Criminal Law Commons^™

Child Pornography In Canada And The United States: The Myth Of Right Answers, Travis Johnson

Dalhousie Law Journal

Child pornography is an increasing worldwide concern and is one of the most active fronts in the ongoing battle between freedom of expression and public safety and morality. In 2005, the child pornography provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code were amended in response to the controversial decision of the Supreme Court in R. v. Sharpe. Similar legislative response has occurred in the United States following the U.S. Supreme Court decision inAshcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. A comparative examination of the legislative and judicial treatments of the issue of child pornography in these countries reveals that despite reaching differing rights-balancing positions, …

Losing Control: Regulating Situational Crime Prevention In Mass Private Space, Robert E. Pfeffer

ExpressO

In this article the author puts forth an approach to regulating Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) (i.e. steps to preemptively eliminate or reduce crime, such as preemptive exclusion and closed circuit TV monitoring in Mass Private Space (i.e. private property that has characteristics normally associated with public spaces, such as a large shopping mall).

It has become increasingly common for owners of mass private space to employ SCP techniques such as close circuit television monitoring, exclusion of persons based upon behavior or risk factors and limits on attire, such as colors associated with gangs. While there has been a lively scholarly …

New Explorations In Culture And Crime: Definitions, Theory, Method, Kenneth B. Nunn

UF Law Faculty Publications

Culture affects criminal law in at least two key ways. First, culture and crime symbiotically define each other. Second, culture helps explain which courtroom narratives will be successful, and which will not. Culture influences who will be arrested, charged, convicted, and what sentence they will receive. Indeed, the invisible hand of culture drives the process of criminalization and helps to determine which acts we will sanction through criminal statutes.

'Tis A Gift To Be Simple: A Model Reform Of The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This essay introducing the June 2006 edition of the Federal Sentencing Reporter (Vol. 18, No. 5) describes two important contributions to the movement for real reform of the federal sentencing system. First, Professor Bowman summarizes the recommendations of the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative (CPSI) report on federal sentencing. The CPSI report, reproduced in this Issue, cautions against any over-hasty legislative response to the Supreme Court's decision in United States v. Booker, suggests some near-term improvements to the existing federal sentencing system, and then sets out a framework for a reformed and markedly simplified federal sentencing regime. Second, Professor Bowman describes …

The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: Departures, Model Sentencing Guidelines §5.1, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article is the twelfth of twelve parts of a set of Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of a simplified approach to federal sentencing proposed by the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative. The Model Sentencing Guidelines and the Constitution Project report are all to be published in Volume 18, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The project is described in an essay titled 'Tis a Gift To Be Simple: A Model Reform of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=927929. This segment of the project contains rules governing the imposition of sentences …

The “Csi Effect”: Better Jurors Through Television And Science?, Michael D. Mann

ExpressO

This Comment discusses how television shows such as CSI and Law & Order create heightened juror expectations. This will be published in the Buffalo Public Interest Law Journal's 2005-2006 issue.

International Law And Rehnquist-Era Reversals, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

In the last years of Chief Justice Rehnquist's tenure, the Supreme Court held that due process bars criminal prosecution of same-sex intimacy and that it is cruel and unusual to execute mentally retarded persons or juveniles. Each of the later decisions not only overruled precedents set earlier in Rehnquist's tenure, but also consulted international law as an aid to construing the U.S. Constitution. Analyzing that phenomenon, the article first discusses the underlying cases, then traces the role that international law played in Atkins, Lawrence, and Simmons. It next examines backlash to consultation, and demonstrates that critics tended to overlook the …

Where To Go From Here? The Roberts Court At The Crossroads Of Sentencing, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

As the Supreme Court has turned federal sentencing upside down in Booker, it has left a host of open questions in the wake of that decision. The outcome of these questions is often difficult to predict, for lower courts and commentators alike, as the Court has failed to develop an overarching sentencing philosophy to replace the rehabilitation-focused one that animated sentencing for so long. If the Court were to reach consensus on that issue, it would be better able to speak coherently on unresolved sentencing matters. This introduction to an Issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter highlights some of the …

