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Megret on International Criminal Procedure
Posted on November 21, 2009Frederic Megret (McGill University - Faculty of Law) has posted Beyond 'Fairness': Understanding the Determinants of International Criminal Procedure (UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article seeks to explore what...
Epstein on Death-Worthiness and Prosecutorial Discretion
Posted on November 20, 2009Jules Epstein (Widener University - School of Law) has posted Death-Worthiness and Prosecutorial Discretion in Capital Case Charging (Temple Political & Civil Rights Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Any attempt to assess the merits of a...
"The Real Price of Trying KSM: Defense lawyers will inevitably create bad law"
Posted on November 20, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this article by David Feige at Slate, which predicts that valid arguments will be rejected by courts too cowardly to face the consequences of applying the law faithfully, putting bad law on...
Commentary Symposium: Criminal Law, Casebooks, and Legal Education
Posted on November 20, 2009This symposium in the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law is available online here. The table of contents, which would be impressive even if it did not include two CrimProf contributing editors (Dripps and Kamisar), is available after the jump....
Featured Download: Dillof on Modal Retributivism and Attempts
Posted on November 20, 2009Anthony M. Dillof (Wayne State University Law School) has posted an interesting piece, Modal Retributivism: A Theory of Sanctions for Attempts and Other Criminal Wrongs, on SSRN. Here is the abstract: How much punishment, in terms of size and severity,...
Bronsteen, Buccafusco & Masur on Happiness and Punishment
Posted on November 19, 2009The Legal Workshop has an interesting piece by John Bronsteen (Loyola-Chicago), Christopher Buccafusco (Chicago-Kent; pictured), and Jonathan Masur (University of Chicago), drawn from their article at 76 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1037 (2009). Here's how it starts: New findings in...
Featured Download: Pillsbury on Provocation
Posted on November 19, 2009Samuel H. Pillsbury (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) has posted a very helpful piece, Misunderstanding Provocation (University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, Vol. 43, 2009), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This symposium article questions the significance of the...
"Ohio launches new non-DNA innocence initiative"
Posted on November 19, 2009The A.P. story is here.
"Middle Managers Turn to Crime Amid Downturn"
Posted on November 19, 2009The Wall Street Journal has the article here. Here's the lead: The economic downturn has caused a global upsurge in accounting fraud and induced more middle managers to commit economic crimes, according to a study released Thursday by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP...
Craig on Criminal Law and Sexual Mores
Posted on November 19, 2009Elaine Craig has posted Laws of Desire: The Political Morality of Public Sex on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In deciding cases that involve the intersection of criminal law and sexual mores, the courts are faced with the challenge of...
Tiersma on California's Jury Instructions
Posted on November 18, 2009Peter Tiersma (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) has posted Redrafting California's Jury Instructions (The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: California was a leader in the pattern jury instruction movement...
"Virginia conducts first US electric chair execution in over a year"
Posted on November 18, 2009Jurist has the story here.
Heller, the Privileges or Immunities Clause, and the States
Posted on November 18, 2009Doug Berman has a helpful post at Sentencing Law and Policy that collects several posts related to the recently filed brief in McDonald v. Chicago, in which the challengers of Chicago's strict gun-control measures present an extended argument against it...
Sloan on Stealth Procedures and the Erosion of Stare Decisis
Posted on November 18, 2009Amy E. Sloan (University of Baltimore School of Law) has posted The Dog that Didn't Bark: Stealth Procedures and the Erosion of Stare Decisis in the Federal Courts of Appeals (Fordham Law Review, Vol. 78, 2009) on SSRN. Here is...
Murphy on Familial Searches of DNA Databases
Posted on November 17, 2009Erin Murphy (University of California, Berkeley, School of Law) has posted Relative Doubt: Familial Searches of DNA Databases on SSRN. Here is the abstract: As DNA databases have grown in size, a search method known as familial or kinship matching...
Steinzor on Deterring Production of Unsafe Food
Posted on November 17, 2009Rena I. Steinzor (University of Maryland - School of Law) has posted High Crimes, Not Misdemeanors: Deterring the Production of Unsafe Food (Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In the...
Challenges in Defending Ft. Hood Defendant
Posted on November 16, 2009The New York Times has an interesting piece on the subject here.
Court Reverses Ninth Circuit's Ineffectiveness Finding in Death Case
Posted on November 16, 2009The per curiam opinion in Wong v. Belmontes is here.
Court Grants Cert to Hear Issue on Habeas Challenge to New Sentence
Posted on November 16, 2009The case is Maywood v. Culliver. ScotusBlog summarizes it here, and Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy comments here. Here's how ScotusBlog describes the key facts: After an original death sentence for Magwood was overturned in 1986, he was...
Horwitz on Democracy and Prosecuting Bush Administration
Posted on November 16, 2009Paul Horwitz (University of Alabama School of Law) has posted Democracy as the Rule of Law (PROSECUTING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: WHAT DOES THE RULE OF LAW REQUIRE? Nasser Hussain & Austin Sarat, eds., Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
Weekend Roundup
Posted on November 16, 2009CrimProf posts you may have missed over the weekend: Friday Adcock on Executions in North Carolina Symposium: What Criminal Law and Procedure Can Learn From Criminology Really Starting Over with a Clean Slate Hodgson on Pre-Trial Procedure in England and...
"The Best Way to Try Terrorists"
Posted on November 15, 2009The New York Times has this interesting debate between a former federal prosecutor and an expert in national security law here. Here's how it starts: I recently co-authored a study of the experience of federal courts in adjudicating terrorism cases.....
Silverglate on "Three Felonies a Day"
Posted on November 15, 2009Video of a talk sponsored by the CATO Institute by Harvey Silverglate discussing his book by that title is available here.
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on November 15, 2009are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 280 The Emerging Criminal War on Sex Offenders Corey Rayburn Yung, The John Marshall Law School, Date posted to database: August 18, 2009 2 228 The Torture Lawyers Jens...
"Louis Brandeis? Influence on Shaping Protection of Privacy Rights"
Posted on November 15, 2009ACSBlog links here to video of a recent program addressing the topic and a guest blog post from Brandeis biographer Melvin I. Urofsky.
"Ohio to adopt single-drug lethal injection protocol"
Posted on November 14, 2009Jurist covers Ohio's response to its widely publicized botched execution attempt in September,
"9/11 Trial Poses Unparalleled Legal Obstacles"
Posted on November 14, 2009The article in the New York Times has an interesting summary of some of the likely challenges, including a discussion of how the government has tried to use "'clean teams' of investigators to collect information independently and do reviews that...
"America's Prison Spree Has Brutal Impact"
Posted on November 14, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this interesting commentary by Stuart Taylor, Jr., in the National Journal. In part: The November 9 Supreme Court arguments on whether it is cruel and unusual to impose life in prison without...
The Single-Juror Veto and the Federal Death Penalty
Posted on November 14, 2009Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences criticizes the decision to try some of the 9/11 suspects in federal civilian courts on the grounds that it makes a death sentence more difficult to achieve. [i]n federal court, if the jury votes...
"Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y."
Posted on November 14, 2009The New York Times story addressing the controversy over trying some of the suspects in a civilian trial and others before military commissions is here. As to those being tried in civilian court, critics argued that Qaeda suspects did not...
Hodgson on Pre-Trial Procedure in England and Wales
Posted on November 13, 2009Jacqueline Hodgson (University of Warwick - School of Law) has posted Recent Reforms in Pre-Trial Procedure in England and Wales on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this paper, focusing on the investigation and prosecution of crime, I would like...
Really Starting Over with a Clean Slate
Posted on November 13, 2009An article in the New York Times, Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia?s Parent, discusses an interesting aspect of German law: The legal fight pits German privacy law against the American First Amendment. German courts allow the suppression of...
Symposium: What Criminal Law and Procedure Can Learn From Criminology
Posted on November 13, 2009This symposium, in the latest issue of the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, is available online here. The table of contents follows the jump. David A. Harris, What Criminal Law and Procedure Can Learn from Criminology, 7 Ohio St....
Adcock on Executions in North Carolina
Posted on November 13, 2009Cynthia F. Adcock (Charlotte School of Law) has posted The Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of Post-Furman Executions in North Carolina: A History of One Southern State?s Evolving Standards of Decency on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The State of North Carolina resumed...
Greenawalt on Self Defense and International Law
Posted on November 12, 2009Alexander K.A. Greenawalt (Pace University School of Law) has posted Book Review: Defending Humanity (New Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Few issues are both more central to and more elusive for the project of international...
"Miranda With an English Accent"
Posted on November 12, 2009Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences discusses a recent article by Lauren Altdoerffer contasting Miranda with the U.K.'s statutory scheme: A key difference in the U.K. is that the suspect is advised that his silence can be used at trial...
DNA News
Posted on November 12, 2009Jurist has a story titled, "UK government announces proposal to remove innocent people from DNA database," and FourthAmendment.com report on a case from the Western District of Pennsylvania holding that "Compulsory taking of DNA from pretrial detainee violates Fourth Amendment...
"Heightened Privacy Concerns in a Digital Era"
Posted on November 12, 2009ACSBlog has posted an interview with Jeffrey Rosen (George Washington University Law School) on this topic. The introduction read, "Rosen said the 'stakes for privacy rights have never been higher,' noting that so much of what we do in cyberspace...
"Guilty Pleas Expected in Balloon Hoax Case"
Posted on November 12, 2009The New York Times story is here. Mom is pleading to the misdemeanor of false reporting to authorities, and Dad is pleading to the felony of "attempting to influence a public servant." Before you Coloradans stop writing to your Senators,...
Prosecutors Allege that Innocence Project Students Paid Witness for Exculpatory Evidence
Posted on November 11, 2009The New York Times reports on the court proceedings here. The new allegations shed light on why prosecutors had previously issued a controversial subpoena directed at the Northwestern journalism students seeking information on how their performance was graded, reported previously...
"A Justice's Curious Comment About ABA Guidelines For Death Penalty Lawyers"
Posted on November 11, 2009That's the title of the post at BLT reporting on Justice Alito's concurring opinion this week in Bobby v. Van Hook, in which the Court reversed the Sixth Circuit's conclusion that a criminal defendant had received ineffective assistance of counsel....
MacDowell on Integrated Domestic Violence Courts and Court Pluralism
Posted on November 11, 2009Elizabeth L. MacDowell (Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor at Chapman University School of Law) has posted When Courts Collide: Integrated Domestic Violence Courts and Court Pluralism (Chapman Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol 1, No. 2, 2010) on SSRN...
Fred Zacharias: Old School Loses a Teacher
Posted on November 11, 2009I am sad to report the death of my longtime friend and colleague, Fred Zacharias. Fred's work was known to many criminal law and procedure types because of his interest in prosecutorial ethics and his early empirical work on how...
Featured Download: Dubber on Criminal, Public, and Private Law
Posted on November 11, 2009Markus D. Dubber (University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) has posted Criminal Law Between Public and Private Law on SSRN. The piece is a tightly argued effort to situate criminal law within the domain of law in general. Here...
"Death Penalty is considered a boon by some California Inmates"
Posted on November 11, 2009The story can be found in the Los Angeles Times. Here is the lead: White supremacist gang hit man Billy Joe Johnson got what he asked for from the Orange County jury that convicted him of first-degree murder last month:...
Ramsey on Feminist Homicide Law Reform
Posted on November 10, 2009Carolyn B. Ramsey (University of Colorado Law School) has posted Provoking Change: Comparative Insights on Feminist Homicide Law Reform (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 100, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The provocation defense, which mitigates murder...
Popofsky on the Rule of Lenity in the Sherman Act
Posted on November 10, 2009Mark S. Popofsky (adjunct faculty, Georgetown University Law Center) has posted The Section 2 Debate: Should Lenity Play a Role? (Rutgers Business Law Journal, Vol. 7, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Supreme Court?s recent decision in Illinois...
Commentary on Yesterday's Juvenile Life Without Parole Arguments
Posted on November 10, 2009ACSBlog compiles some of the initial commentary. The Washington Post has coverage here. Crime and Consequences covers the arguments here and here.
New Directions for American Drug Policy at Berkeley Nov. 13
Posted on November 09, 2009The 2009 Caleb Foote Symposium features Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy; Alfred Blumstein, Professor, Carnegie Mellon Heinz College, School of Public Policy and Management; Robert MacCoun, Professor, Berkeley Law and the Goldman...
"Imprisoning a Child for Life"
Posted on November 09, 2009The New York Times editorializes against the practice, the subject of oral argument in two cases today. Doug Berman pulls together lots of useful commentary on the cases at Sentencing Law and Policy.
Weekend Roundup
Posted on November 09, 2009CrimProf posts you may have missed over the weekend: Friday Next Week's Criminal Law and Procedure Arguments Glazier on Combating Al Qaeda within the Law of War The Fourth Amendment, Email, and Computer Searches Clough on Corporate Criminal Complicity in...
Court Reverses Finding of Ineffective Assistance in Per Curiam Opinion
Posted on November 09, 2009You can find the opinion in Bobby v. Van Hook at the end of the order list here. Justice Alito concurred in a separate opinion.
"Supreme Court denies stay of execution for DC sniper"
Posted on November 09, 2009Jurist has coverage here, including excerpts from the dissent from the denial of cert by Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor.
The Richmond Rape and the Conflict of Duties
Posted on November 08, 2009The New York Times provides a harrowing perspective on why passersby didn't help. Here's an excerpt: Summerlynn Sigler, an English teacher, said there were some boys planning to beat up the victim once she returned to school, on the grounds...
CA Supreme Court Considers Whether DNA Profile Tolls Statute of Limitations
Posted on November 08, 2009Details are at FourthAmendment.com.
"Weighing Life in Prison for Youths Who Didn?t Kill"
Posted on November 08, 2009Adam Liptak previews the issue to be argued before the Court tomorrow in today's New York Times.
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on November 08, 2009are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 270 The Emerging Criminal War on Sex Offenders Corey Rayburn Yung, The John Marshall Law School, Date posted to database: August 18, 2009 [new to top 10] 2 223...
Post-Booker Sentencing
Posted on November 07, 2009Ellen Podgor at White Collar Crime Prof discusses Looser Rules on Sentencing Stir Concerns about Equity, a Wall Street Journal article. Her conclusion: the looser rules actually make real equity more likely.
Gabel on Familial DNA
Posted on November 07, 2009Jessica D. Gabel (Georgia State University College of Law) has posted Probable Cause from Probable Bonds: A Genetic Tattle Tale Based on Familial DNA (Hastings Women's Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: DNA represents the ?gold standard?...
Hate Crimes and Thought Crimes
Posted on November 07, 2009Sherry F. Colb (Cornell Law School) has a column on the topic of the new federal hate crimes legislation at Findlaw.
Upcoming and Recent Arguments Previewed and Recapped
Posted on November 07, 2009ScotusBlog has a preview of the upcoming arguments in the juvenile life without parole cases a recap of the argument in Wood v. Allen a recap of the argument in Pottawattamie County v. McGhee
Clough on Corporate Criminal Complicity in Human Rights Abuses
Posted on November 06, 2009Jonathan Clough (Monash University - Faculty of Law) has posted Punishing the Parent: Corporate Criminal Complicity in Human Rights Abuses (Brooklyn Journal of International Law, Vol. 33, No. 3, p. 899) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The nature of...
The Fourth Amendment, Email, and Computer Searches
Posted on November 06, 2009There is an interesting podcast on this topic at Legal Talk Network featuring Orin Kerr (George Washington University Law School), who mentions it in a post at The Volokh Conspiracy. In a separate post, Orin also notes that the Ninth...
Glazier on Combating Al Qaeda within the Law of War
Posted on November 06, 2009David W. Glazier (Loyola Law School Los Angeles) has posted Playing by the Rules: Combating Al Qaeda within the Law of War (William & Mary Law Review, Vol. 51, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Although the so-called "war...
Next Week's Criminal Law and Procedure Arguments
Posted on November 06, 2009Description of issue is from ScotusWiki, which also has briefs and the opinion below: Monday Graham v. Florida (08-7412)?Whether the Eighth Amendment?s ban on cruel and unusual punishments prohibits the imprisonment of a juvenile for life without the possibility of...
"14 Charged With Insider Trading in Galleon Case"
Posted on November 05, 2009The New York Times story begins as follows: Federal prosecutors charged 14 money managers, lawyers and other investors on Thursday with trading on insider information, significantly expanding a wide-ranging, multiyear investigation that is sweeping through the secretive world of hedge...
Moohr on Corporate Criminal Liability
Posted on November 05, 2009Geraldine Szott Moohr (University of Houston Law Center) has posted The Balance Among Corporate Criminal Liability, Private Civil Suits, and Regulatory Enforcement (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Under federal law, corporations are vicariously liable...
Parole System Faulted in Garrido Case
Posted on November 05, 2009The report from the California inspector general is here. The New York Times story reporting on the report is here. From the Times story: Chief among the criticisms is that parole officials did not find and identify Ms. Dugard despite...
"Murderer with 'aggression genes' gets sentence cut "
Posted on November 05, 2009This interesting piece, noted by Steve Erickson at Crime and Consequences, appears at New Scientist, discussing the decision in an Italian case but exploring the arguments that the evidence should actually be considered an aggravating factor.
"The Deputy Who Helped Himself to the Defense Attorney?s Casefile"
Posted on November 05, 2009Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy has an interesting post, replete with video, about this bizarre case and the complications in finding a remedy.
"Justices, in Aftermath of 2 Murder Cases, Hear Claims of a Process Gone Wrong"
Posted on November 05, 2009Adam Liptak in the New York Times has coverage of yesterday's oral arguments.
Echazu and Garoupa on Corruption and Distortion of Law Enforcement Effort
Posted on November 05, 2009Luciana Echazu (Clarkson University) and Nuno Garoupa (University of Illinois College of Law; pictured) have posted Corruption and the Distortion of Law Enforcement Effort American Law and Economics Review, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We consider the distortions...
"SCOTUS Preview: Wood v. Allen"
Posted on November 04, 2009Emily Garcia Uhrig (McGeorge School of Law) previews today's argument at ACSBlog. In part: While the state courts' factual finding that defense counsel's decision not to investigate evidence of his mental deficiencies was tactical may qualify as "unreasonable" under §...
Featured Download: Bibas, Schanzenbach & Tiller on Policing Politics at Sentencing
Posted on November 04, 2009Stephanos Bibas (University of Pennsylvania Law School; pictured), Max M. Schanzenbach (Northwestern University School of Law), and Emerson H. Tiller (Northwestern University School of Law) have published an interesting essay in the Northwestern University Law Review entitled Policing Politics at...
"Italy judge convicts 23 former CIA agents in rendition trial"
Posted on November 04, 2009Jurist's coverage is here. The New York Times has an article here.
Here's Hoping No One Was Planning a Symposium on the Indoor-Outdoor Distinction
Posted on November 04, 2009How about tents? Cars? Motorhomes? Oh well--all these wonderful distinctions no longer make a difference in Rhode Island, which has now gotten around to fixing a 1980 legislative gaffe that had left indoor prostitution legal in the state. The New...
"Jessica's Law Gets California Supreme Court Review"
Posted on November 04, 2009This article at FindLaw discusses the challenge to the law, which "severely restricts where sexual offenders can live after they are released from prison. Those convicted of rape or child molestation or even misdemeanor indecent exposure cannot live within 2,000...
Green and Winik on Recidivism and Drug Offenders
Posted on November 04, 2009Donald P. Green (Yale University - Political Science; pictured) and Daniel Winik have posted Using Random Judge Assignments to Estimate the Effects of Incarceration and Probation on Recidivism Among Drug Offenders (Criminology, May 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
Scent Lineups
Posted on November 04, 2009The New York Times has an article headlined Picked From a Lineup, on a Whiff of Evidence addressing concerns over this procedure: Dogs? noses have long proved useful to track people, and the police rely on them to detect drugs...
"Duties to Rescue (or Report) and the Anticooperative Effects of Law"
Posted on November 03, 2009Eugene Volokh has this interesting post at The Volokh Conspiracy, prompted by the recent Richmond gang rape incident, and considering one argument against laws compelling assistance of crime victims. He canvasses statutes addressing the issue here.
Dolovich on Prison Conditions and the Eighth Amendment
Posted on November 03, 2009Sharon Dolovich (Professor at University of California, Los Angeles School of Law/Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center) has posted Cruelty, Prison Conditions, and the Eighth Amendment (New York University Law Review, Vol. 84, No. 4, 2009) on SSRN...
Monday's Orders in Criminal Law and Procedure Cases
Posted on November 03, 2009Crime and Consequences covers them here. One criminal case was sent back for reconsideration in light of last term's Melendez-Diaz case on confrontation of witnesses. Justice Stevens, joined by Justice Scalia, dissented from the Court's decision not to clarify a...
Grove on the Structural Case for Vertical Maximalism
Posted on November 03, 2009Tara Leigh Grove (Florida State University College of Law) has posted The Structural Case for Vertical Maximalism at The Legal Workshop. It previews her forthcoming article by the same name in the Cornell Law Review and addresses several of the...
"When Texting Kills, Britain Offers Path to Prison"
Posted on November 02, 2009In the New York Times. Here is the lead: OXFORD, England ? Inside the imposing British Crown Court here, Phillipa Curtis, 22, and her parents cried as she was remanded for 21 months to a high-security women?s prison, for killing...
This Week's Criminal Law and Procedure Arguments
Posted on November 02, 2009Summary of issue is from ScotusWiki: Monday Beard v. Kindler (08-992) ? Is a state procedural rule automatically ?inadequate? under the adequate-state-grounds doctrine - and therefore unenforceable on federal habeas corpus review - because the state rule is discretionary rather...
Featured Download: Markel on Panetti, Retributive Theory, and the Eighth Amendment
Posted on November 02, 2009Dan Markel (Florida State University College of Law) has published a thoughtful and nuanced article in the Northwestern University Law Review, Executing Retributivism: Panetti and the Future of Eighth Amendment. He argues that the version of retributivism that led to...
