Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Whether The Bright-Line Cut-Off Rule And The Adversarial Expert Explanation Of Adaptive Functioning Exacerbates Capital Juror Comprehension Of The Intellectual Disability, Leona Deborah Jochnowitz

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Lee V. United States: The Unusual Circumstances Test For Strickland Relief, Zachary Segal

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Dangerous Defendants, Sandra G. Mayson

Scholarly Works

Bail reform is gaining momentum nationwide. Reformers aspire to untether pretrial detention from wealth (the ability to post money bail) and condition it instead on statistical risk, particularly the risk that a defendant will commit crime if he remains at liberty pending trial. The bail reform movement holds tremendous promise, but also forces the criminal justice system to confront a difficult question: What statistical risk that a person will commit future crime justifies short-term detention? What about lesser restraints, like GPS monitoring? Although the turn to actuarial risk assessment in the pretrial context has engendered both excitement and concern, the …

The Scale Of Misdemeanor Justice, Megan T. Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson

Scholarly Works

This Article seeks to provide the most comprehensive national-level empirical analysis of misdemeanor criminal justice that is currently feasible given the state of data collection in the United States. First, we estimate that there are 13.2 million misdemeanor cases filed in the United States each year. Second, contrary to conventional wisdom, this number is not rising. Both the number of misdemeanor arrests and cases filed have declined markedly in recent years. In fact, national arrest rates for almost every misdemeanor offense category have been declining for at least two decades, and the misdemeanor arrest rate was lower in 2014 than …

Deterrence, David Crump

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Finality Of A Conviction: A Noncitizen's Right To Procedural Due Process, Daniela Mondragon

St. Mary's Law Journal

Abstract forthcoming

Brief Of Amici Curiae Criminal Procedure Professors In Gamble V. United States, No. 17-646, Stephen Henderson, George Thomas, Michael Mannheimer, Kiel Brennan-Marquez

Other Faculty Publications

The Fifth Amendment guarantees that, “No person shall be ... subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” Yet that is precisely what happened to Terance Martez Gamble. The State of Alabama prosecuted and convicted him for being a felon in possession of a firearm. Subsequently, the United States initiated a second prosecution for what all parties have assumed is definitionally the same offense, yielding a second conviction. That second, duplicative prosecution and conviction violated the letter and spirit of the Double Jeopardy Clause.As a matter of the Framer’s understanding, as a matter …

Rapid Dna Testing And Virginia's Rape Kit Backlog: A Double-Edged Sword Masquerading As A Miracle, Or The Future Of Forensic Analysis?, Emma C. Greger

Law Student Publications

While Rapid DNA technology has the potential to revolutionize every aspect of the criminal justice system, from arrest to the postconviction appeals process, there has been particular excitement centered around its potential to reduce the rape kit backlog.

Appointed Counsel And Jury Trial: The Rights That Undermine The Other Rights, Russell L. Christopher

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Do the Sixth Amendment rights to appointed counsel and jury trial unconstitutionally conflict with defendants' other constitutional rights? For indigents charged with felonies, Gideon v. Wainwright guarantees the right to appointed counsel; for misdemeanors, Scott v. Illinois limits the right to indigents receiving the most severe authorized punishment-imprisonment. Duncan v. Illinois limits the right to jury trial to defendants charged with serious offenses. Consequently, the greater the jeopardy faced by defendants, the greater the eligibility for appointed counsel and jury trial. But defendants' other constitutional rights generally facilitate just the oppositeminimizing jeopardy by reducing charges, lessening the likelihood of guilt, …

Climbing The Mountain Of Criminal Procedure: Comparative Legal Procedure, Stephen R. Galoob

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Book review of Comparative Criminal Procedure (Jacqueline E. Ross & Stephen C. Thaman eds., Edward Elgar, 2016)

Removing Race From The Jury Deliberation Room: The Shortcomings Of Pena-Rodriguez V. Colorado And How To Address Them, Lauren Crump

University of Richmond Law Review

This comment explores ways in which racial bias undermines

the American jury system and argues that simply having a racial

bias exception to the no-impeachment rule does not go far enough

to guard against racially motivated jury verdicts. In order to

guarantee the Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, defendants

must always be able to question potential jurors about

racial bias, and universal court policies need to be adopted across

the country that allow for a consistent approach for investigating

claims of racial bias in jury deliberations. Part I of this comment

examines the history of American juries and …

Devil Take The Hindmost: Reform Considerations For States With A Constitutional Right To Bail, Jordan Gross

Faculty Law Review Articles

This Article submits that any meaningful discussion of bail reform at the state level must be jurisdiction-specific, and it must account for the practical, historical, and philosophical aspects of the state constitutional right to bailability. Part II of this Article is an overview of the origins and history of English and American bail law. Part III describes the role and regulation of commercial bail bonding in the United States. Part IV traces the history and current state of bail reform in the United States. Part V considers legal and practical barriers to reform unique to right-to-bail states, particularly jurisdictions without …

Criminal Procedure: Confessions, Searches, And Seizures, Michael E. Keasler, Benjamin S. Brown

SMU Annual Texas Survey

No abstract provided.

