Criminal Law Commons^™

The Insanity Defense: Guilty By Reason Of Hinckley?, Bruce Berner

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pretrial Procedure Under The Massachusetts Rules Of Criminal Procedure, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

The Massachusetts Rules of Criminal Procedure became effective on July 1, 1979. While many of their provisions helpfully codify previously existing practice and case law, the Rules have in some areas effected a major transformation of criminal procedure. This article examines the changes wrought by the Rules in the pretrial arena, with emphasis on those areas that remain somewhat unfamiliar to the practitioner or untested against constitutional challenge in the courts. While the Rules appear to have done an admirable job of simplifying and rationalizing the criminal trial process, their emphasis on mutuality and reciprocity have in some cases created …

Intracorporate Plurality In Criminal Conspiracy Law, Sarah N. Welling

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The concept of conspiracy currently plays a significant role in three areas of substantive law: antitrust, civil rights, and criminal law. Although the role of conspiracy in these substantive areas of law differs in many ways, all three require that the conspiracy consist of a plurality of actors. Determining what constitutes a plurality of actors when all the alleged conspirators are agents of a single corporation poses a continuing problem.

This problem raises two distinct questions. The first is whether, when one agent acts alone within the scope of corporate business, the agent and the corporation constitute a plurality. The …

Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Of Federal Criminal Law: The Assassination Of Congressman Ryan, David W. Mills

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreword, G. Michael Mccrossin,

Vanderbilt Law Review

One of the primary goals of the American criminal justice system is to protect the civil liberties of accused persons while at the same time ensuring the security of citizens' persons and property. Recently, some people have begun to argue that the pursuit of these dual purposes has resulted in a dangerous imbalance, and that our criminal justice system now focuses far too heavily on the rights of the accused. These people have perceived an alarming upswing in the incidence of violent crime and have attributed that upswing to a breakdown in the legal profession's administration of the criminal law.

Criminal Law: The Missing Element In Sentencing Reform, Michael H. Tonry

Vanderbilt Law Review

The thesis of this Article is that the substantive criminal law is the missing element in sentencing reform. If comprehensive sentencing reform strategies are to have lasting effect, legislatures must reintroduce the criminal law to the sentencing process. This step will require a rekindled interest in a moral analysis of the substantive criminal law and the enactment of greatly reduced statutory sentence maximums, along with more conventional institutional changes to structure discretion and increase official accountability.

Objections to American sentencing procedures range from the principled to the practical. Part II of this Article summarizes the basic objections that have influenced …

Socialist Legalism: Reform And Continuity In Post-Mao People's Republic Of China, Hungdah Chiu

Maryland Series in Contemporary Asian Studies

No abstract provided.

United States Jurisdiction Over Extraterritorial Crime, Christopher L. Blakesley

Scholarly Works

The term jurisdiction may be defined as the authority to affect legal interests -- to prescribe rules of law (legislative jurisdiction), to adjudicate legal questions (judicial jurisdiction) and to enforce judgments the judiciary made (enforcement jurisdiction). The definition, nature and scope of jurisdiction vary depending on the context in which it is to be applied. United States domestic law, for example, defines and applies notions of jurisdiction pursuant to the United States constitutional provisions relating to the separation of powers. Within the United States, jurisdiction is defined and applied in a variegated fashion depending on whether a legal problem is …

Books Received, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Books Received

CANADIAN CRIMINAL LAW: INTERNATIONAL AND TRANSNATIONAL ASPECTS

By Sharon A. Williams and J. G. Castel

Toronto: Butterworth's, 1981. Pp. 513. $80.00.

----------------------------

CASES AND MATERIALS ON SALE OF GOODS

By John Adams

London & Canberra: Croom Helm: Ltd., 1982. Pp. 174. $15.50.

-------------------------

THE DEFENSE POLICIES OF NATIONS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Edited by Douglas J. Murray and Paul R. Viotti

Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982. Pp. 525. $35.00 (cloth), $12.95 (paper)

-------------------------

DOCUMENTS ON THE LAWS OF WAR

Edited by Adam Roberts and Richard Guelff

New York: the Clarendon Press; Oxford University Press, 1982. …

The Case For Treason, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

"If this be treason, make the most of it." Patrick Henry had no fear of the ultimate crime against his King. Nor did the burghers of Maryland who set ablaze the Peggy Stewart in Annapolis Harbor. One would think that for us as Americans the crime of treason would carry special significance. Our nation was born in acts of treason. The threat of prosecution made the crime foremost in the mind of the constitutional draftsmen. Indeed, treason is the only crime to find definition in our basic document.

