Criminal Law Commons^™

Prioritizing Abortion Access Over Abortion Safety In Pennsylvania, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

This conference was prompted by the prosecution of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who ran an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dr. Gosnell was convicted in May of 2013 of charges arising from the killing of viable infants born in his clinic, the negligent death of an adult patient, and the systematic disregard of regulations governing the performance of abortions in Pennsylvania. One question proposed for our consideration is whether Dr. Gosnell is an “outlier,” a description offered by the National Abortion Federation following Gosnell’s indictment.

Presumably, one might want to know whether Gosnell was typical of abortion providers because it could …

Summary Of Brass V. State, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 68, Joseph Sakai

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An appeal addressing whether a district court committed reversible error by dismissing a prospective juror before conducting a Batson2 hearing, and whether there was evidence to support a kidnapping conviction.

Introductory Note To Prosecutor V. Germain Katanga: Judgment On The Appeal Against The Decision Of Trial Chamber Ii Of 21 November 2012 (Int'l Crim. Ct.), Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

The Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the case of Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga held that a Trial Chamber, during the deliberations stage of trial proceedings, may, pursuant to Regulation 55 of the Regulations of the Court (Regulation 55), give notice of a possible modification of the legal characterization of the facts in its final Judgment, so long as the trial remains fair. This Introductory Note will provide background on the Katanga case and Regulation 55, summarize the Appeals Chamber's Judgment, and discuss the implications of this ruling.

Prescriptions For Ethical Blindness: Improving Advocacy For Indigent Defendants In Criminal Cases, Tigran W. Eldred

Faculty Scholarship

The reasons criminal lawyers so often fail to provide adequate legal representation to indigent defendants are well-­known: severe underfunding, excessive workloads, and other disincentives for competent representation work together to encourage quick disposition of cases, with little regard for the quality of legal services that are provided. Yet, largely overlooked in this equation is whether defense lawyers who provide subpar representation are aware of their own shortcomings. To answer this question, this Article focuses on the psychology of ethical decision making. Relying on research that reveals the subtle ways that self-­interest can cause people to overlook unethical behavior, it argues …

Motivation Matters: Guideline 10.13 And Other Mechanisms For Preventing Lawyers From Surrendering To Self-Interest In Responding To Allegations Of Ineffective Assistance In Death Penalty Cases, Tigran W. Eldred

Faculty Scholarship

Defense lawyers whose clients are sentenced to death are virtually guaranteed to be accused of ineffective assistance of counsel. The question is how they will respond. On one hand, lawyers alleged to be ineffective are obligated under Guideline 10.13 of the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases to continue to safeguard the interests of their former clients, a duty that includes full cooperation in appropriate legal strategies chosen to pursue the ineffectiveness claim. On the other hand, lawyers who are accused of ineffectiveness often react defensively to the allegation, reflexively …

Fighting Cybercrime After United States V. Jones, David C. Gray, Danielle Keats Citron, Liz Clark Rinehart

Faculty Scholarship

In a landmark non-decision last term, five Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have held that citizens possess a Fourth Amendment right to expect that certain quantities of information about them will remain private, even if they have no such expectations with respect to any of the information or data constituting that whole. This quantitative approach to evaluating and protecting Fourth Amendment rights is certainly novel and raises serious conceptual, doctrinal, and practical challenges. In other works, we have met these challenges by engaging in a careful analysis of this “mosaic theory” and by proposing that courts focus …

The Conceptual Framework Of Crimes Againts Humanity In Historical Context And Indonesian Law, Maskun Maskun

Indonesia Law Review

The rapid ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the orderly election of its judges and prosecutor believe the radical nature of the new institution. Indonesia is one of countries that rejected the International Criminal Court (ICC) Statute. Indonesia’s reason at that time was that Indonesian sovereignty would be threatened or its national security would be compromise. Interestingly, some of the crimes within the Rome Statute jurisdiction (Article 5 of the Rome Statute) had been adopted by Indonesia in its domestic law such as the Law No. 26 year 2000 concerning Human Rights Court. Jurisdiction …

Summary Of Howard V. State, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 67, Priscilla Baker

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered the State’s motion to reconsider and other various motions regarding the sealing of the ex parte motion to substitute counsel. It further deliberated whether documents and records could be filed under seal in a pending criminal case before the Court. In addition, the Court also addressed the requirements and procedures for sealing such documents and records.

Summary Of State V. Tricas, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 62, Katelyn Franklin

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered the State’s appeal from a district court order granting the defendant’s motion to withdraw her guilty plea and to dismiss the criminal case under Nevada’s prosecutorial immunity statutes, NRS 178.572 and NRS 178.574.

