (Christelle Molima Bameka Et Al. Eds., 2025), Christelle Molima Bameka, Mohamed Kamara, Mark A. Drumbl

Books and Chapters

This multi-disciplinary volume provides an innovative approach to children and violence, looking beyond the existing literature that focuses on child soldiers in the ‘Global South.’

Harnessing expert contributions from over a dozen countries, the book examines the relationship between children and violence, with a focus on children ensnared in military conflict, embroiled in criminal gangs, and enmeshed in political activism. It analyses how children join fights, how they fight, and what happens to them after fighting officially ends. It addresses cutting- edge issues such as cyberwars, self-defence, intergenerational trauma, gender fluidity, racism and state surveillance. Throughout, the book underscores the …

Children As Informers And Denouncers, In Children And Violence: Agency, Experience, And Representation In And Beyond Armed Conflict (Christelle Molima Bameka Et Al. Eds., 2025), Mark A. Drumbl, Barbora Holá

Books and Chapters

This chapter explores the use of children in propaganda and informing networks as forms of violence. While this chapter nests in 20th- century Communism in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia, the interface of children with these networks is not unique to these times and places. Indeed, these experiences link to those elsewhere, thereby elucidating the dually manipulated and agentic role of children in a regime’s fight for legitimacy and thereby blending with a number of contributions to this volume including those by Mohamed Kamara and Sylvie Bodineau. The point of this chapter is not to particularise (or pathologise) Soviet and …

Fragmentation Of International Cybercrime Law, Mailyn Fidler

Law Faculty Scholarship

Cybercrime is global. But legal approaches to combating cybercrime have been fragmented. The first such multilateral legal mechanism, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, was launched in 2001 and positioned by its primarily Western drafters as a global instrument. But it has struggled to achieve full international uptake. Instead, many states have used regional organizations to create their own legal mechanisms addressing cybercrime and cybersecurity threats. More recently, the UN Convention on Cybercrime has emerged as an alternative to this fragmented landscape. But the emergence and significance of this “convergent” option cannot be understood without the context of the deep fragmentation …

Title 18’S Property Conundrum, Karen E. Woody, Joshua L. Clardy

Scholarly Articles

“Property,” in legal terms, carries significant weight. Once an object is heralded as “property,” that object becomes a step closer to being afforded the protections of the Constitution, offered equitable remedies at a court’s disposal, or even subjected to taxation by the state or federal government. Defining an object as “property” also puts it within the reach of the Title 18 property fraud statutes. Title 18’s fraud statutes have been often lauded by federal prosecutors for their “extraordinary utility.” In their current iteration, these statutes criminalize schemes to defraud “money,” “property,” and “the intangible right of honest services.” But what …

Kennedy V. Louisiana And The Future Of The Eighth Amendment, Alexandra L. Klein

Scholarly Articles

In 2023, Florida passed a law permitting the imposition of the death penalty for the rape of a child under twelve. Tennessee enacted a similar law in 2024. These laws conflict with Kennedy v. Louisiana, a 2008 decision in which the Supreme Court held that imposing the death penalty for the rape of a child violated the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause because it was inconsistent with the evolving standards of decency. Legislators in Florida and Tennessee have expressed their hope that the Supreme Court will overrule Kennedy v. Louisiana. These laws, which resemble state attempts …

Calling Lawyers In, Instead Of Out: The Role Of The Conscious Lawyer, Siwatu-Salama Ra

JCLC Online

No abstract provided.

What Does Npep Mean To Us?, Northwestern Prison Education Program

JCLC Online

The Northwestern Prison Education Program (NPEP) provides currently incarcerated individuals across Illinois an undergraduate education from Northwestern University. At Stateville and Logan Correctional Centers, admitted NPEP students work toward a Bachelor of Science degree, taking a full course load taught by Northwestern professors within the prisons’ walls. On November 14, 2023, the inaugural cohort of NPEP students at Stateville graduated from the program, making history as the first incarcerated students in the United States to earn a bachelor’s degree from a top ten university as ranked by U.S. News and World Report. This piece is a collection of personal reflections …

The Meaning Of Life, In Michigan: Mercy From Life Sentences Under The State Constitution, Molly Bernstein, David Shapiro

JCLC Online

Properly understood, the “cruel or unusual” punishment clause of the Michigan Constitution grants every person sentenced to life in prison a meaningful right to obtain release through rehabilitation. Today, however, Michigan has among the nation’s largest populations of people serving both formal and de facto life sentences without any meaningful possibility of release.

In 1850, Michigan revised its state constitution to prohibit “cruel or unusual punishment,” creating a contrast with the conjunctive “cruel and unusual punishments” clause of the federal Eighth Amendment. This disjunctive prohibition, which subsequent Michigan constitutional conventions retained, prohibits both “cruel” sentences and “unusual” sentences. We argue …

For Official Violence, The Devil's In The Dehumanizing Details, Rachel Kincaid

JCLC Online

In Excessive Force in Prison, Professor Sharon Dolovich tackles the shortcomings of the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment doctrine to govern uses of official violence against prisoners. She argues that law enforcement officers owe a duty of care and protection to incarcerated people, but that duty of care and protection is undermined by the dehumanization and demonization of prisoners. Professor Dolovich thus advocates for shifting the doctrinal standard for excessive force under the Eighth Amendment to one based on objective reasonableness, paired with jury instructions explicitly reminding jurors of incarcerated victims’ humanity. To counteract the vagaries of such an …

From Oppenheimer To Trump: An Exploration Of The American History Of Prosecution And Persecution In Classified Information Dissemination, Samuel Bevenour

JCLC Online

Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, was stripped of his security clearance before documents were properly classified and without access to exculpatory evidence in what amounted to a show trial. The modern, peace-time classification system has expanded into an arguably uncontrollable leviathan that has proven unable to be curtailed by either political party despite bipartisan support. The usage of the related Espionage Act to enforce the ever-growing secrecy state has a problematic history of being utilized in politically motivated prosecutions in which defendants still face an uphill battle to gain access to exculpatory information. These prosecutions, under the …

Juvenile Drug Offenses: Rethinking Criminal Justice Approaches And Intervention Strategies, Lucas Kelly

JCLC Online

Juveniles, whose offending nature fundamentally differs from that of adults, should not be subjected to the traditional criminal justice system for drug offenses. Juvenile drug offenders warrant heightened attention due to their diminished capacity for reasoned judgment, increased susceptibility to the effects of drugs, the profound impact that criminal drug charges have on their future, and the possible presence of Substance Use Disorder. This Comment breaks down ways in which the U.S. has handled, and currently handles, juvenile drug offenders. I will also explore the long-term and short-term effects of drug convictions for juveniles, the issue of culpability and susceptibility …

A Practitioner's Response To "Excessive Force In Prison": The Real-World Implications Of Professor Dolovich's Proposed 8th Amendment Standard, Alan Mills

JCLC Online

In Excessive Force in Prison, Professor Sharon Dolovich has proposed a new standard for liability in excessive force cases brought by prisoners against prison officials, shifting the Eighth Amendment analysis from its current deference to correctional officers’ judgment to a “morally robust reasonableness standard.”

While Professor Dolovich’s argument is righteous and compelling, its potential to practically impact prison litigation is lacking. This Article responds to Professor Dolovich’s recent piece from the perspective of a practitioner with decades of experience litigating prisoners’ rights cases in state and federal court. Based on this experience, this Article suggests that Professor Dolovich’s new …