Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Hearsay In High Definition: Body-Worn Cameras And The Future Of Intimate Partner Violence Prosecutions, Kenechukwu Okocha

Working Papers

Technological advances in documenting police encounters with the public have outpaced evidentiary hearsay rules. Specifically, the rapid adoption of body-worn cameras (BWCs), fueled by racial justice and police reform advocates, has produced previously unavailable, vivid, and timely recordings of IPV victims’ accounts of abuse. Unfortunately, state and federal rules governing hearsay often prevent juries from considering these out-of-court statements. Such restrictions carry particular force in IPV cases, where victims frequently recant or decline to testify at trial due to abuser manipulation or distrust of the criminal justice system.

Courts and legislatures have eased some evidentiary restrictions in IPV cases in …

A Prosecutor’S Ethical Duty To Divert, Jordan Stevenson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

In an American courtroom, litigants are divided across an aisle, a gavel grants or divests rights, and a community takes sides. This creates a narrative of duality in the justice system, which many believe is vital to the adversarial legal system. A criminal trial is seen as perpetrator versus victim, but the legal posture is actually government versus individual. In fact, a prosecuting attorney has ethical obligations not just to victims, witnesses, and the broader community, but to defendants as well, in part due to their tremendous discretion to bring or dismiss criminal charges. A prosecutor’s power is far too …

Undermining Discretion: The Selective Attacks On Progressive Prosecutors, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the criminal legal system. They decide whether to bring criminal charges and what those criminal charges should be. These decisions are totally within their discretion. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently protected the power and discretion of prosecutors in making these decisions, and legal challenges to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion have been largely unsuccessful.

In recent years, a growing number of individuals have successfully run for chief prosecutor on platforms of reducing the prison and jail populations, consistent with public safety. They pledged to use their power and discretion to implement policies …

“No One Can Hear You Scream”: Intimate Partner Violence And Family Justice Centers In Rural America, Jordan Stevenson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

In rural Kentucky, where cars are a necessity to traverse the rugged Appalachian Mountains and sparsely populated farmlands, “Barbara’s” abusive husband couldn’t let her get away—so he set her car aflame. Although census-defined rural areas contain only 20% of the United States population, some studies have found that intimate partner violence is more common and severe in rural areas than urban or suburban regions. 

People, especially women, in rural areas experience intimate partner violence in unique ways tied to their geographic and cultural context. Consequently, organizations, courts, and law enforcement struggle to meet the needs of affected populations in rural …

Incentivized Delegation In Corporate Criminal Investigations: State Action, Unconstitutional Conditions, And Fifth Amendment Erosion., Ying Zhou

American University Business Law Review

This Article identifies and critiques “incentivized delegation,” an enforcement regime in which the Department of Justice (DOJ) conditions prosecutorial leniency on corporations’ completion of specified, prosecution-oriented, internal investigations of employee misconduct. While courts readily find state action when the government formally delegates investigative functions, they have not squarely addressed whether corporate investigations undertaken to secure prosecutorial leniency—without explicit governmental direction—should likewise trigger state-action scrutiny. United States v. Coburn illustrates the blind spot: by insisting that state action requires overt governmental direction and control, the decision exposes a fundamental failure to appreciate how the government can embed investigative mandates within the …

Restorative Restitution, Lula A. Hagos

American University Law Review

How to best meet the needs of crime victims while also furthering the imperative of decarceration has long vexed advocates and scholars alike. This dilemma comes into sharp focus when one examines two developments in criminal procedure that, until now, have been analyzed separately: victim restitution and restorative justice.

Criminal restitution, the monetary payments ordered from defendants to victims, often fails both groups. Because most defendants are indigent, restitution obligations lengthen defendants’ involvement with the criminal legal system without delivering meaningful compensation to victims, making restitution more symbolic than restorative. At the same time, interest in restorative justice has surged …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Professors Of Constitutional And Criminal Law In Support Of Petitioner (Whitton V. Dixon - 25-580), Ira P. Robbins, Jeffrey Fagan, Michael Cassidy, Barbara O'Brien, Catherine Grosso, William W. Berry Iii, Ellen C. Yaroshefsky

