Criminal Law Commons^™

Confrontation’S Multi-Analyst Problem, Paul F. Rothstein, Ronald J. Coleman

Texas A&M Law Review

The Confrontation Clause in the Sixth Amendment affords the “accused” in “criminal prosecutions” the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against” them. A particular challenge for courts over at least the last decade-plus has been the degree to which the Confrontation Clause applies to forensic reports, such as those presenting the results of a DNA, toxicology, or other CSI-type analysis. Should use of forensic reports entitle criminal defendants to confront purportedly “objective” analysts from the lab producing the report? If so, which analyst or analysts? For forensic processes that require multiple analysts, should the prosecution be required to produce …

Foreword, Joseph Giarratano

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

An Uncertain Participant: Victim Input And The Black Box Of Discretionary Parole Release, Noah Epstein

Fordham Law Review

Little is understood about the parole release process, as state parole boards predominately operate with incredible discretion and keep their deliberations and rationales hidden from public view. Even less is understood about the intersection of the inscrutable parole release decision-making process and victim rights. As the victim rights movement mobilized in the 1970s, victims, instead of remaining passive witnesses, came to wield significant influence over the release decision process. Today, victim participation in parole proceedings is increasing as most parole boards proclaim how important victims’ voices are and, in turn, actively incorporate victim input into their release calculus. Yet, it …

Failed Interventions: Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, And The Criminalization Of Survival, Alaina Richert

Michigan Law Review

Over the last decade, state legislators have enacted statutes acknowledging the link between criminal behavior and trauma resulting from domestic violence and human trafficking. While these interventions take a step in the right direction, they still have major shortcomings that prevent meaningful relief for survivor-defendants. Until now, there has been no systematic overview of the statutes that require courts to consider a defendant’s history of trauma in the contexts of domestic violence and human trafficking. There has also been no attempt to explore how these statutes relate to each other. This Note fills those gaps. It also identifies essential elements …

Beyond Bail, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

From the proliferation of community bail funds to the implementation of new risk assessment tools to the limitation and even eradication of money bail, reform movements have altered the landscape of pretrial detention. Yet little attention has been paid to the emerging reality of a post-money bail world. With monetary bail an unavailable or disfavored option, courts have come to rely increasingly on non-monetary conditions of release. These non-monetary conditions can be problematic for many of the same reasons that money bail is problematic and can inject additional bias into the pretrial system.

In theory, non-monetary conditions offer increased opportunities …

Justice Delayed Is Not Justice Denied: Considerations And Concerns For Addressing The National Sexual Assault Kit Backlog, Bryan Schwartz

University of Cincinnati Law Review

Across the nation, many states have started clearing their backlogs of thousands of untested sexual assault kits. Most states have also implemented legislative and procedural safeguards to improve sexual assault investigation and prevent future backlogs. This article first posits that states seeking to address their sexual assault kit backlog should consider Nevada’s approach, which successfully eliminated the backlog and simultaneously reformed its sexual assault investigation procedures. However, this article primarily argues that, without allocating reoccurring future funding to support the recent legislative and procedural changes, states run the risk of future backlogs of sexual assault cases. State legislatures and policymakers …

When The Conditions Are The Confinement: Eighth Amendment Habeas Claims During Covid-19, Michael L. Zuckerman

University of Cincinnati Law Review

The COVID-19 pandemic cast into harsher relief much that was already true about mass incarceration in the United States. It also cast into harsher relief much that was already true about the legal barriers confronting people seeking to make its conditions more humane. This Article offers a brief overview of the legal landscape as the COVID-19 crisis arose and then surveys eight prominent federal cases involving Eighth Amendment claims related to COVID-19 outbreaks at carceral facilities, most of which included significant litigation over whether they could secure release through habeas corpus. The Article then distills six key tensions from these …

Overcoming Obstacles To Reentry Panel, Mackenzie Hobbs

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Rose Lecture, Mackenzie Hobbs

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Mackenzie Hobbs

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Charged: The New Movement To Transform American Prosecution And End Mass Incarceration, Justin Murray

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

Grand Juries Should Not Hear Police Misconduct Cases: Grand Juries Will Indict Anything, But A Police Officer, Kaeleigh Wiliams

SLU Law Journal Online

Grand juries will indict everyone but police officers. In this article, Kaeleigh Williams argues that the time has come for a new mechanism to be used in police officer misconduct cases.

