Criminal Law Commons^™

Reforming The Crime Of Libel, Clive Walker

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Challenges Of Institutionalizing Comprehensive Restorative Justice: Theory And Practice In Nova Scotia, Jennifer Llewellyn, Bruce Archibald

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

The Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Program ("NSRJ") is one of the oldest and by all accounts the most comprehensive in Canada. The program centres on youth justice, and operates through referrals by police, prosecutors, judges and correctional officials to community organizations which facilitate restorative conferences and other restoratively oriented processes. More than five years of NSRJ experience with thousands of cases has led to a considerable rethinking of restorative justice theory and practice in relation to governing policies, standards for program implementation and responses to controversial issues. The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of the Nova …

Common Law Police Powers And Exclusion Of Evidence: The Renaissance Of Good Faith, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Canadian courts have become far more willing in recent years to rely on the common law as a source of new police powers. Where once the test from R. v. Waterfield was an exception and an afterthought to what was otherwise the general rule of insistence upon statutory sources for police powers, more recently that test seems to be in the forefront of judges' minds as they decide cases. That 1963 British decision has been cited by Canadian courts roughly as often in the last eight years as in the first 35 years after it was decided. Since 1999 the …

Privacy Goes To The Dogs, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

It becomes increasingly clear, with the decision of the Newfoundland Court of Appeal in R. v. Taylor, ante, that the question of whether police use of sniffer dogs constitutes a search, and if so when, will need to be addressed by the Supreme Court of Canada. In particular the question of whether R. v. Tessling has changed the approach to reasonable expectation of privacy as dramatically as some courts have suggested must be settled. Other questions will also need to be addressed.

The Under-Appreciated Value Of Advisory Guidelines, Erica J. Hashimoto

Scholarly Works

The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 provided that the trial court "shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range" set forth in the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") issued by the Sentencing Commission. With that one phrase, the Act created a system of guidelines that was binding upon judges, rather than simply advisory. Concerns about excessive disparity and undue leniency in sentencing unquestionably drove the political coalition that passed the Act. It is not clear, however, why Congress believed that mandatory-as opposed to advisory-guidelines were necessary to address those concerns. With the benefit of hindsight, it is …

Multicultural Feminism: Assessing Systemic Fault In A Provocative Context, Camille Nelson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION Strictly speaking, the cultural defense is really no defense at all. Instead, it is the moniker attached by defense attorneys to their advocacy which seeks to personalize the accused in one of two ways: First by injecting a reasonable doubt into the mens rea intent requirement - this would result in acquittal, or second, by contextualizing an affirmative defense, like provocation, by the provision of cultural information about the accused - this would result in mitigated sentencing. Central to defense attorneys' uses of the cultural defense is the criminal defendant's perceived "foreignness." This much has been recognized by scholars …

Privatization Of Corrections: A Violation Of U.S. Domestic Law, International Human Rights, And Good Sense, Ira Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Azbarga V. State Of Israel, Elyakim Rubinstein

Translated Opinions

This is an appeal to a single Justice of a decision of the Tel-Aviv-Jaffa District Court, in which the appellant’s application to be allowed out of house arrest, on a daily basis at fixed times, in order to participate in daily prayers at the mosque of the town of Qalansuwa, was denied. Justice Rubenstein allowed the appeal in part, allowing the appellant to go to the nearest mosque to pray once a week and, after three months without incident, to go to the mosque once a day.

Separation Of Powers And The Criminal Law, Rachel E. Barkow

ExpressO

Scholars have written volumes about the separation of powers, but they have focused on the administrative state and have wholly ignored the criminal state. Judges, too, have failed to distinguish criminal from administrative matters. So, the conventional wisdom has been that whatever theory works for the administrative state should work for anything else, including crime. And because most scholars and judges have supported a flexible or functional approach to separation of powers in the regulatory sphere, they have failed to see a problem with the functional approach when it comes to criminal matters. Indeed, the Supreme Court has been even …

Causing Constitutional Harm: How Tort Law Can Help Determine Harmless Error In Criminal Trials, Jason M. Solomon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Thwarting A New Start? Foreign Convictions, Sentencing And Collateral Sanctions, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Return Of The Great Writ: Judicial Review, Due Process, And The Detention Of Alleged Terrorists As Enemy Combatants, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

The federal government's reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, included a wide range of statutes, policies, and strategies for aggressively pursuing, capturing, detaining, and punishing not only the individuals directly responsible for the attacks, but also those who seek to carry out future attacks. The objective was no less ambitious than the elimination of the entire terrorist organization known as Al Qaeda, from its leaders like Osama bin Laden to its agents in the field. To accomplish this aim the government invoked the full range of its powers in foreign and domestic affairs: military force abroad, foreign …

State Ex Rel., J.P.F., Janie Byalik

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nothing Plus Nothing Equals... Something? A Proposal For Flir Warrants On Reasonable Suspicion, Steve Coughlan, Marc Gorbet

