Criminal Law Commons^™

Beyond Bad Apples: Adopting Sentinel Event Reviews In Nevada's Criminal Justice System, Beatriz Aguirre

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Unstitching Scarlet Letters?: Prosecutorial Discretion And Expungement, Brian M. Murray

Fordham Law Review

This Article argues that scholarly discussions about prosecutorial discretion need to extend their focus beyond the exercise of prosecutorial judgment pretrial or questions of factual and legal guilt. Given that the primary role of the prosecutoris to do “justice,” this Article calls for increased attention to the exercise of discretion after the guilt phase is complete, specifically in the context of expungement of nonconviction andconviction information. It offers a framework for exercising such discretion and, in doing so, hopes to initiate additional conversation about the role of prosecutors during the phases that follow arrest and prosecution.

The Failure Of International Law In Palestine, Svetlana Sumina, Steven Gilmore

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming

Framed By Forensics: Fulfilling Daubert's Gatekeeping Function By Segregating Science From The Adversarial Model, Kayla Marie Mannucci

Cardozo Law Review

The note argues that flawed forensic expert testimony significantly contributes to wrongful convictions, undermining the criminal justice system's objective to acquit the innocent. It highlights how partisan bias, lack of scientific validation, and inadequate judicial gatekeeping under Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. have led to the admission of unreliable forensic evidence. The note proposes a reform: requiring neutral, court-appointed experts in high-stakes forensic cases to ensure objective testimony and prevent partisan bias.

Whom Should We Punish, And How? Rational Incentives And Criminal Justice Reform, Keith N. Hylton

Faculty Scholarship

This Article sets out a comprehensive account of rational punishment theory and examines its implications for criminal law reform. Specifically, what offenses should be subjected to criminal punishment, and how should we punish? Should we use prison sentences or fines, and when should we use them? Should some conduct be left to a form of market punishment through private lawsuits? Should fines be used to fund the criminal justice system? The answers I offer address some of the most important public policy issues of the moment, such as mass incarceration and the use of fines to finance law enforcement. The …

Life After Daubert V. Merrell Dow: Maine As A Case Law Laboratory For Evidence Rule 702 Without Frye, Leigh Stephens Mccarthy

Maine Law Review

In reaching its recent decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the United States Supreme Court grappled not with case law but with fundamental questions about the nature of science and its role in law. The court in Daubert addressed the problematic issue of admissibility of expert scientific testimony. In the end the Court rejected as an exclusionary rule the venerable standard set in 1923 by Frye v. United States. Frye held that scientific testimony was to be excluded unless it had gained “general acceptance” in its field. Daubert held that Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence …

Prosecutorial Summation: Where Is The Line Between "Personal Opinion" And Proper Argument?, James W. Gunson

Maine Law Review

Prosecutorial forensic misconduct has become front page news in Maine. Since April of 1993, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has reversed convictions in three highly publicized cases based on remarks made by the prosecutor. In State v. Steen, the prosecutor asked the defendant to give his opinion concerning the veracity of other witnesses and suggested in closing argument that the favorable testimony given by the defense's expert witness resulted from the fee he had received. The Law Court vacated the gross sexual assault conviction, finding that the prosecutor's questions and closing argument “clearly suggested” to …

Life Course Outcomes For Juveniles: Contact With The Criminal Justice System As A Turning Point, Dominique Tauffner

Honors Projects

This research investigated the life course outcomes of respondents who have been arrested during adolescence. Although the creation of the juvenile justice system is relatively recent, only existing for 119 years, there is a need for data on the impact this system has on society. The pre-existing knowledge and literature on juvenile delinquency and the criminal justice system often fails to capture longitudinal data. Most scholars on this issue will discuss the immediate effects of things like incarceration and placement or what influences delinquency, ignoring the long-term consequences or life outcomes of those that have been arrested prior to 18. …

The Right Of Early Access To Criminal Legal Aid In Indonesia: Clear Rule, Clearer Violations, Maxwell Abbott

Indonesia Law Review

This article will examine the right of early access to criminal legal aid in Indonesia, both in theory and in practice. In theory, the right of early access to criminal legal aid (the Right) is clear and firmly established in Indonesian law and international law which applies to Indonesia: individuals under arrest or in detention are entitled to receive legal aid at all stages of the criminal justice process. Therefore, law enforcement may not deny or delay a suspect’s access to a lawyer during the initial procedural stages of arrest, investigation and detention. This article will argue that the Right …

Reforming Indonesian Rape Law: Adopting U.S. Rape Shield Law In Excluding Prejudicial Evidence, Choky R. Ramadhan