Man Camps And Bad Men: Litigating Violence Against American Indian Women, Ana Condes

Northwestern University Law Review

The crisis of sexual violence plaguing Indian Country is made drastically worse by oil-pipeline construction, which often occurs near reservations. The “man camps” constructed to house pipeline workers are hotbeds of rape, domestic violence, and sex trafficking, and American Indian women are frequently targeted due to a perception that men will not be prosecuted for assaulting them. Victims have little recourse, facing underfunded police departments, indifferent prosecutors, and a federal government all too willing to turn a blind eye to the ongoing violence.

This Note proposes a litigation strategy for tribes to address the crisis and compel federal action. Litigation …

Identifying The Most Democratic Institution To Lead Criminal Justice Reform, Harry B. Dodsworth

Northwestern University Law Review

American criminal justice is in crisis, and most scholars agree why: unduly severe laws, mass incarceration, and disproportionate effects on minority groups. But they don’t agree on a solution. One group of scholars—known as the “democratizers”—thinks the answer is to make the criminal justice system more democratic. According to democratizers, layperson participation and local democratic control will impart sensibility into criminal justice reform. In short, a transfer of power away from distant lawmakers and toward local communities, which would craft their own criminal codes and elect their own prosecutors. This argument assumes that more local means more democratic—but what if …

Case Study: The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia’S Court Transcripts In Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian—Part 1: Needs, Feasibility, And Output Assessment, Besmir Fidahić

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) remains the most important organization for the past, the present, and the future of the former Yugoslavia. Faced with a country that always lived under totalitarian regimes with very little insight into actions of the groups and individuals who reaped unthinkable havoc on each other at the end of the twentieth century, the ICTY set undisputable historical record about events that took place during the 1991–1999 wars and put the country on an excellent track towards transformation for the better. But even 28 years since the establishment of the ICTY, the former …

Corruption And Its Manifestations In The Field Of Public Education At The Present Stage Of Development Of The Republic Of Uzbekistan, Abdullayeva Malikabonu Erkin Qizi

ProAcademy

The article deals with the concept and signs of corruption in national and international legislation. Based on the analysis of legal definitions of the concept of corruption, lists of acts of corruption in conjunction with the provisions of the most significant international legal acts that laid the foundations for understanding corruption, an attempt is made to determine the list and content of essential features of this social and legal phenomenon. As significant signs of corruption, the author singled out: social harm (danger), sphere of existence, subject of corruption, subjects, use by the subject of corruption of official (official) powers or …

General Body Meeting, Cardozo Criminal Law Society

2021–2022 Flyers

No abstract provided.

When Provocation Is No Excuse: Making Gun Owners Bear The Risks Of Carrying In Public, Eric A. Johnson

Buffalo Law Review

Markeis McGlockton, an unarmed 28-year-old African-American father of three, was shot to death in front of his five-year-old son by “wannabe police officer” Michael Drejka during an argument over parking. Because McGlockton had shoved Drejka before Drejka shot him, Drejka was convicted only of heat-of-passion manslaughter, not murder. This Article argues that the heat-of-passion defense shouldn’t be available in cases like Drejka’s—cases where the defendant was carrying a loaded gun in public at the time of the provocation and used the gun to kill his provoker. The heat-of-passion defense is a concession to the difficulty of complying with the law’s …

Roper’S Unfinished Business: A New Approach To Young Offender Death Penalty Eligibility, Nichole M. Austin

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Barred By Their Brains: Inmates With Traumatic Brain Injury (Tbi), Claire Mikita

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.