Criminal Law Commons^™

Grading Injustice: Initial Appearance Report Cards, Malia N. Brink, Jiacheng Yu, Pamela R. Metzger

Deason Center Reports

Arrested people across the United States often wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. In November 2021, the Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center published Ending Injustice: Solving the Initial Appearance Crisis, a comprehensive report about this ongoing crisis in pre-trial due process. That report described the devastating consequences of delayed and uncounseled initial appearances.

Now, these Initial Appearance Report Cards offer a closer look at the laws governing post-arrest procedures in each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. While the Deason …

The Imagined Juror: How Hypothetical Juries Influence Federal Prosecutors (Book Review), Jeffrey Bellin

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

In The Name Of “Justice”: Shiffra-Green Motions And Their Unintended Harms, Katharine A. Adler

Marquette Law Review

Sexual assault victims face many barriers to reporting the violence they have experienced. As few as one-third of sexual assaults are reported to the police and even fewer result in criminal charges. The criminal justice system can be grueling for sexual assault victims and carries with it the possibility of testifying at trial in front of their perpetrators, an experience that is daunting at best and terrifying at worst. Because of how few cases make it into the court system, along with how difficult the process can be for victims, any legal mechanisms that would create an unnecessary barrier to …

Prosecutorial Nonenforcement And Residual Criminalization, Justin Murray

Articles & Chapters

In recent years a small but influential group of locally elected prosecutors committed to criminal justice reform have openly refused to enforce various criminal laws—laws prohibiting marijuana possession, sentence enhancements, laws authorizing the death penalty, and much more—because they see those laws as unjust and incompatible with core reform objectives. Condemned by many on the political right for allegedly usurping the legislature’s lawmaking role and praised by many on the left for bypassing dysfunctional state legislatures in favor of local solutions, these prosecutorial nonenforcement policies are commonly said to have the same effect as nullifying, or even repealing, the laws …

An Investigation Of The Unintended Consequences Of Florida’S Stand Your Ground Law And Leadership’S Role In Both Implementing The Law And Revising It, Anthony Keel

Dissertations

The State of Florida has become a negative representation of the Stand Your Ground Law due to the three unintended consequences which developed since that law was passed in 2005. They are the disparity of African American incarceration rates when the law is applied, the increase in justifiable homicides, and the exponential increase in concealed carry permits. The intent of this qualitative research study was to inspire the leadership of the state of Florida to actively support and participate in reexamining, reassessing, and revising the Stand Your Ground Law. The literature review suggested that the law is ambiguous because it …

Minds Circumscribed By Fear. A Review Of Garrisoned Minds: Women And Armed Conflicts In South Asia, Edited By Lazmi Murthy And Mitu Varma, Kushal Srivastava

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

The Feud Of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet And Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) Legal Principles Against The Legal Principle Of Good Faith (Bona Fides) In Indonesian Courts, Yonatan Yonatan, Rosa Agustina

Indonesia Law Review

Abstract

A dispute over ownership of land rights between the real Original Owner and a Good Faith Purchaser can be assumed as a dispute over legal principles in the field of civil law, namely: the legal principle of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet, and the legal principle of Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) against the legal principle of good faith (bona fides). The legal principle of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet and the legal principle of Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) are legal principles …

Flint's Fight For Environmental Rights, Noah D. Hall

Northwestern University Law Review

This Essay reviews the recent development of environmental rights within U.S. constitutional law, advanced through a series of federal court decisions in the wake of the Flint water crisis. The residents of Flint were poisoned and lied to by their government for nearly two years. They experienced how American environmental governance has failed at the state and federal levels and how our environmental laws leave individuals and communities unprotected. And then Flint fought back, in the courts, for five years. Flint residents have been overwhelmingly successful, achieving some justice for themselves and advancing substantive rights and remedies within our constitutional …

Preview; State V. Mefford: Scope Of Consent Searches In A Digitalized World, Spencer Pedemonte

Montana Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

The Myth Of The All-Powerful Federal Prosecutor At Sentencing, Adam M. Gershowitz

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Prosecutors are widely considered to be the most powerful actors in the criminal justice system. And federal prosecutors are particularly feared. While some recent scholarship casts doubt on the power of prosecutors, the prevailing wisdom is that prosecutors run the show, with judges falling in line and doing as prosecutors recommend.