Weekend Roundup
Posted on November 02, 2009CrimProf posts you may have missed over the weekend. Friday Bradley on "Knock and Talk" "More Time, Less Crime" Robert and Saunders on Pre-Trial Witness Interviews Notice to Email Account Holder Not Required for Search Warrant to ISP Robinson on...
"Supreme Court Should Apply Roper Reasoning to Upcoming Juvenile Life-Without-Parole Cases"
Posted on November 01, 2009Title of the post by Charles Ogletree (Harvard Law School) at ACSBlog.
"Reforming the State Secrets Privilege"
Posted on November 01, 2009That's the title of a short piece at The Legal Workshop summarizing a forthcoming note in the New York University Law Review An excerpt: My Note builds the case that administrative law-based reforms, like the ones proposed by the Obama...
Comino on Corporate Criminal Law in Australia
Posted on November 01, 2009V. Comino (The University of Queensland - T.C. Beirne School of Law) has posted The Challenge of Corporate Law Enforcement in Australia (Australian Journal of Corporate Law, Vol. 23, No. 3) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The introduction on...
"L.A. is seeing its police officers in a new light"
Posted on November 01, 2009The article in the Los Angeles Times gives the retiring police chief high marks: The progress the LAPD made under Police Chief William J. Bratton in the last seven years can be measured as much in the sweeping drop in...
A Different View on ALI Withdrawal of Death Penalty Provision
Posted on November 01, 2009Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences argues that the attempt by the Death Penalty Information Center to portray this action as a victory for abolitionists overlooks that the ALI took no position on the death penalty itself. He also faults...
Mitsilegas on EU Criminal Justice
Posted on November 01, 2009Valsamis Mitsilegas (Queen Mary University of London, School of Law) has posted The Third Wave of Third Pillar Law: Which Direction for EU Criminal Justice? (European Law Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: After...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on November 01, 2009are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 217 The Torture Lawyers Jens David Ohlin, Cornell Law School, Date posted to database: September 10, 2009 2 197 Blaming the Brain Steven K. Erickson, University of Missouri at...
Wils on EU Antitrust Fines
Posted on October 31, 2009Wouter P. J. Wils has posted The Increased Level of EU Antitrust Fines, Judicial Review, and the European Convention on Human Rights (World Competition: Law and Economics Review, Vol. 33, No. 1, March 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
Forman on Mass Incarceration
Posted on October 31, 2009James Forman Jr. (Georgetown University Law Center) has posted Why Care About Mass Incarceration? (Michigan Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world...
Spring Forward, Fall Back, and Happy Halloween from CrimProf!
Posted on October 31, 2009and my niece. KC
"Can Our Shameful Prisons Be Reformed?"
Posted on October 31, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this new piece by David Cole (Georgetown University Law Center) in the New York Review of Books.discussing Race, Incarceration, and American Values by Glenn C. Loury, with Pamela S. Karlan, Tommie Shelby,...
Bronsteen on Retribution's Role
Posted on October 31, 2009John Bronsteen (Loyola Chicago School of Law) has published Retribution's Role in the Indiana Law Journal. Here is the abstract: Two main types of principle, retributive and consequentialist, have long been identified as the main approaches to justifying criminal punishment...
Robinson on Doing Justice as Controlling Crime
Posted on October 30, 2009Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School) has posted The Ongoing Revolution in Punishment Theory: Doing Justice as Controlling Crime on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This lecture offers a broad review of current punishment theory debates and the...
Notice to Email Account Holder Not Required for Search Warrant to ISP
Posted on October 30, 2009FourthAmendment.com collects commentary and excerpts the opinion from the federal district court in Oregon, which you can find here.
Robert and Saunders on Pre-Trial Witness Interviews
Posted on October 30, 2009Paul Roberts (University of Nottingham) and Candida Saunders have posted Pre-Trial Witness Interviews and the 'Justice Gap' - A Plea for Sophistication in Criminal Procedure Reform on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Drawing extensively on new empirical data, this article...
"More Time, Less Crime"
Posted on October 30, 2009That Kent Scheidegger's post at Crime and Consequences, discussing the new article by Emily G. Owens, More Time, Less Crime? Estimating the Incapacitative Effect of Sentence Enhancements, 52 J. Law & Econ. 551 (2009). Kent's conclusion: "Letting habitual criminals out...
Bradley on "Knock and Talk"
Posted on October 30, 2009Craig M. Bradley (Indiana University Maurer School of Law--Bloomington) has published "Knock and Talk" and the Fourth Amendment in the Indiana Law Journal. Here is an excerpt from the introduction: Under ?knock and talk,? police go to people?s residences, with...
Fisher on Bipolar Structure of Criminal Verdicts
Posted on October 29, 2009Talia Fisher (Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law) has posted Rethinking the Bipolar Structure of the Criminal Verdict on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The criminal trial is conducted in two phases: The guilt-innocence phase, in which the...
"Washington Post editorial argues against completely eliminating crack/powder sentencing disparity"
Posted on October 29, 2009That's the title of Doug Berman's post at Sentencing Law and Policy on this Washington Post editorial. I am somewhat less distressed by this piece than Doug seems--I do think there is an arguable case for a modest crack "premium,"...
A Subjectivist's Caution on Hate Crimes (Alexander and Cole)
Posted on October 29, 2009The passage of the new federal hate-crime legislation, noted in a FindLaw article here, calls to mind the longstanding debates about such legislation. Much of it has focused on the constitutionality of such provisions. Hate crimes also raise sometimes overlooked...
Radsan on the CIA
Posted on October 29, 2009John Radsan (William Mitchell College of Law) has posted When the Smoke Clears at CIA (Berkeley Journal of International Law Publicist, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In the new century, the CIA?s continued existence...
"Loosening of F.B.I. Rules Stirs Privacy Concerns"
Posted on October 29, 2009The New York Times article links to a recently released FBI manual that has "alarmed privacy advocates." One section lays out a low threshold to start investigating a person or group as a potential security threat. Another allows agents to...
Featured Download: Alschuler on Punishing Corporations
Posted on October 28, 2009Even when I've disagreed with him, I've always found Albert W. Alschuler (Northwestern University - School of Law) to be one of the most gifted and entertaining writers working in legal scholarship. He's even more fun when you agree with...
Deadline Nears for CrimProf Junior Scholar Paper "Competition"
Posted on October 28, 2009Submissions are due by 5 p.m. Pacific Time Monday. (I hadn't realized that Oct. 31 was a Saturday when I first posted the deadline.) The original announcement follows: After extensive negotiations with my dean, I am glad to announce that...
"A Response to Delahunty?s 'The Fourth Amendment Goes to War'"
Posted on October 28, 2009CrimProf blogged about the Delahunty draft here. Orin Kerr has an extended response at The Volokh Conspiracy.
"Push to Legalize Marijuana Gains Ground in California"
Posted on October 28, 2009The article, in the New York Times, begins as follows: SAN FRANCISCO ? These are heady times for advocates of legalized marijuana in California ? and only in small part because of the newly relaxed approach of the federal government...
Milligan on Stacking in Criminal Procedure Adjudication
Posted on October 28, 2009Luke M. Milligan (University of Louisville - Louis D. Brandeis School of Law) has posted Stacking in Criminal Procedure Adjudication (Chicago-Kent Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The institutionalist branch of ?Law and Courts? studies how judges...
Steiker on the Marshall Hypothesis
Posted on October 27, 2009Carol S. Steiker (Harvard Law School) has published The Marshall Hypothesis Revisited in the Howard Law Journal, assessing Justice Thurgood Marshall's claim that citizens would oppose the death penalty if fully informed about it. Here is an excerpt from the...
"Polanski's victim asks court to dismiss charge"
Posted on October 27, 2009The L.A. Times has the story here, addressing the publicity the victim has faced: Some media outlets offered money. Others ambushed her at the airport. Reporters and photographers showed up at her children's schools and at her husband's job. They...
Preview of Upcoming Capital Habeas Case
Posted on October 27, 2009ScotusBlog previews Wood v. Allen here. The case, which "questions how a federal court should review the facts determined in a state criminal proceeding under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA)," is set for argument on November 4.
"American Law Institute Council votes to withdraw Model Penal Code section on the death penalty"
Posted on October 27, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy has the post, quoting extensively from a post by the Death Penalty Information Center. A "Report of the Council to the Membership of the American Law Institute on the Matter of the Death...
Poulin on Conflicts and Prosecutorial Duties
Posted on October 27, 2009Anne Poulin (Villanova University School of Law) has posted Conflicts of Interest in Criminal Cases: Should the Prosecution Have a Duty to Disclose? (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article addresses two types of...
Kleiman on How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment
Posted on October 26, 2009Mark Kleiman (UCLA Department of Public Policy) is guest-blogging this week at The Volokh Conspiracy about his new book, "When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment" (Princeton University Press 2009). The first post was today....
Arizona State Seeks Director of Post-Conviction Clinic
Posted on October 26, 2009The Sandra Day O?Connor College of Law invites applications for a full-time faculty position working in the post-conviction clinic. This position will be on track for continuing status as a Clinical Professor of Law. The remainder of the announcement follows...
Willingham's Wife Says He Admitted Killings
Posted on October 26, 2009Addressing the now-infamous Texas execution of a man many now claim was innocent, Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences excerpts the statement of Willingham's wife, published in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, in which she claims, inter alia, that Willingham admitted...
Varied Approaches to Justifying DUI Stop on Basis of Tip
Posted on October 26, 2009FourthAmendment.com notes a recent Tennessee Supreme Court case, State v. Hanning, upholding a traffic stop based on an anonymous tip of erratic driving. The case appears to conflict with the approach of the Virginia Supreme Court, which requires independent confirmation...
Featured Download: Robinson on the System of Excuses
Posted on October 26, 2009It is a good month for excuse doctrine. First, my colleague, Don Dripps, posted his article defending Bentham's view of excuses, summarized here. Now Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School) has posted a manuscript also prepared for the...
Weekend Roundup
Posted on October 26, 2009CrimProf posts you may have missed over the weekend: Friday "Automated Crime Victim Notification" "New York Times editorial calls for ignition locks for all drunk drivers" Wildfires and Felony Murder Walen on the Relevance of Intentions to Permissibility "Stop or...
Symposium on Crime, Criminal Law, and the Recession at Chicago
Posted on October 25, 2009Ellen Podgor has a post at White Collar Crime Prof Blog about the weekend's proceedings here. According to the symposium website, participants included Anton R. Valukas (Jenner & Block), Roger Fairfax (George Washington University Law School), Stuart Green (Rutgers School...
Student Grading in Innocence Projects
Posted on October 25, 2009The New York Times article, Prosecutors Turn Tables on Student Journalists, discusses a prosecutor's subpoena for "the grades, grading criteria, class syllabus, expense reports and e-mail messages" of students in the innocence project at Northwestern's journalism school, to ascertain "whether...
Challenge to DNA Sampling of Arrestees
Posted on October 25, 2009The article, entitled DNA Profiling: You May Be Next, by Patrick Kollman, discusses a recent challenge to a California ballot proposition: Proposition 69, passed in 2004, made California one of now 21 states that require DNA sampling for some arrestees...
"Ever-Present Surveillance Rankles the British Public"
Posted on October 25, 2009This interesting article about an ongoing concern, heightened by a recent incident, is in the New York Times. Here's an excerpt: The law in question is known as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, or RIPA, and it also gives...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on October 25, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days in the criminal law and procedure journals are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 208 The Torture Lawyers Jens David Ohlin, Cornell Law School, Date posted to database:...
"How a girl's stark words got lost in the Polanski spectacle"
Posted on October 24, 2009The article in the Los Angeles Times states, "Samantha Gailey, at 13, was unequivocal in her testimony against Polanski. But her account was turned into something almost benign." Samantha's testimony that day was unequivocal: She had kept trying to get...
Skepticism about New Federal Policy on Medical Marijuana
Posted on October 24, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts Jacob Sullum's piece at Reason.com entitled Medical Marijuana Muddle: The Obama administration?s new policy may not make much difference in practice.
"Craigslist Not Liable for Prostitution Ads"
Posted on October 24, 2009Eugene Volokh has a helpful post on this interesting issue over at The Volokh Conspiracy. This is more than a question of accomplice liability, in light of 47 U.S.C. § 230, and more than the barest imaginable case of internet...
"Arizona May Put State Prisons in Private Hands"
Posted on October 24, 2009The New York Times article is here. An excerpt: State officials will soon seek bids from private companies for 9 of the state?s 10 prison complexes that house roughly 40,000 inmates, including the 127 here on death row. It is...
Annino, Rasmussen, and Rice on Juvenile Life Without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses
Posted on October 24, 2009Paolo Annino (Florida State University-College of Law), David W. Rasmussen (FSU Center on Economic Policy)and chelsea Boehme Rice (Public Interest Law Center) have posted Juvenile Life Without Parole for Non-Homicide Offenses: Florida Compared to Nation on SSRN...
Wildfires and Felony Murder
Posted on October 23, 2009The A.P. story can be found at Yahoo.com. It addresses the decision to charge the arsonist who started a wildfire with murder in several deaths by heart attack. Robert Weisberg (Stanford Law School) is quoted as saying that " the...
"New York Times editorial calls for ignition locks for all drunk drivers"
Posted on October 23, 2009Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy agrees with the Times and also provides a useful list of his prior posts on "technocorrections." Like Doug, I believe these approaches hold great promise. If these techniques can displace harsh sentences in...
"Automated Crime Victim Notification"
Posted on October 23, 2009Thanks to Kent Scheidegger at Crime and Consequences for this post, which quotes a press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that begins: In its effort to keep crime victims informed, the Office of Victim and Survivor...
"Stop or I'll Shoot, and in Any Case I'm Guilty of Making a Criminal Threat"
Posted on October 23, 2009Crime and Consequences comments on the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Kansas, calling for prompt legislative action to reverse it. In essence, the court construed its self-defense statute to reach "force" in self defense, but not the "threat...
Walen on the Relevance of Intentions to Permissibility
Posted on October 23, 2009Alec D. Walen (Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy) has posted Comments on Doug Husak: The Low Cost of Recognizing (and of Ignoring) the Limited Relevance of Intentions to Permissibility (Criminal Law and Philosophy, Vol. 3, pp. 71-78, 2009) on...
"The Argument in Padilla v. Kentucky"
Posted on October 22, 2009A guest post by L. Song Richardson (Depaul University College of Law) at ACSBlog, concluding after reviewing the oral argument: Padilla v. Kentucky has the potential to define the scope of the right to the effective assistance of counsel in...
"Wrongfully Convicted Boston Man Awarded $14M"
Posted on October 22, 2009The A.P. story is in the New York Times. The lead: BOSTON (AP) -- A federal jury awarded $14 million on Wednesday to a man who spent nearly 15 years in prison after he was wrongly convicted in the 1988...
Podgor on White Collar Innocence
Posted on October 22, 2009Ellen S. Podgor (Stetson University College of Law) has posted White Collar Innocence: Irrelevant in the High Stakes Risk Game (Chicago-Kent Law Review, Forthcoming ) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: When one thinks of ?wrongful convictions and reliability in...
"Judges reject California plan to cut prison crowding"
Posted on October 22, 2009The story in the L.A. Times is here.
"Dense Population of Sex Offenders in Fla. Case Is Alarmingly Typical"
Posted on October 22, 2009From abcnews.com: There are so many sex offenders living within blocks of where 7-year-old Somer Thompson vanished Monday that when their homes are represented by pins on a digital map they create a cluster so thick it overlaps in places....
Consequentialism and Forfeiture of the Choice-of-Evils Defense (Alexander and Cole)
Posted on October 22, 2009Marc DeGirolami?s recent manuscript about the choice-of-evils defense, noted here by CrimProf, raises interesting questions about the relationship of the defense to criminal law theory. He cites several scholars for the proposition that choice-of-evils is more at home with a...
Temple on the Death Penalty
Posted on October 22, 2009John Temple (West Virginia University School of Journalism) has published The Last Lawyer: The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates with University Press of Mississippi. Here is a description from the publisher's website: Ken Rose has handled more capital appeals...
"Kansas AG Worries DNA Backlog Hurting Crime Efforts"
Posted on October 21, 2009The A.P. story is in the New York Times. The lead: TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- Kansas' attorney general said Tuesday that a state lab has a backlog of more than 38,000 DNA samples and suggested budget problems could keep some...
"Officer Questioning in a Traffic Stop"
Posted on October 21, 2009Orin Kerr has an interesting post at The Volokh Conspiracy expressing concern about a recent First Circuit case, and others like it, addressing how long an officer can extend a traffic stop by asking questions unrelated to the reason for...
Gruber on Gender Based Crimes
Posted on October 21, 2009Aya Gruber (University of Iowa College of Law) has posted Rape, Feminism, and the War on Crime (Washington Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Over the past several years, feminism has been increasingly associated with crime control...
Featured Download: Sundby on Mapp v. Ohio and Suppression Hearings
Posted on October 21, 2009Scott E. Sundby (Washington and Lee University School of Law) has posted Mapp v. Ohio?s Unsung Hero: Suppression Hearings as Morality Play on SSRN, a thoughtful and nuanced look at a longstanding issue Here is the abstract: The exclusionary rule...
"One Reporter?s Lonely Beat, Witnessing Executions"
Posted on October 21, 2009The article, in the New York Times, can be found here. Here is the lead: Of all the consequences of shrinking newsrooms, one of the oddest is this: Fewer journalists are available to watch people die. But Michael Graczyk has...
"Murder, Arson Charged in 2003 California Wildfire"
Posted on October 21, 2009The A.P. story can be found in the New York Times. The lead: SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) -- Almost six years after a wildfire destroyed nearly 1,000 homes in Southern California, prosecutors say they have enough evidence to charge a...
"Aiming for Liberty: The Past, Present and Future of Freedom and Self-Defense"
Posted on October 20, 2009That's the title of David Kopel's new book and his post about it over at The Volokh Conspiracy. At the post, he links to a podcast discussing the book, which he describes as "a collection of essays on firearms law...
Summary Ruling in Death Penalty Case
Posted on October 20, 2009According to ScotusBlog, the Court required the Seventh Circuit Court to allow a federal judge to rule on several challenges to the death sentence of an Indiana man, Joseph Corcoran, convicted of four counts of murder. The Circuit Court had...
Dissent from Cert Denial in Case Involving Drunk Driving Program
Posted on October 20, 2009Chief Justice Roberts, joined by Justice Scalia, dissented in Virginia v. Harris. The dissent is here. Here's how the Chief describes the case: By a 4-to-3 vote, the Virginia Supreme Court below adopted a rule that will undermine such efforts...
Today's Habeas Cert Grant
Posted on October 20, 2009Kiyemba v. Obama, in which the issue, according to ScotusBlog, is "Whether a federal court exercising its habeas jurisdiction, as confirmed by Boumediene v. Bush, has no power to order the release of prisoners held by the Executive for seven...
Delahunty on the Fourth Amendment in the Aftermath of 9/11
Posted on October 20, 2009Robert J. Delahunty (University of St. Thomas School of Law) has posted The Fourth Amendment Goes to War on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In October 2001 - not quite six weeks after the 9/11 attacks on the United States...
Michael Jackson, Abuse, and the Experiential Future (Kolber)
Posted on October 20, 2009A fascinating study in Nature Neuroscience from earlier this year may have identified biological markers of childhood trauma in the brains of adults. Researchers examined brain tissue from three groups of people: (1) 12 suicide victims who had been abused...
Roberts & Saunders on Pre-Trial Witness Interviewing by Crown Prosecutors
Posted on October 20, 2009Paul Roberts (University of Nottingham School of Law) and Candida Saunders have posted Pre-Trial Witness Interviews and the "Justice Gap" - A Plea for Sophistication in Criminal Procedure Reform on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Drawing extensively on new empirical...
Griffin on the Prosecution of Defensive Dishonesty in Federal Investigations
Posted on October 19, 2009Lisa Kern Griffin (Duke University School of Law) has posted Criminal Lying, Prosecutorial Power, and Social Meaning (California Law Review, Vol. 98, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article concerns the prosecution of defensive dishonesty in the course...
Weekend in Review
Posted on October 19, 2009CrimProf posts you may have missed over the weekend: Friday Dolovich on Incarceration "Justices Consider Ineffective Counsel Case" Saul on How International Law Protects Journalists and War Correspondents Featured Download: Hoffman and King on the Federal Role in State Criminal...
"Changes to Military Commissions Act not enough to fix flawed system"
Posted on October 19, 2009Title of the commentary by Michelle McCluer (director, National Institute of Military Justice) at Jurist. The piece links to the proposed changes.
"Indicting DNA Profiles is Vital in Old Rape Cases"
Posted on October 19, 2009That is the title of the article, in yesterday's New York Times, which can be found here. The lead: Nearly 10 years had passed since a college student was raped on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and with no...
Magnusson on Physician-Assisted Suicide in Australia
Posted on October 19, 2009Roger Magnusson (University of Sydney Faculty of Law) has posted The Traditional Account of Ethics and Law at the End of Life ? and its Discontents (Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, Vol. 6, No. 3, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the...
"Largest Hedge Fund Insider Trading Case Ever Charged, Criminally"
Posted on October 19, 2009Ellen Podgor has the post at White Collar Crime Prof Blog concerning this $20 million case, including links to charging documents.
New DOJ Policy on Federal Role in States Permitting Medical Use of Marijuana
Posted on October 19, 2009The DOJ memorandum is here. Jonathan H. Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy has a post entitled A Step Toward Sanity on Medical Marijuana applauding the move, which was reported on by The Washington Post. The lead: The Obama administration delivered...
Starr on Sentencing Reductions for Prosecutorial Misconduct
Posted on October 18, 2009Sonja B. Starr (University of Michigan Law School) has published Sentence Reduction as a Remedy for Prosecutorial Misconduct in the Georgetown Law Journal. Here is the abstract: Current remedies for prosecutorial misconduct, such as reversal of conviction or dismissal of...
Possible Charges in Balloon-Boy Case
Posted on October 18, 2009In Sheriff Calls Balloon Chase a Hoax, the New York Times reports: Richard Heene and his wife Mayumi have not yet been arrested, but the sheriff said that among the charges being considered are three felonies: conspiracy between the husband...
