Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Washington's "War Against Terrorism" And Human Rights: The View From Abroad, Douglass Cassel

Journal Articles

"When it comes to human rights, there is no greater leader than the United States of America," White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said.

The view from abroad is less kind. A recent resolution of the European Parliament, for example, "condemns" our government's treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. It urges Washington to guarantee all prisoners "minimum human rights in accordance with international human rights law and fair trial procedures" and to "immediately clarify the situation of the prisoners." European objections run so deep that a New York Times account finds a "high level of anger in Europe at reports that …

Sentencing Guideline Law And Practice In A Post-Booker World: Introduction, Michael Vitiello

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Innocent Of A Capital Crime: Parallels Between Innocence Of A Crime And Innocence Of The Death Penalty, Linda Carter

McGeorge School of Law Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Reconceptualising Female Trafficking: The Inhuman Trade In Women, Alison Cole

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The article argues that female trafficking must be reconceptualized under international criminal law as a crime against humanity to establish a uniform legal framework for combating this global issue. It critiques existing international approaches for lacking coherence and enforcement, emphasizing the need for a clear definition and standardized measures to address the severity of trafficking. The UN Trafficking Protocol, while authoritative, leaves significant discretion to states, resulting in varied domestic policies that hinder effective international cooperation. By classifying female trafficking as a crime against humanity, the article proposes a more robust legal basis for universal jurisdiction and individual liability, aligning …

Miranda's Reprieve: How Rehnquist Spared The Landmark Confession Case, But Weakened Its Impact, Yale Kamisar

Articles

June marks the 40th anniversary of one of the most praised, most maligned-and probably one of the most misunderstood-U.S. Supreme Court cases in American history, Miranda v. Arizona. The opinion by Chief Justice Earl Warren conditions police questioning of people in custody on the giving of warnings about the right to remain silent, the right to counsel and the waiver of those rights. 384 U.S. 436. This ruling represents a compromise of sorts between the former elusive, ambiguous and subjective voluntariness/totality-of-the-circumstances test and extreme proposals that would have eliminated police interrogation altogether. But William H. Rehnquist didn't see Miranda that …

Revisiting The Legal Link Between Genetics And Crime, Deborah W. Denno

Faculty Scholarship

Unwarranted constraints on the admissibility of genetics evidence in death penalty cases can undercut some defendants' efforts to fight their executions. For example, genetics evidence can help validate some traditionally accepted mitigating factors (such as certain psychiatric or behavioral disorders) that can otherwise be difficult for defendants to prove. By imposing unreasonable limitations on genetics arguments, the criminal justice system may be undermining the very principles and progressive thinking the cap on genetics evidence was originally intended to achieve. Part II of this article briefly reviews the facts and legal arguments in Mobley v. State. Part III addresses the primary …

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 …

We Really (For The Most Part) Mean It!, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

I closed my petition for certiorari in Hammon v. Indiana by declaring, “ ‘We really mean it!’ is the message that lower courts need to hear, and that decision of this case can send.” The prior year, Crawford v. Washington had transformed the law of the Confrontation Clause, holding that an out-ofcourt statement that is testimonial in nature may be admitted against an accused only if the maker of the statement is unavailable and the accused has had an opportunity to cross-examine her. But Crawford deliberately left undetermined what the term “testimonial” meant. Many lower courts gave it a grudging …

Souter Passant, Scalia Rampant: Combat In The Marsh, Samuel R. Gross

Articles

Kansas law provides that unless a capital sentencing jury concludes that the mitigating factors that apply to the defendant’s crime outweigh the aggravating factors, it must sentence the defendant to death. The Kansas Supreme Court held that this law violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments because it “impermissibly mandates the death penalty when the jury finds that the mitigating and aggravating circumstances are in equipoise.” On June 26, in Kansas v. Marsh, the Supreme Court reversed in a 5 to 4 opinion by Justice Thomas.

Reconceptualizing Child Sexual Exploitation As A Bias Crime Under The Protect Act, Tracy Agyemang

Cardozo Journal of Equal Rights & Social Justice

The note argues that the PROTECT Act, while expanding legal measures to combat child sexual exploitation, fails to address the crime's root causes and its nature as a form of discrimination. It advocates for reconceptualizing child sexual exploitation as a bias crime, which would enhance legal deterrence, increase penalties, and better acknowledge the psychological trauma experienced by victims. The note emphasizes that recognizing exploitation as a bias crime would address the systemic factors, such as poverty and discrimination, that perpetuate the crime.

