Criminal Law Commons^™

Sacrificing Secrecy, Daniel S. Harawa

Georgia Law Review

Juries have deliberated in secret since medieval times. The
historical reason for the secrecy is that it promotes impartiality,
which in turn protects a defendant’s right to a fair trial. But as
it turns out, jurors are not always impartial. Lurid examples
exist of jurors condemning defendants based on the defendant’s
race, sexuality, ethnicity, and religion.
Generally speaking, courts cannot hear evidence of what
transpired during deliberations. In 2017, however, the U.S.
Supreme Court created an exception to this rule, holding that
the Sixth Amendment requires courts to hear evidence of jurors
making racially biased statements. But this exception means …

Populist Prosecutorial Nullification, Kerrel Murray

Faculty Scholarship

No one doubts that prosecutors may sometimes decline prosecution notwithstanding factual guilt. Everyone expects prosecutors to prioritize enforcement based on resource limitation and, occasionally, to decline prosecution on a case-by-case basis when they deem justice requires it. Recently, however, some state prosecutors have gone further, asserting the right to refuse categorically to enforce certain state laws. Examples include refusals to seek the death penalty and refusals to prosecute prostitution or recreational drug use. When may a single actor render inert her state’s democratically enacted law in this way? If the answer is anything other than “never,” the vast reach of …

Constructing Countervailing Power: Law And Organizing In An Era Of Political Inequality, Kate Andrias

Faculty Scholarship

This Article proposes an innovative approach to remedying the crisis of political inequality: using law to facilitate organizing by the poor and working class, not only as workers, but also as tenants, debtors, welfare beneficiaries, and others. The piece draws on the social-movements literature, and the successes and failures of labor law, to show how law can supplement the deficient regimes of campaign finance and lobbying reform and enable lower-income groups to build organizations capable of countervailing the political power of the wealthy. As such, the Article offers a new direction forward for the public-law literature on political power and …

The Presumption Of Innocence: A Golden Thread Always To Be Seen, Mark Zi Han Chia

Singapore Law Journal (Lexicon)

Although the presumption of innocence is fundamental to the modern criminal justice system, there is little clarity on what it is and how it applies. This essay argues that “innocence” in the criminal justice system should be confined to legal innocence and not factual innocence. Accordingly, the presumption of innocence should be confined to presuming the legal innocence of an accused. It follows then that the presumption of innocence cannot apply to any part of the criminal process apart from the trial itself. Further, jurisprudentially, given that the presumption of innocence is best understood as a procedural aspect of the …

Speaking Femicide, Caroline Davidson

American University Law Review

Femicide is typically defined as the killing of a woman because she is a woman. It has been the subject of mass protests in cities from Buenos Aires to Paris and in some places has made the leap to law as a crime unto itself or basis for a sentencing enhancement in homicide cases. Proponents of the label of femicide seek to bring attention to gendered violence against women and end a culture of tolerance and impunity for such violence. Meanwhile, in the United States, it is neither legislated nor discussed.

This Article explores the concept of femicide and asks …

Who Wants To Be A Prosecutor? And Why Care? Law Students’ Career Aspirations And Reform Prosecutors’ Goals, Shih-Chun Steven Chien, Stephen Daniels

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

Often called “progressive” or “reform” prosecutors, a number of reform-minded prosecutors have been elected recently across the United States—promising a distinctive vision of criminal justice and signaling that their role will be more attuned to issues of race and equity than “law and order.” Furthering this vision requires dramatic changes to the working cultures—the norms, practices, and even personnel—of their offices. Diversity plays a major role.

One central challenge is identifying, attracting, and hiring newly-minted lawyers who can, over time, be socialized into and sustain a changing organizational culture. This article empirically examines that challenge, which involves two sides of …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents.

Inconspicuous Victims, Itay Ravid

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Recent debates on racial inequalities in the criminal justice system focus on offenders while neglecting the other side of the criminal equation—victims of crime. Such scholarly oversight is surprising given the similarly deep racial disparities in the treatment of victims, manifested in different stages of the criminal justice system. Delving into the underexplored territory of racialized victimization, this project bridges that gap and exposes the roots of the disparate treatment of Black victims in the American criminal justice system. These unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic and racial tensions bring to the fore questions about governmental allocation of resources and …

Avoiding The Second Assault: A Guidebook For Trauma-Informed Prosecutors, Eric M. Werner