Illegal Predicate Searches And Tainted Warrants After Heien And Strieff, Kit Kinports

Faculty Scholarship

A long-standing debate has surrounded the relationship between two features of the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule - the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine and the good-faith exception - in cases where the evidence used to secure a search warrant was obtained in violation of the defendant's constitutional rights. Some judges and scholars maintain that the fruits of the poisonous tree doctrine takes precedence in such "tainted warrant" cases, leading to the suppression of any evidence seized in executing the warrant unless the warrant was supported by probable cause independent of the illegal predicate search. By contrast, others believe that …

Here Comes The Judge: A Model For Judicial Oversight And Regulation Of The Brady Disclosure Duty, Cynthia Jones

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Under the current state of the law, there is no mechanism in place to ensure that a criminal defendant receives information in the exclusive possession of the government that negates guilt, undermines the strength of the government's case, or reduces the sentence that could be imposed. Whenever a prosecutor wants to do so, she can suppress this favorable information and prevent the court and the defense from ever learning of its existence. Without oversight and with very little accountability, prosecutors have been vested with the power to determine whether and when to disclose favorable evidence to the defense. Although many …

My Brain Is So Wired; Neuroimaging's Role In Competency Cases Involved Persons With Mental Disabilities, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

In this article, we consider the therapeutic jurisprudence implications of the use of neuroimaging techniques in assessing whether a defendant is competent to stand trial, a topic that has been the subject of no prior legal commentary. Recent attention paid to neuroscience in the criminal process has focused on questions of mitigation and competency to be executed, but the potential of such evidence transcends these areas.

There has been almost no attention paid to its potential impact on a critical intersection between the criminal trial process and inquiries into mental or psychological status: a defendant’s trial competency. Less than a …

She's Nobody's Child/The Law Can't Touch Her At All': Seeking To Bring Dignity To Legal Proceedings Involving Juveniles, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Lynch

Articles & Chapters

Recent Supreme Court decisions declaring unconstitutional both capital punishment (Roper v. Simmons, 2005) and life without parole (Graham v. Florida, 2010) in cases involving juveniles might lead a casual observer to think that we are now in an era in which dignity of juveniles is privileged in the legal system and in which humiliation and shame are subordinated. This observation, sadly, would be wrong.

Inquiries into a range of issues involving juveniles – commitment to psychiatric institutions; trials in juvenile courts; aspects of criminal procedure that, in many jurisdictions, bar juveniles from raising the incompetency status or the insanity defense; …

Carpenter V. United States And The Fourth Amendment: The Best Way Forward, Stephen E. Henderson

Faculty Articles

We finally have a federal ‘test case.’ In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court is poised to set the direction of the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. The case squarely presents how the twentieth-century third party doctrine will fare in contemporary times, and the stakes could not be higher. This Article reviews the Carpenter case and how it fits within the greater discussion of the Fourth Amendment third party doctrine and location surveillance, and I express a hope that the Court will be both a bit ambitious and a good measure cautious. As for ambition, the Court …

Character Assassination: Amending Federal Rule Of Evidence 404(B) To Protect Criminal Defendants, Daniel J. Capra, Liesa L. Richter

Faculty Articles

There is a war raging over the admissibility of the prior bad acts of criminal defendants in federal trials. While many circuits treat Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) as a rule of “inclusion” and liberally admit such prior bad-acts evidence with predictably explosive effects on criminal juries, a few circuits are developing rigorous standards designed to foreclose prosecutorial use of such bad-acts evidence. This Article chronicles the well-documented permissive admission of the prior bad acts of criminal defendants notwithstanding the prohibition on such evidence by Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b)(1), as well as recent efforts by some federal circuits to …

Debunked, Discredited, But Still Defended: Why Prosecutors Resist Challenges To Bad Science And Some Suggestions For Crafting Remedies For Wrongful Conviction Based On Changed Science, Aviva A. Orenstein