Criminal Law—The Sixth Amendment And The Right To Trial By Jury—Where Do We Go From Here?: The United States Supreme Court Examines The Federal Sentencing Guidelines. United States V. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005)., Brian M. Clary

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

John Paul Stevens, Human Rights Judge, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

This article explores the nature and origins of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' engagement with international and foreign law and norms. It first discusses Stevens' pivotal role in the revived use of such norms to aid constitutional interpretation, as well as 1990s opinions testing the extent to which constitutional protections reach beyond the water's edge and 2004 opinions on post-September 11 detention. It then turns to mid-century experiences that appear to have contributed to Stevens' willingness to consult foreign context. The article reveals that as a code breaker Stevens played a role in the downing of the Japanese general …

The Impact Of Joinder And Severance On Federal Criminal Cases: An Empirical Study, Andrew D. Leipold, Hossein A. Abbasi

Vanderbilt Law Review

Dave is in trouble. It was bad enough to be arrested for bank robbery; now he has learned that the prosecutor plans to join the current charge with three other, unrelated bank robberies and present all four counts in a single trial. To his priest and to his lawyer, Dave admits that he committed the first and the second robberies, but he did not commit the third or fourth. Dave is smart enough to realize, however, that once the jury starts hearing evidence of some of the crimes-all of which will sound quite similar-his ability to cast doubt on the …

Rethinking Overcriminalization, Darryl K. Brown

ExpressO

If there is one thing American criminal law scholars agree on, it is that our justice system suffers from overcriminalization. Our codes criminalize too much conduct; outdated offenses remain too long on the books, and legislatures cannot resist adding new crimes and harsher punishments. This is so because criminal law is a distinctive issue for legislative debate and for democratic politics generally. Few lobby against crime creation; legislators respond to strong majoritarian preferences that make votes against crime creation—or votes to repeal antiquated crimes—politically implausible. Thus criminal law is “one-way ratchet”: it expands but doesn’t contract. On this account, criminal …

The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: A Simplified Economic Crimes Guideline, Model Sentencing Guidelines §2b1.1, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article is the third of twelve parts of a set of Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of a simplified approach to federal sentencing proposed by the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative. The Model Sentencing Guidelines and the Constitution Project report are all to be published in Volume 18, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The project is described in an essay titled 'Tis a Gift To Be Simple: A Model Reform of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=927929.

The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: A Simplified Sentencing Grid, Model Sentencing Guidelines §1.1, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article is the first of twelve parts of a set of Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of a simplified approach to federal sentencing proposed by the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative. The Model Sentencing Guidelines and the Constitution Project report are all to be published in Volume 18, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The project is described in an essay titled "'Tis a Gift to be Simple: A Model Reform of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines", available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=927929.

Turning Jails Into Prisons—Collateral Damage From Kentucky's War On Crime, Robert G. Lawson

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The primary purpose of this article is to scrutinize Kentucky's ever-increasing reliance on local jails for the incarceration of state prisoners. This objective cannot be achieved without an examination of the problems that compel counties and cities to allow (and even encourage) the state to capture their jails for this use. The first half of the article (Parts I-IV) provides general information about jails (including some pertinent history), contains a detailed description of jail functions (including some that have descended upon jails by default), and concludes with a discussion of what the state has done over two decades to convert …

The Year Of Jubilee Or Maybe Not: Some Preliminary Observations About The Operation Of The Federal Sentencing System After Booker, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This segment of the project contains the offense seriousness portion of the simplified sentencing table employed in the Model Sentencing Guidelines. The Article also contains drafter's commentary explaining the offense seriousness scale of the table, how it interacts with other portions of the Model Guidelines, and the policy choices behind the simplified table.