"Los Angeles Prepares for Clash Over [Medical] Marijuana"
Posted on October 18, 2009From the article in the New York Times: Whatever happens here will be closely watched by law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates across the country who are threading their way through federal laws that still treat marijuana as an illegal...
Corrado on Preventative Detention and Psychopathy
Posted on October 18, 2009Michael L. Corrado (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - School of Law) has posted Some Notes on Preventative Detention and Psychopathy (Law and Psychopathy, Oxford University Press, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this paper I...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on October 18, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days in the criminal law and procedure journals are here. I have previously pointed out the obvious--that download numbers are far from a perfect proxy for manuscript quality, or even for manuscript interest.....
Controversy over Freedoms Afforded Criminally Insane in Washington State
Posted on October 17, 2009The A.P. story, which appears on yahoo.com under the headline Criminally insane, but out on the street, covers the controversy over the escape of an institutionalized insanity acquitee from a lightly supervised field trip, and also describes other liberties that...
Symposium on Examining Modern Approaches to Prosecutorial Discretion Today at Temple
Posted on October 17, 2009The webpage describing the event is here. The description: Symposium panels will focus on issues of prosecutorial discretion in juvenile cases, prosecutorial discretion in death eligible cases, sentencing guidelines and plea bargaining, and the necessity of ethical inquiries, including a...
"What Kind Of Sentence Is Roman Polanski Facing?"
Posted on October 17, 2009The column, by John W. Dean at FindLaw, relies heavily on Lynn Branham (visiting at St. Louis University School of Law) and concludes that Polanski is likely to receive a far harsher sentence than he would have received at the...
"U.S. Alters Disputed Immigration Rules for Police"
Posted on October 17, 2009From the New York Times: PHOENIX ? Addressing one of the most contentious immigration policies in recent years, the Obama administration unveiled changes Friday in a program that allows state and local police officers enforce federal immigration law. As promised...
War Without Borders Series: "In Mexican Drug War, Investigators Are Fearful"
Posted on October 17, 2009Another piece has been published in the series of articles in the New York Times entitled War Without Borders, which examines "the impact of Mexican drug cartels on both sides of the border."
Murphy on Manufacturing Crime
Posted on October 17, 2009Erin Murphy (University of California, Berkeley School of Law) has published Manufacturing Crime: Process, Pretext, and Criminal Justice in the Georgetown Law Journal. Here is the abstract: What do Bill Clinton, Roger Clemens, Martha Stewart, and Lil? Kim have in...
Featured Download: Hoffman and King on the Federal Role in State Criminal Justice
Posted on October 16, 2009Joseph L. Hoffmann (Indiana University Maurer School of Law?Bloomington) and Nancy J. King (Vanderbilt University Law School) have published Rethinking the Federal Role in State Criminal Justice in the New York University Law Review. Here is the abstract: This Essay...
Saul on How International Law Protects Journalists and War Correspondents
Posted on October 16, 2009Ben Saul (University of Sydney Faculty of Law) has posted The International Protection of Journalists in Armed Conflict and Other Violent Situations (Australian Journal of Human Rights, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Journalists and...
Law and Intuitions (Kolber)
Posted on October 01, 2009Laypeople's intuitions about what the law should be sometimes factor into scholarly arguments about what the law should be. There are two principal ways in which such arguments are made. In the "predictive" mode, we seek to understand lay intuitions....
Henning on Corporate Criminal Liability and Rehabilitation
Posted on October 01, 2009Peter J. Henning (Wayne State University Law School) has posted Corporate Criminal Liability and the Potential for Rehabilitation (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Much has been made about prosecutorial unfairness in treating corporations, that...
Testing the Outer Limits of the Edwards Rule: Maryland v. Shatzer (Dripps & Kamisar)
Posted on September 30, 2009Because Miranda was the centerpiece of the Warren Court?s ?revolution in American criminal procedure,? most Court-watchers expected the Burger Court to treat the famous case unkindly. As a general matter, the Burger Court did not surprise them. But Edwards v...
Lavitt on John Choon Yoo and the Bush Administration
Posted on September 30, 2009Joseph Lavitt (University of California, Berkeley-School of Law Adjunct Faculty) has posted The Crime of Conviction of John Choon Yoo: The Actual Criminality in the OLC During the Bush Administration (Maine Law Review, Vol. 62, No. 1, 2009) on SSRN.....
Today's Criminal Law and Procedure Cert Grants
Posted on September 30, 2009SCOTUSblog has summaries, including links to cert petitions, opinions below, and the like, for all ten cases on which the Court granted review here. Here are the excerpts that relate to criminal law and procedure: Title: Carr v. United States...
Can You Rob Yourself?
Posted on September 30, 2009That's the question my colleague, Shaun Martin, is asking over at his California Appellate Report blog, in connection with People v. Smith, a case from the California Court of Appeal. Shaun's summary of the case: Or, more precisely, you can...
Moriarty on Rape and Consent
Posted on September 30, 2009Jane Campbell Moriarty (University of Akron School of Law) has posted Rape, Affirmative Consent to Sex, and Sexual Autonomy: Introduction to the Symposium (Akron Law Review, Vol. 41, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We may have moved in...
Symposium on American and International Perspectives on the Future of the Exclusionary Rule at Southwestern Law School
Posted on September 30, 2009The symposium is scheduled for Oct. 9. Symposium webpage is here; press release is here. Here are the topics and speakers, from the press release: The Current State of the Exclusionary Rule, International Perspectives on the Exclusion of Evidence, and...
Southern Public Defender Training Center
Posted on September 29, 2009[Jonathan Rapping (John Marshall Law School in Atlanta) posted the following message on the CrimProf listserv today, and I am republishing excerpts here with his permission.] Prior to teaching law school I was a public defender for twelve years. I...
Stetson Seeks Spring 2010 Visitor in Criminal Law
Posted on September 29, 2009Please send your visiting opportunities for criminal law and/or procedure professors for this year and next to crimprofblog@gmail.com for inclusion here. Stetson University College of Law seeks a one-semester coverage visitor for Spring 2010 to teach first-year criminal law...
CrimProf's Junior Scholar Paper "Competition"
Posted on September 29, 2009After extensive negotiations with my dean, I am glad to announce that CrimProf is holding a ?competition? for junior scholars with a paper in the areas of criminal law or criminal procedure. The ?winner? will be transported, at our expense,...
Murphy on Criminalizing Humanitarian Intervention
Posted on September 29, 2009Sean D. Murphy (George Washington University - Law School) has posted Criminalizing Humanitarian Intervention (Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol. 41, p. 341, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The States Parties of the International Criminal Court...
Burglar Ordered to Pay Restitution to Victim for Lost Wages from Attending Court
Posted on September 29, 2009The San Francisco Chronicle has the story, headlined Burglar must repay victim for time in court. Here's the lead: In a broad interpretation of a law requiring criminals to make restitution to their victims, a state appeals court has ordered...
"Drug Courts Endanger Rights, Block Access"
Posted on September 29, 2009That's the headline on the press release from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers introducing a new report, The reporter is Joel Schumm of Indiana University School of Law (Indianapolis) (pictured). According to the press release: Major findings of...
Featured Download: Roth on Setting a Threshold for DNA "Cold Hits"
Posted on September 28, 2009Andrea L. Roth (Stanford Law School Law Fellow) has posted Safety in Numbers?: Deciding When DNA Alone is Enough to Convict (New York University Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. It is a very helpful examination of an issue that is...
Weekend Review
Posted on September 28, 2009Friday Harcourt on Henry Louis Gates and Racial Profiling Benner Addresses Deficiencies in California's Indigent Criminal Defense "New state secrets policy is first step towards legislation to check executive discretion in blocking litigation" You Have the Right to Remain Silent,...
No Charges Against "Victim" in Hofstra Rape Hoax
Posted on September 28, 2009What had started out as a case involving allegations of a brutal gang rape in a college dormitory quickly unraveled when the "victim" was told that a video existed to show the acts were consensual. The N.Y. Times has the...
Abelson on the Prosecute-Extradite Dilemma
Posted on September 28, 2009Adam B. Abelson has posted The Prosecute-Extradite Dilemma: Concurrent Criminal Jurisdiction and Global Governance (UC Davis Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 16) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article explores the dilemma between prosecution and extradition that...
"Alternatives to drug war championed at conference"
Posted on September 28, 2009The article is in today's San Diego Union Tribune. Here's the lead: EL PASO, Texas ? It's been called the U.S. war on drugs ? a tough-minded government policy that for decades has targeted traffickers and addicts with prosecution and...
"Big Case for Small-Time Attorney"
Posted on September 28, 2009That's the headline of the Wall Street Journal article about Art Folsom, the attorney representing accused terrorist Najibullah Zazi. According to the article, Mr. Folsom "has made a living on drug-possession and drunk-driving cases, along with the odd divorce...
"The Case of the Plummeting Supreme Court Docket"
Posted on September 28, 2009The New York Times has the story here.
Polanski Arrested in Switzerland
Posted on September 28, 2009The N.Y. Times has the story, headlined Polanski Arrested in Switzerland in 1970s Sex Case . Here's the lead: In a surprising move arranged by prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington, the authorities in Switzerland arrested the film director Roman....
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on September 27, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days in the criminal law and procedure journals are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 419 Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in 'Acquaintance Rape' Cases...
"Technocorrections, economic realities and a new privacy/liberty relationship"
Posted on September 27, 2009That's the title of Doug Berman's post at Sentencing Law and Policy discussing an article in the Washington Post headlined Sweat Becomes Offenders' New Snitch. As Doug notes, while the piece focuses on alcohol detection, it discusses important issues that...
Update on the Lori Drew/My Space Suicide Case
Posted on September 27, 2009Orin Kerr has a post at The Volokh Conspiracy noting that the government has filed a notice of appeal from the trial court's judgment dismissing the case and that such a notice preserve the right to appeal but does not...
"California Struggles With Paroled Sex Offenders"
Posted on September 27, 2009The article is in today's New York Times. It provides an insight into the practical limitations of GPS tracking systems and the caseloads, optimal and real, of those assigned to keep an eye on parolees.
Levinson, Cai & Young on Implicit Racial Bias
Posted on September 26, 2009Justin D. Levinson (pictured, University of Hawaii at Manoa -William S. Richardson School of Law), Huajian Cai and Danielle Young (University of Hawai`i at Manoa Dept. of Psychology) have posted Guilty by Implicit Racial Bias: The Guilty/Not Guilty Implicit Association...
New Criminal Justice Program at Vanderbilt Law School
Posted on September 26, 2009Ellen Podgor has the details over at White Collar Crime Prof Blog.
Harcourt on Henry Louis Gates and Racial Profiling
Posted on September 25, 2009Bernard E. Harcourt (University of Chicago - Law School) has posted Henry Louis Gates and Racial Profiling: What's the Problem? (U of Chicago, Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 482) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A string of...
Benner Addresses Deficiencies in California's Indigent Criminal Defense
Posted on September 25, 2009Laurence A. Benner (California Western School of Law) has posted The Presumption of Guilt: Systemic Factors that Contribute to Ineffective Assistance of Counsel in California (California Western Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 263, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:...
You Have the Right to Remain Silent, Even if Dr. Phil Asks You a Question
Posted on September 25, 2009Maybe Matthew and Laura Eaton thought the feds had better things to do than watch talk TV. But now, they are learning their lesson the hard way. Findlaw has a story, entitled Dr. Phil, Shoplifting Confessions & Federal Charges, documenting...
"New state secrets policy is first step towards legislation to check executive discretion in blocking litigation"
Posted on September 25, 2009That's the title of the column at Jurist by Sharon Bradford Franklin (senior counsel, The Constitution Project) about the administration's new policy, which is here.
Featured Download: Cahill on Attempt by Omission
Posted on September 24, 2009Michael T. Cahill (Brooklyn Law School) has published Attempt by Omission in the Iowa Law Review (vol. 94, p. 1208). Here is the abstract: In addition to requiring subjective culpability, criminal offenses typically involve two objective features: action and harm...
"What Do We Owe Exonerated Inmates?"
Posted on September 24, 2009That's the title of an interesting column at reasononline by Steve Chapman, originally published in 2006 but republished today. It summarizes and critiques various states' approaches to compensating inmates who are found to have been wrongly imprisoned.
"Courts Wrestle With Searches When the Evidence Is Digital"
Posted on September 24, 2009That's the headline on the Wall Street Journal article discussing the recent Ninth Circuit case on the issue. Hat tip: Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Ball on Integrating Criminal Justice Agencies in California
Posted on September 24, 2009W. David Ball (Santa Clara School of Law) has posted E Pluribus Unum: Data and Operations Integration in the California Criminal Justice System (Stanford Law & Policy Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Stanford Criminal Justice Center...
"Terror Suspect Is Charged With Plot to Use Bombs"
Posted on September 24, 2009This New York Times story has some interesting detail about how the suspect was gathering the materials he needed and also illustrates how law enforcement uses computer data to build a case.
Featured Download: O'Malley on Fines and Criminal Justice
Posted on September 23, 2009Pat O'Malley (University of Sydney, Faculty of Law) has posted Theorizing Fines (Punishment and Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2009) on SSRN. It documents the difference in the use of fines in the U.S. and in Europe and traces that...
Updating Your School's Listing of Criminal Law Programs
Posted on September 23, 2009Along the left side of this blog is a listing of U.S. law schools with LL.M. degrees or J.D. certificates or concentrations in criminal law. I realized that it had gotten out of date the other day when I checked...
Dennis on Shielding Juvenile Witnesses and Informants
Posted on September 23, 2009Andrea Dennis (University of Kentucky College of Law) has posted Beyond Victims of Sexual Perverts: Expanding Shielding to All Juvenile Witnesses and Collateral Damage? Juvenile Snitches in America's "War" on Drugs, Crime and Gangs (American Criminal Law Review, Vol...
DNA Sample: Your Orange County Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card
Posted on September 23, 2009The L.A. Times has the story, headlined Arrested in O.C.? A DNA sample could buy freedom. Here's the lead: Orange County, which already has one of the nation's most aggressive programs for taking DNA samples from convicts, has quietly begun...
Banishment from San Francisco Upheld as Condition of Supervised Release
Posted on September 23, 2009My colleague, Shaun Martin, has a post on this case over at California Appellate Report, in which he asks an interesting question--is this guy really better off living in Oakland? The district court judge anticipated this argument but thought that...
"Does the Wrongful Issuance of an Arrest Warrant Violate a Person's Fourth Amendment Rights if the Warrant is Never Executed?"
Posted on September 23, 2009That's the title of Orin Kerr's post at The Volokh Conspiracy discussing a case recently argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The subject of the warrant argued that he was harmed because he had to...
Do-It-Yourself Criminal Investigations (Kolber)
Posted on September 22, 2009New technologies are making it easier to conduct do-it-yourself research into criminal activity. Here are two illustrations: (1) Ian Ayres discusses a recent NYT article about people who have tried to track down their stolen portable electronic gadgets...
No Retrial for Man Who Spent 26 Years in Prison for 1983 Killing
Posted on September 22, 2009The prosecutor says that, while personally convinced of the man's guilt, "much of the physical evidence had been lost or destroyed and some witnesses have died." A federal judge overturned the conviction in August on the grounds that "false evidence"...
Scent Lineups
Posted on September 22, 2009Grits for Breakfast has a post on this here, which links to a new report from the Innocence Project of Texas entitled "Dog Scent Lineups: A Junk Science Injustice."
Baer on Governing Corporate Compliance
Posted on September 22, 2009Miriam H. Baer (Brooklyn Law School) has posted Governing Corporate Compliance (Boston College Law Review, Vol. 50, No. 1, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In light of the financial meltdown of 2008, it is reasonable to question whether...
Illinois Seeks DNA from Released Felons
Posted on September 22, 2009The Chicago Tribune has the story here. Under a 2002 state law, all felons in custody were required to give a DNA sample, but "because of delays in implementation, nearly 10,000 inmates were released from the Department of Corrections without...
Featured Download: Ip on Suspicionless Searches and the Prevention of Terrorism
Posted on September 21, 2009John Ip (University of Auckland - Faculty of Law) has posted Suspicionless Searches and the Prevention of Terrorism on SSRN. The differences between the treatment of the problem in the U.K. and the U.S. is interesting, particularly the different attitudes...
Heyman on Investigating Corporate Malfeasance
Posted on September 21, 2009Susan Schwab Heyman (Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Visiting Professor) has posted Bottom-Up: An Alternative Approach for Investigating Corporate Malfeasance on SSRN. Here is the abstract: At least since the Enron scandal, the government has focused intensive efforts on...
Weekend Review
Posted on September 21, 2009Friday Henning on Enforcement and the SEC Inmate Ordered to Testify About Failed Execution Erickson on the Brain and the Law "When Criminal Justice Systems Collide: Improving the European Arrest Warrant " Saturday Lyke on Lawrence as an Eighth Amendment...
What's a Little Traffic Stop Among Friends?
Posted on September 21, 2009Eugene Volokh has a post over at The Volokh Conspiracy about a tiny town in Iowa that decided it would be nice to stop a driver with out-of-state plates and offer an all-expense paid vacation in the town. Professor Volokh...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on September 20, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days in the criminal law and procedure journals are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 375 Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in 'Acquaintance Rape' Cases...
California Prisoner Reduction Plan
Posted on September 20, 2009Crime and Consequences expresses satisfaction that the plan does not meet the target ordered by the three-judge panel: "The bright spot is that they are not totally caving in to Reinhardt et al., perhaps emboldened by the Supreme Court's warning...
"Four Chicago Policemen Admit to Robbing Suspects"
Posted on September 20, 2009The A.P. story, which appears in the New York Times, provides additional detail on a rogue unit that stole "hundreds of thousands of dollars" from suspected criminals and once withheld insulin from a diabetic to get information about where to...
District Court Rejects Saving "Innocent" DNA Profile in CODIS but Declines to Apply Exclusionary Rule
Posted on September 19, 2009FourthAmendment.com summarizes the case here, calling it "fascinating and important." The court quotes Professor Elizabeth Joh's concerns about creating a "backdoor to population-wide data banking." The 101-page opinion is here.
"Prisoner in Ohio Wins a Stay Against a Second Execution Attempt"
Posted on September 19, 2009The story is in the New York Times. The article describes the "Hippocratic paradox": Dr. Jonathan I. Groner, a professor of medicine at Ohio State University, cites what he calls the Hippocratic paradox: it is doctors who are best qualified...
Lyke on Lawrence as an Eighth Amendment Case
Posted on September 19, 2009Sheldon Bernard Lyke University of Chicago - Department of Sociology) has posted Lawrence as an Eighth Amendment Case: Sodomy and the Evolving Standards of Decency (William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, Vol. 15, No. 3, 2009) on...
Controversy Expected as Patriot Act Extension Considered
Posted on September 19, 2009The story in the New York Times is entitled Battle Looms Over the Patriot Act. Without legislative extension by year's end, provisions would expire that expanded the FBI's power "to seize records and to eavesdrop on phone calls." A group...
"Experts: Defense in Yale killing has tough job"
Posted on September 19, 2009The A.P. story is here. The lead: Defending a Yale lab technician charged with murder against what appears to be a mountain of forensic evidence might mean trying to convince jurors that the crime scene was contaminated because police didn't...
Henning on Enforcement and the SEC
Posted on September 18, 2009Peter J. Henning (Wayne State University Law School) has posted Should the SEC Spin Off the Enforcement Division? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The current environment is highly supportive of increased government regulation, particularly in the financial field...
"When Criminal Justice Systems Collide: Improving the European Arrest Warrant "
Posted on September 18, 2009That's the title of a piece over at Jurist by Raneta Lawson Mack (Creighton University School of Law) exploring one of the difficulties caused by the co-existence of inquisitorial and accusatorial systems within the European Union.
Erickson on the Brain and the Law
Posted on September 18, 2009Steven K. Erickson (University of Missouri School of Law) has posted Blaming the Brain on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Criminal law scholarship has recently become absorbed with the ideas of neuroscience in the emerging field of neurolaw. This mixture...
Inmate Ordered to Testify About Failed Execution
Posted on September 18, 2009The story in the New York Times is here. The deposition is scheduled for Monday; the next execution attempt is scheduled for Tuesday. Attorneys will seek to block the execution on three grounds: "They will contend that seven days is...
Featured Download: Beale on Corporate Criminal Liability
Posted on September 17, 2009Sara Sun Beale (Duke University School of Law) has posted A Response to the Critics of Corporate Criminal Liability (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This essay responds to critics of corporate liability and to...
Kreit on A Public Health Approach to Drug Policy
Posted on September 17, 2009Alex Kreit (Thomas Jefferson School of Law) posted Toward a Public Health Approach to Drug Policy (Advance: The Journal of the American Constitution Society Issue Groups, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 43, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This...
Guest Blogger Michael Perlin: Some Advice about Ignoring Advice about Collaborations
Posted on September 17, 2009[Guest blogger Michael Perlin, an internationally recognized expert on mental disability law, is a professor of law at New York Law School.] Many years ago, when I began teaching (I had litigated for 13 years prior to changing careers, and...
Symposium Issue on MPC Sentencing
Posted on September 17, 2009The Florida Law Review's September 2009 issue is a symposium on MPC sentencing featuring articles by Kevin Reitz, Doug Berman, Judge Michael Marcus, Christopher Slobogin (pictured), Nora Demleitner, Robert Weisberg, and Alice Ristroph. Professor Slobogin's introduction is available here...
Ohlin on Torture Lawyers
Posted on September 16, 2009Jens David Ohlin (Cornell Law School) has posted The Torture Lawyers (Harvard International Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: One of the longest shadows cast by the Bush Administration?s War on Terror involves the fate of the...
Findlay on Recognizing a Victim Constituency in International Criminal Justice
Posted on September 16, 2009Mark Findlay ( University of Sydney-Institute of Criminology) has posted Activating a Victim Constituency in International Criminal Justice (International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Those who would like to see...