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Brief in support of Petitioner.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT: This Court has “consistently held that a conviction obtained by the knowing use of perjured testimony is fundamentally unfair” because it “involve[s] a corruption of the truth-seeking function of the trial process.” United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103–04 (1976). Here, the Eleventh Circuit acknowledged that the state committed a Giglio violation when it permitted a jailhouse informant to falsely testify at trial that he lacked a violent criminal record despite prosecutors knowing that he did. The Eleventh Circuit deemed this violation harmless, however, based on its erroneous consideration of …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiff-Appellees, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

INTRODUCTION: The Executive Order at issue in these appeals targets a small and uniquely vulnerable minority of transgender women—those currently housed in federal women’s prisons—by commanding the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to transfer them immediately to men’s facilities. Amici file in support of Plaintiffs-Appellees (hereinafter “Plaintiffs”), to address two procedural arguments made by Defendants-Appellants (“the government”). First, Congress has not eliminated federal court jurisdiction to decide Plaintiffs’ challenge to the transfer provisions of the Executive Order. Second, the government overreads the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA); Plaintiffs’ lawsuit is not improper or premature under that statute’s exhaustion requirement because …

Brief Of Legal Ethics Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Susan D. Carle

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Amici curiae are leading legal ethics scholars with expertise regarding the rules, precedents, and other authorities regarding the professional responsibility and legal ethics obligations of lawyers. While this case involves protection of crucial Sixth Amendment rights of criminal defendants, it also implicates the professional responsibility and legal ethics obligations of attorneys representing clients at trial. Amici have a professional interest in ensuring that the Court is fully informed of the important professional responsibility and legal ethics issues in this case. Specifically, amici submit this brief to explain that the trial court's order in this case creates significant and serious problems …

Letter From The Editor, Davis Hayman

Criminal Law Practitioner

Dear Readers,

Thank you for your interest in The Criminal Law Practitioner. This marks my first publication as the Editor-in-Chief for the 2025-2026 academic year. I am thrilled to leave this remarkable team as we continue to solicit, write, and publish issues in criminal law.

 This issue continues this trend by highlighting topics including evolving interpretation of the 8th Amendment and a discussion on Constitutional venue issues related to internet crimes. Our authors provide some intriguing, unique insights that I invite you to dig into. In “The Continuing Unevolving Model of Decency, Kennedy v. Louisiana in Peril”, Professor Patrick S. …

Where Does A Hack Happen? Computer Intrusion Crimes And Constitutional Venue, Harrison Parker Blanchard Grant

Criminal Law Practitioner

The United States Constitution guarantees the right to a criminal trial where the criminal offense was committed. This guarantee—the venue requirement—forces courts to analyze where criminal conduct occurred. Technology makes that locational analysis more complicated. For one computer hacker, that same analysis led to his trial and conviction in Massachusetts, despite the fact that he did not hack into anything in Massachusetts. This Article examines the hacker’s case, exploring the technologies used to execute the hack and linking those technologies to the hacker’s trial in Massachusetts.

The Continuing Unevolving Model Of Decency, Kennedy V. Louisiana In Peril, Patrick S. Metze

Criminal Law Practitioner

Professor Metze reflects on Kennedy v. Louisiana in its part in the development of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence and how the Supreme Court initially used Kennedy to further our understanding of the limits of the Eighth Amendment. The Court recently avoided a meaningful discussion of how our society is maturing and evolving by acknowledging a purposeful effort of some to reflect modern beliefs in opposition to those who would interpret everything through an 18th-century prism. After a case-by-case analysis of how the Court has used Kennedy, it is apparent the conservative majority now on the Court has decided there is no …

The State Of The Medical Cannabis Industry And Enforcement Against Illegal Cannabis Shops, Chaz Brooks

Legislative Testimony & Comments

My name is Professor Chaz Brooks, and I am joined by several of my students who have assisted on this project, Khumar Gasimzada, Christian Nunez, and Olivia Woodmansee. Professor Priya Baskaran and I co-lead the Entrepreneurship Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law, where we provide legal support to small businesses and entrepreneurs in Washington, D.C. (the “District” or “D.C.”). Over the past year, we have worked closely with Sean and Lashonia Thompson-El of DC Native Botanicals who received a Conditional Social Equity License for a cultivation center in October 2023. Today, we testify not only on their …

Brief Of Law Professors As Amici Curiae In Support Of Respondent, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT: "The right to trial by jury is 'of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that any seeming curtailment of the right' has always been and 'should be scrutinized with the utmost care." SEC v. Jarkesy, 144 S. Ct. 2117, 2128 (2024) (quoting Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486 (1935)). The Seventh Amendment reflects and enshrines that tradition, providing that in "[s]uits at common law ... the right of trial by jury shall be preserved." U.S. Const. amend. VII (quoting Dimick; see also City of …

