Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Rape In Context: Lessons For The United States From The International Criminal Court, Caroline Davidson

Cardozo Law Review

The law of rape is getting a rewrite. Domestically and internationally, major efforts are underway to reform rape laws that have failed to live up to their promises of seeking justice for victims and deterring future sexual violence. The cutting edge of international criminal law on rape eschews inquiries into consent and instead embraces an examination of coercion or a coercive environment. By contrast, in the United States, rape reform discussions typically center on consent. The American Law Institute's proposed overhaul of the Model Penal Code's provision on sexual assault carves out a middle ground and introduces, in addition to …

Dassey V. Dittmann: Brief Amicus Curiae Of Professors Of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, And Constitutional Law In Support Of Petitioner, Samuel R. Gross, Yale Kamisar

Appellate Briefs

Amici curiae are academics who focus on criminal procedure and Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment law. (A list of the amici curiae is attached as Appendix A.) Their principal interest in this case is proper application of clear Supreme Court precedent in assessing the voluntariness of the confession given by the juvenile suspect in this case. Amici file this brief out of concern that some lower courts, including the court below, are straying from this Court's clear mandates in applying the totality-of-the-circumstances test to confessions given by juveniles with intellectual impairments. Amici write to provide a historical overview of this …

Dassey V. Dittmann: Brief Amici Curiae Of Professors Of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, And Constitutional Law In Support Of Petitioner, Samuel Gross, Yale Kamisar, Eve Brensike Primus

Appellate Briefs

Amici curiae are academics who focus on criminal procedure and Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment law. (A list of the amici curiae is attached as Appendix A.) Their principal interest in this case is proper application of clear Supreme Court precedent in assessing the voluntariness of the confession given by the juvenile suspect in this case. Amici file this brief out of concern that some lower courts, including the court below, are straying from this Court's clear mandates in applying the totality- of-the-circumstances test to confessions given by juveniles with intellectual impairments. Amici write to provide a historical overview of …

The Right To Counsel But Not The Presence Of Counsel: A Survey Of State Criminal Procedures For Pre-Trial Release, John P. Gross

Florida Law Review

There is a widely-held belief that the state provides counsel to indigent criminal defendants at their initial appearance in state court. However, the majority of states do not provide counsel to indigent defendants at their initial appearance when a judicial officer determines conditions of pretrial release. State criminal procedure codes fail to provide the same procedural protections that defendants have in federal court. Indeed, states systems are characterized by predictive determinations regarding guilt, an overemphasis on the potential dangerousness of defendants, a lack of adequate pretrial services, and continued reliance on financial securities.

The U.S. Supreme Court has done little …

Testimonial Statements, Reliability, And The Sole Or Decisive Evidence Rule: A Comparative Look At The Right Of Confrontation In The United States, Canada, And Europe, Deborah Paruch

Catholic University Law Review

Criminal trials in the United States are meant to ascertain the truth. But other societal values, such as fairness to the parties and public confidence in the integrity of the process, are at stake as well. Among the cornerstone rights to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial is the right to confrontation. The right to confrontation enables a criminal defendant to exclude hearsay evidence from a trial when the defendant did not have an opportunity to cross-examine the witness. This right has undergone substantial changes and revisions over the last decade, both in the United States and abroad. …

Being Forced To Code In The Technology Era As A Violation Of The First Amendment Protection Against Compelled Speech, Adrianna Oddo

Catholic University Law Review

Over the past several decades, technological advancements led several courts to hold that computer code is protected as speech under the First Amendment of the Constitution. However, after fourteen people were killed in the 2015 San Bernardino massacre the U.S. Government sought to ignore those findings when it ordered Apple, Inc. to write a computer code to bypass the encryption software on the shooter’s cell phone. To access this particular phone Apple would need to write a code that could potentially compromise its customers’ data and personal information. Apple vehemently opposed the Government’s order and claimed that compelling it to …

Cuyahoga County Bail Task Force: Report And Recommendations, Jonathan Witmer-Rich, Jay Milano, Carmen Naso, Mary Jane Trapp

Law Faculty Reports and Comments

Introduction:

All Cuyahoga County courts should transition from a bail system based on bond schedules, which vary widely from one court to the next, to a centralized, consistent, and comprehensive system of pretrial services initiated immediately after arrest. For most minor offenses, the presumption should be release on personal recognizance. Money bail should not be used to simply detain defendants. Rather than relying on bond schedules, courts should assess each defendant’s risk of non-appearance and danger to the community using a uniform risk assessment tool. If money bail is considered, courts should evaluate each defendant’s risk of non-appearance and ability …

Legitimacy, Authority, And The Right To Affordable Bail, Colin Starger, Michael Bullock

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

Bail reform is hot. Over the past two years, jurisdictions around the country have moved to limit or end money bail practices that discriminate against the poor. Although cheered on by many, bail reform is vehemently opposed by the powerful bail-bond industry. In courts around the country, lawyers representing this industry have argued that reform is unnecessary, and even unconstitutional. One particularly insidious argument advanced by bail-bond apologists is that a “wall of authority” supports the proposition that “bail is not excessive merely because the defendant is unable to pay it.” In other words, authority rejects the right to affordable …

Whren V. United States: An Abrupt End To The Debate Over Pretextual Stops, Brian J. O'Donnell

Maine Law Review

In Whren v. United States, the United States Supreme Court held that a traffic stop is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment if a police officer has probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred, even if the stop is a pretext for the investigation of a more serious offense. The Court affirmed the convictions of Michael A. Whren and James L. Brown, who had been arrested on federal drug charges after Washington, D.C., police stopped Brown for minor traffic infractions. The Court's unanimous opinion, delivered by Justice Scalia, brought an end to a long-running debate over the proper …