Hafemeister & Stockey on Criminal Responsibility of War Veterans with PTSD
Posted on September 16, 2009Thomas L. Hafemeister (University of Virginia School of Law) and Nicole A. Stockey have posted Last Stand? The Criminal Responsibility of War Veterans Returning from Iraq and Afghanistan W ith Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Indiana Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN...
"Officers? New Tool Against D.W.I.: Syringe"
Posted on September 16, 2009This A.P. story ran in yesterday's New York Times, discussing a federal pilot program and some of the concerns expressed about it. Police officers are trained to draw blood at the scene of a traffic stop. Hat tip:FourthAmendment.com.
"Attorneys, Academics Sort Through Landmark Case on Computer Searches"
Posted on September 16, 2009With the permission of BNA, Orin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy has posted this helpful story from the Criminal Law Reporter on the Ninth Circuit's recent and, in Professor Kerr's estimation, "remarkable" opinion in United States v. Comprehensive Drug Testing.
Featured Download: Bowman on the USSC's Sentencing Cases
Posted on September 15, 2009The U.S. Supreme Court's vexing approach(es) to the question of how the federal constitution impacts structured sentencing systems is exhaustively and incisively explored in a manuscript by Frank O. Bowman III (University of Missouri School of Law) entitled Debacle: How...
Rittossa & Palalic with the Croatian Perspective on Secondary Victimisation of Sexually Abused Children
Posted on September 15, 2009Dalida Rittossa (University of Rijeka) and Milana Trbojevic Palalic have posted Suppressing the Secondary Victimisation of Sexually Abused Children: A Croatian Perspective on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Sexual crimes against children have been considered as one of the heaviest...
Eisenberg, Hans and Colb on Prior Criminal Records, the Decision to Testify, and Trial Outcomes
Posted on September 15, 2009Two pieces posted at The Legal Workshop address this topic. The first, by Theodore Eisenberg and Valerie P. Hans (both of Cornell Law School), is titled, Taking a Stand on Taking the Stand: The Effect of a Prior Criminal Record...
Raghunath on the 13th Amendment in Prisons
Posted on September 15, 2009Raja Raghunath (University of Denver Sturm College of Law) has posted A Promise the Nation Cannot Keep: What Prevents the Application of the Thirteenth Amendment in Prison? (University of Denver Legal Studies Research Paper No. 09-22) on SSRN. Here is...
Kolber Presents "The Subjective Experience of Punishment" at NYU Today
Posted on September 15, 2009CrimProf contributing editor Adam Kolber (my colleague here at the University of San Diego) is presenting The Subjective Experience of Punishment (Columbia Law Review, Vol. 109, p. 182, January 2009) today at New York University Law School. Here is the...
Botched Ohio Execution Leads to One-Week Stay
Posted on September 15, 2009The execution team had trouble finding the vein of the condemned. Crime and Consequences has a post on this ("Execution Attempt in Vein") that links to the AP story. Doug Berman's post at Sentencing Law and Policy ("More on Ohio's...
Featured Download: Robinson, Goodwin & Reisig on the Disutility of Injustice
Posted on September 14, 2009Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School)(pictured), Geoffrey P. Goodwin (Dept. of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania), and Michael Reisig have posted The Disutility of Injustice on SSRN. It both presents original social science research and canvasses previous studies to...
Nelson on Requiring Reasonable Suspicion for Searches of Laptop Computers at the Border
Posted on September 14, 2009John William Nelson (Samford University - Cumberland School of Law and University of East Anglia - Norwich Law School) has posted Border Confidential: Why Searches of Laptop Computers at the Border Should Require Reasonable Suspicion (American Journal of Trial Advocacy,...
The Perils of Drafting Imprecision: San Diego's Beach Booze Ban
Posted on September 14, 2009Maybe it did not occur to the drafters that people floating on inner tubes are not technically on a beach. Or maybe the drafters were counting on the increased safety risk of drinking while floating to curb excessive consumption. But...
Borgers & Van Sliedregt on the Precautionary Principle in the Fight against Terrorism
Posted on September 14, 2009Matthias J. Borgers (pictured) and Elies Van Sliedregt (both of VU University Amsterdam - Faculty of Law) have posted The Meaning of the Precautionary Principle for the Assessment of Criminal Measures in the Fight against Terrorism (Erasmus Law Review, Vol...
FBI Crime Stats Released
Posted on September 14, 2009Both Jurist ("FBI report shows decrease in US violent crime for second straight year") and the New York Times ("Violent Crime Fell in 2008, F.B.I. Report Says") have coverage. The Times addresses the data from several perspectives, noting for example...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on September 13, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days in the criminal law and procedure journals are here. CrimProf previously noted that these rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. Here's another grain. Though the ranking only includes manuscripts....
Bersin on Drug Legalization (Against It)
Posted on September 13, 2009The daily blog of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) has a link to a recent video interview by The New Republic's Ben Eisler with border czar Alan Bersin in which this issue is explored.
Terrorism Trials
Posted on September 13, 2009The New York Times editorializes today in Justice Delayed against the system of military commissions. ScotusBlog notes that the D.C. Circuit Court has requested a prompt response by the Obama administration to a "sweeping new challenge to military commission trials...
Stone-Manista on Child Abuse Prosecutions of Pregnant Drug Addicts
Posted on September 12, 2009Krista Stone-Manista has posted Protecting Pregnant Women: A Guide to Successfully Challenging Criminal Child Abuse Prosecutions of Pregnant Drug Addicts (Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 99, No. 3, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This Comment is...
"Should Minors Ever Face Life Without Parole?"
Posted on September 12, 2009That's the title of a useful story by Lewis Beale here on the pending U.S. Supreme Court cases and legislative consideration of this issue.
"DOJ investigation into terror suspect interrogations harms US national security"
Posted on September 12, 2009That's the title of the piece at Jurist by Steven Emerson, founder of The Investigative Project on Terrorism. The conclusion in a nutshell: "The Attorney General should have followed his own directive in his department?s April 16 press release: 'It...
Supreme Court Declines to Delay California Prisoner Release Plan
Posted on September 12, 2009ScotusBlog has the update here. The Court noted that, under the three-judge district court's order, the Supreme Court would have the opportunity to review the district court's decree before implementation. In other words, the Court declined to stay the requirement...
"For a Bounced Check in Dubai, the Penalty Can Be Years Behind Bars"
Posted on September 12, 2009This article, from today's New York Times, is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it starts by discussing the use of harsh criminal penalties to change a culture of business corruption, with the usual consequences--many prosecutions needed to dislodge...
Inazu on Forgiveness in Transitional Justice
Posted on September 11, 2009John D. Inazu (Public Law Fellow, Duke University School of Law) has posted No Future Without (Personal) Forgiveness: Re-Examining the Role of Forgiveness in Transitional Justice (Human Rights Review, Vol. 10, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The role...
Conference on the Fourth Amendment at Texas Tech
Posted on September 11, 2009Arnold Loewy reports that the Fourth Annual Texas Tech Symposium on Criminal Law/Procedure will be held on April 8-9, 2010. This year?s theme is ?The Fourth Amendment.? There is no charge for law professors; the first ten law professors that...
Loughnan on Criminal Organisations Control Act
Posted on September 11, 2009Arlie Loughnan (University of Sydney - Faculty of Law) has posted The Legislation We Had to Have?: The Crimes (Criminal Organisations Control) Act 2009 (NSW) (Current Issues in Criminal Justice, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 457-465, 2009) on SSRN. Here...
Drug-Sniffing Dogs and You
Posted on September 11, 2009Pete Guither has an interesting critique of Illinois v. Caballes, including examples of less-than-stellar records for some drug-sniffing dogs, over at DrugWarRant.com.
Ninth Circuit Holds Retroactive Application of SORNA to Juveniles Unconstitutional
Posted on September 11, 2009Douglas Berman posts on yesterday's decision regarding the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act at Sentencing Law and Policy. The court emphasized the historical confidentiality of juvenile proceedings. The opinion is here.
How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Some Thoughts on Sexually Violent Predator Laws
Posted on September 10, 2009I spent about two weeks this past summer serving on a jury, and another four weeks explaining how I ended up getting chosen. (One answer is that, when the trial judge is a member of your school's Board of Visitors,...
Supreme Court Cases, Past and Present
Posted on September 10, 2009CrimProf has now summarized the criminal law and procedure cases from last term and previewed those for which cert has been granted for the coming term. In addition, we will summarize new cases on which review is granted throughout the...
Grosso on the Domestic Discount
Posted on September 10, 2009Catherine M. Grosso (Michigan State University - College of Law), David C. Baldus, (University of Iowa - College of Law), and George G. Woodworth, (University of Iowa - Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science) have posted Role of Intimacy in...
Mosteller & Broun on Evidentiary Privileges and the Fourth Amendment
Posted on September 10, 2009Robert P. Mosteller and Kenneth S. Broun (pictured at right)(both of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - School of Law) have posted The Danger to Confidential Communications in the Mismatch between the Fourth Amendment?s 'Reasonable Expectation of Privacy'...
"Unproven Forensic Evidence: What to Do Next?"
Posted on September 10, 2009That's the title of a story by Caleb Groos at FindLaw discussing hearings by the Senate Judiciary Committee on how to improve forensics. The hearings follow last February's release of a report by the National Academy of Sciences addressing problems...
Featured Download: Podgor on Corporate Criminality and Compliance
Posted on September 09, 2009Ellen S. Podgor (Stetson University College of Law) has posted an intriguing manuscript, Educating Compliance (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming), on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The most effective way to achieve corporate compliance is to have individuals comply with...
Van Harten on Adjudication and Secret Evidence
Posted on September 09, 2009Gus Van Harten (Osgoode Hall Law School) has posted Weaknesses of Adjudication in the Face of Secret Evidence (International Journal of Evidence and Proof, Vol. 13, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Since 2001, governments in Canada and the...
California Seeks USSC Delay of Prisoner Release
Posted on September 09, 2009ScotusBlog reports on the state's application to the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay of the order to release 46,000 prisoners from state prisons over the next two years to relieve overcrowding. The link to the stay application is here.
China's Approach to Drunk Driving
Posted on September 09, 2009Douglas Berman has a helpful post over at Sentencing Law and Policy. It is illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol level of .02 or above--the usual U.S. level is .08--but enforcement is typically lax. Now, high-profile cases with deaths resulting...
"Mexican attorney general's resignation shows failure of prohibition strategy to stop drug trafficking"
Posted on September 09, 2009That the title of a commentary by David Borden, executive director of StoptheDrugWar.org, at Jurist. Mr. Borden attributes the increase in drug violence in Mexico in part to President Calderon's effort to crack down on traffickers.
Featured Download: Bray on Power Rules
Posted on September 08, 2009Teachers of criminal procedure are familiar with "prophylactic rules," and teachers of substantive criminal law are familiar with what are sometimes called "nonconsummate offenses" (like possession offenses). Samuel Bray (Associate-in-Law, Columbia Law School) argues that these rules are part of...
Posts You May Have Missed over the Holiday Weekend
Posted on September 08, 2009Friday: Previewing the Coming Term (Part 14): Briscoe v. Virginia Featured Download: Logan on Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws Howe on Race, Death and Disproportionality Saturday: Sarma on Kennedy v. Louisiana "Cheney Is Wrong: There Is Precedent for the...
Johnston on Drugs, Dogs, and the Fourth Amendment
Posted on September 08, 2009James B. Johnston (Seton Hall University - School of Law) has posted Drugs, Dogs, and the Fourth Amendment: An Analysis of Justice Stevens' Opinion in Illinois V. Caballes on SSRN. Here is the abstract: When a drug dealer delivers illegal...
"al-Kidd v. Ashcroft: Is Pretextual Use of the Material Witness Statute Unconstitutional?"
Posted on September 08, 2009That's the title of Orin Kerr's helpful post over at The Volokh Conspiracy. The bottom line(s) (after substantial analysis): First, the rejection of absolute immunity seems right. Second, the Fourth Amendment holding seems possible but rather unlikely, and in general...
Normative Theory and Legal Reform: Indoor Prostitution in Rhode Island
Posted on September 08, 2009The connection is illustrated in a recent Wall Street Journal article, Legal Prostitution under Pressure in Rhode Island: All forms of prostitution were illegal in the state until 1980, when legislators -- while amending the existing law to speed up....
McDaniel v. Brown Taken off Court's Argument Calendar
Posted on September 08, 2009The Court's unusual action in this regard is noted at Crime and Consequences. The case involves a sufficiency of the evidence claim in a habeas case involving an underlying sexual assault conviction. CrimProf summarized the issues and arguments of the...
Johnston on Death Penalty Abolition
Posted on September 07, 2009James B. Johnston ( Seton Hall University - School of Law) has posted Executing Capital Punishment Via Case Study: A Socratic Chat About New Jersey's Abolition of the Death Penalty and Convincing Other States to Follow Suit (Notre Dame Journal...
Featured Download: Cassell on Victim Impact Statements
Posted on September 07, 2009If you want to introduce your students to the range of issues involved in considering the wisdom of victim impact statements, a recent manuscript by Paul G. Cassell (University of Utah - S.J. Quinney College of Law) titled In Defense...
Justice Scalia on Originalism at the University of San Diego
Posted on September 06, 2009On Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, Justice Scalia taught classes and otherwise interacted with students and faculty at the law school. The highlight was a large public event, attended by over 600 students and members of the community,...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on September 06, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days for the criminal law and procedure journals are here. The usual disclaimers apply.. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 332 Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in 'Acquaintance Rape' Cases...
Inadequacy of Criminal Prosecution in Computer Security Cases
Posted on September 06, 2009Anita Ramasastry (University of Washington School of Law) has a helpful commentary on the subject at FindLaw entitled Heartbreak over Heartland: Why Prosecution for Data Breaches Isn't Enough.
The Marginal Benefit (or Not) of "Enhanced Interrogation"
Posted on September 06, 2009Ali H. Soufan, a former FBI special agent, concludes after a review of recently released documents that the "enhanced interrogation" techniques yielded almost no information that had not already been acquired through tradiional interrogation techniques...
Sarma on Kennedy v. Louisiana
Posted on September 05, 2009Bidish Sarma has posted Still in Search of a Unifying Principle: What Kennedy v. Louisiana and the Supreme Court?s Denial of the State?s Petition for Rehearing Signal for the Future (Yale Law Journal Pocket Part, Vol. 118, pp. 55-60, 2008)...
Concerns about French Criminal Procedure
Posted on September 05, 2009The title of the commentary at Jurist is Reforming Criminal Procedure in France, written by Judith Sunderland (senior researcher for Western Europe at Human Rights Watch) and William Bourdon (a criminal lawyer and a member of Human Rights Watch?s Paris...
"Cheney Is Wrong: There Is Precedent for the Torture Investigation"
Posted on September 05, 2009That's the headline on an interesting commentary by Steve Sheppard (University of Arkansas School of Law) at FindLaw regarding the investigation by Attorney General Holder into interrogation practices during the Bush administration. The crux: Cheney argues that this investigation poses...
Hooray for College Football!
Posted on September 05, 2009The first weekend of the college football season is a big treat for sports fans everywhere, and an even bigger treat for those of us who have spent our summer watching the San Diego Padres first play themselves hopelessly out...
Featured Download: Logan on Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws
Posted on September 04, 2009Wayne A. Logan (Florida State University College of Law) has posted the preface to his new book from Stanford University Press, Knowledge as Power: Criminal Registration and Community Notification Laws in America, on SSRN. The book is the first extended...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 14): Briscoe v. Virginia
Posted on September 04, 2009[This is the fourteenth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term.....
Howe on Race, Death and Disproportionality
Posted on September 04, 2009Scott Howe (Chapman University - School of Law) has posted Race, Death and Disproportionality on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Statistical studies showing unconscious racial bias in capital selection matter under the eighth amendment. In McCleskey v. Kemp, the Court...
On Schauer on Brain-Based Lie Detection (Kolber)
Posted on September 03, 2009Over the last several years, researchers have been trying to develop brain-based methods of detecting lies. The overwhelming consensus among neuroscientists is that such techniques are unreliable, particularly in real-world settings. That hasn't stopped at least a couple of companies...
Featured Download: Levine on Women Who Seduce Adolescent Boys
Posted on September 03, 2009Kay L. Levine (Emory University School of Law) has posted an interesting manuscript, When Gender Meets Sex: An Exploratory Study of Women Who Seduce Adolescent Boys (William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law, Vol. 15, Issue 2, 2009),...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 13): Weyhrauch v. United States
Posted on September 03, 2009[This is the thirteenth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term.....
Culp on Prison Privatization
Posted on September 03, 2009Richard Culp (City University of New York - Department of Public Management) has posted Prison Privatization Turns Twenty-Five: The Evolution of a Mature Private Prison Industry in the United States on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper examines the...
Pfizer: Biggest Fine Ever
Posted on September 03, 2009The drug company agreed to pay $2.3 billion to settle civil and criminal allegations that it illegally marketed a painkiller. Of the total, $1.2 billion is desginated as a criminal fine. The New York Times article is here, and Ellen...
Featured Download: Mannheimer on Deterrence and the Premeditation-Deliberation Formula
Posted on September 02, 2009Michael Mannheimer (Northern Kentucky University - Salmon P. Chase College of Law) has posted Not the Crime But the Cover-Up: A Deterrence Based Rationale for the Premeditation-Deliberation Formula on SSRN--an interesting look at a long-standing problem...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 12): United States v. Comstock
Posted on September 02, 2009[This is the twelfth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
"Strippergate" Appeal
Posted on September 02, 2009My colleague, Shaun Martin, has an interesting post over at his California Appellate Report blog on a case out of the Ninth Circuit today involving alleged bribery of San Diego city councilmen which came to be called "Strippergate" locally. (For...
Gluzman on Universal Jurisdiction
Posted on September 02, 2009Helena Gluzman (University of Toronto) has posted On Universal Jurisdiction - Birth, Life and a Near-Death Experience? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper investigates the topic of universal jurisdiction, ie the supranational prosecution and repression - without the...
"Case Shows Limits of Sex Offender Alert Programs "
Posted on September 02, 2009The headline of an article in today's New York Times. Here's the lead: In all 50 states, registries of sex offenders have grown sophisticated and accessible in recent years, a response to high-profile attacks on children. People can search their...
Exum on Honesty and Proportionality in Federal Sentencing
Posted on September 01, 2009Jelani Jefferson Exum (University of Kansas School of Law) has posted Why March to a Uniform Beat?: Adding Honesty and Proportionality to the Individualized Tunes of Federal Sentencing on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Federal Sentencing Guidelines were initially...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 11): Black v. United States
Posted on September 01, 2009[This is the eleventh in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Messineo on Extraordinary Renditions and State Obligations to Prosecute Torture
Posted on September 01, 2009Francesco Messineo (University of Cambridge) has posted The Abu Omar Case in Italy: ?Extraordinary Renditions? and State Obligations to Criminalize and Prosecute Torture Under the UN Torture Convention. Here is the abstract: This article deals with state obligations under the...
"Innocent But Dead"
Posted on September 01, 2009That's the headline on the op-ed piece in the New York Times about the 2004 Texas execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of starting a fire that killed his children. He had turned down a plea bargain that would have...
"A Casualty of the Technology Revolution: ?Locational Privacy?"
Posted on September 01, 2009The title of the opinion piece in today's New York Times. The piece discusses a report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which you can find here.
BNA's 2008-09 Term in Review: Criminal Law and Procedure
Posted on September 01, 2009Ellen Podgor over at White Collar Crime Prof Blog has linked to this useful recap.
Reaction to Holder's Appointment of Prosecutor to Examine Abuse of Detainees
Posted on August 31, 2009The New York Times has a story here. The lead is criticism from former vice president Dick Cheney. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) expresses ambivalence about the wisdom of the inquiry.
Brookes on Restorative Justice and Work Related Death
Posted on August 31, 2009Derek R. Brookes (University of Melbourne - School of Social and Political Sciences (Criminology)) has posted Restorative Justice and Work-Related Death: Consultation Report (Derek R. Brookes, RESTORATIVE JUSTICE AND WORK-RELATED DEATH: CONSULTATION REPORT, Creative Ministries Network, 2009) on SSRN...
New Guidelines on Border Searches of Laptop Computers
Posted on August 31, 2009Previously, CrimProf noted that the ACLU had filed a lawsuit demanding information on US policy on searches of laptop computers at the border. The Ninth Circuit has ruled that the constitution does not preclude warrantless and suspicionless searches of laptop...
Featured Download: Miller on Putting Practice into Criminal Procedure Theory
Posted on August 31, 2009Eric J. Miller (Saint Louis University - School of Law) has posted an ambituous assessment of criminal procedure doctrine and scholarship on SSRN entitled Putting the Practice into Theory. Here is the abstract: Modern criminal procedure, or especially at the...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 10): Florida v. Powell
Posted on August 31, 2009[This is the tenth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads
Posted on August 30, 2009for manuscripts announced in the last 60 days for the criminal law and procedure journals are here. The usual disclaimers apply.. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 298 Culture, Cognition, and Consent: Who Perceives What, and Why, in 'Acquaintance Rape' Cases...
Schauer on Lie Detection, Neuroscience, and the Mistaken Conflation of Legal and Scientific Norms
Posted on August 30, 2009Frederick Schauer (University of Virginia School of Law) has posted Can Bad Science Be Good Evidence: Lie Detection, Neuroscience, and the Mistaken Conflation of Legal and Scientific Norms on SSRN. Here is the abstract: As the capabilities of cognitive neuroscience,...
Cheliotis on Human Agency in the Implementation of Criminal Justice Policy
Posted on August 29, 2009Leonidas K. Cheliotis (Queen Mary University of London) has posted How Iron is the Iron Cage of New Penology? The Role of Human Agency in the Implementation of Criminal Justice Policy on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article addresses...
