Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Deathly Delegation: Analyzing Mississippi's Execution Statute Under The Nondelegation Doctrine, Megan Meissner

American University Law Review

The nondelegation doctrine is a separation of powers principle that limits the legislative branch from delegating its legislative authority to another branch of government. Although this doctrine is more widely known for its federal use, preventing Congress from relinquishing too much of its law-making authority to administrative agencies, most states have adopted similar nondelegation principles. Mississippi’s nondelegation doctrine requires that the legislature enact laws that prescribe the basic policy decision, provide adequate boundaries for agency guidance, and do not vest an agency with arbitrary discretion.

On July 1, 2022, Mississippi enacted a new execution statute, permitting the Department of Corrections …

Introduction To Symposium On Policing And Political Philosophy, Stephen R. Galoob, Jake Monaghan

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Age Is Not Just A Number: Problems With Florida’S Statutory Minimum Age For Juvenile Delinquency And Why It Must Be Increased, Natalie Brooks

FIU Law Review

Under a Florida law enacted in 2021, any child over the age of six years old can be arrested and subjected to juvenile delinquency proceedings. Florida, as well as the United States in general, is an outlier when it comes to statutory minimum ages for juvenile delinquency. The most common and recommended minimum age internationally is fourteen years old, and many studies show that arresting, charging, and adjudicating children below the age of fourteen is counterproductive, as it leads to increased recidivism, potentially violates due process, and leaves lasting negative effects on children. This comment will discuss juvenile delinquency in …

The Ultimate Injustice: States' Failure To Take Steps To Prevent Wrongful Convictions And, When Wrongful Convictions Are Exposed, To Provide Adequate Assistance To Exonerees, Natalie Lahera

FIU Law Review

Among the many rights guaranteed by the Constitution are the rights to a presumption of innocence, equal protection, due process, a speedy trial, a trial by jury, and legal counsel, if indigent and charged with a serious crime. But those rights do not ensure that the justice system succeeds every time. The United States has exonerated over 3,000 individuals since 1989. The exonerees have collectedly lost over 26,700 years of their lives. Each exoneration has provided insight into the causes of wrongful convictions, the issues with current compensation laws, and even the changes that need to be implemented to avoid …

How Victim Impact Statements Promote Justice: Evidence From The Content Of Statements Delivered In Larry Nassar's Sentencing, Paul Cassell, Edna Erez

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Whether crime victims should present victim impact statements (VISs) at sentencing remains a subject of controversy in the criminal justice literature. But relatively little is known about the content of VISs and how victims use them. This article provides a content analysis of the 168 VISs presented in a Michigan court sentencing of Larry Nassar, who pleaded guilty to decades of sexual abuse of young athletes while he was treating them for various sports injuries. Nassar committed similar crimes against each of his victims, allowing a robust research approach to answer questions about the content, motivations for, and benefits of …

Blind Adoption: Oregon’S Jury Exclusion Law, Catherine Mattecheck

Lewis & Clark Law Review

Jury service is a core tenet of civic engagement and an essential part of ensuring a trial by a jury of one’s peers. Despite this, millions of Americans are barred from serving on a jury based on a prior criminal conviction. Oregon has one of the harshest jury exclusion laws in the country, barring people from serving on a jury with a felony conviction and certain misdemeanors. The modern context of the criminal justice system requires a new look at Oregon’s law.

The Timeless Explosion Of Fantasy's Dream: How State Courts Have Ignored The Supreme Court's Decision In Panetti V. Quarterman, Michael L. Perlin, Talia Roitberg Harmon, Maren Geiger

Articles & Chapters

Multiple states have enacted statutes to govern procedures when a state seeks to execute a person who may be incompetent to understand why s/he is being so punished, an area of the law that has always been riddled with confusion. The Supreme Court, in Panetti v. Quarterman, sought to clarify matters, ruling that a mentally ill defendant had a constitutional right to make a showing that his mental illness “obstruct[ed] a rational understanding of the State’s reason for his execution.” However, the first empirical studies of howPanetti has been interpreted in federal courts painted a dismal picture. Only a handful …

On Warrants & Waiting: Electronic Warrants & The Fourth Amendment, Tracy Hresko Pearl

Faculty Articles

Police use of electronic warrant (“e-warrant”) technology has increased significantly in recent years. E-warrant technology allows law enforcement to submit, and magistrate judges to review and approve, warrant applications on computers, smartphones, and tablets, often without any direct communication. Police officers report that they favor e-warrants over their traditional counterparts because they save officers a significant amount of time in applying for warrants by eliminating the need to appear in-person before a magistrate. Legal scholars have almost uniformly praised e-warrant technology, as well, arguing that use of these systems will increase the number of warrants issued throughout the United States …