Indonesia Law Review

Rape is a complicated crime in term of law enforcement. It is usually occurred by someone who has close relationship or connection to the victim. The availability of evidence is also limited. Unfortunately, sexual violence victim often does not receive proper handling from law enforcement. In several cases, the judge undermined victim’s testimony because of past sexual history and lack of resistance that led to more lenient punishment or acquit the defendant. Therefore, I assert that rape law itself should be revised to minimize judge’s prejudice or bias to several shreds of evidence. I suggest that Indonesia could learn from …

Improving The Role Of Experts Under Indonesian Criminal Procedure Law: Lessons Learned From The Dutch Legal System, Josua Sitompul

Indonesia Law Review

This article attempts to scrutinize the role of expert under KUHAP and examine how Indonesian courts have interpreted and applied relevant rules and principles of the expert in selected cybercrime cases. It finds that the main role of expert in such cases is providing the courts with opinions on the legal and technical meanings of the legal provisions at stake and their contextualization in the cases. This raises a question whether law enforcement agencies comprehend the execution of the provisions. It also shows that law enforcement agencies are not always interested in getting digital forensic examination from which electronic evidence …

Human Trafficking And Local Law Enforcement, Elizabeth Chesbrough

Honors Projects

“To protect our kids, we’ve given law enforcement new tools to fight human trafficking (Brett Guthrie).” Though Brett’s hopeful sentiment portrays a police force that is ready to battle the epidemic of modern day slavery, research has shown that local officers are sorely uneducated on the subject. The main focus of this paper is the link between the prevalence of human trafficking in the U.S. and the lack of local law enforcement training on the issue. The first section will be a brief overview of human trafficking, defining and discussing a few relevant details about it first. Next, I will …

What Unconditional Credence In Individual Desert Claims Does Retributivism Require?, Emad H. Atiq

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Punishing a person based on low unconditional credence in their deservingness to be punished is consistent with retributivist deontological principles. Negative retributivism absolutely prohibits the intentional or knowing infliction of undeserved harm on individuals identified as undeserving, not the intentional or knowing infliction of risks of undeserved harm on individuals. Meanwhile, the knowing infliction of undeserved harm on some unidentified individuals generates not overriding reasons against punishment, but pro tanto reasons against punishment that are to be weighed against other non-overriding reasons for punishment like crime prevention. The upshot is that uncertainty regarding any identified person’s deservingness to be punished …

Neil Gorsuch And The Return Of Rule-Of-Law Due Process, Nathan Chapman

Popular Media

Something curious happened at the Supreme Court last week. While the country was glued to the Cirque du Trump, the rule of law made a comeback, revived by Neil Gorsuch, whose place on the Court may prove to be one of Trump’s most important legacies.

Unlike the partisan gerrymander and First Amendment cases currently pending before the Court, immigration cases are usually long on textual analysis and short on grand themes. Accordingly, court-watchers didn’t have especially high expectations for Sessions v. Dimaya.

The (Mis)Application Of Rule 404(B) Heuristics, Dora W. Klein

University of Miami Law Review

In all of the federal circuit courts of appeals, application of Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence has been distorted by judicially-created “tests” that, while intended to assist trial courts in properly admitting or excluding evidence, do not actually test for the kind of evidence prohibited by this rule. Rule 404(b) prohibits evidence of “crimes, wrongs, or other acts” if the purpose for admitting the evidence is to prove action in accordance with a character trait. This evidence is commonly referred to as “propensity” evidence, or “once a drug dealer, always a drug dealer” evidence.

This Article examines …

The Influence Of Religion On The Criminal Behavior Of Emerging Adults, Christopher Salvatore, Gabriel Rubin

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Recent generations of young adults are experiencing a new life course stage: emerging adulthood. During this ‘new’ stage of the life course, traditional social bonds and turning points may not be present, may be delayed, or may not operate in the same manner as they have for prior generations. One such bond, religion, is examined here. Focusing on the United States, emerging adulthood is investigated as a distinct stage of the life course. The criminality of emerging adults is presented, a theoretical examination of the relationship between religion and crime is provided, the role of religion in emerging adults’ lives …

An End To Arbitrary And Capricious Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Henry D. Stegner

Idaho Law Review

No abstract provided.

