Criminal Law Commons^™

The Admissibility Of Polygraph ("Lie Detector") Evidence Pursuant To Stipulation In Criminal Proceedings, Bruce C. Heslop

Akron Law Review

American courts have traditionally held that evidence pertaining to the results of a lie-detector test is inadmissible in a criminal proceeding on behalf of either the prosecution or defense….In recent years, however, a few jurisdictions have withdrawn from the traditional approach and have admitted lie-detector evidence in limited situations, notwithstanding objection by the adverse party….The decision of whether or not to adopt the approach presented here must critically evaluate the potential value of polygraph evidence along with its potential dangers. In so doing, the courts of Ohio should determine whether a procedure may be devised to maximize the value and …

Book Review: Narcotics And Drub Abuse; By Samuel F. Levine, Raymond T. Royko

Akron Law Review

O NE OF THE MOST urgent school problems of the early 1970's has little to do with formal education or the old-fashioned triad of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Instead, the key words are "uppers," "downers," "grass," and "smack"--amphetamines, barbiturates, marijuana and heroin, and there has been a steady decline of the age at which youngsters are introduced to them on what is known as the drug scene. In July, 1969, President Nixon called attention to the rise by almost 800% of juvenile drug arrests and stated that "within the last decade the abuse of drugs has grown from essentially a …

Evidence - Admissibility Of Statements To Parole Officer - Miranda Warnings; State V. Gallagher, Thomas A. Treadon

Akron Law Review

The opinion handed down in this recent decision from the Montgomery County Court of Appeals examined a question of first impression in the courts of Ohio. The issue presented was "whether a parole or probation officer is a law enforcement officer within the contemplation of Miranda and thus subject to the Miranda requirements of constitutional warnings to suspects during custodial interrogation...."

Searches And Seizures - Arrest - Motor Vehicle Exception To Warrant Requirement - Limits? People V. Dumas, Gordon D. Arnold

Akron Law Review

On May 11, 1970, officers of the Los Angeles Police Department approached the apartment of Clay Dumas. Based on a report from a reliable informant, whose information had been corroborated by independent police investigation, the police had obtained a warrant to search Dumas' apartment and "all trash cans, storage areas, garages and carports which are assigned to and/or used by occupants of the aforesaid apartment." The objects of the search were certain stolen bonds and bank checks which, according to the police informant, Dumas had been in possession of for about eight weeks; also narcotics and narcotics gear. The police …

The Era Of Libertarian Repression - 1948 To 1973: From Congressman To President, With Substantial Support From The Liberal Establishment, Frank Wilkerson

Akron Law Review

Such is not the case today. Crime, the modern fear, whether street or organized, is real and is increasing. Year after year, according to the understatements available on the problem from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, crime has increased-both in actual number committed and in proportion to the population growth. The political manipulation of the public's well-founded fear of crime in the present era has take rhetorical form in the political appeals for law and order during the 1968, 1970, and 1972 national campaigns, resulting in overwhelming and bi-partisan Congressional approval of ill-conceived and patently repressive laws in 1968 and …

The Reach Of The Law: Sin, Crime And Poor Taste, Alexander B. Smith, Harriet Pollack

Akron Law Review

The past decade has been a period of intensive reevaluation of the law. The criminal law, in particular, has been subjected to an especially intensive criticism. These attacks fall largely into two categories: criticisms of the legitimacy of our penal codes, and criticisms of their efficiency.
Starting with the Civil Rights Movement of the Kennedy era with its heavy emphasis on civil disobedience as a tool of protest, the legitimacy of many of our laws was called into question. When Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, she was not simply breaking the law; she …

Entrapment - An End? State V. Rowan, Kenneth D. Morse

Akron Law Review

Rowan creates a trap for the individual who is confronted by the undercover narcotics agent and who had no intention of committing the crime. That the crime is more likely to occur under Rowan cannot be doubted. It is of utmost significance that the narcotics agent may sell and deliver drugs. Courts cannot ignore a change of social mores which have occurred. 25 More and more people are willing to accept the existence of conduct which was previously branded as criminal behavior. It is precisely these people that the Rowan decision sets out to trap.

Book Review: Justice Is The Crime, James G. France

Akron Law Review

[R]eform suggestions are bold, sometimes to the point of brashness. Many of them are urgently needed, but few are new. They bear a curious resemblance to those offered by the National Conference on the Judiciary in its Concensus Report, and to some of the more recent reports and recommendations of state court studies, all financed by L.E.A.A. grants, some of them quite substantial. It is as if the real source of the proposals was in the Department of Justice in Washington, all for the benefit of the untutored provincials. These suggestions are of three types: Those which are untried and …

Book Review: Insanity Defense: By Richard Arens, Gustav Goldberger

Akron Law Review

It is not often that the average criminal trial lawyer will seriously contemplate the use of the insanity defense. The law presumes a defendant sane and counsel will naturally attribute sanity to his client unless obvious signs trigger the consideration of the insanity defense.