This Article does not challenge the proposition that prosecutors are indeed quite powerful, particularly with respect to sentencing. There are many structural advantages built into the system that combine to give prosecutors enormous influence over sentences. For example, prosecutors have considerable power to bring a slew of charges …

Police Killings As Felony Murder, Guyora Binder, Ekow Yankah

Journal Articles

The widely applauded conviction of officer Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd employedthe widely criticized felony murder rule. Should we use felony murder as a tool to check discriminatory and violent policing? The authors object that felony murder—although perhaps the only murder charge available for this killing under Minnesota law—understated Chauvin’s culpability and thereby inadequately denounced his crime. They show that further opportunities to prosecute police for felony murder are quite limited. Further, a substantial minority of states impose felony murder liability for any death proximately caused by a felony, even if the actual killer was a police …

Criminal Defamation And Freedom Of Speech In The Internet Age: A Study For Indonesian Democratic Values, Eka Nugraha Putra

Maurer Theses and Dissertations

For a country that has been declared a democratic nation since it gained independence, Indonesia still faces the real challenge of maintaining democratic values. Currently, Indonesian legal regulations do not provide a clear standard for when speech is protected and when it can be considered actionable defamation. The obscure scope of the law means that it can affect some kinds of speech, such as opinion or criticism, and render that speech punishable as a crime.

This study analyzes Indonesia’s criminal defamation laws by examining what is protected and unprotected speech. The study examines various laws, including Indonesian statutes and judicial …

Crisis Intervention Team Training And Use Of Force On Persons With Mental Illnesses, Xavier Aguirre

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The criminological literature on the effects of Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) among police in handling of crisis situations involving persons with mental illness (PMI) has emerged as a critical in modern policing. This study seeks to add to the literature on policing persons with mental illness by investigating the effects of CIT training, officer characteristics, and crisis incidences in the Seattle, Washington Police Department. There are two models that is used for this study. The first model focuses on the aforementioned factors in predicting police to use force in such incidents. The second model focus on officer dispositions. The data …

The Unchosen: Procedural Fairness In Criminal Specialty Court Selection, Shanda K. Sibley

Cardozo Law Review

Specialized criminal courts were created in an effort to offer nonpunitive responses to the commission of crime. The promise of these courts was that they would remove select populations from the traditional legal system and offer them something different, and perhaps better, than mere punishment and incapacitation.

However, the current selection processes for specialized courts—in which judges and prosecutors have almost completely unfettered discretion to decide both the criteria by which potential participants will be allowed to participate and whether any individual defendant meets such criteria—perverts the notion of providing specialized services to specific populations. Instead of selecting defendants based …

Acts Of Justice: Restoring Justice For Immigrants Through State Pardons, Sadie M. Casamenti

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Child Pornography And Criminal Justice Reform, Dawinder S. Sidhu, Kelsey Robinson

Cardozo Law Review

Drug offenses lie at the heart of the movement for criminal justice reform, and for good reason. Drug policy is defined by severe and disproportionate penalties owing to a retributive, factually flawed, and hurried congressional process. These central characteristics apply to the child pornography context as well. Though drug sentencing is problematic enough, child pornography sentencing is arguably worse. The U.S. Sentencing Commission has disavowed the child pornography sentencing guidelines and invited judges to vary from them. Judges have done just that, varying in sixty-three percent of all cases, more than any other offense type.

In this Article, we identify …

Criminal Court System Failures During Covid-19: An Empirical Study, Cynthia Alkon

Faculty Scholarship

How did the criminal legal system respond to the early months of pandemic in 2020? This article reports the results of a unique national survey of judges, defense lawyers, and prosecutors that gives a snapshot of how the criminal legal system responded to the COVID-19 in the first five chaotic months. Criminal courts in the United States rely on in-person proceedings and formal and informal in-person communications to manage caseloads. The survey results detail, in ways not previously fully understood, how crucial these in-person communications are and how ill-prepared the criminal courts and legal professionals were to deal with the …

Review Of The Little Book Of Police Youth Dialogue: A Restorative Path Toward Justice, Robert Brenneman

The Journal of Social Encounters

No abstract provided.

"Serving Time And It's No Longer A Crime: An Analysis Of The Proposed Cannabis Administration And Opportunity Act, Its Potential Effects At The Federal And State Level, And A Guide For Practical Application By Local Government", R. Allyce Bailey

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

There has been much recent discussion surrounding cannabis use with some researchers supporting the use of medical marijuana, some investors relishing in the recently booming cannabis and CBD industry, and some states decriminalizing marijuana and even harsh controlled substances. As it appears, at least some public opinion is changing regarding marijuana, but the law has not effectively caught up to that change. Bias in the criminal justice system has led to the over-policing of, higher conviction rates, and harsher sentences for minorities. Thus, the decriminalization of marijuana alone does not remedy the grave disproportionate negative effects on populations of color …

Jones V. Hendrix: Brief For Habeas Scholars As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioner, Eve Brensike Primus

Appellate Briefs

Amici curiae are legal scholars at universities across the country with expertise in habeas corpus and criminal law. They have collectively spent decades researching, studying, teaching, and writing about the writ of habeas corpus. Amici share an interest in seeing habeas law applied in a way that ensures the just and timely adjudication of claims.

An individual is mistakenly convicted of a crime in federal court and wrongly condemned to serve a lengthy prison sentence for acts that are not actually criminal under the law. He files a timely motion challenging his sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, but because …