Rejoining Moral Culpability With Criminal Liability: Reconsideration Of The Felony Murder Doctrine For The Current Time, William Bald

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

The Criminalization Of School Choice: Punishing The Poor For The Inequities Of Geographic School Districting, La Darien Harris

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Disagreement In Assessing Neighboring And Collective Efficacy: The Role Of Social Distance, John R. Hipp, Seth A. Williams, Seth A. Williams

Educator Preparation & Leadership Faculty Works

Whereas existing research typically treats variability in residents’ reports of collective efficacy and neighboring as measurement error, the authors consider such variability as of substantive interest in itself. This variability may indicate disagreement among residents with implications for the neighborhood collectivity. The authors propose using a general measure of social distance based on several social dimensions (rather than measures based on a single dimension such as racial/ethnic heterogeneity or income inequality) to help understand this variability in assessments. The authors use data from wave I (2001) of the Los Angeles Family and Neighborhood Survey (n = 3,570) to aggregate …

The Pragmatic Disappointment Of State Preemption: The 2016 Defend Trade Secrets Act And Its Failure To Protect Employee Whistleblowers From Federal Computer Crime Law, Kristine Craig

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Enhancement For Aggravating Role: The Need For The Numerosity Test As The Legal Standard For The "Otherwise Extensive" Criminal Activity Determination, Nicole Borczyk

Journal of Legislation

No abstract provided.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program: Attitudes Towards Prisoners As Reported By College Students, Laurel M. Sabadosh

Honors College Theses

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program involves students from Georgia Southern University and inmates from Smith State Prison who interact and hope to receive a deeper understanding of the justice system through experiential learning. This style of learning has demonstrated greater effectiveness in learning outcomes and a more positive student experience compared to classical, lecture-based learning. No previous research has compared changes in perceptions of students in the Inside-Out Program to a lecture based course of the same content. The purpose of this study was to investigate changes in students’ attitudes towards prisoners over eight weeks between participants in the Inside-Out …

Cruel And Unusual: A Look Into Prisoner Mental Health Care, Adonia Delgado Hipp

Scholarly and Creative Works Conference (2015 - 2021)

The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country (Blumstein & Wallman, 2000). In fact, the rate of incarceration is more than five times higher than most of the countries in the world. Recent studies indicate that “Crowded living quarters, lack of privacy, increased risk of victimization, and solitary confinement within the institution have been identified as strong correlates for self-harm and adaptation challenges for those with mental health conditions in prison settings” (Gonzalez et al., 2014). One of the greatest persistent injustices of modern criminal law is that not only are poor people and people of …

The Predictors Of Juvenile Recidivism: Testimonies Of Adult Students 18 Years And Older Exiting From Alternative Education, La Toshia Palmer

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this descriptive, qualitative study was to identify and describe the importance of the predictors of juvenile recidivism and the effectiveness of efforts to prevent/avoid juvenile recidivism as perceived by previously detained, arrested, convicted, and/or incarcerated adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education in Northern California. A second purpose was to explore the types of support provided by alternative schools and the perceived importance of the support to avoid recidivism according to adult students 18 years of age and older exiting from alternative education.

Methodology: This qualitative, descriptive research design identified …

Acknowledgments, Howard S. Carrier

International Journal on Responsibility

Serious work to bring the International Journal on Responsibility to life commenced during the summer of 2015. In the intervening period between conceptualization and publication, many organizations and individuals within James Madison University and the wider community have contributed enormously to bringing the journal to fruition.

Who Is Responsible For Ethical Legal Education, For What And To Whom? Case Of Kosovo, Sabiha Shala, Gjylbehare Muharti

International Journal on Responsibility

Legal education continues to be one of the most demanded areas of study from the younger generation in Kosovo. As result, the number of law graduates is quite high. On the other hand, the rule of law sector is quite fragile, judges and lawyers are perceived by parts of the society to be ethically dysfunctional. The trust in judicial institutions is quite low. The debate which is going on now is whose main responsibility for such a situation that is. Is the duty of the higher education institutions providing legal education, or is it a responsibility of educational institutions at …

Resolving The Paradox Of Holding People Responsible, Hal Pepinsky

International Journal on Responsibility

Regardless of justification, it is commonplace throughout the U.S. criminal justice system as in everyday life to teach our offenders and children alike that wrong actions “have consequences,” namely, those authority figures promise to impose upon them. We do so in the name of holding people responsible for their actions, or in legal parlance in civil law, holding them accountable or liable. I noticed that in Norwegian, responsibility, accountability and liability translate into one word, ansvar, which I have translated from Germanic to Latin roots as “responsiveness.” In practice, the state of being responsive to others with whom one conflicts …

Political Flip-Flopping, Political Responsibility, Current Governance, And The Disenfranchised, T.Y. Okosun

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.

What Does Responsibility Mean To Me?, Arun Gandhi

International Journal on Responsibility

No abstract provided.