Criminal Law Commons^™

The Place Of The Prosecutor In Abolitionist Praxis, Cynthia Godsoe

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law In A World Of States, Ryan Liss

Michigan Journal of International Law

In recent decades, a new school of criminal law theory has emerged. Its proponents reject the traditional story that criminal law ought to be justified on either retributivist or utilitarian grounds alone. Instead, they argue that justifications for criminal law must be rooted in a broader political theory of the state’s authority. While this political theory turn is becoming increasingly dominant in the literature, it gives rise to two significant challenges that scholars have thus far failed to recognize. These challenges emerge when we turn our attention from an internal, domestic view of the state to the world beyond its …

Tax Evasion And Fraud In The United States Sex Market, Youngbee Dale

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

This study describes tax evasion or fraud in the United States sex market. Prior to this study, scholars have recognized the problem of tax evasion in the commercial sex market as an obstacle to national revenue collection. Tax violation and fraud investigations also are ways to combat the illegal commercial sex industry. However, no studies have focused on the problem in the United States sex market. Hence, this study aims to describe tax evasion or fraud methods used by the criminals operating in the United States sex market. This study relies on both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the …

Sb 174: Revising Georgia's List Of Bail Restricted Offenses, Natalie E. Delatour, Lauren Meeler

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act amends Georgia’s law relating to the general provisions regarding bond and recognizances by revising the list of bail restricted offenses through the addition of both misdemeanor and felony crimes. The Act authorizes appointed judges who are fulfilling a vacancy of an elected judge to issue certain bonds and an unsecured judicial release in certain circumstances.

Hb 255: Reform Related To Georgia's Sexual Assault Protocol, Kacey Baine, Kirsten Fehlan

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act includes various amendments to Georgia’s sexual assault protocol. First, the Act creates a statewide tracking system for sexual assault kits. The system will track the location and status of kits through the investigative process and allow sexual assault victims to track or receive updates. Second, the Act requires that law enforcement agencies investigating a homicide or attempted homicide thought to be serial, random, or sexually motivated input information into a national database maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Race And Washington’S Criminal Justice System: 2021 Report To The Washington Supreme Court, Task Force 2.0

Washington Law Review

RACE & WASHINGTON’S CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM:

EDITOR’S NOTE

As Editors-in-Chief of the Washington Law Review, Gonzaga Law Review, and Seattle University Law Review, we represent the flagship legal academic publications of each law school in Washington State. Our publications last joined together to publish the findings of the first Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System in 2011/12. A decade later, we are honored to join once again to present the findings of Task Force 2.0. Law journals have enabled generations of legal professionals to introduce, vet, and distribute new ideas, critiques of existing legal structures, and reflections …

The Global Practice Of Systematic Enforced Disappearances Of Children In International Law: Strategies For Preventing Future Occurrences And Solving Past Cases, Jeremy J. Sarkin, Elisenda Calvet Martinez

Catholic University Law Review

The aim of this article is to first investigate and understand the widespread and systematic practice of enforced disappearances against children around the world, with a key purpose being to show that it is a regular occurrence. The article reviews the systematic disappearances of children in their historical context, beginning from the Second World War. A variety of country examples –some historical and some contemporary –are discussed to indicate the widespread nature of the practice. The variety of cases is used to understand why states participate in such practices and why children specifically are targeted as victims of enforced disappearances. …

Opening The Safety Valve: A Second Look At Compassionate Release Under The First Step Act, Michael T. Hamilton

Fordham Law Review

Under federal law, judges are generally prohibited from changing a sentence once it has been imposed. Compassionate release, to put it simply, provides a “safety valve” against this general principle, allowing federal judges to reduce a prisoner’s sentence when it is warranted by “extraordinary and compelling reasons.” For the past thirty years, statutory and bureaucratic roadblocks made compassionate release an unlikely avenue for prisoners to receive sentence reductions. With the passage of the First Step Act of 2018, the U.S. Congress made the first significant changes to the compassionate release statute in decades, permitting defendants for the first time to …

Hb 94: Criminalizing Porch Piracy, Charlie Ferrelle, Jake Summerlin

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act criminalizes the possession of stolen mail and the theft of mail or packages from the porch or entrance of a residential building. A violator may be subject to felony prosecution and imprisonment of one to five years.

Hb 479: Repeal Of Georgia's Citizen's Arrest Law, Alex Beato, Melissa Davies

Georgia State University Law Review

The Act revises private arrest powers and repeals the Georgia Citizen’s Arrest Law in its entirety. The Act provides certain arresting powers for law enforcement officers when acting outside of their jurisdiction. In addition, the Act clarifies detention powers for shopkeepers of retail, food service establishments, and other business entities under certain circumstances.