Diplomatic Practices: Activating The Crime Of Aggression, Noah Weisbord

American University International Law Review

At midnight on Friday, December 15, 2017, a century of multilateral negotiations over the definition and jurisdictional reach of the crime of aggression—leadership responsibility for aggressive war—was on the brink of collapse. Almost every controversial drafting issue had been negotiated and resolved, and International Criminal Court (ICC or the Court) States Parties were gathered at the United Nations (U.N.) in New York to activate ICC jurisdiction over the “supreme international crime.” According to aggression scholar Annegret Hartig, “activation was expected to be comparable to a mere turning on of lights.” Just two states, the U.K. and France, were blocking the …

Fraud In Feeding Our Future: An Analysis Of “The Largest Pandemic Relief Fraud Scheme Yet”, Alena Johnston

Criminal Law Practitioner

Since the 1930s, the public school system in the United States has provided a distinct place for students to develop, learn, and grow.  Public schools level the playing field for students in academics, allowing them to receive an education at no direct cost. However, students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds continue to face challenges, and their inability to secure nutritious meals can affect their ability to perform academically. In 1946, President Harry Truman signed the National School Lunch Act, forming the first Child Nutrition Program in the United States to remedy the food security issue.

 The program was implemented as “a …

Is It Possible To Draft A Universal Criminal Code?, Paul H. Robinson

American University International Law Review

The world contains hundreds of distinct communities with their own traditions and values. One might assume that, despite the best efforts of international organizations, it would be impossible to draft a criminal code that could operate effectively for all countries. Is that the case? If one tried to construct a universal criminal code, what sorts of challenges and limitations with the effort face?

Poison! An Africana Legal Studies Investigation Into Enslaved Africans And Their Deadly Roots, Angi Porter

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article is a murder investigation.

And a strange one, as the victims might be the suspects, and the suspects might be the victims. Or, even stranger, who we are calling the victims might be the enforcers of an entirely different justice system we did not initially see.

This is a cold case: we are investigating African people enslaved in the Province of Maryland during the eighteenth century. It is really a collection of cases—all cases of poisoning. These enslaved Africans were poisoning their enslavers. The incidents are described in legal records and newspapers. But what do these poisonings really …

Federal Compassionate Release Principles: Defining The Contours Of Analyses Under The “Other Reasons” Bucket, Hannah Jacobs

American University Law Review

The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s new policy statement regarding 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(1)(A) informs federal judges’ sentence reduction analyses. The statement expands the extraordinary and compelling reasons for which district courts may grant compassionate release under the statute’s “Other Reasons” provision. A proper application of this catchall provision requires striking a balance between the broad judicial discretion codified in that provision and the flexibility, certainty, and fairness principles Congress and the Sentencing Commission intended to shape modern compassionate release. This discretion is bound by statutory, policy, and prudential considerations, including fidelity to the totality-of-the-circumstances framework and a case-by-case approach to individual …

Video Analytics And Fourth Amendment Vision, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

What does the Fourth Amendment have to say about video analytics running on citywide camera systems? Video analytics (also known as computer vision) involves hardware and software in cameras that turns video surveillance streams into useful data, identifying, categorizing, matching, and alerting police about objects, people, and incidents. Video analytics can identify objects (e.g., hat, backpack, person, car) and track that person or thing back in time and through the streets using video surveillance footage. For police officers conducting virtual patrols or retrospective investigations, video analytics lets police scan thousands of linked cameras for suspicious behavior or a particular suspect, …

The Warrant Exception That Isn't Fisa Section 702, "Defensive" Searches, And The Fourth Amendment, Noah C. Chauvin

American University Law Review

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act allows the government to conduct warrantless electronic surveillance of non-Americans who are located overseas. Although the surveillance targets foreigners, Americans’ communications are “incidentally” collected, too. Once the government has acquired Americans’ communications, court-approved rules allow it to conduct warrantless searches for and through them in its Section 702 databases. Intelligence agencies have used these rules to turn this foreign intelligence program into a domestic spying tool, conducting tens of thousands of warrantless “backdoor” searches for Americans’ private communications obtained under Section 702 every year.

