Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

"Disentangling the Sixth Amendment"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this interesting-looking new piece by Sanjay Chhablani that I just noticed via SSRN.  Here is the abstract: The Sixth Amendment, framed in an atmosphere of deep mistrust of a potentially oppressive government, mandates that defendants in all criminal prosecutions be provided seven fundamental procedural protections.  Despite the broad language of the Sixth Amendment, the scope and meaning of its protections have undergone significant development over the course of the two centuries, leading to the Court's adoption of a number of textually inconsistent constructions of the Sixth Amendment, ones that have rendered the Sixth Amendment far less protective of individual liberty. After developing a historical account of the Court's Sixth Amendment jurisprudence, this Article provides a doctrinal framework for understanding the origins of the textually inconsistent, restrictive readings of the Sixth Amendment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on April 09, 2009 (boomark / email).