Featured Download: Gershowitz on Eliminating Counties' Role in the Death Penalty
Posted on August 29, 2009Adam M. Gershowitz (University of Houston Law Center) has posted Statewide Capital Punishment: The Case for Eliminating Counties' Role in the Death Penalty (Vanderbilt Law Review, Vol. 62, 2010) on SSRN. Doug Berman gives the piece a thumbs-up over at...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part Nine): Graham v. Florida
Posted on August 29, 2009[This is the ninth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Previewing the Coming Term (Part Eight): Sullivan v. Florida
Posted on August 28, 2009[This is the eighth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Hasnas on Corporate Criminal Liability
Posted on August 28, 2009John Hasnas (Georgetown University) has posted The Centenary of a Mistake: One Hundred Years of Corporate Criminal Liability (American Criminal Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article argues that there is no justification for corporate criminal...
"ACLU lawsuit demands information on US border laptop search policy"
Posted on August 28, 2009the story is at Jurist.
"Did the Supreme Court Recognize an Innocent Person's Right Not to Be Executed?"
Posted on August 28, 2009The title of an interesting column on FindLaw by Michael Dorf (Cornell Law School). Over at Sentencing Law and Policy, Doug Berman links to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution discussing the reaction of the district court judge to whom...
Conference: Philosophical Foundations of Criminal Law at Rutgers-Newark
Posted on August 28, 2009[If you'd like CrimProf to list a conference that might be of interest to criminal law and/or criminal procedure professors, please send the details to crimprofblog@gmail.com.] On Friday and Saturday, September 25-26, 2009, Rutgers School of Law-Newark will present a...
Yung on the Emerging Criminal War on Sex Offenders
Posted on August 27, 2009Corey Rayburn Yung (The John Marshall Law School) has posted The Emerging Criminal War on Sex Offenders on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article addresses four central questions. First, what is the difference between normal law enforcement policy and...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 6): Pottawattamie County v. McGhee
Posted on August 27, 2009[This is the sixth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
More on the Ninth Circuit's Steroids/Computer Search En Banc Opinion
Posted on August 27, 2009The New York Times covered it in the sports section. CrimProf mentioned yesterday that Orin Kerr was blogging about this at The Volokh conspiracy, and he has more today, asking about retroactivity questions and stating, "I've been working in this...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part Seven): Wood v. Allen
Posted on August 27, 2009[This is the seventh in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Featured Download: Leon on Work Release as Economic Stimulus
Posted on August 27, 2009At the very least, this manuscript has timeliness on its side. Chrysanthi S. Leon (University of Delaware - Sociology and Criminal Justice) has posted Working Paper: Work Release as Economic Stimulus: Overview of Current and Potential Usage in the 50...
Cohen and Smith on Death Qualification
Posted on August 26, 2009Ben Cohen and Robert J. Smith (The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice) have posted The Death of Death-Qualification on SSRN: Here is the abstract: The Framers understood criminal petit juries to be responsible for making determinations of...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 4): Padilla v. Kentucky
Posted on August 26, 2009[This is the fourth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Alexander on Walen on Alexander (et al.) on Crime, Culpability, and Moral Luck (Alexander)
Posted on August 26, 2009Last week, with tongue in cheek, I titled a blog post about my new book (with Kimberly Ferzan) as ?The Last Word on Criminal Law.? As if to demonstrate to the whole world that I was only kidding, Alec Walen...
Ninth Circuit Issues En Banc Opinion in Steroid/Computer Search Case
Posted on August 26, 2009The opinion in US v. Comprehensive Drug Testing, Inc., is here. Orin Kerr is blogging about it at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 5): Smith v. Spisak
Posted on August 26, 2009[This is the fifth in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Miller on Arizona v. Gant and Buie Searches
Posted on August 26, 2009Colin Miller (John Marshall Law School) has posted Stranger Than Dictum: Why Arizona v. Gant Compels the Conclusion that Suspicionless Buie Searches Incident to Lawful Arrests are Unconstitutional on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In its 1990 opinion in Maryland...
The CIA's Secret Interrogation Program
Posted on August 26, 2009and documents recently released about it are discussed in the New York Times. The Times' bottom line: But the strong impression that emerges from the documents, many with long passages blacked out for secrecy, is by no means one of...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 2): Johnson v. United States
Posted on August 25, 2009[This is the second in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Walen on Crime, Culpability and Moral Luck
Posted on August 25, 2009Alec D. Walen (Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy) has posted Crime, Culpability and Moral Luck: Comment on Alexander, Ferzan and Morse (Law and Philosophy , Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Crime and Culpability, by Larry Alexander, Kimberly...
International Human Rights, Forensic Evaluations, and Correctional Conditions Litigation
Posted on August 25, 2009Two recent manuscripts address international human rights law as it bears on two separate problems related to the criminal process. Michael L. Perlin (New York Law School) and Valerie Rae McClain (Neurology and Physical Therapy Centers of Tampa Bay) have...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 3): McDaniel v. Brown
Posted on August 25, 2009[This is the third in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Wexler on Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Criminal Law Practice, and Relationship-Centered Lawyering
Posted on August 25, 2009David B. Wexler (University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law) has posted Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Criminal Law Practice, and Relationship-Centered Lawyering on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This brief essay,prepared for a Chapman law school conference on therapeutic...
Featured Download: Kolber on How to Improve Empirical Desert
Posted on August 24, 2009I join Larry Solum in highly recommending this piece by my colleague, Adam J. Kolber, entitled How to Improve Empirical Desert (Brooklyn Law Review, Symposium: 'Is Morality Universal and Should the Law Care?', 2010), to those interested in criminal law...
Previewing the Coming Term (Part 1): Maryland v. Shatzer
Posted on August 24, 2009[This is the first in a series of posts by CrimProf?s graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), previewing the criminal law and procedure cases scheduled for argument in the U.S. Supreme Court this coming term....
Saxer on Banishment of Sex Offenders
Posted on August 24, 2009Shelley Ross Saxer (Pepperdine University - School of Law) has posted Banishment of Sex Offenders: Liberty, Protectionism, Justice, and Alternatives (Washington University Law Review, Vol.. 86, p. 1397, 2009) on SSRN: Here is the abstract: Although most sex offenses are...
More on Dershowitz, Scalia, and Davis
Posted on August 24, 2009Last week, CrimProf noted some criticisms of Justice Scalia's opinion in the Davis case, including Alan Dershowitz's claim that Catholic teaching is inconsistent with Justice Scalia's doubts about whether actual innocence would state a cognizable federal habeas claim ...
Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Law and Procedure Journals
Posted on August 23, 2009are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 205 Unwitting Sanctions: Understanding Anti-Bribery Legislation as Economic Sanctions against Emerging Markets Andrew Brady Spalding, University of Mumbai (Bombay), 2 144 Minds, Brains, and Norms Michael S...
Jury Trials in Japan
Posted on August 23, 2009Raneta Lawson Mack (Creighton University School of Law) has an op-ed piece at Jurist describing the new system (featuring jurors deliberating along with judges) and identifying challenges ahead. Among the concerns: Japan has an exceptionally high conviction rate (> 99%...
Van Der Meulen & Koops on Identity Theft in Multi-Level Governance
Posted on August 22, 2009Nicole van der Meulen and Bert-Jaap Koops (Tilburg University - Faculty of Law) have posted The Challenge of Identity Theft in Multi-Level Governance; Towards a Co-ordinated Action Plan for Protecting and Empowering Victims (GLOBALISATION, VICTIMS AND EMPOWERMENT, STUDIES IN GLOBAL...
Kadens on Capital Punishment for Bankruptcy in 18th-Century England
Posted on August 22, 2009Emily Kadens (University of Texas at Austin - School of Law) has posted The Last Bankrupt Hanged: Capital Punishment for Bankruptcy in 18th-Century England on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper frames the history of the Anglo-American bankruptcy tradition...
Conference Program: LatCrit XIV
Posted on August 21, 2009CrimProf is glad to post notices about upcoming conferences of potential interest to other crimprofs. Send your information to crimprofblog@gmail.com. The full preliminary conference program schedule for LatCrit XIV and the LatCrit/SALT New Faculty Development Workshop, hosted by American University...
The Last Word on Criminal Law (Alexander)
Posted on August 21, 2009All of you interested in criminal law theory should take a look at Kim Ferzan's, Stephen Morse's, and my new book, Crime and Culpability: A Theory of Criminal Law (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009). In it we ask what criminal law...
Del Ponte , Sudetic & Erlinder on Humanity's Worst Criminals
Posted on August 21, 2009Carla Del Ponte , Charles Sudetic and Peter Erlinder (William Mitchell College of Law) have posted Book Review - Madame Prosecutor: Confrontations with Humanity?s Worst Criminals, and the Culture of Impunity on SSRN. Here is the abstract: It is not...
Asimow on Law and Lawyers on Television
Posted on August 21, 2009Michael Asimow (University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law) has posted Lawyers in Your Living Room! Law on Television (LAWYERS IN YOUR LIVING ROOM! LAW ON TELEVISION, Michael Asimow, ed., ABA Press, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the...
Hallevy on the Defense Attorney as Mediator in Plea Bargains
Posted on August 21, 2009Gabriel Hallevy (Ono Academic College, Faculty of Law) has posted The Defense Attorney as Mediator in Plea Bargains (Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this article, it will be...
Juvenile Life Sentences Without Possibility of Parole
Posted on August 21, 2009Sherry F. Colb (Cornell Law School) previews the Supreme Court's upcoming cases on this option, and advocates that it be unconstitutional for non-homicide offenses and, eventually, for homicides too, in a column at FindLaw.
"Federal judge dismisses challenge to overseas wiretapping law"
Posted on August 21, 2009Jurist has a post with links to the opinion and other documents here.
Drunk Driving on the Rise Among Women
Posted on August 21, 2009The study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is described here.
Release of Lockerbie Bomber
Posted on August 21, 2009Douglas Berman has a helpful post on this at Sentencing Law and Policy.
Changes in Felony Murder Doctrine (Ramirez)
Posted on August 20, 2009The California Supreme Court has long been influential in shaping the contours of the felony murder rule, and two of its recent cases have limited the reach of the rule in California and may be influential beyond the state. Most...
Braman on Families and the Moral Economy of Incarceration
Posted on August 20, 2009Donald Braman (George Washngton University - Law School) has posted Families and the Moral Economy of Incarceration (CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Judah & Bryant, eds., 2004) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This chapter examines the moral economy of incarceration from the...
Scott on the "Booker" Revolution
Posted on August 20, 2009Ryan W. Scott (Indiana University Maurer School of Law - Bloomington) has posted In Search of the Booker Revolution on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In 2005, the Supreme Court in United States v. Booker rendered the United States Sentencing...
Dershowitz and Campos on Justice Scalia and the Death Penalty
Posted on August 20, 2009Alan Dershowitz (Harvard Law School) argues that Justice Scalia's views on innocence and the death penalty are incompatible with Catholic thought in a post at The Daily Beast. Here's the language from Justice Scalia's recent opinion in the Davis case...
Featured Download: Laurin on Rationing of Remedies
Posted on August 20, 2009Constitutional criminal procedural rights can be enforced through civil actions for damages and through remedies that are part of the criminal proceeding itself, such as exclusionary rules. For a brief and interesting critique of the Court's approach to choosing among...
Wong on the Responsibility to Protect
Posted on August 20, 2009Jarrod Wong (University of the Pacific - McGeorge School of Law) has posted Reconstructing the Responsibility to Protect in the Wake of Cyclones and Separatism (Tulane Law Review, Vol. 84, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Article fundamentally...
Grossman on Plea Bargaining
Posted on August 19, 2009Steven P. Grossman (University of Baltimore - School of Law) has posted An Honest Approach to Plea Bargaining (American Journl of Trial Advocacy, Vol. 29, No. 1, 2005) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this Article, the author argues...
Last Term's Opinions
Posted on August 19, 2009In a vital service to those of us who cannot remember what we had for lunch yesterday, and a useful service to many others, CrimProf's graduate fellow, Peter Stockburger (University of San Diego Class of 2009), pulls together the reporter's...
Grosso, Baldus & Woodworth on Civilian Aggravating Circumstances and the Military Death Penalty
Posted on August 19, 2009Catherine M. Grosso (Michigan State University - College of Law), David C. Baldus (University of Iowa - College of Law) and George G. Woodworth (University of Iowa - Department of Statistics & Actuarial Science) have posted The Impact of Civilian...
Mitchell on Retroactive Amelioration
Posted on August 19, 2009S. David Mitchell (University of Missouri) has posted In With the New, Out With the Old: Expanding the Scope of Retroactive Amelioration on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The legislative decision to amend a statute and reduce a sentence but...
Are You Tired of Teaching Necessity by Talking about Guys Eating Each Other on a Boat?
Posted on August 19, 2009How about discussing whether the benefits of wounding live pigs and using them to train Marines on how to treat battlefield injuries outweigh the harm to the animals. The pigs are under anesthesia and supposedly feel no pain. Opponents argue...
Feller on Jurisdictional Entrapment in Child Exploitation Prosecutions
Posted on August 19, 2009Leonid Feller (University of Michigan Law School) has posted The Jurisdictional Entrapment Defense: An Analytic Framework for Claims of Manufactured Jurisdiction in Child Exploitation Prosecutions (Kentucky Law Journal, Vol. 98, December 2009) on SSRN...
More on Innocence and Executions
Posted on August 19, 2009The New York Times editorializes here in favor of a constitutional right against execution of those who can provide clear and convincing evidence of their innocence.
The Limited Impact of Lawrence v. Texas in Criminal Cases
Posted on August 19, 2009Kelly Strader (Southwestern Law School) sets forth the case in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times. .
Guest Blogger James J. Duane (Regent Law School): The Extraordinary Mystery of Briscoe v. Virginia
Posted on August 18, 2009[Last week, Crimprof noted this interesting email to the Evidence Law listserve from Professor Duane and asked if he would share it, in slightly modified form, with our readers.] In Briscoe v. Virginia (No. 07-11191), filed in May 2008, Professor...
Fabricating DNA Evidence (Kolber)
Posted on August 18, 2009Today's New York Times has an article about fabricating DNA evidence in a laboratory. Unlike naturally-occurring DNA that could merely be planted at a crime scene, fabricated DNA would not require access to an original, physical specimen of a particular...
Ginsburg and Shaffer on Empirical Work in International Law
Posted on August 18, 2009Tom Ginsburg (University of Chicago Law School) and Gregory Shaffer (University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - School of Law) have posted Empirical Work in International Law on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Empirical work in international law is rapidly....
Simpson on Corporate Criminal Intent
Posted on August 18, 2009William A. Simpson (Metropolitan State College of Denver) has posted Corporate Criminal Intent on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper is about the corporation as criminal defendant. In common-law legal systems a fully constituted criminal offence normally requires proof...
Tam on Remedies for Abuse of Executive Powers
Posted on August 18, 2009Christian J. Tams (University of Glasgow, School of Law) has posted The Abuse of Executive Powers: What Remedies? (COUNTERTERRORISM: DEMOCRACY'S CHALLENGE, Bianchi & Keller, Oxford, 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This paper addresses remedies available to victims of...
A Recent Interesting Case on Computer Searches
Posted on August 18, 2009The Ninth Circuit's decision in United States v. Payton is discussed in this interesting post by Orin Kerr over at The Volokh Conspiracy.
Greetings from the CrimProfs at the University of San Diego!
Posted on August 17, 2009In my time at the University of San Diego School of Law, I?ve had the privilege of working with highly talented colleagues across a broad range of subject matters. In my own areas of special interest--criminal law and procedure--I have...
Featured Download: Joh on Breaking the Law to Enforce It
Posted on August 17, 2009CrimProf hopes to provide for criminal law and procedure types the same convenient method for keeping up with recent SSRN posts that my former San Diego colleague, Larry Solum, provides for the general legal theory crowd on his Legal Theory...
Raban on Suggestive and Necessary Identification Procedures
Posted on August 17, 2009Ofer Raban (University of Oregon - School of Law) has posted On Suggestive and Necessary Identification Procedures on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Due Process doctrine allows criminal defendants to challenge the admissibility of suggestive identification procedures and consequent in-court...
Ristroph on State Intentions and the Law of Punishment
Posted on August 17, 2009Alice Ristroph (Seton Hall University - School of Law) has posted State Intentions and the Law of Punishment (Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, vol. 98, No. 4, pp. 1353-1406, Summer 2008) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Forget dogs:...
"Getting Smart on Crime"
Posted on August 17, 2009The New York Times published this op-ed piece on Saturday. which Douglas Berman summarized and discussed on his excellent Sentencing Law and Policy blog. The post also usefully collects previous posts addressing similar themes--that our long-standing attraction to harsh sentences...
Obvious and Ugly Surveillance as Crime-Fighting Technique
Posted on August 17, 2009The Wall Street Journal reports on what's playing in Peoria. Here's the lead: PEORIA, Ill. -- This industrial city, hard hit by the recession, has found a new, low-budget way to fight crime: Park an unmanned, former Brink's truck bristling...
Junior Scholars Paper Competition Deadline Sept. 1
Posted on August 17, 2009The chair of the AALS criminal justice section, David Harris (Pittsburgh), sends along the following information from the section's spring newsletter. If you are no longer junior yourself, pass the word on to a junior colleague: The Criminal Justice Section...
Top Ten Recent Criminal Law and Procedure Downloads
Posted on August 17, 2009CrimProf understands that manuscript downloads are not dispositive of manuscript quality, but downloads do provide some information about interest in recent drafts, and so here are the manuscripts most often downloaded from SSRN within the last 60 days...
USSC Issues Unusual Order in Death-Row Case Involving Innocence Claim
Posted on August 17, 2009Responding to an original writ of habeas corpus (filed originally in the Supreme Court rather than in a lower court), the Court today ordered a district court to "?receive testimony and make findings of fact as to whether evidence that...
Tuerkheimer on Control Killings
Posted on August 15, 2009Deborah Tuerkheimer (University of Maine School of Law and DePaul University - College of Law) has posted Control Killings (Texas Law Review, Vol. 87, pp. 117-124, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A defendant on trial for murdering his...
More Thoughts on Kansas v. Ventris
Posted on May 06, 2009Last week, I wrote about Kansas v. Ventris in which the U.S. Supreme Court decided that statements taken from a criminal defendant in the absence of counsel can be used to impeach his testimony at trial without violating his Sixth...
Thoughts on Kansas v. Ventris
Posted on April 30, 2009The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday decided that statements taken from a criminal defendant in the absence of counsel can be used to impeach his testimony at trial without violating his Sixth Amendment right to the assistance of counsel during interrogations,...
Constitution Project Study IDs Flaws in Public Defense System
Posted on April 15, 2009The American legal system guarantees "equal justice under law." Those words, carved in stone on the facade of the Supreme Court, are a constitutional promise that everyone will have the same opportunity for justice. But a new report by the...
Courts Look to Fines and Fees in Tough Budget Times
Posted on April 06, 2009Valerie Gainous paid her debt to society, but almost went to jail because of a debt to Florida?s courts. In 1996, she was convicted of writing bad checks; she paid restitution, performed community service and thought she was finished with...
Judge Prohibits Blackberry Use by Jurors
Posted on March 31, 2009There will be no Twittering in the courtroom. As jury selection in the blockbuster trial of famed philanthropist Brooke Astor's son opened Monday, a Manhattan judge told 200 potential jurors to put away their BlackBerrys. "I understand there is a...
Supreme Court Rejects Peremptory Challenge Claim
Posted on March 31, 2009The U.S. Supreme Court today decided Rivera v. Illinois, No. 07-9995, unanimously rejecting the defendant's claim that the state trial court's erroneous denial of his peremptory challenge required a new trial. Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the Court, and...
Liptak Previews Strip Search Case
Posted on March 24, 2009Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on ? black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt ? the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade....
New Mexico Repeals Death Penalty
Posted on March 19, 2009As the New York Times reported yesterday, New Mexico became the second State in eighteen months to repeal the death penalty. Thirty-five States now authorize the death penalty while fifteen States and the District of Columbia do not [Mike Mannheimer].
Tamara Lawson on Hate Crimes and Prosecutorial Discretion
Posted on March 17, 2009Tamara F. Lawson, a professor at St. Thomas University School of Law (Florida), has posted an interesting article draft to SSRN, "'Whites Only Tree,' Hanging Nooses, No Crime? Limiting the Prosecutorial Veto for Hate Crimes in Louisiana and Across America,"slated...
New Phenomenon: "Google Mistrials?"
Posted on March 17, 2009Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge?s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when...
Heller "Firing Blanks?"
Posted on March 16, 2009About nine months ago, the Supreme Court breathed new life into the Second Amendment, ruling for the first time that it protects an individual right to own guns. Since then, lower federal courts have decided more than 80 cases interpreting...
Crim. Prof. Gerard Lynch May be Heading to Second Circuit
Posted on March 14, 2009The New York Times reported on Tuesday: "For the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York, [Obama administration] officials said the White House had settled on elevating Judge Gerard E. Lynch, a Columbia law...
SCOTUS Decides Speedy Trial Clause Case
Posted on March 14, 2009On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Vermont v. Brillon. At issue was whether delays in bringing a defendant to trial that are attributable to his court-appointed lawyers should be counted against the prosecution for purposes of the Speedy Trial...
Fatal Police Shooting of Mentally Ill Hostage-Taker Did Not Violate ADA
Posted on February 24, 2009Police officers did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act when they fatally shot a mentally ill hostage-taker, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held Feb. 12 (Waller v. Danville, Va., 4th Cir., No. 07-2099, 2/12/09). The...
Study Shows Immigration Offenses Increasing the Number of Latino Federal Convicts
Posted on February 18, 2009The sharp growth in illegal immigration and increased enforcement of immigration laws have dramatically altered the ethnic composition of offenders sentenced in federal courts. In 2007, Latinos accounted for 40 percent of all those convicted of federal crimes and one...
Preserving DNA Evidence to Prove the Potential Innocence of a Man Scheduled for Death Today
Posted on February 11, 2009Today the Innocence Project of Florida (IPF) is filing a motion to preserve evidence in the case of Wayne Tompkins, who is scheduled to be executed at 6 PM EST by lethal injection. Tompkins was convicted of murdering Lisa DeCarr...