Crawford At Two: Testimonial Hearsay And The Confrontation Clause, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

This article addresses the response of Colorado courts, and that of certain other jurisdictions, to the 2004 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Crawford v. Washington.

The Legal Limits Of Universal Jurisdiction, Anthony J. Colangelo

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Despite all the attention it receives from both its supporters and critics, universal jurisdiction remains one of the more confused doctrines of international law. Indeed, while commentary has focused largely and unevenly on policy and normative arguments either favoring or undercutting the desirability of its exercise, a straightforward legal analysis breaking down critical aspects of this extraordinary form of jurisdiction remains conspicuously missing. Yet universal jurisdiction's increased practice by states calls out for such a clear descriptive understanding. This Essay engages this under-treated area. It offers to explicate a basic, but overlooked, feature of the law of universal jurisdiction: If …

Judicial Participation In Plea Negotiations: A Comparative View, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Current rules in most U.S. jurisdictions prohibit judges from becoming involved in plea negotiations and limit the judges' role to reviewing a plea bargain once it is presented by the parties. The enclosed article surveys three systems that provide for more significant judicial involvement - Germany, Florida, and Connecticut - and suggests that a judge's early input into plea negotiations can render the final disposition more accurate and procedurally just. Based on interviews with practitioners and a review of the case law, the article outlines a model for greater judicial involvement in plea negotiations.

The Crisis In Indigent Defense: A National Perspective, Mary Sue Backus, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Pro Se Defendants And The Appointment Of Advisory Counsel, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

This article provides an overview of advisory counsel used to assist pro se criminal defendants, including the appointment and duties of advisory counsel, ethical obligations, and considerations for trial judges and prosecutors.

The Juridical Structure Of Habitual Offender Laws And The Jurisprudence Of Authoritarian Social Control, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Procuring Guilty Pleas For International Crimes: The Limited Influence Of Sentencing Discounts, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

International tribunals prosecuting those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes face many of the same resource constraints that bedevil national criminal justice systems. Consequently, international tribunals have begun to utilize various procedural devices long used by national prosecutors to speed case dispositions. One such procedural device is the guilty plea. National prosecutors induce criminal defendants to plead guilty and waive their rights to trial through a process of plea bargaining; that is, by offering defendants sentencing concessions in exchange for their guilty pleas. International prosecutors who seek to engage in plea bargaining, however, face a host of …

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.

Legislating Racial Fairness In Criminal Justice, Olatunde C.A. Johnson

Faculty Scholarship

Twenty years ago, in McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court rejected a capital defendant's claim that statistical evidence of racial discrimination in the administration of Georgia's death penalty system constituted a violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Yet, even as McCleskey effectively bars constitutional challenges to racial disparities in the criminal justice system where invidious bias is difficult to establish, the Court invites advocates to pursue legislation as a remedy to racial disparities. Indeed, the McCleskey Court offers as a rationale for its ruling the judiciary's institutional incompetence to remedy these disparities, holding that "McCleskey's arguments are best …

Summary Of George V. State, 122 Nev. Adv. Op 1, David T. Gluth

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

In 2002, appellant, George, filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Nevada Supreme Court claiming he was deprived his right to appeal. The Nevada Supreme Court then discovered that defendant's original 1985 notice of appeal was never transmitted. The court directed the district court to transmit defendant's notice of appeal and appoint appellate counsel.

"True Threats" And The Issue Of Intent, Paul T. Crane

Law Faculty Publications

This Note will proceed in five Parts. Part I will serve as a short introduction to the category of true threats and its place within First Amendment jurisprudence. Part II will examine the history of true threats and intent leading up to Virginia v. Black, highlighting the foundational opinion of Watts v. United States and the various intent approaches that became available in its wake. Part III will discuss the potential interpretations of the language in Black, and Part IV will explain how lower courts have treated the Court's definition of true threats in Black. Finally, Part V will address …

The Reasonable Policeman: Police Intent In Criminal Procedure, Craig M. Bradley

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Banishing Acts: How Far May States Go To Keep Convicted Sex Offenders Away From Children?, Bret R. Hobson