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Flawed science has significantly contributed to wrongful convictions. Courts struggle with how to address such convictions when the mistaken science (such as bogus expert claims about the differences between accidental fires and intentionally set ones) significantly affected the guilty verdict but there is no DNA evidence to directly exonerate the accused. My short piece explores why prosecutors often defend bad science. Mistakes in science tend to serve the prosecution, but there are other more subtle factors that explain prosecutors’ reluctance to address flawed forensic testimony. Such reluctance may arise from fondness for the status quo and a resistance to subverting …

Pluralism In International Criminal Procedure, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Over the last two decades, international criminal procedure has become a recognized body of law, with textbooks, treatises, and law review articles discussing its rules and principles and theorizing its goals and methods. The term refers to the procedures used at the international criminal courts and tribunals created to address some of the most serious offenses, such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Some of these courts are fully international, like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). Others are “hybrid courts,” …

The Right To Counsel In Criminal Cases: Still A National Crisis, Mary Sue Backus, Paul Marcus

Faculty Articles

In 1963, Gideon v. Wainwright dramatically changed the landscape of criminal justice with its mandate that poor criminal defendants be entitled to legal representation funded by the government. As scholars and practitioners have noted repeatedly over more than fifty years, states have generally failed to provide the equal access Gideon promised. This Article revisits the questions raised by the authors over a decade ago when they asserted that a genuine national crisis exists regarding the right to counsel in criminal cases for poor people. Sadly, despite a few isolated instances where litigation has sparked some progress, the issues remain the …

Adminization: Gatekeeping Consumer Contracts, Yonathan A. Arbel

Articles

Large companies and debt collectors frequently file unmeritorious claims against consumers. Recent high-profile actions brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau against J.P. Morgan, Citibank, and other large debt collectors illustrate the breadth and importance of this phenomenon. Due to the limited financial power of individuals, consumers often do not defend against such baseless claims, which results in the entry of millions of default judgments every year. To combat this problem, policymakers and scholars have explored a variety of court-based solutions that would make it easier for consumers to defend in court, but these prove ineffectual.

To solve the problem …

The Right To Two Criminal Defense Lawyers, Bruce A. Green

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exigent Circumstances And Searches Incident To Arrest In New York: The Difficulties And Distinctions, Kyle Knox

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Will The Jury System Survive The Peña-Rodriguez Exception To Rule 606(B)?: The Court’S Response To Racial Discrimination By A Juror Leaves The Future Of The American Jury Trial System In Jeopardy, Taurus Myhand

Scholarly Works

The enforcement of no-impeachment rules has been a long-standing tradition in the United States preventing jurors from offering testimony as to impeach their own verdict. In March 2017, the Supreme Court changed course from centuries of jurisprudence and superseded the Federal Rules of Evidence with a new exception to Rule 606(b) in the Court’s decision in Peña-Rodriguez v. Colorado. The Court’s effort to “root out” racial bias in the justice system resulted in the debunking of the legislative authority granted to the Congress while creating an exception that does little, if anything, toward eliminating racial bias during jury deliberations. In …

Why Do Prosecutors Say Anything? The Case Of Corporate Crime, Samuel W. Buell

Faculty Scholarship

Criminal procedure law does not require prosecutors to speak outside of court. Professional regulations and norms discourage and sometimes prohibit prosecutors from doing so. Litigation often rewards strategic and tactical maintenance of the element of surprise. Institutional incentives encourage bureaucrats, especially those not bound by procedural requirements of administrative law, to decline to commit themselves to future action. In the always exceptional field of corporate crime, however, the Department of Justice and federal line prosecutors have developed practices of signaling and describing their exercise of discretion through detailed press releases, case filings, and policy documents. This contribution to a symposium …

Evidence-Informed Criminal Justice, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

The American criminal justice system is at a turning point. For decades, as the rate of incarceration exploded, observers of the American criminal justice system criticized the enormous discretion wielded by key actors, particularly police and prosecutors, and the lack of empirical evidence that has informed that discretion. Since the 1967 President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, The Challenge of Crime in a Free Society, there has been broad awareness that the criminal system lacks empirically informed approaches. That report unsuccessfully called for a national research strategy, with an independent national criminal justice research institute, along …

Get Off My Porch: United States V. Carloss And The Escalating Dangers Of “Knock And Talks”, Skyler K. Sikes

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

United States V. Carloss: Should The Police Act Like Good Neighbors?, Cole Mclanahan

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.