DOJ Maintains State Secrets Position from Bush Administration
Posted on February 10, 2009In the first major national security case of the Obama administration, lawyers representing the government took the exact same position as the Bush administration. Government attorneys asked a judge to throw out a torture case, citing the need to preserve...
Second Circuit Holds Second Amendment Not Applicable to States
Posted on February 10, 2009The Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms does not apply to override state firearms bans, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit declared Jan. 28. Under the incorporation doctrine, only certain provisions of the Bill...
Federal Sex Offender Law Faces State Resistance
Posted on February 08, 2009An aggressive federal effort to keep track of sexual offenders is at risk of collapse because of objections from states and legal challenges from sex offenders and others. The effort, approved by Congress three years ago, requires all states to...
Seventh Circuit Affirms Iraqi Spy's Conviction
Posted on February 06, 2009The 7th Circuit refused to overturn the conviction of a former spy for Saddam Hussein who came to the United States as an unwitting "sleeper agent" for the Iraqi Intelligence Service and obtained U.S. citizenship by lying on his application....
Judge Permits Flag-Desecration Prosecution in Nebraska
Posted on February 04, 2009A Sarpy County judge has denied a challenge to Nebraska?s flag desecration statute raised by a Kansas woman who argued it violates her right to free speech. Judge Todd Hutton ruled Tuesday that prosecutors can proceed with their case against...
"Defining `Cruel and Unusual' When Offender is 13"
Posted on February 02, 2009From today's New York Times: "In 1989, someone raped a 72-year-old woman in Pensacola, Fla. Joe Sullivan was 13 at the time, and he admitted that he and two older friends had burglarized the woman?s home earlier that day. But...
New Article Spotlight: Challenging the Practical Importance of the Justification/Excuse Distinction
Posted on February 02, 2009Arizona CrimProf Jack Chin has posted The Justification/Excuse Distinction: An Argument for its Practical Irrelevance on SSRN. The abstract: "For decades, Joshua Dressler, Paul Robinson, Reid Fontaine and others have debated the distinction between justification and excuse defenses...
Liptak Considers the Future of the Exclusionary Rule
Posted on January 31, 2009In 1983, a young lawyer in the Reagan White House was hard at work on what he called in a memorandum ?the campaign to amend or abolish the exclusionary rule? ? the principle that evidence obtained by police misconduct cannot...
Death Row Inmate Offers Help to Victim's Family
Posted on January 30, 2009From MSNBC.com: "COLUMBIA, S.C. - Monica Caison figured it was worth a shot, so she fired off a letter, a single paragraph, to the man on death row for kidnapping and killing Alice Donovan during a two-week, 2,300-mile crime spree....
Federal Judge Orders All Plea Agreements Posted Online
Posted on January 30, 2009From the National Law Journal, NLJ.com: MIAMI ? Chief Judge Federico Moreno of the Southern District of Florida, bucking the wishes of the U.S. Department of Justice, has ordered all plea agreements to be posted online. In an order issued...
Judge Rejects Obama's Request for Stay in Guantanamo Trial
Posted on January 30, 2009From Law.com: "A military judge at Guantanamo on Thursday rejected a White House request to suspend a hearing for the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviews how America puts...
Two Judges Agree to Plead Guilty to Kickback Scheme Involving Juvenile Offenders
Posted on January 27, 2009Two Pennsylvania judges agreed Monday to plead guilty to fraud charges accusing them of taking $2.6 million in kickbacks in return for placing juvenile offenders into certain detention facilities. The plea agreements for Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella and...
Defendant Invokes Morning Constitutional to Obtain New Trial Lawyer
Posted on January 27, 2009A mistrial was declared Monday when a home-invasion robbery suspect smeared human feces on his attorney's face then threw more at the jury. Weusi McGowan, 37, was upset because San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser refused to remove Deputy...
Governor Blagojevich's Criminal Defense Lawyer to Resign
Posted on January 26, 2009Gov. Rod Blagojevich's chief defense attorney announced Friday that he is bailing out of the fraud and bribery case against the governor, strongly hinting that his embattled client refused to listen to his advice. "I never require a client to...
SCOTUS Holds Pat Down of Car Passenger After Stop Justified if Based on Reasonable Suspicion
Posted on January 26, 2009In Arizona v. Johnson, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held today that, after a car is lawfully stopped for a traffic violation, the police may search a passenger as long as they have reasonable suspicion to believe the suspect is...
Federal Judicial Vacancies for Appointment by Obama Administration
Posted on January 22, 2009Courtesy of uscourts.gov, here is a list of the 55 federal judicial vacancies the Obama Administration will have the opportunity to fill by appointment. 18 of the vacancies are considered "judicial emergencies." [Michele Berry]
NPR: "Obama Orders Guantanamo Bay Prison Closure"
Posted on January 22, 2009NPR.org: On Day 2 of his presidency, Barack Obama signed executive orders "designed to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, prohibit extreme interrogation practices and revisit military tribunals for suspected terrorists. 'Shutting the detention facility is intended to show...
'The Disconnect Between the Streets and the Business Suites'
Posted on January 22, 2009(Baltimore, MD) Juvenile offenders brought from Baltimore detention centers, along with Baltimore PD representatives, school officials, social workers, and leaders from grass-roots organizations, participated in a panel discussion regarding street crime...
ABA Releases New Criminal Mental Health Reference Manual
Posted on January 22, 2009New: Criminal Mental Health and Disability Law, Evidence and Testimony: A Comprehensive Reference Manual for Lawyer, Judges and Criminal Justice Professionals Pre-order now with a 15% discount (January 2009) This Comprehensive Reference Manual examines both criminal mental health and disability...
CrimProf Richard Leo Comes Out With New Book
Posted on January 21, 2009CrimProf Richard Leo (University of San Francisco Law School), with co-author Tom Wells, has just published THE WRONG GUYS: MURDER, FALSE CONFESSIONS, AND THE NORFOLK FOUR (The New Press). On July 8, 1997, nineteen-year-old sailor Billy Bosko returned from a...
Obama's First Move as President
Posted on January 21, 2009Even before his adorable dance moves with First Lady Michelle (video here), President Obama's first move came in the criminal law arena-- an order via Defense Secretary Robert Gates to military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to request...
LawProfs Comment on Guantanamo
Posted on January 21, 2009Seton Hall LawProf Mark Denbeaux, Iowa LawProf Tung Yin, and UC Davis LawProf Diane Amann comment on the dilemma the Obama administration faces as it sifts through the Guantanamo cases. A "charge or release" policy seems to be the consensus;...
Plunging into Vacant Orifices in Vacant Sex Shop
Posted on January 21, 2009(Australia). An Aussie man has been arrested for repeatedly breaking and entering into an adult shop to have sex with a blow up doll. Her name is Jungle Jane and he didn't even stay to cuddle her (or so it...
Nassau to videotape interrogations in major crimes
Posted on January 19, 2009Nassau police are about to start videotaping all interrogations in homicide and serious robbery cases, a move that both law enforcement officials and defense lawyers say will make prosecutions more fair. Police and prosecutors said the videotapes will be useful...
Welcome To Inauguration Island, A Prostitution-Free Zone
Posted on January 19, 2009You invite a couple of million of your closest friends to the biggest bash your town has ever thrown. You extend bar hours nearly till dawn. You import thousands of cops to keep the streets safe. You commandeer every bit...
Stephen P. Garvey Cornell Professor of Criminal Law
Posted on January 18, 2009Stephen Garvey has written and taught in the areas of capital punishment, criminal law, and the philosophy of criminal law. Following his graduation from Yale Law School, Professor Garvey clerked for the Hon. Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of...
Remarks on Torture May Force New Administration?s Hand
Posted on January 18, 2009Just 14 months ago, at his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey frustrated and angered some senators by refusing to state that waterboarding, the near-drowning technique used on three prisoners by the Central Intelligence Agency, is in fact torture...
Tennessee Law Review Death Penalty Colloquium
Posted on January 18, 2009The Tennessee Law Review is preparing to host an exciting colloquium entitled "The Past, Present, and Future ofthe Death Penalty." The Colloquium will take place next month, February 6-7, at the University of Tennessee College of Law. The lineup includes...
Deep cover: New girl at Millington school partied, made friends -- and sought to score drugs
Posted on January 15, 2009The new student at Millington Central High School was freaking out in study hall. She'd just been talking to a boy about scoring some drugs one late September day when she turned to get her purse and couldn't find her...
Ruling keeps Oregon criminals from being resentenced
Posted on January 15, 2009A Marion County case resulted Wednesday in a U.S. Supreme Court decision that keeps hundreds of Oregon criminals from having to be resentenced. The case was argued Oct. 14, while Hardy Myers was still Oregon attorney general. The 5-4 decision...
Mistakes in fingerprint analysis trigger review of nearly 1,000 LAPD cases
Posted on January 15, 2009Los Angeles Police Department fingerprint examiners who falsely implicated at least two people in crimes have been linked to nearly 1,000 other criminal cases that authorities say must now be reviewed to ensure that similar errors weren't made. Nearly two...
Intelligence Court Affirms Wiretapping Powers
Posted on January 15, 2009A federal intelligence court, in a rare public opinion, issued a major ruling validating the power of the president and Congress to wiretap international phone calls and intercept e-mail messages without a specific court order, even when Americans? private communications...
In new tactic, L.A. goes after gangs' money
Posted on January 15, 2009The city of Los Angeles, plagued by 23,000 violent gang crimes since 2004, including 784 murders and 12,000 felony assaults, announced Tuesday that it had won its first civil judgment, for $5 million, against a criminal gang that had dominated...
New details emerge about murder scene, fake confessions
Posted on January 15, 2009Juror and courtroom spectators learned shocking details about the scene of the Truett Street murder and false leads that led police on a wild goose chase. By Danny Gallagher, McKinney Courier-Gazette Jurors in the Raul Cortez trial learned the gruesome...
Justices Say Evidence Is Valid Despite Police Error
Posted on January 15, 2009The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on drug and weapons charges, emphasizing that the exclusionary rule, which generally bars prosecutors from using evidence obtained by the police through improper searches, is far from absolute...
More on the Herring Case
Posted on January 14, 2009As Brooks posted below, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Herring v. U.S. today, continuing on its path of narrowing the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule. A couple of points jumped out at me as I read the opinion. First, the scope...
Supreme Court Narrows Exclusionary Rule
Posted on January 14, 2009The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the conviction of an Alabama man on drug and weapons charges, emphasizing that the exclusionary rule, which generally bars prosecutors from using evidence obtained by the police through improper searches, is far from absolute...
Incentive program gives prisoners second chance
Posted on January 14, 2009Some defendants sentenced to imprisonment in the state corrections system now have an opportunity to be paroled early. Offenders who are eligible for a Recidivism Risk Reduction Incentive program can be released prior to their minimum sentence provided they complete...
Immigration Cases Soar, Represent Half of All Federal Prosecutions
Posted on January 14, 2009Immigration prosecutions have soared during the Bush administration, representing more than half of all federal prosecutions, up from 18 percent in the first fiscal year of Bush's presidency, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse...
A Double Victory for Criminal Defendants
Posted on January 14, 2009The Supreme Court issued two opinions this morning, both of them striking down lower court opinions that had favored prosecutors. Over at the Sentencing Law and Policy blog, professor Doug Berman is already proclaiming that the decisions offer further proof...
Court again rebukes Portage County judge
Posted on January 14, 2009An Ohio appeals court has upbraided a controversial Portage County judge for a second time in as many weeks " this time for finding a young public defender in contempt. The 11th Ohio District Court of Appeals found Wednesday that...
Rejected juror figures in bid for new trial
Posted on January 13, 2009In September 1997, an overweight black woman was excluded from a criminal trial jury in Binghamton because of a prosecutor?s claim that fat people tend to take sides with the defense. Now, the black man who was convicted of gun...
The BART shooting: Are violent protests the answer?
Posted on January 13, 2009What is it people used to say about urban centers during the civil rights protests of the '60s? Tinderbox. No question that Oakland is a full-on bonfire, soaked in gasoline and just waiting for a match or two. Chronicle columnist...
Crime And Punishment: A Primer
Posted on January 12, 2009Though the U.S. crime rate has been on a steady decline since the early 1990s, some caution that tough economic times could drive crime rates back up. Lately, several high-profile white collar capers have captured the national attention, reigniting the...
Bad Economy May Fuel Hate Groups, Experts Warn
Posted on January 12, 2009For 20 years, Bart McIntyre has tracked white supremacist movements, even spending two years undercover in Alabama to penetrate a violent young band of criminals who called themselves the Confederate Hammerskins. Away from his wife and young daughter, McIntyre took...
Federal rules bode ill for federal judge
Posted on January 12, 2009Next month's trial of U.S. District Judge Sam Kent is likely to be a sad and sordid affair. According to federal indictments, one handed down Tuesday, two former female employees accuse him of sexually forcing himself on them. He contends...
Speedy Trial Case Before Supreme Court This Week
Posted on January 12, 2009After he was charged with hitting his girlfriend in the face, career criminal Michael Brillon sat in jail without bail for nearly three years, going through six public defenders before being tried for assault. The delays paid off -- for...
Samuel Buell Criminal Law Professor at the Washington University School of Law
Posted on January 11, 2009Professor Buell's writing and teaching focus on criminal law and on the regulatory state, particularly regulation of activity in corporations and financial markets. His courses include Criminal Law, Securities Regulation, and a seminar in Advanced Topics in Regulation of Financial...
U.S. to collect DNA samples of arrested immigrants
Posted on January 10, 2009Beginning today, the U.S. government will collect DNA samples from people arrested and detained for suspected immigration violations, despite concerns that the move violates their privacy rights. The new Justice Department policy also will expand DNA collection to people arrested...
Obstruction of justice charge 'upped the ante' against Kent
Posted on January 09, 2009The government raised the stakes in the criminal case against U.S. District Judge Sam Kent, now accusing a man who swore to protect the system with thwarting it instead, legal experts said Wednesday. They said the obstruction of justice charge...
Colorado Judge Allows Twitter In Courtroom
Posted on January 09, 2009The courtroom now includes Twitter. What? Twitter inside the courtroom? Yes, it?s true. A Colorado judge recently approved the use of Twitter, and blogs, inside the courtroom to cover an infant-abuse trial. Wichita Eagle (Kansas) reporter, Ron Sylvester, pushed for...
DNA Offers Two Hope
Posted on January 09, 2009The DNA found on the electrical cord used to bind the hands of a shop owner slain 15 years ago doesn't belong to either of the two men convicted of killing him. Fingerprints found on the door handle of the...
Controversy surrounds DNA evidence in Yogurt Shop Murders
Posted on January 09, 2009New DNA evidence and the possible addition of two pro bono defense attorneys added controversy to the Yogurt Shop Murders pretrial Wednesday. Four young women were found murdered at a North Austin I Can't Believe its Yogurt shop in 1991....
Survey: ER doctors suspect excessive police force
Posted on January 08, 2009Nearly 98% of emergency room physicians report that they believe some patients were victims of suspected excessive force by police, a national survey concludes. Yet most of the suspected incidents went unreported because no laws require physicians to alert authorities...
Truce on hardline sentencing
Posted on January 08, 2009THE NSW Opposition has pledged to end the "law and order auction" in a dramatic break with the tradition of promising to increase punishments and fill jails that has characterised every state election campaign since 1988. The Coalition's justice spokesman,...
Police chief Hurtt calls on city to help curb black deaths
Posted on January 07, 2009A ministers' organization today called on elected officials to form a committee to study ways to combat rapidly increasing violence among Houston's African-American youth. "We're going to scream from the rooftop" until elected officials respond by forming a committee to...
Mike Wolff asks Obama for sentencing reform
Posted on January 07, 2009Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Wolff has joined the chief justice of the Oregon Supreme Court in a letter to President-elect Barack Obama calling for "major change in state and federal sentencing practices" that have resulted in the United...
Growing old behind bars
Posted on January 07, 2009The number of older prisoners in Virginia has more than doubled in the past 10 years, creating new issues for the state's prison system. CAPRON Winter sunshine slices through a narrow security window and falls on Aloysius Joseph Beyrer's white...
Kansas Man Granted Hearing on DNA Tests
Posted on January 06, 2009Merrill Andrews was convicted of murder in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison. Having been granted parole in 1999, Andrews is now requesting DNA tests in order to prove his innocence. Although he is currently serving a 10-year sentence...
The Stories Behind The Statistics
Posted on January 06, 2009A recent report on the rise of young black males being killed in the U.S. continues to raise concern among youth, parents and community leaders. Some say the findings reflect a much larger problem, the failure of society on many...
Dealing With Addiction From The Judge's Bench
Posted on January 06, 2009As News & Notes takes a month-long look at addiction, we get insight from our regular contributor, Judge Lynn Toler of TV's Divorce Court. She joins Farai Chideya to discuss her days as a municipal court judge in Cleveland Heights,...
Human Rights Watch studied abuses
Posted on January 05, 2009The Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is currently being sued by seven female prisoners on behalf of all others similarly situated for sexual assault, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and inappropriate visual surveillance within its correctional facilities for women...
Kidnappings in Mexico Send Shivers Across Border
Posted on January 05, 2009Four hooded men smashed in the door to the adobe home of an 80-year-old farmer here in November, handcuffing his frail wrists and driving him to a makeshift jail. They released him after relatives and friends paid a $9,000 ransom,...
'Justified homicides' more than doubled
Posted on January 05, 2009One hour after revelers welcomed the new year in 2008, a motorist at a Northwest Side intersection fired three shots into 24-year-old Tomas Garza, moments after authorities said Garza threatened the motorist with a baseball bat in an apparent road-rage...
Douglas A. Berman Criminal Law professor at Ohio State University
Posted on January 04, 2009Professor Berman was the Editor and Developments Office Chair of the Harvard Law Review. After graduation, Professor Berman served as a law clerk for Judge Jon O. Newman and then for Judge Guido Calabresi, both on the United States Court...
Dallas County probation program addresses addictions, bipolar disorder
Posted on January 03, 2009Kimberly Armstrong says she has run from every drug program she was ever ordered to attend. But when she was sent to one offered by Dallas County probation aimed at treating both her drug addiction and bipolar disorder, she decided...
Groups sue Bush over last-minute rule changes
Posted on January 02, 2009The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence sued the Bush administration yesterday in hopes of stopping a new policy that would allow people to carry concealed, loaded guns in most national parks and wildlife refuges. "The Bush administration's last-minute gift...
'Lethal Warriors' in Iraq, linked to string of crimes back home
Posted on January 02, 2009Reporting from Orange County and Colorado Springs -- They nicknamed themselves the Lethal Warriors, and during two tours in Iraq, the soldiers of the Army's 2nd Battalion, 12th Infantry regiment confronted some of the war's cruelest fighting, hunting insurgents through...
Officials describe search for state's top forensic pathologist as tough
Posted on January 02, 2009Officials are moving closer to hiring Mississippi's first medical examiner in more than a decade.It is progressing," said Sam Howell, director of the State Crime Lab. "They are looking at some candidates to be interviewed." The medical examiner's post has...
Otis L. Sanford: Cops posing as kids just does not seem right
Posted on January 01, 2009OK, I get it. This is about creating a safe school environment and protecting students from the scourge of drug dependency. It's about zero tolerance, or something close to it, for peddling even small quantities of drugs on or near...
Napolitano backs security tech
Posted on January 01, 2009Gov. Janet Napolitano ? President-elect Barack Obama's pick to run the Homeland Security Department ? has strongly advocated using advanced security technology as a law enforcement tool, drawing praise from police and raising concern among civil liberties groups that warn...
New Sentencing Guidelines For Crack, New Challenges
Posted on January 01, 2009Michael D. Thompson, a former crack cocaine dealer, thought he deserved a break. Sentenced in 2000 to 15 years and eight months in prison, Thompson asked a federal judge in the District to release him, arguing that he had received...
Judges rule three-strikes sentence unconstitutional
Posted on December 31, 2008California's three-strikes sentencing law suffered a blow Tuesday when a federal appeals court struck down as unconstitutional a 28-years-to-life sentence for a sex offender who failed to register with local police at the correct time of year. The U.S...
Emotions tested in a year of crime
Posted on December 31, 2008The criminal landscape of 2008 reminded all of us how fragile ? and strange ? life can be. It was a tragic year for police officers, with the Houston Police Department losing three to violent circumstances. As a result, Texas...
Girding for new marijuana law, state offers enforcement tips
Posted on December 31, 2008Police officers should issue tickets, similar to a building code citation, to anyone possessing an ounce or less of marijuana, under an advisory released by the state yesterday recommending ways to manage the law decriminalizing possession of the drug...
N.Y. High Court Bars Surrogate-Elect Over Campaign Contributions
Posted on December 30, 2008The Court of Appeals on Monday barred Nora S. Anderson from becoming Manhattan surrogate on Jan. 1 pending the outcome of Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau's prosecution of her for allegedly failing to accurately report contributions to her campaign...
Judge-Elect, Indicted, Is Suspended by Court
Posted on December 30, 2008The New York State Court of Appeals on Monday ordered the suspension of Judge-elect Nora S. Anderson while she faces criminal charges accusing her of committing financial fraud during her campaign to become a Surrogate?s Court judge in Manhattan. The...
Report: Police officer deaths down in 2008
Posted on December 30, 2008Deaths of law enforcement officers in the line of duty fell sharply in 2008, with the number killed by gunfire reaching its lowest level in more than five decades, according to a report published Monday. The statistics show 2008 has...
Study: Houston leads in homicides by black youths
Posted on December 29, 2008As violent crime nationally slows in growth or declines, the United States is facing a dramatic ? but hardly noticed ? increase in murders by and of young African-American men, a Northeastern University study released today reports. Between 2002 and....
Gov. Rod Blagojevich pardons 22 people
Posted on December 29, 2008Marcus Lyons was so bitter after leaving prison in 1991 that he tried to nail himself to a wooden cross outside the DuPage County Courthouse. On Friday, two decades after he was convicted of a rape he did not commit,...
State senators study case of innocent man who died in prison
Posted on December 29, 2008Legislators may change state law to recognize the innocence of a Fort Worth man convicted in Lubbock more than 20 years ago. State Sens. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, and Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, may clarify how the state compensates and exonerates wrongfully...