Judicial Resistance To New York's 2020 Criminal Legal Reforms, Angelo Petrigh

Faculty Scholarship

Scholars have examined judiciaries as organizations with their own culture and considered how this organizational culture can form a significant impediment to the implementation of reforms.²² There is a strong connection between judicial culture and a reform’s ability to accomplish its stated goals. Some go so far as to state that most reforms will fail because of the difficulty in altering judicial culture.²³ These studies sometimes focus on legislators misunderstanding the actual effects of legislation when it was drafted, or on the failure to account for particularities in a law’s implementation by undervaluing the fragmentation, adversarial nature, and …

Judges For Sale: The Effect Of Campaign Contributions On State Criminal Courts, Arturo Romero Yáñez, Neel U. Sukhatme

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Do campaign contributions impact democratic processes? Using donation data from Texas, we show that criminal defense attorneys who contribute to a district judge’s electoral campaign are preferentially assigned by that judge to indigent defense cases, i.e., public contracts in which the state pays private attorneys to represent poor defendants.

We estimate that attorney donors receive twice as many cases as non-donors during the month of their campaign contribution. Nearly two-thirds of this increase is explained by the contribution itself, with the remainder attributable to shared preferences within attorney-judge pairs, such as those based on professional, ideological, political, or personal ties. …

Once The Jury Sees It, The Jury Can’T Unsee It: The Challenge Trial Judges Face When Authenticating Video Evidence In The Age Of Deepfakes, Taurus Myhand

Scholarly Works

The proliferation of deepfake videos has resulted in rapid improvements in the technology used to create them. Although the use of fake videos and images are not new, advances in artificial intelligence have made deepfakes easier to make and harder to detect. Basic human perception is no longer sufficient to detect deepfakes. Yet, under the current construction of the Federal Rules of Evidence, trials judges are expected to do just that. Trial judges face a daunting challenge when applying the current evidence authentication standards to video evidence in this new reality of widely available deepfake videos. This article examines the …

Plea Tracking In The Durham County District Attorney’S Office: One-Year Report, Kevin Dahaghi, Catherine Grodensky, Elizabeth Gifford, Brandon L. Garrett, William Crozier, Adele Quigley-Mcbride, Jennifer Teitcher, Lauren Clatch

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Is A Green Tie Enough? – Truth And Lies In The Courtroom, Jack B. Harrison

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redress For Wrongful Convictions: A Response To Professor Medwed, Justin Murray

Publications

No abstract provided.

The Visible Trial: Judicial Assessment As Adjudication, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon

University of Colorado Law Review

Only a small fraction of lawsuits ends in trial—a phenomenon termed the “vanishing trial.” Critics of the declining trial rate see a remote, increasingly regressive judicial system. Defenders see a system that allows parties to resolve disputes independently. Analyzing criminal and civil filings in federal district court for the forty-year period from 1980 to 2019, we confirm a steady decline in the absolute and relative number of trials. We find, however, this emphasis on trial rate obscures courts’ vital role and ignores parties’ goals. Judges adjudicate disputes directly by ruling or effectively through other assessments of the parties’ cases. Even …

A Fiduciary Principle Of Policing, Stephen R. Galoob

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Know Thyself - Embracing The Ambiguity Of War By Other Means, Anne Leslie

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

On paper, nothing predestined me for a career in cybersecurity. Much in the same way as nothing on paper predestined me for being involved in a multinational effort like Project Seshat to study and respond to the rising threats of 'hybrid warfare' and 'gray zone conflict', or to give a keynote address at the Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution Melnick Symposium themed "Negotiation Strategies for War by Other Means."

Plea Bargaining In Homicide Cases: An Empirical Exploration In One State, Michael O'Hear, Darren Wheelock

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

No abstract provided.

Due Process Junior: Competent (Enough) For The Court, Tigan Woolson

Journal of Law and Health

There are many reports presenting expert policy recommendations, and a substantial volume of research supporting them, that detail what should shape and guide statutes for juvenile competency to stand trial. Ohio has adopted provisions consistent with some of these recommendations, which is better protection than relying on case law and the adult statutes, as some states have done. However, the Ohio statute should be considered a work in progress.

Since appeals courts are unlikely to provide meaningful review for the substance of a juvenile competency determination, the need for procedures for ensuring that the determination is initially made in a …

Domestic Terrorism Classification In The United States V. Canada And The United Kingdom, Michelle Hayek

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

For the past two decades, discourse on terrorism (both global and domestic) has been commonplace throughout the international sphere. Following the attacks on September 11, 2001, many nations have followed suit in launching counterterrorism operations to identify and prevent attacks by both radical groups and lone actors. While the common narrative has focused on “why” terrorist actors commit heinous acts and “how” to best prevent future incidents from emerging, it is important to analyze the legal nuances between prosecuting domestic versus international terrorists. With the rise on “homegrown” domestic lone actors, nations have had to reevaluate and adapt counterterrorism statutes …