Insights And Blind Spots: A Qualitative Analysis Of Risk In Psychiatric Security Review Board Hearings, Abby Kealani Balfour

Dissertations and Theses

The prevalence and consequences of the insanity plea, titled "guilty except for insanity" in the State of Oregon, are fraught with misconceptions. The use of the plea requires a complex set of interactions between the mental health and criminal justice systems, and comes with severe costs for people who use it. Most of the research on the psychological aspects of the insanity plea emphasizes empirical validity in the form of risk assessment instruments and/or the biomedical model with its focus on disease and illness. This thesis analyzes from community psychology and critical theory perspectives the decision process of hearings held …

Summary Of Jackson V. State, 128 Nev. Adv. Op. 55, Sarah Mead

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeals from district court judgments of conviction based on similar questions regarding double jeopardy and redundancy. The Court considered whether a criminal defendant who is charged with both attempted murder and battery or aggravated battery through a single act can be so charged, or whether such a charge constitutes double jeopardy, or violates Nevada’s common law redundancy theory.

Appellate Division, First Department - People V. Martinez, Jean K. Delisle

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Appellate Division, Fourth Department - People V. Buchanan, Jacqulyn Vann

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

When "Reasonableness" Is Not So Reasonable: The Need To Restore Clarity To The Appellate Review Of Federal Sentencing Decisions After Rita, Gall, And Kimbrough, Craig D. Rust

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The (In)Admissibility Of False Confession Expert Testimony, David A. Perez

Touro Law Review

This Comment discusses the relationship between police interrogation tactics and false confessions in order to address the admissibility of false confession expert testimony, a question that has traditionally been left to the discretion of the trial judge. The current literature-indeed, the prevailing consensus-argues for drastic changes to police interrogation practices to prevent false confessions and, in combination with such changes, demands that expert testimony on false confessions be admitted in criminal trials. Despite the relative unanimity in the literature, state and federal courts remain bitterly divided on the question of admissibility of false confession expert testimony. Each decision in this …

Analysis Of Crime Data Using Principal Component Analysis: A Case Study Of Katsina State, Shehu U. Gulumbe, Dikko H. .G., Bello Yusuf

CBN Journal of Applied Statistics (JAS)

This paper analyses Katsina State crime data which consists of the averages of eight major crimes reported to the police for the period 2006 – 2008. The crimes consist of robbery, auto theft, house and store breakings, theft/stealing, grievous hurt and wounding, murder, rape, and assault. Correlation analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were employed to explain the correlation between the crimes and to determine the distribution of the crimes over the local government areas of the state. The result has shown a significant correlation between robbery, theft and vehicle theft. While MSW local government area has the lowest crime …

Custom, General Principles And The Great Architect Cassese, Mary Fan

Articles

Major advances in international criminal law and procedure rose on the trusses of judicially elucidated sources of international law—custom and general principles. These sources depend on the crucial art of derivation advanced by the architect of modern international criminal justice, President Antonio Cassese. What has transformed international criminal justice into flourishing law able to address changing configurations of violence is the development of the art of finding law in the dark and wilds of murky unwritten norms. [para] President Cassese pioneered paths through a perilous bog. "[T]he law lives in persons," and to understand the law one must study the …

Criminal Law, Franklin J. Hogue, Laura D. Hogue

Mercer Law Review

The Authors reviewed the most important criminal cases during this reporting period-from June 1, 2011 through May 31, 2012-that will likely have an effect upon the way prosecutors and defense attorneys approach criminal cases in Georgia.

Death Penalty, Josh D. Moore

Mercer Law Review

Between June 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012, the Georgia Supreme Court addressed several significant points of law in the context of death penalty litigation. The court grappled with two challenging speedy trial issues, one constitutional and the other statutory, in Phan v. State and Walker v. State, respectively. The court announced a new rule on the calculation of time limitations for impeachable convictions in Clay v. State. The court revisited the subject of burden of proof in mental retardation cases in Stripling v. State. And the court articulated a clear standard for evaluating prejudice in a …

Harmonizing Equitable Exceptions: Why Courts Should Recognize An “Actual Innocence” Exception To The Aedpa’S Statute Of Limitations, Morgan Suder

San Diego Law Review

This Comment argues that to neutralize this potential inequality, the Supreme Court should affirm the Ninth Circuit’s recent decision in Lee v. Lampert, finding that a credible claim of actual innocence constitutes an equitable exception to the AEDPA’s one-year statute of limitations period. District courts must be able to call on their equitable powers, including both equitable principles already applied to the AEDPA’s statute of limitations as well as the actual innocence exception, in determining whether a district court may consider the merits of a criminal defendant’s otherwise untimely habeas petition.

Part II discusses the role of federal habeas corpus …