There are other indications that the crime of treason is central to …

"No Soul To Damn: No Body To Kick": An Unscandalized Inquiry Into The Problem Of Corporate Punishment, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?
—Edward, First Baron Thurlow 1731-1806

The Lord Chancellor of England quoted above was neither the first nor the last judge to experience frustration when faced with a convicted corporation. American sentencing judges are likely to face a similar dilemma with increasing frequency in the near future, for a number of signs indicate that corporate prosecutions will become increasingly commonplace. At first glance, the problem of corporate punishment seems perversely insoluble: moderate fines do not deter, …

Mens Rea And The Colorado Criminal Code, Marianne Wesson

Publications

No abstract provided.

Commentary: Rummel V. Estelle: Mockingbirds Among The Brethren, Kenneth Lasson

All Faculty Scholarship

In this commentary Professor Lasson discusses the Supreme Court's decision in Rummel v. Estelle and reveals a poignant personal memorandum that reflects the analysis of human values necessarily performed by whichever Justice cast the deciding vote.

The Jurisprudence Of Larceny:An Historical Inquiry And Interest Analysis, Kathleen F. Brickey

Vanderbilt Law Review

This Article tenders such a reconstruction and develops the theory that ownership, rather than possession, was the legal interest protected by common-law larceny. The theory is derived from analysis of the content of early theft law and the procedural forms through which property rights were vindicated.

Criminal Liability For Complicity In Abortions Committed Outside Ireland, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The legislative provisions which make it an offence to procure a miscarriage unlawfully or assist in the unlawful procurement are to be found in sections 58 and 59 or the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. In recent years the most common way for an Irish woman to obtain an abortion has been to leave the Republic and obtain such an operation in Britain, where the restrictions imposed on the medical profession with regard to performing operations are far less onerous. How then would the Irish courts view secondary parties to such extra-territorial activities?

Proposal For Determinate Sentencing In New York: The Effect On An Offender's Due Process Rights, John D. Winter

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Note examines the differences between indeterminate sentencing, the goal of which is rehabilitative, and determinate sentencing. It looks at the constitutional and procedural safeguards due to prisoners at sentencing. Finally, the Note looks at legislation introduced in New York and its proposals for changing the sentencing procedures.

Why Substantive Criminal Law - A Dialogue, Sanford H. Kadish

Cleveland State Law Review

In this dialogue, I have tried to address criticisms of the substantive criminal law, as a course and as a subject matter, made by a number of my students over several decades of teaching the subject. In away it is rather personal since it consists of the criticisms of my students and my apologia for what I have tried to do. That, however, would hardly be worth doing unless it is the case, as I believe it is, that these criticisms are widespread and that my responses speak to what is generally done in criminal law courses in this country.

Why Substantive Criminal Law - A Dialogue, Sanford H. Kadish

Cleveland State Law Review

In this dialogue, I have tried to address criticisms of the substantive criminal law, as a course and as a subject matter, made by a number of my students over several decades of teaching the subject. In away it is rather personal since it consists of the criticisms of my students and my apologia for what I have tried to do. That, however, would hardly be worth doing unless it is the case, as I believe it is, that these criticisms are widespread and that my responses speak to what is generally done in criminal law courses in this country.

Rebuttal: The Individual Or The Firm? Focusing The Threat Of Criminal Liability, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

I cannot disagree with much of what Mr. Crane has said in his very articulate presentation. One must be careful about trying to prove too much. I have not argued against individual criminal liability, but I do not believe we can rely on it exclusively. Let me therefore confine my reply to this question and to Mr. Crane's criticisms of my equity fine proposal.

Case Digest, Journal Staff

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Definition of Seaman under the Jones Act Need Not be Restricted to Person Assigned to Only One Vessel

Fourth Amendment Does Not Bar Warrantless Fishing Vessel Searches Authorized by the Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 to Protect Fisheries in the Conservation Zone

Properly Extradited Fugitive Not Entitled to Judicial Hearing Challenging Enlargement of Original Warrant of Surrender

Visa Numbers Wrongfully Charged Against Western Hemisphere Quotas are Reissued According to an Historical Approach Rather than Chronological Order

Payment of Irrevocable Letter of Credit May Not be Enjoined on Grounds of Instability of Foreign Governments

Expropriation of a Contractual Right …

United States V. Mendenhall, Lewis F. Powell Jr.