Georgia Law Review

Few legislative goals are more commendable than states' attempts to prevent child sexual abuse. Given the difficult nature of this problem, some judicial deference to legislative efforts is appropriate. Politicians, however, should not receive carte blanche to enact reactionary, overinclusive statutes of questionable efficacy. When laws such as residency restrictions target all convicted sex offenders who have already paid their debt to society, courts should closely examine whether such laws violate substantive due process and the Ex Post Facto Clause. Despite the difficulty in articulating a discrete fundamental right that is infringed by residency restrictions,these laws restrain the liberty of …

Adolescence And The Regulation Of Youth Crime, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

I am delighted to be a part of this Symposium on Law and Adolescence. My talk today is about adolescent development and juvenile justice policy. Specifically, I will focus on why a legal regime that is grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescence and the role of criminal activity during this developmental period is better for young offenders and for society than the contemporary policy, which often pays little attention to differences between adolescents and adults.

My talk is based on a book on juvenile justice policy I am currently writing with Larry Steinberg, a developmental psychologist who is a leading …

Capital Punishment And Capital Murder: Market Share And The Deterrent Effects Of The Death Penalty, Jeffrey Fagan, Franklin Zimring, Amanda Geller

Faculty Scholarship

The modem debate on deterrence and capital punishment, now in its fourth decade, was launched by two closely timed events. The first was the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia, which restored capital punishment after its brief constitutional ban following Furman v. Georgia in 1972. In 1975, Professor Isaac Ehrlich published an influential article saying that during the 1950s and 1960s, each execution averted eight murders. Although Ehrlich's article was a highly technical study prepared for an audience of economists, its influence went well beyond the economics profession. Ehrlich's work was cited favorably in Gregg …

Death And Deterrence Redux: Science, Law And Causal Reasoning On Capital Punishment, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

The essay shows that the new deterrence studies are fraught with numerous technical and conceptual errors: inappropriate methods of statistical analysis, failures to consider several relevant factors that drive murder rates such as drug epidemics, missing data on key variables in key states, the tyranny of a few outlier states and years, weak to non-existent tests of concurrent effects of incarceration, statistical confounding of murder rates with death sentences, failure to consider the general performance of the criminal justice system, artifactual results from truncated time frames, and the absence of any direct test of the components of contemporary theoretical constructions …

Public Attitudes About The Culpability And Punishment Of Young Offenders, Elizabeth S. Scott, N. Dickon Reppucci, Jill Antonishak, Jennifer T. Degennaro

Faculty Scholarship

Conventional wisdom holds that the public supports harsh punishment of juvenile offenders, and politicians often argue that the public demands tough policies. But public opinion is usually gauged through simplistic polls, often conducted in the wake of highly publicized violent crimes by juveniles. This study seeks to probe public opinion about the culpability of young offenders as compared to adult counterparts through more nuanced and comprehensive measures in a neutral setting (i.e. not in response to a high profile crime or during a political campaign when the media focuses on the issue). The opinions of 788 community adults were individually …

Barry Scheck Lectures On Wrongful Convictions, Barry Scheck

Articles

The article discusses the systemic issues leading to wrongful convictions, emphasizing the role of mistaken eyewitness identification and flawed forensic science. It highlights the importance of postconviction DNA exonerations in revealing these injustices and advocates for reforms to improve the criminal justice system.

A Comparative Approach To Teaching Criminal Procedure And Its Application To The Post-Investigative Stage, Stephen C. Thaman

All Faculty Scholarship

This article addresses why a comparative perspective should be brought into a basic bar course like criminal procedure. American courts and students should be aware of how other countries process their criminal cases to determine whether we can learn from them. It discusses archetypes of criminal procedure as teaching tools, applications of comparative models in the post-investigative stage of criminal procedure, the right to an oral immediate trial and the right to confront witnesses, and the division of labor between lay and professional judges in deciding facts, guilt, and sentencing. By immersing oneself in comparative law and the history of …

Transnational Criminal Law And Procedure: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza

Faculty Scholarship

What is “transnational” criminal law? One possibility is foreign criminal law, meaning the scope and substance of what is deemed criminal behavior in other lands and the theories that ostensibly justify punishing for such behavior, indeed deeming it criminal in the first place. Another is foreign criminal procedure, the “how” of foreign criminal law’s “what” and “why”: the rules and practices of investigating crime, prosecuting suspected criminals, and adjudicating criminal cases in other lands or systems. More common meanings, judging from articles in U.S. law reviews, are comparative criminal law and comparative criminal procedure, though these might differ from their …