Admissibility Of Co-Conspirator Statements In A Post-Crawford World, Michael L. Seigel, Daniel Weisman

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article takes the position that co-conspirator statements must be examined on a case-by-case basis to determine whether they are testimonial and thus subject to exclusion under the Confrontation Clause. Further, in light of the fact that the author of the majority opinions in Crawford and Davis was Justice Antonin Scalia, this Article examines whether interpreting the Sixth Amendment as a bar to the admission of certain coconspirator statements would violate an originalist interpretation of that provision. The conclusion reached is that it would not. In the current era of ever-narrowing rights for criminal defendants, reaffirming the law's commitment to …

Bringing Coherence To Mens Rea Analysis For Securities-Related Offenses, Michael L. Seigel

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article has demonstrated that the failure of commentators and the courts to tackle mens rea analysis head-on has resulted in lasting incoherence in the law. Unintelligible legal doctrine does not simply upset individuals who strive for elegant solutions to legal problems; it also exacts a huge, real-life toll. Juries faced with incoherent legal instructions are likely to become disillusioned about the justice system. Citizens receive inadequate guidance as to acceptable and unacceptable behavior, hampering deterrence -- particularly in the securities-law arena, where one presumably finds mostly rational actors who would be deterred by clear legal rules. Securities regulation is …

Judicial Misconduct In Criminal Cases: It’S Not Just The Counsel Who May Be Ineffective And Unprofessional, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Criminalizing Marital Rape: A Comparison Of Judicial And Legislative Approaches, Theresa Fus

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Even though many countries still permit husbands to rape their wives with little or no consequence, there is a growing trend that marital exemption is unjust and has no place in a civilized society. Recognition of the inappropriateness of marital exemption is, however, only the first step towards its elimination. To effectively equalize treatment of marital and non-marital rape, legislatures and judiciaries must take action. Several countries have already been host to the abolition of marital immunity, but their approaches may not be the most effective. This Note examines the experiences of England and Canada as examples of judicial and …

Culture In Our Midst, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

Culture, like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and wealth is one of many ways in which the law is not neutral. Indeed, culture is a source of law. Yet, as traditional legal positivists have taught us, the law or legal doctrine can prove to be more powerful than culture, often outlasting it. The “mirror image” theory states that the laws of a particular locale reflect the culture of that locale. The law merely serves as enforcement of the common decency, propriety and morality of that culture. Not only is this understanding appealingly simple, it is often invoked by judges and …

Culture As Justification, Not Excuse, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

The wide discussion of cultural defenses over the last twenty years has produced very little actual change in the criminal law. This Article urges a reorientation of our approach thus far to cultural defenses and aspires to move the languishing discussion to a more productive place. The new perspective it proposes is justification. The Article asks the criminal law to make doctrinal room for defendants to argue that their allegedly criminal acts are justified acts, and not excused acts, based on the values and norms of their minority cultures. Currently, the criminal law deals with such acts of minority defendants …

The Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines Project: Determining The Sentencing Range And The Sentence Within Range, Model Sentencing Guidelines §1.2 - 1.8 , Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article is the second of twelve parts of a set of Model Federal Sentencing Guidelines designed to illustrate the feasibility and advantages of a simplified approach to federal sentencing proposed by the Constitution Project Sentencing Initiative. The Model Sentencing Guidelines and the Constitution Project report are all to be published in Volume 18, Number 5 of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. The project is described in an essay titled 'Tis a Gift To Be Simple: A Model Reform of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, available on SSRN at http://ssrn.com/abstract=927929.

Embracing Chance: Post-Modern Meditations On Punishment, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Since the modern era, the discourse of punishment has cycled through three sets of questions. The first, born of the Enlightenment itself, asked: On what ground does the sovereign have the right to punish? Nietzsche most forcefully, but others as well, argued that the question itself begged its own answer. The right to punish, they suggested, is what defines sovereignty, and as such, can never serve to limit sovereign power. With the birth of the social sciences, this skepticism gave rise to a second set of questions: What then is the true function of punishment? What is it that we …

Federal Sentencing Under "Advisory" Guidelines: Observations By District Judges, Lynn S. Adelman, Nancy Gertner, Richard G. Kopf, Gerard E. Lynch, Gregory A. Presnell, Daniel J. Capra

Faculty Scholarship

Good evening. This is the Philip Reed program. It is part of the Centennial Celebration of Fordham Law School. The topic tonight is entitled "Federal Sentencing Under 'Advisory' Guidelines."

