Criminal Procedure Commons^™

The Sentencing Guidelines As A Not-So-Model Penal Code, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

We are accustomed to thinking about the criminal law, and the procedures for enforcing it, as divided into two separate stages. The first stage – the subject of penal codes and jury trials – concerns the definition of culpable conduct and the adjudication of guilt. The second stage – sentencing – concerns the consequences of conviction for the offender. Only rarely do we acknowledge that the conventional separation of these stages into compartments is highly misleading.

The articles in this Issue of FSR address, in one way or another, the extent to which the concerns of the substantive criminal law …

Deciding To Kill: Revealing The Gender In The Task Handed To Capital Jurors, Joan W. Howarth

Scholarly Works

Day after day, across this country, ordinary people are summoned to court for a selection process that ultimately leaves them in a room deciding, with other jurors, whether a criminal defendant should be killed. The task handed to these jurors is an awesome, personal, moral decision, encased within the complex legal standards and procedures that constitute modern capital jurisprudence. The doctrine that created and sustains this moment of conscience reflects an ongoing struggle of rule against uncertainty, reason against emotion, justice against mercy, and thus, at one level, male against female. Capital jurisprudence -- the law for deciding whether to …

Illusion, Illogic, And Injustice: Real-Offense Sentencing And The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, David Yellen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Deadly Confusion: Juror Instructions In Capital Cases, Theodore Eisenberg, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

A fatal mistake. A defendant is sentenced to die because the jury was misinformed about the law. The justice system should be designed to prevent such a tragic error. Yet our interviews with jurors who served in South Carolina capital cases indicate that this nightmare is a reality.

Although our data are limited to South Carolina, the question whether jurors are adequately instructed in capital cases is of national concern. For example, the issue whether jurors should be more fully informed about the alternative to a death sentence has arisen in other states. And the question whether jurors understand the …

Prosecutorial Discretion And The Conditional Waiver: Lessons From The Japanese Experience, Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

A unique characteristic of prosecutorial discretion in Japan is the formal practice of suspension. From the later part of last century, public prosecutors were presented with the discretionary option of waiving or suspending prosecution dependent on certain conditions.

Precedents In A Vacuum: The Supreme Court Continues To Tinker With Double Jeopardy, Peter J. Henning

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

The Langugage And Culture (Not To Say Race) Of Peremptory Challenges, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Harmless Error In Federal Habeas Corpus After Brecht V. Abrahamson, John H. Blume, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The law of habeas corpus has changed again. This time it was the law of harmless error. Before Brecht v. Abrahamson, the courts applied the same harmless error rule on direct appeal and in federal habeas corpus. Under that rule, embraced for constitutional errors in Chapman v. California, a conviction tainted by a constitutional error susceptible to harmless error analysis could be upheld only if the state demonstrated that the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. After Brecht, the venerable Chapman rule still applies to constitutional errors identified and reviewed on direct appeal, but an ostensibly "less …

Living Under Siege: Do Stalking Laws Protect Domestic Violence Victims?, Susan E. Bernstein

Cardozo Law Review

Nearly thirty percent of all women murdered in America are killed by their husbands or boyfriends, and as many as ninety percent of them have been stalked.

Section 8: Criminal Law And Procedure, Institute Of Bill Of Rights Law, William & Mary Law School

Supreme Court Preview

No abstract provided.

Beyond Guidelines: The Commission As Sentencing Clearinghouse, David Yellen

Articles

No abstract provided.

Reforming The Criminal Trial, Craig M. Bradley

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Is Conviction Irrelevant?, Elizabeth T. Lear

UF Law Faculty Publications

Since 1986, the country has been witness to a revolution in federal sentencing practice: indeterminate sentencing, dominated by discretion and focused on the rehabilitative prospects of the offender, has been replaced by guidelines infused with offense-based considerations. As sweeping as the change in sentencing procedure has been, the system retains troubling aspects of the former regime. The most controversial among these is the Guidelines' reliance on unadjudicated conduct to determine proper punishment levels.

This approach is a variation on “real offense” sentencing, which severs the punishment inquiry from the offense of conviction, focusing instead on an offender's "actual" conduct. Under …

Defending The Poor, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Given the harsh reality that the quality of justice that people get in this country often depends on how much money they have , is our society's aspiration toward "equal justice" attainable? Probably not. A criminal defendant's poverty is not necessarily inconsistent with zealous advocacy. But whether lawyers for the poor adequately protect their clients' rights in criminal cases is the subject of ongoing debate.