Reforming The Mental Health Law Of Ohio, James K. Feldman

Akron Law Review

IT WAS A COLD, SNOWY DAY toward the end of November, 1859. C. P. Wolcott, one of Akron's prominent attorneys, bundled up on the seat of his "buckboard," was driving his team all about town, trying to obtain affidavits from various citizens of his community who could testify to his client's mad delusions, and thereby save him from execution for charges arising from his attempt to seize the federal army arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, the previous October 16th. John Brown, married and the father of 20 children, was sentenced to be hanged on December 2nd. The client sincerely believed …

Corporal Punishment In The Public Schools: The Legal Question, William Irwin Arbuckle Iii

Akron Law Review

PUBLIC EDUCATION in the United States has come a long way since the one-room schoolhouse days. This phenomenal growth has been paced by the controversy surrounding the use of corporal punishment as a means of enforcing discipline in the schools. From the oldest reported case reaching the issue of corporal punishment' back in 1833 down to the present, the proponents of corporal punishment have had to defend their actions in the courts from a wide variety of attacks based on criminal law, tort law, state statutes, school board regulations and, most recently, constitutional guarantees. Although the attacks on corporal punishment …

Electroshock Injustice In Athens-Clarke County, Part 4, Donald E. Wilkes Jr.

Popular Media

This article, part 4 in a series, reviews the Athens Clarke County Police Department's (ACCPD) decision to purchase tasers and looks at comments from ACCPD's new police chief.

Trending @ Rwulaw: Susan Schwab Heyman's Post: Defining The Boundaries Of Insider Trading, Susan Schwab Heyman

Law School Blogs

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Vat Fraud And Terrorist Funding: The Azizi Extradition, Part I, Richard Thompson Ainsworth

Faculty Scholarship

On April 14, 2015 Samir Azizi, a 25 year old German/Afghan citizen, was extradited from the United States to Germany. The Extradition Compliant alleged (in 89 criminal counts) that Azizi had denied the German Treasury €61,104,368 in VAT revenue with 12 distinct Missing Trader Intra-Community (MTIC) fraud schemes. At the time of arrest the 26 year old Azizi admitted that his involvement in MTIC frauds stretched back even before 2008, the initial reference year of the Complaint.

This paper assesses the Azizi extradition in two parts. The first part considers the first 26 criminal counts, representing alleged VAT losses of …

Expungement In Ohio: Assimilation Into Society For The Former Criminal, James L. Wagner

Akron Law Review

IT HAS ONLY BEEN within the last 50 years that there has been official recognition of the debilitating legal and social consequences that result from a citizen's arrest and conviction. Legally imposed restrictions and the social stigma concomitant with a criminal record effectively operate to penalize ex-convicts even after they have paid their "debt" to society. A person with merely an arrest record suffers damage to reputation, impeachment as a witness, disabilities in acquiring schooling and professional licenses, more intense police scrutiny, and direct economic losses. Consequences of a criminal conviction are more severe.

Escape From Prision; Defenses; Duress; Homosexual Attacks; People V. Harmon, Richard S. Berger

Akron Law Review

IN RECENT YEARS, the courts have begun to recognize the critical problem of homosexual attacks occurring in our prisons. However, prior to the decision in People v. Harmon, one who escaped from prison for fear of such homosexual attacks could not avail himself of the defense of duress or coercion, in order to have the question submitted to the jury.

Legislative Response To Furman V. Georgia - Ohio Restores The Death Penalty, Jeffrey T. Heintz

Akron Law Review

THE ABOVE REPRESENTS the first inclusion of a prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments in any charter of any colony in the New World. Believed to be traceable to the Magna Charta, such a prohibition is now embodied in our eighth amendment. It has been the subject of much litigation and construction, most recently in Furman v. Georgia, where the death penalty, as then imposed, was declared to be invalid as cruel and unusual. Some states, including Ohio, have responded with new statutes controlling imposition of the death penalty in order to circumvent the Furman proscriptions. Only time will tell …

The Involuntary Confession And The Right To Due Process: Is A Criminal Defendant Better Protected In The Federal Courts Than In Ohio?, Barbara Child

Akron Law Review

OHIO CIVIL LIBERTARIANS have long claimed that a criminal defendant is likely to have his due process rights better protected in the federal courts than in Ohio courts. One measure of that protection is how the courts respond when a defendant alleges that his confession was involuntary and thus not properly admissible as evidence at his trial. The central issue then is whether the Ohio courts have kept as much in step with the United States Supreme Court as have the federal courts in their revisions of what is the proper test of voluntariness of a confession.

The Involuntary Confession And The Right To Due Process: Is A Criminal Defendant Better Protected In The Federal Courts Than In Ohio?, Barbara Child

Akron Law Review

OHIO CIVIL LIBERTARIANS have long claimed that a criminal defendant is likely to have his due process rights better protected in the federal courts than in Ohio courts. One measure of that protection is how the courts respond when a defendant alleges that his confession was involuntary and thus not properly admissible as evidence at his trial. The central issue then is whether the Ohio courts have kept as much in step with the United States Supreme Court as have the federal courts in their revisions of what is the proper test of voluntariness of a confession.

The Right To Resist An Unlawful Arrest: Judicial And Legislative Overreaction?, James B. Lindsey

Akron Law Review

THIS COMMENT will focus on the subject of the right to resist an unlawful arrest. The choice of this topic is the result of a change in the common law rule in a few key states which may herald the demise of this rule in all of the states. It is also of particular note that the State of Ohio has seen fit to alter its position on the common law rule recently.' In its essence, this writing will address itself to the clash between the American legal tradition of providing an effective legal remedy for every actionable harm or …