A Call For Consistency: State V. Caouette Is No Longer Viable In Light Of Colorado V. Connelly And State V. Eastman, Donald W. Macomber

Maine Law Review

This Article challenges the Law Court's expansive interpretation in State v. Caouette of the scope of the privilege against self-incrimination embodied in Article I, section 6 of the Maine Constitution in the context of reviewing claims of the involuntariness of a confession. The court's declaration that a reliable confession must be suppressed on state constitutional grounds based solely on a suspect's internal factors, and in the absence of any police overreaching in obtaining the confession, contradicted two centuries of constitutional jurisprudence requiring some form of government action to implicate the protections of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of …

Commerce Clause Challenges Spawned By United States V. Lopez Are Doing Violence To The Violence Against Women Act (Vawa): A Survey Of Cases And The Ongoing Debate Over How The Vawa Will Fare In The Wake Of Lopez, Lisanne Newell Leasure

Maine Law Review

On September 14, 1994, in response to and in recognition of the epidemic of violence against women in the United States, Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). The VAWA is a comprehensive statute designed to provide women greater protection from and recourse against violence and to impose accountability on abusers and those who commit crimes of violence based on gender animus. The VAWA, which contains seven parts, creates new federal crimes, strengthens penalties for existing federal sex crimes, and provides $1.6 billion over six years for education, research, treatment of domestic and sex crime victims, and the improvement …

Intimate Partner Violence Strategies: Models For Community Participation, Jenny Rivera

Maine Law Review

Over the last several years, states have passed legislation to address intimate partner violence, more commonly known as “domestic violence,” or violence and abuse between current and former spouses, or persons in similar intimate relationships. Much of this legislation is composed of civil and criminal provisions, including criminal sanctions for intimate partner violence. The constitutionality, practical impact, and present and potential benefits of these statutes are the topic of political debates, scholarly diatribes, and litigation. The passage and implementation of federal legislation specifically designed to address violence between present and former spouses and intimate partners reflects a sea change in …

Using Daubert To Evaluate Evidence-Based Sentencing, Charlotte Hopkinson

Cornell Law Review

Despite its purported positive impact on the criminal justice system, evidence-based sentencing risks fooling judges and juries and further contributing to the overrepresentation of men of color and poor people in prisons. The problems with the creation of these models, namely a lack of replication, potentially unconstitutional use of certain factors, high false positive rates, and issues with G2i abstraction, should all create serious concerns for actors in and around the criminal justice system.

Incentivized Informants, Brady, Ruiz, And Wrongful Imprisonment: Requiring Pre-Plea Disclosure Of Material Exculpatory Evidence, Markus Surratt

Washington Law Review

An incentivized informant scandal recently hit Orange County, California where county officials were caught lying, hiding, and not providing information about their informants. Concerned citizens, attorneys, and scholars are beginning to ask more questions as these stories receive increased nationwide attention: what should we do about false incentivized informant testimony? What can we do? Under Brady, Giglio, Ruiz, and their progeny, in criminal cases the government must turn over any material exculpatory evidence that it possesses, or that is available, when the defendant decides to go to trial. However, if the government does not know—or purports not …

What Caused The 2016 Chicago Homicide Spike? An Empirical Examination Of The 'Aclu Effect' And The Role Of Stop And Frisks In Preventing Gun Violence, Paul Cassell, Richard Fowles

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

Homicides increased dramatically in Chicago in 2016. In 2015, 480 Chicago residents were killed. The next year, 754 were killed–274 more homicide victims, tragically producing an extraordinary 58% increase in a single year. This article attempts to unravel what happened.

This article provides empirical evidence that the reduction in stop and frisks by the Chicago Police Department beginning around December 2015 was responsible for the homicide spike that started immediately thereafter. The sharp decline in the number of stop and frisks is a strong candidate for the causal factor, particularly since the timing of the homicide spike so perfectly coincides …

Criminal Procedure And The Good Citizen, I. Bennett Capers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Sadomasochism: Descent Into Darkness, Annotated Accounts Of Cases, 1996-2014, Robert Peters

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A collection of accounts of sadomasochistic sexual abuse from news reports and scholarly and professional sources about the dark underbelly of sadomasochism and the pornography that contributes to it. It focuses on crimes and other harmful sexual behavior related to the pursuit of sadistic sexual pleasure in North America and the U.K. It is intended to be a resource to educate people about how sadomasochism can lead to harmful and even deadly sadistic sexual behavior.

Jeremias V. State, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 8 (Mar. 01, 2018), Maliq Kendricks

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court determined that a judgment of conviction, pursuant to a jury verdict, of one count each of conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary while in possession of a deadly weapon and two counts each of robbery with the use of a deadly weapon and murder with the use of a deadly weapon, commands a death sentence.

State V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 13 (Mar. 1, 2018) (En Banc), Connor Saphire

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that when the State conducts a direct-examination of a witness during a preliminary hearing, and then the defendant waives his right to that preliminary hearing, the defendant is said to have had an “adequate opportunity” to confront that witness as long as adequate discovery was available.

Racial Justice And Federal Habeas Corpus As Postconviction Relief From State Convictions, Leroy Pernell

Mercer Law Review

It is the purpose of this Article not to simply document the influence of race on our criminal system and its role in the current racial crisis of overrepresentation of minorities in our prisons, but rather to focus on the future and importance of a key tool in the struggle for racial equity--federal habeas corpus as a postconviction remedy. By looking first at the racial context of several "landmark" criminal justice reform decisions, this Article considers how race serves as the root of the procedural due process reform that began in earnest during the Warren Court. This Article then notes …