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Over a series of decisions, the Court has been backing itself into a corner with its section 8 jurisprudence. Section 8 protects against unreasonable searches. Since the earliest ruling on the section in Hunter v. Southam} searches are prima facie unreasonable if they take place without a warrant. Thus, before conducting a search, police must have a warrant. Before getting a warrant, police must have information about the accused. Obtaining information about the accused probably involves conduct that qualifies as a search. Thus for example in K. v. Kokesch, R. v. Wiley, and R. v. Plant, perimeter searches, conducted in …

A Brave New World Of Criminal Justice: Neil Gerlach's Genetic Imaginary, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this well written and intriguing book, Neil Gerlach asks why the criminal justice system has accepted DNA evidence in much the same way that our Anglo-Saxon predecessors accepted trial by ordeal. Why have we not instead shown the same caution we show polygraph evidence? To be sure, he does not present the issue in those terms, and might shudder at the analogy. Still, the central issue he pursues in the book is the question of how DNA evidence has managed to assume its current aura of infallibility, as evidence which is somehow uniquely objective and "true": how it has …

Conflicting Stories And Reasonable Doubt: Variations On W. (D.)'S Theme, Steve Coughlan

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Whether the guilt of an accused has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt is always a difficult issue, particularly so when the accused has testified. There is little difficulty when an accused's exculpatory testimony is accepted by the trial judge, since that of course leads unambiguously to an acquittal. More complex is the situation where a trial judge does not simply accept the accused's version of events — that is, most of the time. In those circumstances, trial judge must embark down the twisty road of deciding whether disbelieved testimony can nonetheless result in an acquittal, or alternatively whether an …

Evidence Destroyed, Innocence Lost: The Preservation Of Biological Evidence Under Innocence Protection Statutes, Cynthia Jones

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Anthrax Hoaxes, Ira Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

INTRODUCTION: "[Y]ou are a disgusting piece of dirt."' Judge Steven Shutter, a county judge in South Florida, used these words to describe a twenty- four-year-old woman whom he labeled a terrorist and who was condemned by the media. Aside from name-calling, Judge Shutter raised the woman's bail from $3,500 to $25,000 when he learned the nature of the offense, 'just in case" the woman might be able to afford the lower bond. Given the strength of Judge Shutter's animosity toward her, one might assume that Yasmin Kassima Sealey- Doe had provided assistance to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade …

Telling Stories And Keeping Secrets, Abbe Smith

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Attitudinal Theory Of Excuse In Criminal Law, Peter Westen

ExpressO

The mother lode of criminal law scholarship is a unitary theory of excuses, that is, a normative account as to why a person who engages in conduct that a criminal statute prohibits ought nevertheless not be blamed for it. After defining "excuse" against commentators who argue that it cannot be coherently defined, and after criticizing competing theories of excuse, I argue that the feature that renders persons normatively blameless -- and, typically, legally blameless, too -- for engaging in conduct that a criminal statute prohibits is the possession of a certain attitude with which he engages in it. A person …

A V. B, Aharon Barak, Ayala Procaccia, Eliezer Rivlin

Translated Opinions

Facts: The respondent had a long-term relation with the appellant, while both parties were married to others. During this relationship, the respondent encouraged the appellant to obtain a divorce from her husband, and promised to divorce his wife and marry the appellant. The appellant did obtain a divorce from her husband, but the respondent did not divorce his wife.

The appellant sued for damages for breach of a promise of marriage. The respondent argued, inter alia, that a promise of marriage given by a married man is void for being contrary to public policy. The Magistrates Court awarded a lump-sum …

Judicial Perspectives On The Federal Sentencing Guidelines And The Goals Of Sentencing: Debunking The Myths, Michael E. O'Neill

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

A Statutory Approach To Criminal Law, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

Article suggests that learning about criminal statutes should be incorporated into teaching criminal law.

Without Charge: Assessing The Due Process Rights Of Unindicted Co-Conspirators, Ira Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The grand jury practice of naming individuals as unindicted co-conspirators routinely results in injury to reputations,lost employment opportunities, and a practical inability to run for public office. Yet, because these individuals are not parties to a criminal trial, they have neither the right to present evidence nor the opportunity to clear their names. Thus, Professor Robbins argues that the practice violates the Fifth Amendment guarantee that “[n]o person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law[.]” While prosecutors may offer many justifications to support the practice of naming unindicted co-conspirators, these reasons …

Structuring Sentencing: Apprendi, The Offense Of Conviction, And The Limited Role Of Constitutional Law, Benjamin Priester

Journal Publications

Every year hundreds of thousands of convicted criminal defendants are sentenced for their crimes, often through the implementation of a broad range of laws of relatively recent vintage such as mandatory minimum provisions and regulations of judicial discretion like the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. The policies underlying these sentencing laws are perhaps the most hotly contested issues in all of criminal procedure, with legislative amendments and calls for reform being made every year. Despite their tremendous importance and the constant political activity concerning them, however, the constitutionality of these laws is surprisingly uncertain-the United States Supreme Court has heard an astounding …

Preface, Tanina Rostain, Donald H. Zeigler

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Material Witness Statute Post September 11: Why It Should Not Include Grand Jury Witnesses, Robert Boyle

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Entrapment Defense: An Interview, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.