Legal Ethics and Professional Responsibility Commons^™

Ethical Issues In Defending A Terrorism Case: How Secrecy And Security Impair The Defense Of A Terrorism Case, Joshua L. Dratel

Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal

The article discusses the unique ethical and legal challenges faced by criminal defense attorneys in terrorism cases, particularly highlighting the impact of Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). These laws and regulations, expanded post-September 11, 2001, create significant barriers to effective representation, undermining the attorney-client relationship and constitutional protections. The article emphasizes how these measures not only complicate terrorism cases but also risk bleeding into other areas of criminal law, eroding civil liberties more broadly.

The Revised Aba Guidelines And The Duties Of Lawyers And Judges In Capital Post-Conviction Proceedings, Eric M. Freedman

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Intelligence Testing And Atkins: Considerations For Appellate Courts And Appellate Lawyers, Lajuana Davis

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Effective Performance Guarantees For Capital State Post-Conviction Counsel: Cutting The Gordian Knot, Andrew Hammel

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Gatekeeping Role In Civil Litigation And The Abdication Of Legal Values In Favor Of Scientific Values, Neil B. Cohen

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Unpatriotic Acts: An Introduction, Sadiq Reza

Faculty Scholarship

John Walker Lindh. Zacarias Moussaoui. Jose Padilla. Richard Reid. Who reading these lines does not instantly recognize the names of these men? Or at least their assigned noms de guerre: American Taliban, 20th hijacker, dirty bomber, shoe bomber. For two and a half years these names and others have flitted through our daily copies of The New York Times like shadow characters in a play, along with black-and-white photographs underneath which black-and-white text tells us of their alleged (and sometimes proven) wrongdoing and the latest developments in their tribulations (and sometimes trials) with our government. But the men themselves are …

Witness Coaching By Prosecutors, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Given its controversial nature, one would expect the practice and ethics of witness coaching to have attracted close scrutiny by courts and commentators. Interestingly, however, the subject has received relatively modest attention. A handful of judicial and ethics opinions have discussed superficially the subject of witness preparation and coaching. Practitioner manuals typically offer general guidance on how to prepare witnesses, and occasionally address tactical and ethical issues involved in coaching. Scholarly commentary has examined the ethical limits of witness preparation, particularly by differentiating acceptable techniques from improper techniques, which promote false or misleading testimony. In addition, popular culture occasionally has …

The Discretionary Power Of "Public" Prosecutors In Historical Perspective, Carolyn B. Ramsey

Publications

Norms urging prosecutors to seek justice by playing a quasi-judicial role and striving for fairness to defendants are often assumed to have deep historical roots. Yet, in fact, such a conception of the prosecutor's role is relatively new. Based on archival research on the papers of the New York County District Attorney's Office, "The Discretionary Power of 'Public' Prosecutors in Historical Perspective" explores the meaning of the word "public" as it applied to prosecutors in the nineteenth century. This article shows that, in the early days of public prosecution, district attorneys were expected to maximize convictions and leave defendants' rights …

Unreasonable Probability Of Error, Jed Handelsman Shugerman

Faculty Scholarship

In Strickland v. Washington, the Supreme Court sought to create a uniform standard to guarantee effective assistance of counsel to criminal defendants, to "ensure a fair trial," and to assure the reliability of "a just result."' Justice O'Connor's majority opinion created a two-pronged test for overturning a trial verdict: deficient performance and resulting prejudice. The Court explicitly established a difficult burden for proving deficient performance,² but set a moderate standard for prejudice as the "reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient …

Lawyers, Jails, And The Law’S Fake Bargains, Michael E. Tigar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Prosecutor's Duty To Truth, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this Article discusses the prosecutor's duty to refrain from conduct that impedes the search for truth. A prosecutor may impede the truth-finding process in several ways: (1) distorting the truth by attacking the defendant's character, misleading and misrepresenting facts, and engaging in inflammatory conduct; (2) subverting the truth by making false statements and presenting false evidence; (3) suppressing the truth by failing to disclose potentially truth-enhancing evidence or obstructing defense access to potentially truth-enhancing evidence; and (4) other truth-disserving conduct that exploits defense counsel's misconduct and mistakes and prevents introduction of potentially truth-serving defenses. Part I also …

The Prudent Prosecutor, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Next Stage Of Forfeiture Reform, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In passing the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, Congress instituted some badly needed reforms to a system that had spawned a good deal of governmental abuse, media investigation, and popular outrage. Unfortunately, however, CAFRA does not address the aspect of asset forfeiture law that is perhaps most responsible for fueling overzealous, sometimes lawless use of the forfeiture power: federal forfeiture law continues to authorize law enforcement agencies to retain the drug-related assets they seize for their own use, and many state laws do as well. With facilities, cruisers, computer and other equipment, salaries and positions sometimes dependent on …

The Criminal Defense Lawyer's Fiduciary Duty To Clients With Mental Disability, Christopher Slobogin, Amy R. Mashburn

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that the defense attorney has a multifaceted fiduciary duty toward the client with mental disability. That duty requires, first and foremost, respect for the autonomy of the client. The lawyer shows that respect not only by heeding the wishes of the competent client but by refusing to heed the wishes of the incompetent client. A coherent approach to the competency construct is therefore important. Following the lead of Professor Bonnie, this Article has broken competency into two components: assistance competency and decisional competency. It has defined the former concept in traditional terms, as an understanding of the …

Ensuring Able Representation For Publicly-Funded Criminal Defendants: Lessons From England, Peter W. Tague

