Plea Bargaining, Discovery, And The Intractable Problem Of Impeachment Disclosures,
2011
Vanderbilt University Law School
Plea Bargaining, Discovery, And The Intractable Problem Of Impeachment Disclosures, R. Michael Cassidy
Vanderbilt Law Review
Several recent high-profile cases have illustrated flaws with the government's discovery practices in criminal cases and have put prosecutors across the country on the defensive about their compliance with disclosure obligations. The conviction of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens on ethics charges was set aside after it was revealed that federal prosecutors withheld notes of an interview with a key government witness; one member of the Stevens prosecution team who was under investigation for contempt subsequently committed suicide. The Supreme Court remanded a double murder case from Tennessee for potential resentencing after it was revealed that state prosecutors had withheld …
The Usefulness Of . . . Evidence,
2011
William & Mary Law School
The Evidentiary Significance Of “Tweets,” Texts And Status Updates (Starring Justin Bieber),
2011
William & Mary Law School
The Evidentiary Significance Of “Tweets,” Texts And Status Updates (Starring Justin Bieber), Jeffrey Bellin
Popular Media
No abstract provided.
J.D.B. V. North Carolina And The Reasonable Person,
2011
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
J.D.B. V. North Carolina And The Reasonable Person, Christopher Jackson
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
This Term, the Supreme Court was presented with a prime opportunity to provide some much-needed clarification on a "backdrop" issue of law-one of many topics that arises in a variety of legal contexts, but is rarely analyzed on its own terms. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, the Court considered whether age was a relevant factor in determining if a suspect is "in custody" for Miranda purposes, and thus must have her rights read to her before being questioned by the police. Miranda, like dozens of other areas of law, employs a reasonable person test on the custodial question: it asks …
Injecting Law Student Drama Into The Classroom: Transforming An E-Discovery Class (Or Any Law School Class) With A Complex, Student-Generated Simulation,
2011
University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law
Injecting Law Student Drama Into The Classroom: Transforming An E-Discovery Class (Or Any Law School Class) With A Complex, Student-Generated Simulation, Paula Schaefer
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Tangible "Intangibles" And Other Mysteries: A Critique Of The D.C. Circuit's Expansion Of Work Product Doctrine In United States V. Deloitte Llp,
2011
University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law
Tangible "Intangibles" And Other Mysteries: A Critique Of The D.C. Circuit's Expansion Of Work Product Doctrine In United States V. Deloitte Llp, Brian L. Blaylock
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Unpredictable And Inconsistent: Nevada's Expert Witness Standard After Higgs V. State,
2011
University of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School of Law
Unpredictable And Inconsistent: Nevada's Expert Witness Standard After Higgs V. State, Ryan A. Henry
Nevada Law Journal
No abstract provided.
Rule 609 And The Frustratingly Unkillable Five-Factor Mahone Framework,
2011
William & Mary Law School
Rule 609 And The Frustratingly Unkillable Five-Factor Mahone Framework, Jeffrey Bellin
Popular Media
No abstract provided.
1567
"Introduction" (Chapter 1) Of Stories About Science In Law: Literary And Historical Images Of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate 2011), David S. Caudill
Working Paper Series
This is the introductory chapter of Stories About Science in Law: Literary and Historical Images of Acquired Expertise (Ashgate, 2011), explaining that the book presents examples of how literary accounts can provide a supplement to our understanding of science in law. Challenging the view that law and science are completely different, I focus on stories that explore the relationship between law and science, and identify cultural images of science that prevail in legal contexts. In contrast to other studies on the transfer and construction of expertise in legal settings, the book considers the intersection of three interdisciplinary projects-- law and …
Lawyers Judging Experts: Oversimplifying Science And Undervaluing Advocacy To Construct An Ethical Duty?, David S. Caudill
Working Paper Series
My focus is on an apparent trend at the intersection of the fields of evidentiary standards for expert admissibility and professional responsibility, namely the eagerness to place more ethical responsibilities on lawyers to vet their proffered expertise to ensure its reliability. My reservations about this trend are not only based on its troubling implications for the lawyer’s duty as a zealous advocate, which already has obvious limitations (because of lawyers’ conflicting duties to the court), but are also based on the problematic aspects of many reliability determinations. To expect attorneys—and this is what the proponents of a duty to vet …
Summary Of Williams V. Dist. Ct., 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 45,
2011
Nevada Law Journal
Summary Of Williams V. Dist. Ct., 127 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 45, Ryan Johnson
Nevada Supreme Court Summaries
Two consolidated petitions for writs of mandamus dealing with the admission of evidence and expert medical testimony.