Fear, Insanity, And Loathing In Nevada, Alexandra Mateo

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The United States Supreme Court’S Enduring Misunderstanding Of Insanity, David Dematteo, Daniel A. Krauss, Sarah Fishel, Kellie Wiltsie

New Mexico Law Review

Within mental health law, the legal defense of insanity has received a disproportionate amount of attention. Classified as a legal excuse, the insanity defense generally negates legal blameworthiness for criminal defendants who successfully prove that at the time of the offense, they did not know right from wrong or were unable to conform their conduct to the requirements of the law, due to an underlying mental health condition. The insanity defense has a lengthy history in the United States, with several different formulations and numerous court decisions addressing various aspects of the defense. Despite its firm entrenchment in U.S. criminal …

Cross-Examination Of Witnesses In Chinese Criminal Courts: Theoretical Debates, Practical Barriers, And Potential Solutions, Zhiyuan Guo

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Questioning witnesses is essential for both fact-finding and ensuring the defendant's right to confrontation in criminal trials. Part I introduces the recently released judicial interpretation on the Application of Criminal Procedure Law by China's Supreme Court as a background for discussion of this Article. In Part II, the author sets the stage by arguing that resolution of questions concerning examination and cross-examination of witnesses is essential to the effective achievement of China's trial-centered criminal procedure law reform. In Part III, a historical review is given of the academic debate on the questioning of witnesses in Chinese criminal courts. Part IV …

Trafficking Without Borders: Why It Is Time For The Law To Properly Address Cybersex Trafficking In The Livestreaming Context, Jesse Raines

Catholic University Law Review

This Comment assesses the impact, and growing prevalence, of cybersex trafficking: A relatively novel form of human trafficking conducted via livestream over the internet. In particular, this Comment focuses on the differences between the statutes that criminalize sex trafficking and child pornography and how these statutes operate both domestically and internationally. This Comment argues that the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 should be amended in order for the modern crime of cybersex trafficking to fall under the statute’s ambit and to aid in prosecution efforts.

Using Burdens Of Proof To Allocate The Risk Of Error When Assessing Developmental Maturity Of Youthful Offenders, David L. Faigman, Kelsey Geiser

William & Mary Law Review

Behavioral and neuroscientific research provides a relatively clear window into the timing of developmental maturity from adolescence to early adulthood. We know with considerable confidence that, on average, sixteen-year-olds are less developmentally mature than nineteen-year-olds, who are less developmentally mature than twenty-three-year-olds, who are less developmentally mature than twenty-six-year-olds. However, in the context of a given case, the question presented might be whether a particular seventeen-year-old defendant convicted of murder is “developmentally mature enough” that a sentence of life without parole can be constitutionally imposed on him or her. While developmental maturity can be accurately measured in group data, it …

Neuroscience And Criminal Justice: Time For A "Copernican Revolution"?, John S. Callender

William & Mary Law Review

The main purpose of this Article is to argue for a fundamental change in the conceptual orientation of criminal justice: from one based on concepts such as free will, desert, and moral responsibility, to one based on empirical science. The Article describes research in behavioral genetics, acquired brain injuries, and psychological traumatization in relation to criminality. This research has reached a level of development at which the traditional approach to criminality is no longer tenable and should be discarded. I argue that mental health legislation provides a model that could be adapted and applied to offenders.

Criminal Justice Is Local: Why States Disregard Universal Jurisdiction For Human Rights Abuses, Jeremy A. Rabkin, Craig S. Lerner

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

A German court recently convicted a minor Syrian official of abuses committed in Syria's civil war. The case was announced with fanfare but has since stirred no interest. Nor should this be surprising. The world has been here before. There was intense excitement in 1998, when British authorities arrested Augusto Pinochet, the former president of Chile, for human rights abuses committed in Chile. It was taken at the time as vindicating the doctrine that the worst human rights abuses fall under "universal jurisdiction," allowing any state to prosecute, even for crimes against foreign nationals on foreign territory. As generally acknowledged …

The First Step Act And Individualized Review: Must Judges Apply The 18 U.S.C.   3553(A) Factors To Section 404 Petitioners?, Kielan Barua

Fordham Law Review

In 2010, the U.S. Congress amended the notorious mandatory minimum sentencing structure for crack cocaine offenses in response to the decades of harm it had caused. As the amendment was not retroactive, Congress passed the First Step Act of 2018 to allow prisoners incarcerated before 2010 to petition their original sentencing court for discretionary relief based on the new penalties. However, what exactly these courts must do when deciding whether to grant relief has divided the circuits. Some circuits require an up-to-date consideration of defendants’ individual mitigating circumstances and whether their sentences are the minimum necessary to satisfy the purposes …

‘They Did Not Have To Burn My Sister Alive’: Causes And Distribution By State Of Dowry Murder In India, Peter Mayer

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

Dowry, the money, goods, property, or gifts given by the bride’s family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage, is a common custom in South Asia. Although it is illegal to demand—or offer—a dowry in India, it is a nearly universal custom in many parts of the country. If, after marriage, a husband’s family feels that the wife’s dowry was insufficient, they may harass or inflict other forms of domestic violence on her to put pressure on her family to provide an additional dowry. At its most extreme, this violence may lead to the murder of …

Nohwere, Peter A. Alces, Robert M. Sapolsky

William & Mary Law Review

Imagine the frustration of Samuel Butler’s protagonist, Higgs, with the strange society he encounters in Erewhon:

"Was there nothing which I could say to make them feel that the constitution of a person’s body was a thing over which he or she had had at any rate no initial control whatever, while the mind was a perfectly different thing, and capable of being created anew and directed according to the pleasure of its possessor? Could I never bring them to see that while habits of mind and character were entirely independent of initial mental force and early education, the body …