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Many victims in the criminal justice system have already survived at least one traumatic experience, but too often the process of prosecuting their case exacerbates that trauma instead of healing it. This Article discusses how trauma may impact a victim of crime on a behavioral and neurobiological level, and how prosecutors can re-orient their interactions with victims in a way that helps victims regain their voice, choice, and sense of community. Section I describes the necessity for prosecutors to be trauma-informed and what that means in the context of the criminal justice system. Section II seeks to inform prosecutors and …

Mess Rea, Connor B. Mcdermott

Lewis & Clark Law Review

The disarray of the law on criminal mental state is in need of clarification and reform. Mens rea requires that culpability attach to each element of an offense before a defendant can be punished. This requirement has deep common law roots stretching back to medieval times. However, judicial and prosecutorial subjectivity has tainted the doctrine with a quagmire of unclarity. The Model Penal Code attempted to organize this messy doctrine, but it was never adopted by the federal government. In frustration with the labyrinth of federal mens rea law, which can contain conflicting definitions or none at all, the Supreme …

American Exceptionalism At Its Finest: “Soft On Crime” Now A Vote-Winner In The World’S Largest Incarcerator, Mirko Bagaric, Gabrielle Wolf, Daniel Mccord, Brienna Bagaric, Nick Fischer

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Anyone with even a remote interest in criminal justice was stunned by the “soft on crime” Republican Party advertisement at Super Bowl LIV in 2020, especially during a presidential election year. The United States of America has pursued an unrelenting, merciless “tough on crime” approach for half a century, resulting in it being the world’s largest incarcerator by a massive margin. It was an unshakable political ideology that “tough on crime” was a vote winner. This resulted in incarceration levels increasing fourfold in four decades, with more than two million Americans ultimately behind bars. Legal and criminology scholars had argued …

The Time Is Now: Criminal Justice Reform In The Wake Of George Floyd’S Killing, Tung Yin

Lewis & Clark Law Review

On May 25, 2020, an encounter between George Floyd (Black) and Minneapolis police officers Derek Chauvin (white), Tou Thao (Asian), J. Alexander Keung (Black), and Thomas Lane (white)—most of which was recorded by numerous bystanders—turned deadly. After arresting Floyd for allegedly passing a counterfeit bill, Keung and Lane tried to put Floyd in the backseat of their police vehicle, but Floyd protested, saying that he was claustrophobic. Chauvin and Thao arrived on the scene, and Floyd eventually ended up lying on the ground, face down. At that point, Chauvin put his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck. Nine minutes …

“I See What Is Right And Approve, But I Do What Is Wrong”: Psychopathy And Punishment In The Context Of Racial Bias In The Age Of Neuroimaging, Alison J. Lynch, Michael L. Perlin

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In this Article, we first consider the relevant differences between antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and psychopathy. Then, we look at the meager cohort of federal sentencing cases in which the issue of psychopathy is even raised, and consider decision-making in this context from the perspective of implicit racial bias. Next, we present some background on the controversy of “psychopathy” diagnosis; here, we share what we call the “inside baseball” about the debate— on the differences between psychopathy and ASPD—that has rocked the world of the psychology academy. We will also analyze how our current ideas about punishment and recidivism could …

The Execution Of Lezmond Mitchell: An Analysis Of Federal Indian Law, Criminal Jurisdiction, And The Death Penalty As Applied To Native Americans, Mary Margaret L. Kirchner

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Capital punishment is controversial in American society. It is the junction where moral standards and punishment for the most severe crimes crash together head on. As society has evolved, so have the expectations, requirements, and norms for capital punishment. In the history of the United States, capital punishment, commonly referred to as the death penalty, has been plagued with continuous inequalities. Based on the evolving standards of decency that shift as society matures, certain practices affiliated with the death penalty have now been invalidated as cruel and unusual. One of the most concerning flaws surrounding the death penalty is its …

2021 Distinguished International Law Visitor Lecture: East And West, To The Ratline, And Beyond: On Memory And Identity, Philippe Sands

Lewis & Clark Law Review

No abstract provided.

Can New Fingerprint Technology Help In Solving America’S Problem Of Mass Incarceration For Nonviolent Drug Crimes?, Caroline Rumbolo

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

No abstract provided.

Restitution For Child Pornography: Reframing A System For Victims Harmed By Too Many, Mackenzie Durkin

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

Courts have commented that victims of child pornography suffer harm that is like “a thousand cuts.” This characterization is fitting because once images of a victim’s childhood sexual abuse are on the internet, the images are there forever. As a result, these victims are constantly revictimized by the knowledge that their images are being trafficked and consumed across the world.

