Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Mitigating The Prosecutor's Dilemma In Light Of Melendez-Diaz: Live Two-Way Videoconferencing For Analysit Testimony Regarding Chemical Analysis, Amy Ma

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Clemency For Our Children, Anthony C. Thompson

Cardozo Law Review

This Article proposes the use of the executive's clemency power to pardon or commute the sentences of a class of petitioners: children sentenced to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). The history of executive clemency reveals that the intent behind this unique power was to offer the executive branch a final check in the criminal justice system to redress errors or to enhance fairness. The clemency power - exercised through pardons or commutations - allows the executive branch either to absolve individuals of wrongdoing given an assessment of the circumstances or to redress the relative disparity or undue severity …

The Shadow Bargainers, Ronald F. Wright, Jenny Roberts, Betina Cutaia Wilkinson

Cardozo Law Review

Plea bargaining happens in almost every criminal case, yet there is little empirical study about what actually happens when prosecutors and defense lawyers negotiate. This Article looks into the bargaining part of plea bargaining. It reports on the responses of over 500 public defenders who participated in our nationwide survey about their objectives and practices during plea negotiations.

The survey responses create a rare empirical test of a major tenet of negotiation theory, the claim that attorneys bargain in the “shadow of the trial.” This is a theory that some defenders embrace and others reject. Describing the factors they believe …

Particularism, Telishment, And Three Strikes Laws, Michael S. Green

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Staring Down The Sights At Mcdonald V. City Of Chicago: Why The Second Amendment Deserves The Kevlar Protection Of Strict Scrutiny, James J. Williamson Ii

Legislation and Policy Brief

In June of 2008, the Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, declaring that a District of Columbia law prohibiting the possession of handguns in a private home for personal protection violated the Second Amendment of the Constitution.  Justice Scalia, writing for a 5-4 majority, recognized that the protections provided by the Second Amendment apply to individuals—not just “militias”—and emphatically declared that “the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.  These include the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.”  After four years of …

Summary Of Rogers V. State, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 25, Sean W. Mcdonald

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Appeal from judgment of conviction, pursuant to jury verdict, of driving under the influence of a controlled substance on grounds certain evidence was inadmissible.

Death Penalty Sentencing In Japan Under The Lay Assessor System: Avoiding The Avoidable Through Unanimity, Elizabeth M. Sher

Washington International Law Journal

The Lay Assessor Act of 2004 mandated the creation of a mixed lay judge system, called the saibanin seido. Under this new system, jurors, or lay judges, sit with professional judges to decide the fate of criminal defendants. The Lay Assessor Act requires lay judges to decide both the verdict and sentencing of defendants in the same sitting. The verdict and sentence require support from a majority of the jurors and must include one professional judge on the panel. For certain crimes in Japan, the death penalty is one possible sentence. Under the saibanin seido system, for the first …

The Police Gamesmanship Dilemma, Mary D. Fan

Articles

Police gamesmanship poses a recurring regulatory challenge for constitutional criminal procedure, leading to zigzags and murky zones in the law such as the recent rule shifts regarding searches incident to arrest and interrogation. Police gamesmanship in the “competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime” involves tactics that press on blind spots, blurry regions or gaps in rules and remedies, undermining the purpose of the protections. Currently, courts generally avoid peering into the Pandora’s Box of police stratagems unless the circumvention of a protection becomes too obvious to ignore and requires a stopgap rule-patch that further complicates the maze of criminal procedure. …

To Plea Or Not To Plea: The Benefits Of Establishing An Institutionalized Plea Bargaining System In Japan, Priyanka Prakash

Washington International Law Journal

Plea bargaining, the practice that permits the prosecution and defense to negotiate reduced charges or a lighter sentence in exchange for the defendant’s guilty plea, is a bedrock component of the criminal justice system in many nations. The Japanese legal community, however, has resisted introducing plea bargaining into Japan’s legal system. From 2001 to 2004, the Japanese legislature passed over twenty reform laws to prepare the country’s criminal justice system for the demands of the twenty-first century, but provisions for plea bargaining were conspicuously absent from the reform package. This is largely because the Japanese legal community views plea bargaining …

Mcdonald's Other Right, Samuel L. Wiseman

Scholarly Publications

No abstract provided.

Summary Of Nevada Ex. Rel Bd. Of Parole Comm’Rs V. Morrow, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 61, Danielle Woodrum

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An appeal from a district court order clarifying a judgment granting a writ of mandamus, and a proper person appeal from a district court order granting a motion to dismiss

Summary Of Hobbs V. State, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 18, Christopher Scott Connell

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An appeal from a judgment of conviction, by way of jury verdict, for battery and injury to other property.

Summary Of Stockmeier V. State, Bd. Of Parole Comm’Rs, 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 19, Chelsey Bosworth

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

A proper person appeal and counsel cross-appeal to have factual statements in a presentence investigation report (PSI) corrected after a prisoner’s sentencing.

Life, Death, And Neuroimaging: The Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Defense's Use Of Neuroimages In Capital Cases -Lessons From The Front, John H. Blume, Emily C. Paavola

Mercer Law Review

Over the past several decades, commentators and scholars from the medical, legal, and social science fields have produced a massive body of literature on the intersection of law and neuroimaging. Earlier writings focused on explaining various new techniques for developing brain images, exploring how such images might be relevant in legal proceedings, and addressing evidentiary issues posed by the use of such images in court. More recent publications correspond with a vast expansion of research and funding in the area of neuroscience and address a wide variety of topics, such as the use of neuroimaging to detect deception, predict recidivism …

Construing The Outer Limits Of Sentencing Authority: A Proposed Bright-Line Rule For Noncapital Proportionality Review, Kevin White

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Smith And Women's Equality, Leslie C. Griffin

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Employment Division V. Smith At The Supreme Court: The Justices, The Litigants, And The Doctrinal Discourse, Marci A. Hamilton

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Making Appearances Matter: Recusal And The Appearance Of Bias, Dmitry Bam

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Like Wolves In Sheep’S Clothing”: Combating Racial Bias In Washington State’S Criminal Justice System, Krista L. Nelson, Jacob J. Stender

Seattle University Law Review

Despite their differences, both the majority and concurring opinions in Monday present new ways to address prosecutorial misconduct, deter the injection of racial bias into courtroom proceedings, and create substantively similar outcomes. Part II of this Note discusses the traditional prosecutorial misconduct test in Washington State, as well as the rules articulated by the Monday majority and concurrence. Part III discusses the implications of both the majority and concurring opinions, the primary differences in their approaches to deterrence, the degree of racial bias they require to warrant reversal of a conviction, and the discretion they afford the judiciary. Part III …

The Impact Of Implicit Racial Bias On The Exercise Of Prosecutorial Discretion, Robert J. Smith, Justin D. Levinson

Seattle University Law Review

The Article is organized as follows: Part II provides an introduction to implicit bias research, orienting readers to the important aspects of implicit bias most relevant to prosecutorial discretion. Part III begins the examination of implicit bias in the daily decisions of prosecutors. The Part presents key prosecutorial discretion points and specifically connects each of them to implicit bias. Part IV recognizes that, despite compelling proof of implicit bias in a range of domains, there is no direct empirical proof of implicit bias in prosecutorial decision-making. It thus calls for an implicit bias research agenda designed to further examine how …