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While there are skilled private defense lawyers who enthusiastically represent indigent criminal defendants, too often defense lawyers whose income depends upon appointments provide deplorable representation. The problem is well known and pervasive. In addition to the blizzard of claims on appeal of ineffective representation, defenders' efforts have been savaged by judges and by fellow lawyers. These nagging problems persist: to induce private lawyers to represent their clients effectively by eliciting the defendant's story and managing their relationship in a way that at least does not displease the defendant; investigating his and the prosecution's positions; pressing the prosecution for discovery, for …

The Prosecutor's Ethical Duty To Seek Exculpatory Evidence In Police Hands: Lessons From England, Stanley Z. Fisher

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court in Kyles v. Whitley affirmed the prosecutor's duty under Brady v. Maryland to disclose exculpatory evidence to the defense, even if the police have not revealed the evidence to the prosecutor. According to the Court, prosecutors are responsible for ensuring that police communicate relevant evidence to her office. How should prosecutors implement that responsibility? Both England and the United States require prosecutors to disclose exculpatory evidence known to the police, but they take radically different approaches to implementing the prosecutor's duty. The English have legislated a comprehensive regulatory framework for police record keeping and revelation of case …

Representing Defendants On Charges Of Economic Crime: Unethical When Done For A Fee, David Orentlicher

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Contesting Government's Financial Interest In Drug Cases, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In 1984, the civil asset forfeiture law was amended to allow the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and state law enforcement agencies to retain many of the "drug-related assets" they seize for their own law enforcement purposes. Under this amendment, some local law enforcement agencies have managed to double or triple their appropriated budgets by targeting such assets. As former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh has noted, "it's now possible for a drug dealer to serve time in a forfeiture-financed prison after being arrested by agents driving a forfeiture-provided automobile while working in a forfeiture-funded sting operation." The American people, however, …

Ex Post Facto Payments In Legally-Aided Criminal Cases In The Old Bailey, Peter W. Tague

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

A much more pervasive scheme for overseeing the reasonableness of fees charged by legal professionals exists in England than in the United States. In England, for example, with or without a specific agreement over the fee, the client can challenge the solicitor's charges, and the court or the Law Society will assess their reasonableness.' Similarly, as part of assigning costs to the losing party, the reasonableness of the winning solicitor's claim for fees is evaluated. The lay client can even dispute the reasonableness of the barrister's fee after the fact.

In the United States, by contrast, lawyers hammer out agreements …

Mental Culpability And Prosecutorial Misconduct, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article argues that a prosecutor's intent is always relevant to the courts' analysis of misconduct, and that the courts should always consider a prosecutor's intent in determining whether a rule was violated and whether the verdict was prejudiced. Part II of this Article examines the use of the objective test to analyze a prosecutor's trial conduct. Part II offers several reasons courts give for avoiding inquiry into a prosecutor's mental culpability, analyzes those reasons, and concludes that although the application of an objective test is sufficient to correct misconduct in some instances, it does not foreclose application of a …

Taking The Cop Out Of Copping A Plea: Eradicating Police Prosecution Of Criminal Cases, Andrew Horwitz

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Slashing And Burning Prisoners' Rights: Congress And The Supreme Court In Dialogue, Susan Herman

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Publicity In High Profile Criminal Cases, H. Patrick Furman

Publications

No abstract provided.

Prosecutorial Misconduct In Closing Argument In Arkansas Criminal Trials, J. Thomas Sullivan

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Policing For Profit: The Drug War’S Hidden Economic Agenda, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva Nilsen

Faculty Scholarship

In the following pages, we first describe in more detail how the Drug War’s financial largess has kept its soldiers in business. We then discuss the destructive impact of this economic regime, marshaling evidence to show that the corruption of law enforcement priorities and wholesale miscarriages of justice can be attributed to the operation of these incentives. Finally, we explore potential legal and legislative remedies through which law enforcement may regain its bearings.

Our investigation focuses on the economic underpinnings of current drug law enforcement policy. Drug policy also raises an extraordinarily broad range of moral, health, and criminological concerns, …

Lynching Ethics: Toward A Theory Of Racialized Defenses, Anthony V. Alfieri

Michigan Law Review

So much depends upon a rope in Mobile, Alabama. To hang Michael Donald, Henry Hays and James "Tiger" Knowles tied up "a piece of nylon rope about twenty feet long, yellow nylon." They borrowed the rope from Frank Cox, Hays's brother-in-law. Cox "went out in the back" of his mother's "boatshed, or something like that, maybe it was in the lodge." He "got a rope," climbed into the front seat of Hays's Buick Wildcat, and handed it to Knowles sitting in the back seat. So much depends upon a noose. Knowles "made a hangman's noose out of the rope," thirteen …

Judicial Interference With Effective Advocacy By The Defense, Bennett L. Gershman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

A fundamental premise of the American criminal justice system is defense counsel's zealous professional advocacy. Representation of a criminal defendant to be effective must be vigorous. In administering a trial, judges have a duty to ensure a fair and orderly proceeding. On occasion, however, judges overstep the line and impede defense counsel's advocacy functions unfairly. This article describes some of the ways that trial judges may violate legal and ethical standards by improperly interfering with defense counsel's courtroom functions.

Death Penalty: A Philosophical And Theological Perspective, 30 J. Marshall L. Rev. 463 (1997), Walter Berns, Nancy Bothne, William Bowers, Richard Dieter, Richard Land, James Lund, Austin Sarat

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

University Of Richmond Law Review

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Right To Counsel

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.