Symposium On Securities Law Enforcement Priorities, Roberta S. Karmel

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Forging Of A Political Weapon: The Impact Of The Cold War On The Law Of Contempt, 27 J. Marshall L. Rev. 3 (1993), Melvin B. Lewis

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prostitution: A Violation Of Women's Human Rights, Dorchen Leidholdt

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that prostitution is a violation of women's human rights, asserting that it is not a form of work or a legitimate choice but rather an exploitative institution rooted in gender inequality. The author criticizes the pro-prostitution lobby for framing prostitution as empowering, arguing that this perspective ignores the inherent abuse and exploitation faced by women in the industry.

Statement By Toney Anaya On Capital Punishment, Toney Anaya

University of Richmond Law Review

I oppose capital punishment and was thrust into a position of having to put that opposition to the ultimate test - in 1986 commuted the death sentences of all those on "death row" in the New Mexico State Penitentiary.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Themes Of Injustice: Wrongful Convictions, Racial Prejudice, And Lawyer Incompetence, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The U. S. criminal justice system has undergone radical changes in the past generation. Crime is more complex; prosecutors are more powerful; and courts, corrections agencies, and defense services are burdened with larger case loads and tighter budgets. It is not the best of times to talk about justice. Yet, it is a subject that needs to be constantly addressed, particularly in times of crisis. The following essay focuses on some of the problems that present themselves in the criminal justice system today, including the conviction of innocent defendants, especially in capital cases; racial prejudice; and lawyer incompetence.

The Death Penalty: A Solution To The Problem Of Intentional Aids Transmission Through Rape, 26 J. Marshall L. Rev. 941 (1993), Stefanie S. Wepner

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Search, Seizure And The Positive Law: Expectations Of Privacy Outside The Fourth Amendment, Daniel B. Yeager

Faculty Scholarship

This Article is about the misunderstood relationship between the Fourth Amendment and the positive law. It shows how state property law and other expressions of the positive law are more resilient and useful to Fourth Amendment analysis than the Court's decisions of the past three decades recognize.

Testing The Limits Of Investigating And Prosecuting White Collar Crime: How Far Will The Courts Allow Prosecutors To Go?, Peter J. Henning

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.

Racial Imagery In Criminal Cases, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Brecht V. Abrahamson: Another Step Toward Evisceration Of Habeas Corpus, Lisa S. Spickler

University of Richmond Law Review

As the amount of crime in this country increases, society is becoming more conscious of our criminal justice system. People are increasingly concerned with the outcome of criminal trials, specifically in assuring that crimes do not go unpunished. Determining guilt, ensuring that verdicts are not overruled on a "technicality," and issuing punishment have taken precedence over the protection of constitutional rights. However, the Constitution is not only concerned with the outcome of criminal trials. It is just as surely concerned with individual rights and process.

Annual Survey Of Virginia Law: Criminal Law And Procedure, Steven D. Benjamin

University of Richmond Law Review

During the past year, the Court of Appeals of Virginia continued to be the major contributor to the development of substantive and procedural criminal law in the Commonwealth. Many of the court's decisions concerned the characterization of. police-citizen encounters in the context of both Fourth Amendment law and the rights of an accused under Miranda v. Arizona. A number of cases concerned the admissibility of uncharged misconduct, and the numerous double jeopardy opinions involved case-by-case application of Grady v. Corbin, Blockburger v. United States, and related statutes. A growing body of procedural law concerned the propriety of impanelling jurors of …

Habeas After The Revolution, Joseph L. Hoffmann, William J. Stuntz

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Clemency Process In Virginia, Walter A. Mcfarlane

University of Richmond Law Review

When asked to contribute an article on the issue of clemency, I immediately knew the area I wanted to address: the procedural and practical aspects of the clemency process in Virginia. While numerous articles have been written about clemency, few have examined the procedural rules and none have comprehensively studied the executive viewpoint regarding this area of the law.

The Role Of Executive Clemency In Modern Death Penalty Cases, Bruce Ledewitz, Scott Staples

University of Richmond Law Review

When a governor commutes a sentence of death, typically to one of life imprisonment either with an extended mandatory term or without possibility of parole, how is this action to be understood? As former Governor Pat Brown's book about his commutation decisions illustrates, in a period of widespread support for the death penalty, each commutation contains an appeal for popular support and understanding as to why the decision was made. Where the case for commutation cannot be made to the public's satisfaction, a governor is not likely to act.

The Romance Of Revenge: Capital Punishment In America, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

On February 17, 1992, Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to 15 consecutive terms of life imprisonment for killing and dismembering 15 young men and boys (Associated Press 1992a). Dahmer had been arrested six months earlier, on July 22, 1991. On January 13 he pled guilty to the fifteen murder counts against him, leaving open only the issue of his sanity. Jury selection began two weeks later, and the trial proper started on January 30. The jury heard two weeks of testimony about murder, mutilation and necrophilia; they deliberated for 5 hours before finding that Dahmer was sane when he committed these …