This Comment analyzes the current framework for compensating victims through criminal restitution. Victims of all federal crimes, including child pornography offenses, are entitled to restitution for the full amount of their losses. However, this standard became complicated with child pornography …

An Empirical Assessment Of Homicide And Suicide Outcomes With Red Flag Laws, Rachel Delafave

Loyola University Chicago Law Journal

This Article empirically illustrates that red flag laws—laws which permit removal of firearms from a person who presents a risk to themselves or others—contribute to a statistically significant decrease in suicide rates, but do not influence homicide rates. I exploit state-level variation across time in the existence of red flag laws between 1990 and 2018 and find that the existence of a risk-based law reduces firearm-related suicides by 6.4% and overall suicides by 3.7%, with no substitution to non-firearm suicides. Red flag laws are not associated with a statistically significant change in homicides rates. Policymakers should consider red flag laws …

The Ball Is In Whose Court? Rhode Island’S Need For An Integrated Domestic Violence Court, Brendan Horan

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Gumkowski, 223 A.3d 321 (R.I. 2020), Lindsay E. Koso

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

State V. Querido, 229 A.3d 410 (R.I. 2020), Kirsten E. Roy

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nine Ways Of Looking At Oklahoma City: An Essay On Sam Anderson’S Boom Town, Rodger D. Citron

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Status And Legitimacy Of M’Naghten’S Insane Delusion Rule, E. Lea Johnston, Vincent T. Leahy

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article investigates jurisdictions’ compliance with M’Naghten’s directive for how to treat delusions in insanity cases and assesses the validity and reasonableness of courts’ application of the law. Most U.S. jurisdictions employ an insanity test roughly modeled on the rule articulated in the 1843 M’Naghten’s Case. This test focuses on a defendant’s inability to know, because of a mental disease, the nature of her act or its wrongfulness. But the M’Naghten judges also issued a second rule — particular to delusions — that has received much less attention. This rule holds that, when the defendant labors under a “partial delusion …

W(H)Ither Judgment, Elias Leake Quinn

Cardozo Law Review de•novo

Textualists complain that loose rules of statutory interpretation inject uncertainty and inconsistency into judicial resolutions of statutory ambiguity. But by employing an incomplete theory of meaning, pure textualists fail to shore up their decisions. And by disparaging the judgement necessary to navigate complex questions of meaning, they erode trust in the judicial process—the very foundation of the rule of law.

Let's Make Some "Scents" Of Our Fourth Amendment Rights: The Discriminatory Truths Behind Using The Mere Smell Of Burnt Marijuana As Probable Cause To Search A Vehicle, Alessandra Dumenigo

St. Thomas Law Review

This Comment addresses the negative effects that have resulted and will continue to result if police officers are encouraged by jurisprudence to conduct a warrantless search of an entire vehicle based on the smell of burnt marijuana. Warrantless searches of an entire vehicle based merely on the smell of burnt marijuana grant officers unlimited power that will likely result in police misconduct, an increase in racially profiled traffic stops, and a distrust between police officers and the Black community amid the nationwide outrage over the death of George Floyd. Part II of this Comment discusses the history of the Fourth …

Seeing Those We’Ve Rendered Invisible – A Clarion Call For Criminal Justice, Stephen E. Henderson, Jordan Thomas

Faculty Articles

Jonathan Rapping, Gideon’s Promise: A Public Defender Movement to Transform Criminal Justice (Beacon Press 2020) In this brief review, we situate Rapping’s work among those demanding criminal justice reform, praise an unrelated bonus, and propose a friendly amendment to nudge his vision over the finish line of justice. It will not be enough to provide newly enabled and supported public defenders to those our systems consider indigent. We ought to provide them to us all.

The Economic Case For Rewards Over Imprisonment, Brian D. Galle

Indiana Law Journal

There seems to be a growing social consensus that the United States imprisons far too many people for far too long. But reform efforts have slowed in the face of a challenging question: How can we reduce reliance on prisons while still discouraging crime, particularly violent crime? Through the 1970s, social scientists believed the answer was an array of what I will call preventive benefits: drug and mental health treatment, housing, and even unconditional cash payments. But early evaluations of these programs failed to find much evidence that they were successful, confirming a then-developing economic theory that predicted the programs …

Inducing Acts In Rabbinic Law, Amy Birkan

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

National Animal Abuse Registry Reform: To Be Effective And Provide Prospective, A National Animal Abuse Registry Must Be The Next Directive, Kaleigh M. Gorman

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

No Standing And No Recourse: The Threat To Employee Data Under Current U.S. Cybersecurity Regulation, Georgia D. Reid

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.