Supreme Court Case Files

No abstract provided.

Emerging Standards In Supreme Court Double Jeopardy Analysis, Clifford R. Ennico

Vanderbilt Law Review

The purposes of this Recent Development are as follows: to identify and evaluate recent modifications in the Court's double jeopardy analysis, to propose that the Court's 1977 Term double jeopardy standards dilute the double jeopardy protection previously afforded to criminal defendants, and to suggest that the Court should permit a broader scope of appellate review in double jeopardy cases.

Foreword, James W. Ely, Terry Calvani

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the hope of giving some direction for a regional approach to the legal past of the South, Vanderbilt Law School, with the generous assistance of the University Research Council, sponsored a two-day Symposium on this important topic in the spring of 1978 and invited leading scholars to participate. Principal papers by Richard Maxwell Brown, Maxwell H. Bloomfield, Robert M. Ireland, A. E. Keir Nash, and Robert J. Haws and Michael V. Namorato discussed diverse aspects of southern legal history.

Book Review: H. Fingarette & A. Fingarette Hasse, Mental Disabilities And Criminal Responsibilities, John Q. La Fond

Seattle University Law Review

Whether mental illness and related impairments in the human psyche should affect an individual's criminal responsibilityfor law-breaking behavior has always provoked intense andwide-ranging debate. This debate clearly reflects society's lack of consensus concerning the appropriateness and scope of considering mental impairment in assessing individual criminal responsiblility. Thus, it is not unexpected that recently proposals to abolish the insanity defense have been seriously suggested or that noted scholars have urged society to place the disposition of mentally ill offenders in the exclusive hands of experts. That this heated discussion continues unabated should come as no surprise, since legal doctrines which excuse …

Habeas Corpus And Freedom Of Speech, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

This Article will examine substantive attacks on habeas based on the assertion that the petitioner's confinement violates his first amendment rights of free speech, press or assembly. The thesis is that when these rights are at issue, the considerations supporting broad habeas are stronger, and the costs of habeas are lower, than when the petitioner is asserting the violation of a federal procedural right. As a result, the necessary choice of values is more easily resolved in favor of broad first amendment habeas than it is for broad procedural habeas. Essential to this analysis is the premise that a habeas …

Should Intolerable Prison Conditions Generate A Justification Or An Excuse For Escape?, George P. Fletcher

Faculty Scholarship

In the last five years, appellate courts have responded sympathetically to the claims of prisoners who have escaped to avoid the threat of physical violence and homosexual rape. Lovercamp began the trend in 1974. Today the reports are replete with reversals directing trial courts to hear evidence bearing on the conditions that prompted the escape.

The courts have moved so quickly into this new field that they have had little chance to refine the underlying rationale for admitting the evidence. Appellate opinions, as well as several commentators, have sought to squeeze the new issue into one of three received doctrinal …

Improving Police Discretion Rationality In Handling Public Inebriates Part Ii, David Aaronson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Theory And Reform Of Criminal Law, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Changing The Public Drunkenness Laws: The Impact Of Decriminalization, David Aaronson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Laws that decriminalize public drunkenness continue to use the police as the major intake agent for public inebriates under the "new" public health model of detoxification and treatment. Assuming that decriminalization introduces many disincentives to police intervention using legally sanctioned procedures, we hypothesize that it will be fol- lowed by a statistically significant decline in the number of public inebriates formally handled by the police in the manner designated by the "law in the books." Using an "interrupted time-series quasi- experiment" based on a "stratified multiple-group single-I design," we confirm this hypothesis for Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis, Minnesota. However, through …

Improving Police Discretion: Rationality In Handling Public Inebriates Part Ii, David Aaronson, C. Dienes, Michael Musheno

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In 1913 Eugene Ehrlich spoke of the living law when he stated that "[a]t the present as well as at any other time, the center of gravity of legal development lies not in legislation, nor in juristic science, nor in judicial decision, but in society itself.' This article is premised on the belief that Ehrlich's perception is as valid today as it was then. If you want to know the law relating to public intoxication you cannot be content with the statutes and ordinances, in the court decisions nor even the administrative rules and regulations of those charged with enforcing …