Section 702 periodically sunsets; Congress most recently reauthorized …

Punishing Violence, Shima Baradaran Baughman

American University Law Review

The American criminal justice system doles out the harshest punishments in the world. It is infamous for its protracted criminal sentences and prodigious criminal code. But what most scholars and policymakers overlook is that the United States punishes only a fraction of the total serious crime that occurs in the country—including violent crime.

Approximately twenty million serious crimes occur in America each year, but only about half of these are reported to police. Of those reported, the police make arrests for an average of only twenty percent of serious crimes, and only ten percent of arrests result in a conviction. …

Brief Of Criminal Law Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

Amici are law professors who teach and research criminal law and procedure. They have no personal interests in this case. Their sole interest is in the protection and preservation of the constitutional rights of criminal defendants.

Amicus Brief Of Legal Scholars Lee Kovarsky Et Al. In Support Of Petitioner, Ira P. Robbins

Amicus Briefs & Court Filings

QUESTION PRESENTED: Whether a second-in-time habeas claim filed while an appeal from the judgment on an initial habeas claim is still pending counts as a second or successive habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)

INTEREST OF AMICI CURIAE: Amici curiae are law professors and legal scholars who study federal post-conviction law and civil procedure. Amici curiae have no personal interest in the outcome of this case. They all share an interest in seeing habeas law applied in a way that ensures the just and timely adjudication of claims while preserving the traditional and intended operation of the Federal Rules …

Deconstructing Burglary, Ira P. Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

The law of burglary has long played a vital role in protecting hearth and home. Because of the violation of one’s personal space, few crimes engender more fear than burglary; thus, the law should provide necessary safety and security against that fear. Among other things, current statutes aim to deter trespassers from committing additional crimes by punishing them more severely based on their criminal intent before they execute their schemes. Burglary law even protects domestic violence victims against abusers who attempt to invade their lives and terrorize them.

However, the law of burglary has expanded and caused so many problems …

Reviving Criminal Code Reform, Richard S. Schmechel

American University Law Review

This Article presents a history of how the District of Columbia (D.C.) recently rewrote its criminal code—legislatively adopting the first Model Penal Code (MPC)-based comprehensive criminal code reform in the U.S. in decades—and how Congress blocked the bill in 2023, its only criminal legislation of the year. The development and fate of the legislation has national implications. Like D.C., about fifteen states have never undergone MPC-based reform and dozens of other MPC-based codes have degraded over time and need comprehensive revision. After decades of reform failures, D.C. created an independent agency solely dedicated to criminal code revision. Emphasizing public transparency …

A Fourth Amendment Pathfinder: Stop-And-Frisk And Race, Emily Pratt

Upper Level Writing Requirement Research Papers

No abstract provided.

More Than Friends: A New Theory For The Third-Party Doctrine, Eang L. Ngov

American University Law Review

When a person gives information or something tangible to someone or a business, the Fourth Amendment’s third-party doctrine allows the government to obtain that evidence without a warrant or probable cause. The third-party doctrine is premised on the rationale that we hold no reasonable expectation of privacy when we voluntarily expose information to others, that we assume the risk that the third party would share the information, and that we must deal with the consequences of that misplaced trust. The doctrine originated from a series of cases where law enforcement obtained information revealed by criminals through their mistaken trust of …

Prison Administrative Law, Erin Braatz

American University Law Review

This Article examines a matching pair of gaps in the legal literature on prisons and the administrative state. On the one hand, prison law focuses on constitutional protections for prisoners. As such, it emphasizes the minimum conditions the Constitution ensures for the nearly two million individuals currently incarcerated throughout the United States. What this focus misses, however, is the administrative nature of these institutions. With vast powers delegated to prison departments, prison law often fails to fully engage with the administrative nature of power and decision-making within prison departments. This administrative structure shapes the conditions that prevail inside American prisons. …

Grasping The Third Rail: Restorative Justice And Violent Crime, Olwyn Conway

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Restorative justice is a means of responding to harm— including criminal offenses—through active accountability and repair, rather than through passive punishment and isolation. While restorative justice has demonstrated potential to meaningfully improve processes and outcomes for individuals and communities, the implementation of restorative justice programs to address crime—both within and alongside the American criminal system—has been slow, limited, and misplaced. Programs are often directed at low-level, nonviolent offenses that involve little if any cognizable harm. This approach creates two problems. One, it risks net-widening: bringing more citizens under criminal surveillance and carceral control for minor offenses—further diluting the constitutional and …