There are approximately ten district judges who have written what I would refer to as challenging and influential opinions on how federal courts should approach sentencing under advisory Guidelines. We have five of them on this panel.

Our format tonight is to take short opening statements from the judges and then to discuss some particular issues of controversy in sentencing after Booker. I plan to open it up to questions and …

The Challenge Of A Global Standard Of Justice: Peace, Pluralism, And Punishment At The International Criminal Court, Eric Blumenson

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This Article addresses what is often described as the "peace versus justice" problem, as it confronts the recently-established International Criminal Court (ICC). The problem typically arises when the threat of prosecution would derail peace negotiations or deter a tyrant from relinquishing power. If a state then grants amnesty or de facto impunity as the price of peace, should the ICC's prosecutor bring charges in its stead?

This Article analyzes the conflicting claims of peace, pluralism, and punishment in such cases by exploring three fundamental questions:

(1) Does justice in the aftermath of crime always require prosecution and punishment?

(2) If …

When Criminal And Tort Law Incentives Run Into Tight Budgets And Regulatory Discretion, William G. Childs

Faculty Scholarship

Eight-year-old Greyson Yoe was electrocuted while waiting to get on the "Scooters" bumper car ride at the Lake County Fair in northeastern Ohio. The failure to ground the ride structure and damage to a light fixture on the ride caused his death. The day before the electrocution, two inspectors from the Ohio Department of Agriculture (ODA) inspected the ride and passed it as "safe to operate." That inspection was superficial and grossly inadequate, and the completed inspection form had serious misrepresentations. Indeed, the inspectors later admitted that they never reviewed the key electrical items that they checked off on the …

Manson V. Brathwaite Revisited: Towards A New Rule Of Decision For Due Process Challenges To Eyewitness Identification Procedures, Timothy P. O'Toole, Giovanna Shay

Faculty Scholarship

Almost 30 years ago, in Manson v. Brathwaite--the Supreme Court set out a test for determining when due process requires suppression of an out-of-court identification produced by suggestive police procedures. The Manson Court rejected a per se exclusion rule in favor of a test focusing on whether an identification infected by suggestive procedures is nonetheless reliable when judged in the totality of the circumstances. The purpose of this Article is two-fold: to demonstrate that the Manson rule of decision fails to safeguard due process values, in part because it does not account for the intervening social science research, and to …

Improving Criminal Jury Decision Making After The Blakely Revolution, J. J. Prescott, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

The shift in sentencing fact-finding responsibility triggered in many states by Blakely v. Washington may dramatically change the complexity and type of questions that juries will be required to answer. Among the most important challenges confronting legislatures now debating the future of their sentencing regimes is whether juries are prepared to handle this new responsibility effectively - and, if not, what can be done about it. Yet neither scholars addressing the impact of Blakely nor advocates of jury reform have seriously explored these questions. Nonetheless, a number of limitations on juror decision making seriously threaten the accuracy of verdicts in …

Indecent Standards: The Case Of U.S. Versus Weldon Angelos, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In today's highly punitive culture, perhaps Weldon Angelos' fifty-five-year sentence does not seem unusual. He's a 25-year-old man who was convicted in December 2003 of selling marijuana, possessing firearms while drug dealing, and money laundering. ³ The facts proven at trial are that on three occasions in June and July, 2002, Angelos sold eight one-ounce bags of marijuana for $350 each to a government informant. ⁴ The purchaser testified that a firearm was visible during two of these drug sales.⁵ Police seized another gun from Angelos' home five months later pursuant to a warrant.⁶ At no time was …