Pa. public-records law changing
Posted on December 29, 2008Pennsylvania state, county and local governments will be operating under a new set of rules in 2009 when a new Right-To-Know Law goes into effect. ?The big difference is the burden of proving a record is not public is on...
Border Patrol grows and so do concerns
Posted on December 26, 2008Shortly after riding a U.S. Border Patrol dune buggy in Arizona's high desert 2½ years ago, President George W. Bush initiated a beefed-up border-security policy that some say has infringed on civil liberties -- and led to crackdowns around Port...
Jewish group leader complains about Rubashkin treatment
Posted on December 26, 2008A leader of one of the country?s most prominent Jewish groups complained to the U.S. attorney general Wednesday about the treatment of a former Iowa meatpacking executive. The complaint centers on the government?s decision to deny bail to Sholom Rubashkin,...
Is the Bush administration criminally liable for its lawlessness?
Posted on December 26, 2008Whatever its other legacies, the Bush administration will be remembered for its contemptible disregard for the law in the post-9/11 war on terrorism. From the wiretapping of Americans without a court order to the waterboarding of suspected terrorists to the...
Money for future Dallas DNA testing lost in Madoff scandal
Posted on December 26, 2008Panic ensued at the Innocence Project of Texas when a powerful Wall Street investor was arrested this month and accused of swindling investors out of $50 billion. One of the organizations that had invested with Bernard Madoff was the JEHT...
Feds consider searches of terrorism blogs
Posted on December 26, 2008Homeland Security Department may soon start scouring the Internet to find blogs and message boards that terrorists use to plan attacks in the USA. The effort comes as researchers are seeing terrorists increasingly use the Internet to plan bombings, recruit...
How To Prosecute a Shoe-Thrower
Posted on December 26, 2008Muntadar al-Zaida, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush, will stand trial Dec. 31, the BBC reported Monday. He's being charged with "aggression against a foreign head of state," which carries a prison term of between...
New NYPD system alerts officers on the mentally ill
Posted on December 25, 2008A day after the NYPD used a stun gun on an emotionally disturbed man, Iman Morales, volunteers meticulously cleaned blood from the sidewalk. Morales died when he fell from the second floor ledge in Brooklyn. (Newsday Photo / Ari Mintz...
As Economy Dips, Arrests for Shoplifting Soar
Posted on December 25, 2008Recently laid off from a job building trailers in Elkhart, Ind., Mr. Johnson came up a dollar short at Martin?s Supermarket last month when he went to buy a $4.99 bottle of sleep medication. So, ?for some stupid reason,? he...
Is the Bush administration criminally liable for its lawlessness?
Posted on December 25, 2008Whatever its other legacies, the Bush administration will be remembered for its contemptible disregard for the law in the post-9/11 war on terrorism. From the wiretapping of Americans without a court order to the waterboarding of suspected terrorists to the...
NYPD's "Operation Impact" Credited with Success in Tough Precincts
Posted on December 24, 2008Along Linden Boulevard in East New York, the officers of Operation Impact patrol the Pink Houses with all the rigor of a military patrol, a clannish band of partners whose uniforms shout authority even when they do not speak. They...
Actor Lillo Brancato Acquitted of Felony Murder
Posted on December 23, 2008A slain cop's sister cried junk justice last night after a Bronx jury acquitted actor-turned-junkie Lillo Brancato of murdering Officer Daniel Enchautegui.
How Effective is Drug Rehab?
Posted on December 23, 2008Their first love might be the rum or vodka or gin and juice that is going around the bonfire. Or maybe the smoke, the potent marijuana that grows in the misted hills here like moss on a wet stone. But...
States putting criminal records online
Posted on December 23, 2008Worried your daughter's new boyfriend might have a nefarious past? Want to know whether the job applicant in front of you has a rap sheet? Finding out can be a mouse click away, thanks to the growing crop of searchable...
Is Texas Changing Its Mind About the Death Penalty?
Posted on December 23, 2008Texas has executed prisoners with a regularity and in record numbers that has earned the state worldwide attention. But, while Texas still led the U.S. in executions in 2008, juries in the state appear to have began to turn away...
Facial recognition software gives Pierce County help in tough cases
Posted on December 23, 2008The forgery and theft case had victims, a witness and decent surveillance images from an ATM. What it didn't have were any leads on who committed the crime. But instead of being tossed aside, as happens in so many property...
Crime increases in some areas as economy fails
Posted on December 22, 2008Nothing about the failed bank robbery here earlier this month was ordinary. The suspect, a 51-year-old woman, does not fit the typical criminal profile. The weapon, a crudely assembled fake bomb ? a tangle of wires protruding from a handbag...
Man gets 13 months for molesting son
Posted on December 22, 2008A former roving carnival worker will spend 13 months in prison for molesting his adult son, who has such severe mental and physical disabilities that he couldn't tell anyone what was happening to him. Robert Lee Hutchinson, 41, had faced...
Mistrial For Third Suspect In NYPD Murder Case
Posted on December 22, 2008A mistrial has been declared in the case against Lee Woods for the murder of a police officer and for wounding his partner during a routine traffic stop, CBS 2 HD has learned. Woods was the last of three men...
Andrew D. Leipold Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Illinois College of Law
Posted on December 21, 2008Professor Andrew Leipold, the Edwin M. Adams Professor of Law, graduated summa cum laude in Public Relations from Boston University. He received his J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a member of Order of...
Final arguments for release of 911 call set for Monday
Posted on December 21, 2008A Madison police detective testified Friday that release of the Brittany Zimmermann 911 call would jeopardize the search for her killer, though a public safety expert countered that release of such information typically helps solve homicides. Madison detective John Summers...
Kidnapping and Murder Mystery Solved 27 Years Later
Posted on December 19, 2008There is a serious cold case many people here in Florida have been following for years, and now it's finally solved, the kidnapping and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh. Twenty-seven years have passed and they're all together again, the family,...
Marijuana Law Comes With Challenges
Posted on December 19, 2008Last month, voters approved a statewide measure decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Now, wary authorities say, comes the hard part. They are scrambling to set up a new system of civil penalties before Jan. 2, when the...
Call for Presentations and Workshops
Posted on December 19, 2008Conference Date: August 19-22, 2009 Location: New Orleans, LA Submissions Due: January 30, 2009 before 7:00 pm, Eastern Time Theme: Solving Problems with Geography and Technology View the call for papers Please note: The Tenth Crime Mapping Research Conference was...
To Catch a Thief
Posted on December 18, 2008Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud is giving politicians and investors who failed to diversify another excuse to blame too little enforcement in U.S. financial markets. Talk about compounding a case of misplaced trust. The real lesson is that financial...
Showdown over DNA lab reflects national debate
Posted on December 18, 2008In June, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas made a bold grab for a crown jewel of local law enforcement: the DNA unit of the sheriff's crime lab. With the lab's director out of town and the sheriff recently deposed...
Lethal Injection and the Problem of Constitutional Remedies
Posted on December 18, 2008Many states' lethal injection procedures contain serious flaws that create a significant risk of excruciating pain, but, more often that not, courts uphold those procedures against Eighth Amendment challenges. This Article argues that remedial concerns significantly shape - and misdirect...
Washington Council Enacts Tough Gun-Control Measure
Posted on December 17, 2008Nearly six months after the Supreme Court put an end to the District of Columbia?s decades-old ban on handgun possession, the City Council here passed a sweeping new ordinance on Tuesday to regulate gun ownership. The legislation would require all...
1,500 criminals with sealed records rearrested
Posted on December 17, 2008About 1,500 convicted criminals who were given a fresh start by getting their court records shielded were arrested again over the past two years, according to a newspaper analysis of state records. That's around 11 percent of the number of...
What the Alleged Misdeeds of Rod Blagojevich Teach Us About Lawful Politics
Posted on December 17, 2008The allegations in the criminal complaint filed last week against Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich portray a level of corruption that is shocking even by the standards of a state in which four prior governors have served time in prison. If...
Nonviolent inmates are lending a hand
Posted on December 13, 2008For 97 cents a day -- yes, a day -- John Kemp picks up garbage in Austin. He calls it great. The work keeps him busy, occupies his mind, helps him change, he said. Kemp wouldn't mind if the pay...
Canadian police pull old Tasers off streets
Posted on December 12, 2008Police departments across Canada, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, are pulling older Taser stun guns off the streets following a new study that found the weapons can deliver more power than the manufacturer says is possible. Police departments in...
Holder fight heats up
Posted on December 12, 2008GOP leaders took to the Senate floor this evening to call on Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to slow down Attorney General-nominee Eric Holder?s confirmation process. Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a former U.S. Attorney and Rhode Island attorney general,...
Minnesota judge extends injunction against NFL suspensions
Posted on December 12, 2008A federal judge extended his preliminary injunction against the NFL's suspension of five players for violating the league's anti-doping policy, a move their lawyer said will let them play the rest of the season. In his ruling Thursday, U.S. District....
Domestic violence deaths more than double over 2007
Posted on December 11, 2008The number of homicides related to domestic violence in Maine more than doubled over the past year, prompting Gov. John Baldacci on Tuesday to urge health care professionals to look even more carefully for signs of violence and sexual assault....
Correa seeks transparency
Posted on December 11, 2008Honolulu police Chief Boisse Correa said he wants to release video footage of a Taser incident that caused two officers to temporarily lose their law enforcement authority. Correa came under heated criticism last week from the police officers union for...
Eight and on Trial: Young Defendants Throw Criminal Justice Into Confusion
Posted on December 11, 2008In his videotaped confession to the police, the eight-year-old boy sits in an overstuffed office chair and calmly describes how he shot his father and his father's roommate to death with a rifle. At one point, he buries his head...
Prosecutors Seek to Rescind Cooperation Letter for Millennium Bomber
Posted on December 09, 2008Federal prosecutors are seeking yet another sentencing for would-be millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam ? this time without credit for helping to convict a fellow terrorist. Ressam was sentenced for the second time last week to 22 years in prison for...
Appeals Court Upholds Senator Craig's Guilty Plea
Posted on December 09, 2008The Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's effort to withdraw his guilty plea to a misdemeanor offense of disorderly conduct in connection with a sex-sting operation. "Because we see no abuse of discretion in the...
Illinois Governor Arrested on Corruption Charges
Posted on December 09, 2008Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested this morning on federal corruption charges. Wiretaps recorded Blagojevich discussing how to "sell or trade" the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama "for financial and personal benefits for himself and his wife," prosecutors...
Interrogation Upheld in Country Where Right to Counsel Unavailable
Posted on December 09, 2008The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Nov. 24 upheld the admission of statements elicited overseas by U.S. agents from suspects in the custody of a country that does not provide a right to counsel during interrogations. ?[I]nsofar...
Mental health system ailing
Posted on December 06, 2008Shannon Harps, a young Sierra Club worker, devoted her life to improving her community before she was killed last New Year's Eve. But her death may spur major mental health system reforms that could result in improved public safety, better...
European Human Rights Court Rules to Remove Innocent People's DNA Samples from UK Database
Posted on December 05, 2008From timesonline.co.uk: Hundreds of thousands of DNA and fingerprint samples face being removed from police national databases after a court ruled today that holding details of people with no criminal convictions breaches human rights laws. The European Court of Human...
Prosecutors warn against more budget cuts
Posted on December 05, 2008Kentucky prosecutors warned yesterday that further state budget cuts could significantly disrupt prosecution of crimes and leave the state's court system in shambles. "It's going to be chaos,'' said Christian County Attorney Mike Foster, a member of the Prosecutors Advisory...
17 Dallas police officers violated high-speed chase policy, report finds
Posted on December 05, 2008Seventeen officers violated the Dallas Police Department's high-speed chase policy in a September pursuit that left an officer seriously injured, an internal affairs investigation has concluded. None of the officers, including the one who was injured, were authorized to be...
Walking in cops' shoes -- in the line of fire
Posted on December 05, 2008I'M WALKING the beat with Officer Casey when the 911 call comes in. Disturbance. Downtown. Hurry. We rush to the scene and enter a crowded restaurant, our hearts racing. At a far table by the window a man, 40ish, is...
15 officers caught in FBI drug sting
Posted on December 04, 2008"I ain't always been in law enforcement," a Harvey cop allegedly bragged to the drug dealer whose business he was paid to protect. "I sold a lot of weight at a young age, I just never got caught." His luck...
DNA search fails to find relatives of unknown serial killer
Posted on December 04, 2008The Los Angeles Police Department's hunt for an elusive serial killer who has stalked women in South L.A. for more than two decades was dealt a setback Tuesday when a controversial search of DNA databases for the killer's family members...
FBI power in terror cases grows
Posted on December 04, 2008Beginning Monday, the FBI will get increased power to investigate suspected terrorists under revised administrative guidelines that some Muslim Americans and civil rights advocates in metro Detroit are concerned may target innocent people. The new Justice Department guidelines will allow...
Can swabbing for DNA go too far?
Posted on December 03, 2008In the settlement around Cove Run Creek, nobody said no when police came asking for their DNA. A dead baby, wrapped in a flannel shirt and plastic bag, then stuffed into a knapsack, had been abandoned in the woods in...
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina: Prison Emergency Preparedness as a Constitutional Imperative
Posted on December 03, 2008Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst natural disasters ever to strike the United States, in terms of casualties, suffering, and financial cost. Often overlooked among Katrina's victims are the 8,000 inmates who were incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison (OPP)...
New Charge for Bernard Kerik
Posted on December 03, 2008Disgraced former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik's glib response to White House officials when he interviewed to be director of homeland security may land him in prison. "Nope, it's all in my book," Kerik said when asked in 2002 if there...
Roman Polanski Files for Dismissal of Criminal Case
Posted on December 02, 2008LOS ANGELES, Dec 02, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Academy Award-winning film director Roman Polanski, through new lawyers, Chad Hummel of Los Angeles' Manatt, Phelps & Phillips LLP, and Bart Dalton of Los Angeles, today filed a formal request with the...
Circuit Court Finds Defendant Had Right to Cross-Examine Witness about Swastika Tattoos
Posted on December 02, 2008The broad discretion that the Sixth Amendment confrontation clause provides to trial judges to control the presentation of evidence was abused when a federal district judge barred a defendant from cross-examining a government witness about the witness's swastika tattoos, the...
In a Brooklyn Parking Lot, the End of a Quiet Life
Posted on December 02, 2008The church custodian saw him first: a man alone in a parking lot, swinging a folding chair like an ax, bringing it down toward the windshield of a parked van and stopping, an inch from the glass. Then backing up...
Standing their ground: More citizens enforcing the law themselves
Posted on December 02, 2008"I'm killing you right now! You shouldn't have looked at me, man! Go ahead. Say goodbye. Say goodbye. I'm blowing you away right here.'' But when the teen suddenly fled, Morelli's fear morphed to rage. Pursuing his attacker and dodging...
Cops Say Legalizing Drugs Can Boost Economy by Billions
Posted on December 02, 2008This Tuesday, December 2, a group of law enforcers who fought on the front lines of the ?war on drugs? and witnessed its failures will commemorate the 75th anniversary of alcohol prohibition?s repeal by calling for drug legalization. The cops,...
Plaxico Burress Turns Himself In On Gun Charge
Posted on December 01, 2008Troubled Giants star Plaxico Burress turned himself into a Manhattan precinct Monday morning where he is expected to be charged after accidentally shooting himself in the right thigh while drinking at a Midtown nightclub. Walking with no sign of a...
Treatment programs key to winning war on drugs
Posted on December 01, 2008A recent report by the Government Accountability Office, commissioned by Sen. Joe Biden, has come to an unsurprising conclusion: After more than $6 billion spent, the controversial drug control operation known as Plan Colombia has failed by large margins to...
Gun checks may violate federal law
Posted on December 01, 2008The Delaware State Police have been conducting secret background checks of some gun owners since 2001, a process known as "superchecks" that may violate federal law. The checks have resulted in confiscation of weapons, some for legitimate reasons, but have...
Spare the innocent
Posted on December 01, 2008Another innocent man has been freed. When will state legislators respond to what can only be called a crisis of wrongful conviction in New York? Perhaps in January, when Democrats take over the State Senate. Albany has been woefully uninterested...
Erik Luna Professor of Criminal Law S.J. Quinney College
Posted on November 30, 2008Professor Luna graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern California, and he received his J.D. with honors from Stanford Law School, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review. Upon graduation, he was a prosecutor in...
New trial ordered in 1991 Buddhist temple killings
Posted on November 29, 2008A federal court of appeals on Thursday overturned the conviction of a West Valley man found guilty of killing nine people at a Buddhist temple west of Phoenix in 1991. Jonathan Doody was one of two youths convicted of the...
A chance for sensible gun laws
Posted on November 28, 2008WIth the historic election of Barack Obama, the nation finally has an opportunity to enact sensible national gun policy. Obama should look to big cities, especially Boston, for guidance. Big-city mayors know all too well the devastating impact a failed...
U.S. war on drugs has failed, report says
Posted on November 28, 2008The United States' war on drugs has failed and will continue to do so as long as it emphasizes law enforcement and neglects the problem of consumption, a Washington think tank says in a report co-chaired by a former president...
Guilty verdict in MySpace suicide case could chill Internet speech
Posted on November 28, 2008A high-profile Internet legal case that just concluded here will have a chilling effect on users of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook if the verdict holds up on appeal, legal experts say. A Los Angeles jury on...
Police prepare for changes in marijuana possession laws
Posted on November 27, 2008Local law enforcement officials are still in a haze about Question 2 as it winds its way through the bureaucratic process. There are a number of logistical issues that stand between the ballot initiative that would decriminalize the possession of...
Temple case still haunting
Posted on November 27, 2008For nearly eight weeks in the late spring and summer of 1993, he was Juror No. 3 in the trial of a young man accused of the worse mass murder in Arizona history. When deliberations ended on July 13, the...
Neighbor Guilty in MySpace Hoax Case
Posted on November 27, 2008A suburban mother was found guilty today of minor misdemeanor charges for her role in an online hoax that prosecutors said led to the suicide of her teenage neighbor. Lori Drew, 49, was convicted on three misdemeanor counts of unauthorized...
Judges stay Dec. 3 execution of Wash. inmate
Posted on November 26, 2008Federal and state judges have indefinitely delayed the scheduled Dec. 3 execution of Darold Stenson for the 1993 shooting deaths of his wife and a business partner in Clallam County. The separate stays were issued Tuesday by judges in federal...
Complaint filed over Long Island police policies
Posted on November 26, 2008Hispanic advocates claimed Tuesday that the Long Island police department that investigated the killing of an Ecuadorean immigrant fails to adequately investigate crimes committed by whites against Latinos. In a complaint to the U.S. Justice Department, the national advocacy group...
In Cities, the Fight Against Terrorism Walks the Beat
Posted on November 26, 2008In May, a Los Angeles Police Department motorcycle officer stopped a car for speeding. He noticed that the driver was sweating and gripping the steering wheel nervously, while refusing to answer basic questions. In May, a Los Angeles Police Department...
Criminal justice affected by budget cut
Posted on November 25, 2008Due to a projected $90 million shortfall for 2009 in the King County General Fund, criminal justice agencies in the county are experiencing a blanket 11.4 percent budget cut. The budget cut has caused a change in filing and disposition...
Tracing a crime suspect through a relative
Posted on November 25, 2008Over nearly two decades, a serial killer has shot and strangled at least 11 people, often dumping their battered bodies in alleyways of Inglewood and Los Angeles. Most were black women or girls, the youngest just 14. The latest was...
Butchering Statutes: the Postville Raid and the Misinterpretation of Federal Law
Posted on November 25, 2008On Monday, May 12, 2008, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement led an immigration raid at the Agriprocessors, Inc. meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. The local U.S. Attorney's Office pursued criminal complaints against approximately 300 migrant workers...
2nd Circuit Upholds Warrantless Extraterritorial Searches of U.S. Citizens
Posted on November 24, 2008A federal appeals court in Manhattan upheld the convictions on Monday of three Al Qaeda operatives in a ruling that bolsters the government?s power to investigate terrorism by holding that a key Constitutional protection afforded to Americans does not apply...
Georgia Supreme Court Promotes Marriage to Fight Crime
Posted on November 24, 2008A dozen billboards around the state that urge Georgians to "Get Married, Stay Married" are sponsored not by a church or family-values group but by the Supreme Court of Georgia through its Commission on Children, Marriage and Family Law. Chief...
Budget cuts hamper abilities of prosecutors across U.S.
Posted on November 24, 2008A sour economy is forcing sharp cuts in law-and-order budgets, district attorneys say, hampering their ability to prosecute criminals and secure appropriate sentences for some types of crimes. The cuts include treating drug-related felony crimes as misdemeanors, dismantling specialty units...
Experts: Bad Economies Don't Cause Crime Waves
Posted on November 24, 2008There are few outlaws in the United States as famous as Bonnie and Clyde ? a young couple, with no jobs or prospects, driving across the country robbing banks and killing police officers to make ends meet during the Great...
Boy's constitutional rights forgotten during interview
Posted on November 24, 2008The video of the now-infamous 8-year-old in St. Johns is chilling. "Did you shoot your dad?" a sheriff's deputy asks the pajama-clad boy, at the end of an hourlong interview in which he was led ever-so-gently down the primrose path....
Professor Hoffman Criminal Law Professor
Posted on November 23, 2008Professor Hoffmann is an award-winning scholar and law teacher. He holds the Harry Pratter Professorship, and is a past recipient of the Law School Gavel Award and the university-wide Outstanding Young Faculty Award. In addition to courses in criminal law...
'Ionia' Challenge to Corporate Criminal Liability
Posted on November 22, 2008Mark Twain once reportedly observed that "everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it." The same could be said of corporate criminal liability. In recent years, the corporate defense bar has frequently complained about the low threshold...
From Justice Stevens, No Exit Signs
Posted on November 21, 2008For all the speculation about how President-elect Barack Obama's nominees may change the Supreme Court, there is one irrefutable fact: He can't make an appointment until there is a vacancy. Eighty-eight-year-old Justice John Paul Stevens, the court's longest-serving member, is...