Evidence,
2011
Mercer University School of Law
Evidence, W. Randall Bassett, Susan M. Clare
Mercer Law Review
Although the 2010 term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit had its share of controversial cases, the court's evidentiary rulings were few in number and moderate in scope. As it has in recent years, the court relied heavily on unpublished decisions to resolve cases without creating binding precedent; thus there were no major alterations to the law of evidence requiring practitioners to run to the nearest volume of the Federal Reporter. As explained in previous iterations of this Survey, the court cautions that its "[u]npublished opinions are not considered binding precedent." As a result,
The …
The Judiciary In Political Transitions: The Critical Role Of U.S. Constitutionalism In Latin America,
2011
University of Illinois College of Law
The Judiciary In Political Transitions: The Critical Role Of U.S. Constitutionalism In Latin America, Nuno Garoupa, Maria A. Maldonado
Cardozo Journal of International and Comparative Law
This paper proposes a theory that explains how political transitions deal with incumbent judiciaries. We argue that a new political regime compares the benefit of reshaping the judiciary with loyal appointees against the political and economic costs of directly interfering, including the cost of international reputation. There are several forms of interventionism including court packing, court purging, and violence against the judiciary. We discuss political transitions in Europe and Latin American civil law jurisdictions through the lens of our theory. We argue that American constitutional influence plays a critical role. In addition, we provide a detailed analysis of the recent …
Functional Magnetic Resonance Detection Of Deception: Great As Fundamental Research, Inadequate As Substantive Evidence,
2011
Mercer University School of Law
Functional Magnetic Resonance Detection Of Deception: Great As Fundamental Research, Inadequate As Substantive Evidence, Charles Adelsheim
Mercer Law Review
Essential to the law's pursuit of truth, justice, and the efficient resolution of conflict is assessing the veracity of statements made by individuals both in and out of court. In this judicial context, untruthful statements can be, and no doubt are, made regularly by plaintiffs, defendants, and other witnesses. Humans are generally very skilled at deceiving others, yet they are poor at detecting deception. Because of this disparity, there is a strong demand for reliable scientific techniques to detect deception. The most popular technique is currently the polygraph examination. However, polygraph-based evidence is inadmissible as substantive evidence in nearly all …
Serendipitous Timing: The Coincidental Emergence Of The New Brain Science And The Advent Of An Epistemological Approach To Determining The Admissibility Of Expert Testimony,
2011
Mercer University School of Law
Serendipitous Timing: The Coincidental Emergence Of The New Brain Science And The Advent Of An Epistemological Approach To Determining The Admissibility Of Expert Testimony, Edward J. Imwinkelried
Mercer Law Review
This is an exciting time for students of the human brain. Worldwide there has never been such intense interest in and extensive research into the brain. Techniques for studying the brain are proliferating. By way of example, one group of scientists is employing electroencephalography (EEG) as a tool to investigate the brain's operations. Some of these researchers have utilized EEG to identify brain damage; others, including Dr. Lawrence Farwell of Brain Fingerprinting Laboratories, are endeavoring to adapt EEG technology to the detection of deception. Another group of scientists has focused its research on BOLD fMRI (Blood Oxygen Level Dependent functional …
Brain Scans As Evidence: Truths, Proofs, Lies, And Lessons,
2011
Mercer University School of Law
Brain Scans As Evidence: Truths, Proofs, Lies, And Lessons, Francis X. Shen, Owen D. Jones
Mercer Law Review
This Brain Sciences in the Courtroom Symposium is both timely and important. Given recently developed and rapidly improving brain imaging techniques that enable non-invasive detection of brain activity, civil and criminal courts increasingly encounter attorneys proffering brain scans as evidence.' The reason is simple. In addition to caring about how people act-such as when they cause a person's death or sign a will-the legal system's inquiries frequently turn on determining what people were thinking, or were capable of thinking, when they acted.
In criminal law, for example, the same act can yield anything from mere probation to decades in …
Password Protected? Can A Password Save Your Cell Phone From A Search Incident To Arrest?,
2011
William & Mary Law School
Password Protected? Can A Password Save Your Cell Phone From A Search Incident To Arrest?, Adam M. Gershowitz
Faculty Publications
Over the last few years, dozens of courts have authorized police to conduct warrantless searches of cell phones when arresting individuals. Under the “search incident to arrest” doctrine, police are free to search text messages, call histories, photos, voicemails, and a host of other data if they arrest an individual and remove a cell phone from his pocket. Given that courts have offered little protection against cell-phone searches, this Article explores whether individuals can protect themselves by password protecting their phones. The Article concludes, unfortunately, that password protecting a cell phone offers minimal legal protection when an individual is lawfully …
Proposal To Reverse The View Of A Confession: From Key Evidence Requiring Corroboration To Corroboration For Key Evidence,
2011
Academic Center of Law and Business
Proposal To Reverse The View Of A Confession: From Key Evidence Requiring Corroboration To Corroboration For Key Evidence, Boaz Sangero, Mordechai Halpert
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Both case law and legal literature have recognized that all, and not just clearly statistical, evidence is probabilistic. Therefore, we have much to learn from the laws of probability with regard to the evaluation of evidence in a criminal trial. The present Article focuses on the confession. First, we review legal and psychological literature and show that the probability of a false confession and, consequently, a wrongful conviction, is far from insignificant. In light of this, we warn against the cognitive illusion, stemming from the fallacy of the transposed conditional, which is liable to mislead the trier of fact in …
State V. Harden: Muddying The Waters Of Self-Defense Law In West Virginia,
2011
West Virginia University College of Law
State V. Harden: Muddying The Waters Of Self-Defense Law In West Virginia, Devin C. Daines
West Virginia Law Review
No abstract provided.
Sacrificing The Child To Convict The Defendant: Secondary Traumatization Of Child Witnesses By Prosecutors, Their Inherent Conflict Of Interest, And The Need For Child Witness Counsel,
2011
Yeshiva University, Cardozo School of Law
Sacrificing The Child To Convict The Defendant: Secondary Traumatization Of Child Witnesses By Prosecutors, Their Inherent Conflict Of Interest, And The Need For Child Witness Counsel, Tanya Asim Cooper
Cardozo Public Law, Policy & Ethics Journal
The article argues that the criminal justice system often fails to protect child witnesses, causing them further trauma and harm. It contends that current legal protections, such as accommodations for testimony, are insufficiently enforced and that child witnesses need independent legal representation to safeguard their interests. The author advocates for systemic reforms to prioritize the well-being of child witnesses and ensure their voices are heard in court without compromising their mental health.