APD Among Texas Police Agencies With Poor Eyewitness ID Procedures
Posted on November 21, 2008The Austin Police Department "meets the minimum legal requirements" for the administration of live and photo lineups of criminal suspects, but "does little to ensure that its lineup procedures provide the best evidence possible in any given case," according to...
Experts: Interrogation of boy, 8, 'out of bounds'
Posted on November 21, 2008The third-grader's legs dangle at times from an overstuffed chair as he answers the questions of two female police officers. His manner and voice are casual, even helpful, but his words are shocking. And so, legal analysts say, were the...
Borderless Drug Wars
Posted on November 20, 2008The drug violence that has left nearly 4,000 people dead this year in Mexico is spreading deep into the United States, leaving a trail of slayings, kidnappings and other crimes in at least 195 cities as far afield as Atlanta,...
Hearing Slated for Boy Charged with Fatally Shooting Dad
Posted on November 20, 2008A court hearing is scheduled Wednesday afternoon for an 8-year-old boy accused of shooting his father and another man in rural Arizona. A dramatic police videotape released Tuesday shows a tearful boy in St. Johns, Ariz., confessing to murder, then...
Why Is Cuban Facing a Fine When Martha Faced the Slammer?
Posted on November 20, 2008With Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban facing civil insider-trading charges (PDF) from the SEC, we got to wondering what it takes for securities fraud to become a crime. The short answer: It depends on the prosecutor. The SEC does not...
An Electronic Witness
Posted on November 19, 2008When Jason Jones was arrested in a fatal shooting in the Bronx in May, he told the police that he had been nowhere near the scene. He said he had left work, ridden the bus with some co-workers and cashed...
New Immigration Regulation Eased After Firms Complain
Posted on November 19, 2008In a concession to business groups, the Homeland Security Department will significantly scale back its planned crackdown this winter on federal contractors that hire illegal immigrants. Under a rule published yesterday, the agency said only contractors that do more than...
Charlotte's DNA backlog slows effort to solve crimes
Posted on November 19, 2008Evidence with the potential to solve or provide leads on hundreds of burglary and robbery cases awaits DNA testing as Charlotte-Mecklenburg police grapple with a backlog. Testing is still a top priority for murder, rape and habitual offender cases. And...
TSA's 'behavior detection' leads to few arrests
Posted on November 19, 2008Fewer than 1% of airline passengers singled out at airports for suspicious behavior are arrested, Transportation Security Administration figures show, raising complaints that too many innocent people are stopped. A TSA program launched in early 2006 that looks for terrorists...
When a Gun Isn't a Gun?
Posted on November 18, 2008U.S. attorneys had a conundrum on their hands -- they had the evidence to prove a convicted felon was in possession of a gun, but they couldn?t prove the gun was a gun. What attorney?s had on their hands was...
Ninth Circuit Holds CA Child Abuse Index Violates Due Process
Posted on November 18, 2008California's Child Abuse Central Index, a database of known or suspected child abusers, violates procedural due process in failing to give listed persons a fair opportunity to challenge the allegations against them and obtain delisting, the U.S. Court of Appeals...
Tenth Circuit's Construction Narrows Federal Sex Offender Registry Law
Posted on November 18, 2008The provision of the federal Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act that makes it a crime to travel interstate and fail to register as a sex offender does not apply to someone whose travel was complete before the law went...
LAPD's Fingerprint Lab Isn't Up to the Task
Posted on November 18, 2008Late on the morning of April 14, 2006, a troubling letter rolled off the fax machine in the harried, disordered fingerprint unit of the Los Angeles Police Department. Months before, one of the unit's print specialists had determined that several...
Attorney General's Report Details Human Trafficking in Texas
Posted on November 18, 2008Texas has become a major hub for human trafficking, state officials said Monday while proposing a more aggressive response to what a senior lawmaker described as "modern-day slavery." Nearly 20 percent of human-trafficking victims found nationwide have been in Texas,...
An upcoming local Michigan talk "Bad to the Bone: Horrors!--Can Our Genes Help Make Us Act Badly?"
Posted on November 18, 2008Talk located at at Schuler Books, 2820 Towne Centre Blvd Lansing, MI 48912, Tuesday, November 18, 7:30 PM. More information about the bok the lecture is based on is below. Praise for the tongue-in-cheek titled, best-selling, meticulously researched book the...
Editorial: DNA Testing Beyond a shadow of a doubt
Posted on November 17, 2008It's hard to believe that someone would plead guilty to a crime he didn't commit. But it happens, more often than anyone likes to admit. More than 200 people have been exonerated in recent years thanks to advances in DNA...
Sobreity Checkpoints: Some See Big Problem in Wisconsin Drinking
Posted on November 17, 2008When a 15-year-old comes into Wile-e?s bar looking for a cold beer, the bartender, Mike Whaley, is happy to serve it up ? as long as a parent is there to give permission.\ ?If they?re 15, 16, 17, it?s fine...
2 Held in Election Night Beating of Black Youth
Posted on November 17, 2008Alie Kamara, a black Staten Island teenager, watched the results of the Nov. 4 election at a friend?s house. Soon after Barack Obama was declared the winner, he walked home alone to his house in the Stapleton neighborhood.\ On the...
Craigslist Increasingly Used to Sell Drugs
Posted on November 17, 2008Drug dealing on craigslist has become so rampant that the city's special narcotics prosecutor has asked the online trading post to curb the ads, the Daily News has learned. Bridget Brennan's undercover investigators have bought drugs offered on craigslist personals...
John Kroger Professor of Criminal Law
Posted on November 16, 2008Professor Kroger teaches criminal law and jurisprudence. In May 2008, Kroger, a Democrat, won both the Democratic and Republican nominations to be Oregon?s next Attorney General. He is a three-time recipient of the Leo Levenson Award for Teaching Excellence, awarded...
Youth Development Center's closing marks change in juvenile justice approach
Posted on November 15, 2008The shuttering of the county-run Youth Development Center in Hudson ends an era for a place that has served troubled youths for more than 100 years. But it also marks a fundamental change in how the county's juvenile justice system...
Innocent Man's Conviction Vacated After 27 Years
Posted on November 14, 2008Today the Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Court granted William Dillon a new trial based on DNA evidence which demonstrates Dillon's actual innocence of the 1981 murder of James Dvorak in Canova Beach Florida. Dillon's 27 years equals the longest time served...
Wrongly-jailed men lose compensation bids
Posted on November 14, 2008Two victims of high-profile ?miscarriages of justice? cases lost a legal battle for increased compensation awards today. Darren Hall was wrongly imprisoned for killing Cardiff newsagent Philip Saunders, and Stephen Miller wrongly served time for the brutal murder of prostitute...
L.A. County sheriff's officials acknowledge that genetic evidence in 5,635 rape cases may be untested
Posted on November 14, 2008The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, under pressure from county supervisors and watchdog groups to account for its handling of DNA evidence from sexual assault cases, acknowledged Wednesday it did not know whether genetic evidence from more than 5,600 rape...
Repeal of death penalty urged
Posted on November 14, 2008state commission reviewing capital punishment recommended last night an end to executions in Maryland, prompting hope among death penalty opponents that the General Assembly could soon abolish the 30-year practice. The Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment voted 13-7 to make...
Put scientists, not cops, in crime labs
Posted on November 13, 2008The Michigan State Police released a final report late last month on the firearms unit of the Detroit Police Crime Lab. It?s a highly disturbing document. MSP found, among other deficiencies, that guns and bullets were kept unsecured and unprotected....
New report details shattered lives of released Guantanamo detainees
Posted on November 13, 2008Detainees released from U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Afghanistan live shattered lives as a result of U.S. policies in the war on terror, according to a new report by human rights experts at the University of California, Berkeley....
Internet thieves make big money stealing corporate info
Posted on November 13, 2008An innocuous posting appeared on a Houston-based technology company's internal website on a recent Friday afternoon. A couple of workers saw it, and obeyed instructions to click on a Web link. The posting seemed trustworthy. It was on an employees-only...
DNA Solves Property Crimes (But Are We Ready for That?)
Posted on November 12, 2008Results of an experiment using DNA to solve property crimes are in: collecting biological evidence at burglary scenes works. The study ? funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and evaluated by the Urban Institute ? compared burglary investigations...
Supreme Court Argument Report: Jack the Ripper in His Armchair
Posted on November 12, 2008The Supreme Court on Monday considered a case involving whether a defendant's failure to report for confinement after conviction constitutes a "violent crime" under the Armed Career Criminal Act. The justices weighed arguments concerning whether failure to report is an...
Cincinnati Patrols, a jail on cut list
Posted on November 12, 2008Hamilton County's administration is recommending massive layoffs, departmental consolidation and severe public safety cuts to balance the bleakest budget in memory. Administrator Patrick Thompson on Monday unveiled details of the 2009 plan, which would eliminate 532 county jobs - 18...
Case Raising Victim Impact Evidence Issue Falls One Vote Short of Cert.
Posted on November 12, 2008On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in a case raising the issue of how far prosecutors can go in capital prosecutions in introducing victim impact evidence. At issue was a video presentation introduced by the prosecutors at trial,...
NYPD Starts Collecting DNA from ... the Police
Posted on November 11, 2008The NYPD has started taking DNA samples from CSI detectives to look for cross-contamination at crime scenes, sources said last night. Police brass have been pushing for the samples for at least three years. The need was highlighted when a...
Court Upholds On-Scene Traffic Discretion During DUI Roadblock
Posted on November 11, 2008Giving police officers conducting a sobriety checkpoint the discretion to suspend temporarily and then resume their operation of the checkpoint to alleviate traffic caused by the checkpoint violates neither the Fourth Amendment nor its state constitutional counterpart, the Pennsylvania Supreme...
How Did Spitzer Dodge Criminal Charges?
Posted on November 11, 2008All right. He is off the hook. You know who we are talking about, former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer will not - that's right - not face criminal charges for committing crimes, soliciting high-end prostitutes. The fed is saying...
Obama legal advisers draft plans for Guantánamo
Posted on November 11, 2008The White House today challenged president-elect Barack Obama to make good on his campaign promise to close Guantanámo Bay saying "it's not so easy" to shut down the notorious detention centre. Hopes that Obama would move swiftly to dismantle the...
What President Obama Can Do to Reduce Gun Violence
Posted on November 11, 2008President-elect Obama should implement seven tested and proven initiatives that will have an immediate impact on reducing gun related violence, accidents and suicides without affecting the Second Amendment or having any negative impact on responsible and law abiding gun owners...
Ninth Circuit Finds CA Child Abuse Database Unconstitutional
Posted on November 10, 2008California's database of child abusers and suspected child abusers violates due process because it does not allow those named on it to challenge the allegations, the 9th Circuit ruled. Craig and Wendy Humphries' child alleged that they were abusers, so...
Obama's DOJ Transition Plan
Posted on November 10, 2008For more than a month, a squad of lawyers has been gathering for the first Justice Department transition in the post-9/11 world. Now that their candidate has won, they're at the gates -- or rather, the 20-foot-high aluminum doors of...
S.F. killings seen as centering on gangs, turf
Posted on November 10, 2008San Francisco's 98 homicides last year, the highest number in 12 years, were anything but random. According to a new study, the violence was concentrated - routinely involving the same gangs and featuring suspects and victims with long rap sheets....
Majority agrees that some users unduly punished
Posted on November 10, 2008The district attorney and the head of the group that pushed Massachusetts voters to overwhelmingly back a huge reduction in the penalty for marijuana possession don?t agree on a lot of things. One thing on which they do agree: Voters...
Citing Workload, Public Lawyers Reject New Cases
Posted on November 10, 2008MIAMI ? Public defenders? offices in at least seven states are refusing to take on new cases or have sued to limit them, citing overwhelming workloads that they say undermine the constitutional right to counsel for the poor. Public defenders...
Charles Ogletree Harvard Criminal Law Professor
Posted on November 09, 2008Charles Ogletree is the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Institute. In addition, Professor Ogletree serves Harvard Law School as the Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and...
Air freight gets tighter screening
Posted on November 08, 2008WASHINGTON ? For the first time, business cargo carried on most passenger planes is being checked for explosives, according to airlines and the Transportation Security Administration. Airlines began checking air freight on single-aisle airplanes such as 737s and 757s as...
UAB students uncover links to Obama speech used to commit fraud
Posted on November 07, 2008Sen. Barack Obama's election night acceptance speech was intended to be a call for a renewed spirit of national unity, but the president-elect also unknowingly provided criminals with a new tool for perpetrating Internet fraud. Computer science and criminal justice...
Take the Handcuffs Off the Economic Recovery
Posted on November 07, 2008A month ago, who would have thought that the Bush Administration would order the partial nationalization of the nation's banks to fix credit markets and support the economy? Maybe other innovative, even "radical," ideas are in order. Unless we come...
California voters all over the map on propositions
Posted on November 07, 2008Reporting from Sacramento -- It was a good day for chickens and children's hospitals, but not for alternative-fuel vehicles and Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens. A law-enforcement funding measure fell flat, but a proposition restricting parole was victorious...
No Federal Charges for Eliot Spitzer
Posted on November 06, 2008Former Gov. Eliot Spitzer will not be charged with any crime for his patronage of a prostitution ring, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday. The announcement was made by the office of Michael J. Garcia, the United States attorney in Manhattan....
Voters ban traffic-light cameras
Posted on November 06, 2008Cincinnatians - the first voters in the country to decide whether their municipality should be able to use cameras to catch drivers running red lights - favor a camera ban. Issue 7, which would prohibit the city from installing cameras,...
Stem cell, medical marijuana props approved
Posted on November 06, 2008Michigan voters easily approved a law Tuesday to allow the seriously ill to smoke marijuana, while a proposal to ease restrictions on stem cell research research won by a tighter margin. Michigan became the 13th state -- and first in...
Do Guns Reduce Crime?
Posted on November 06, 2008The Supreme Court's ruling this summer that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to bear arms has added fuel to the ongoing national debate about guns. Recently, a panel of six experts took on the proposition "Guns Reduce Crime"...
City: No 'patterns of abuse' in obstruction arrests
Posted on November 05, 2008Accidentally caught in an after-midnight clash between police and revelers, Richardson was doused with pepper spray, punched in the head and shot with a stun gun in the parking lot of the McDonald's near Seattle Center. Prosecutors followed with charges...
Organized-crime act targets drug gangs
Posted on November 05, 2008Looking tired and resigned, Shaneka Penix stood before U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles in his Baltimore courtroom yesterday morning and quietly asked for mercy. "I believe I deserve a second chance," she said. Penix was caught selling crack cocaine...
False results put drug tests under microscope
Posted on November 05, 2008For Nadine Artemis and Ron Obadia, August began with plans for a family vacation in Minnesota. The vacation ended with the two Canadian citizens being led through Toronto's airport in handcuffs, locked up and separated from their baby. "We were...
Ninth Circuit Upholds Border Searches of International Mail
Posted on November 04, 2008The Fourth Amendment's border search doctrine permits customs agents acting without a warrant or particularized suspicion to read letters mailed to overseas addresses, the en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held Oct. 23 (United States v...
Dismissed Stevens Juror Lied to Go to the Racetrack
Posted on November 04, 2008As it turned out, her father had not died. Marian Hinnant merely wanted to go to the races. And, she was not about to let the trial of Senator Ted Stevens get in her way. On Monday, Ms. Hinnant stunned...
Study Links Violent Video Games, Hostility
Posted on November 04, 2008Children and teenagers who play violent video games show increased physical aggression months afterward, according to new research that adds another layer of evidence to the continuing debate over the video-game habits of the youngest generation. The research, published today...
Exoneration Man
Posted on November 04, 2008From 1951 to 1987, the Dallas County district attorney's office was the domain of Henry Wade, a legendary prosecutor who personally never lost a case ? and who rarely missed an opportunity to seek the maximum punishment for criminals. But...
Prop. A backers say now is the time to fund anti-gang efforts
Posted on November 04, 2008The city of Los Angeles ended 2006 with the high-profile killings of two children: a 9-year-old girl in Angeleno Heights and a 14-year-old girl in Harbor Gateway who, police say, was targeted in part because of her race. In the...
New Advancements in "Big Brother" Technology
Posted on November 04, 2008From Inventhelp.com: Anyone who?s ever watched an episode of the thousand ?CSI? or similar crime shows on CBS knows that, often times, crimes are solved with cell phones. Many criminals forget that data left on cell phones (e.g. - text...
SCOTUS Grants Cert. in DNA Testing Case
Posted on November 03, 2008In a case of obvious importance to the innocence movement, the U.S. Supreme Court today granted review in a case that raises the question whether 42 U.S.C. s. 1983 provides a cause of action to have DNA testing performed in...
Law Enforcement and Civil Rights Groups Divided Over California Ballot Measures
Posted on November 03, 2008LOS ANGELES ? On Tuesday, California voters will consider three ballot measures that propose wide-ranging changes to the state?s criminal justice system but also pit law enforcement officials against civil rights advocates. One initiative, Proposition 5, would increase financing for...
State Supreme Court passes on reviewing speedy trial ruling
Posted on November 03, 2008An opinion that says Riverside County judges don't have to send criminal cases facing speedy trial dismissals to family law and probate courts has survived its latest challenge. The state Supreme Court on Oct. 22 passed on a bid by...
The Criminal Justice Reform Battle in California: Cynical Politicians and Powerful Interests Attacking the Public Good
Posted on November 03, 2008Here is picture that sums up much that is wrong with American politics. Five governors of California, Democrats and Republicans, joining forces to oppose something that is indisputably in the public interest. This is an image that could be repeated,....
Susan N. Herman Brooklyn Law School Professor of Criminal Law
Posted on November 02, 2008Professor Herman is a widely regarded expert on the Supreme Court, particularly in the area of criminal procedure. She regularly speaks to judges and lawyers around the country on behalf of the Federal Judicial Center, bar associations, and CLE providers...
What kind of prison relief does Prop. 5 promise?
Posted on November 01, 2008Whatever else might be said about Proposition 5, it would be difficult to dispute that it would reduce prison overcrowding and save taxpayer money. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) estimates that the measure would reduce the prison population by...
Lost-gun ordinances usually fire blanks
Posted on October 31, 2008Lose a gun in Cleveland and fail to report it to police and you could face a $250 fine and 30 days in jail. But in the 12 years that ordinance has been on Cleveland's books, only two people have...
Why Did Key Angola Witness Go To The 'Dog Pen'?
Posted on October 31, 2008Louisiana's Angola prison is often referred to as "The Farm." On one edge of its vast acres of corn and cotton are the prison's isolation cells, where two inmates, Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, spent the past 36 years in...
When the Police Go Through Your Email: Quirk of Search Law Sets Off Alarm Bells
Posted on October 31, 2008When you look at your BlackBerry, you see a gadget full of important email, contacts and other files. Increasingly, authorities see admissible evidence. In a small but growing number of cases, customs officials and police officers have been carrying out...
19 crimes tied to mental health patients
Posted on October 30, 2008State officials last week opened an investigation into the latest case of an Allegheny County mental health patient connected to a violent crime. The state Department of Public Welfare doesn't comment on the details of such investigations, but the newest...
L.A. announces plan to reduce backlog of unexamined DNA evidence from violent crimes
Posted on October 30, 2008Top city officials Tuesday unveiled a plan to help the Los Angeles Police Department's crime lab reduce its massive backlog of unexamined DNA evidence from violent crimes, but they acknowledged that the funding for the proposal was less than certain....
Deportation-wary migrants targets of crime
Posted on October 30, 2008One Saturday evening in February, Gumercindo was chatting with a friend outside his central Phoenix apartment complex when a man walked up and demanded $100 from each. "We told him we didn't have any money," recalled Gumercindo, who declined to...
After Hudson deaths, Chicago vows to fight rising murder rate
Posted on October 30, 2008CHICAGO ? he shooting deaths of three relatives of actress Jennifer Hudson are stirring debate about the reasons this city is the USA's homicide capital and adding urgency to efforts to stop the killing. The bodies of Hudson's mother Darnell...
FBI report: Anti-gay crimes up
Posted on October 29, 2008Hate crimes against gays increased in 2007, up 6% from 2006 even though the overall number of hate crimes dropped slightly, the FBI reported Monday. There were 7,624 hate crimes reported in 2007, down 1% from 2006. Crimes based on...
Two Mid-South men held in plot to kill Obama
Posted on October 29, 2008Two Mid-South men with strong white-supremacy beliefs are in custody after planning a state-to-state killing spree, targeting black citizens and ending with the assassination of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, federal authorities said Monday...
ROY WASDEN: Proposition 5 would expand on the failures of Proposition 36
Posted on October 29, 2008In November 2000, Proposition 36 won voter approval on the promises of lower prison populations, significant cost savings and lower crime rates by removing incarceration from the sentencing options available to judges dealing with drug defendants. Under Proposition 36, judges...
State hopes new prisons, early release cut crowding
Posted on October 28, 2008A steady rise in the number of inmates and the political risks of paroling prisoners early are complicating the state's efforts to ease crowded conditions in its prisons. The 27 existing lockups now hold nearly 47,000 inmates, which is up...
Progress Is Minimal in Clearing DNA Cases
Posted on October 28, 2008LOS ANGELES ? Local and state law enforcement agencies have made uneven progress in reducing a nationwide backlog of cases awaiting DNA analysis over the past four years, according to reports filed by more than 100 agencies with the National...
Davis backers come in all stripes
Posted on October 28, 2008In his Oct. 21 op-ed about the Troy Davis death penalty case, Spencer Lawton, the district attorney who prosecuted the case in 1991, asserts that: ?The only information the public has had in the 17 years since Troy Davis? conviction...
A Varied, Troubled Past May Affect Credibility
Posted on October 27, 2008Michael Mineo, the 24-year-old man who has accused the police of brutality, spends much of his time at the Brooklyn tattoo parlor where he works as a body piercer, friends say, and calls his friends from there his brothers and...
Residency restrictions for sex offenders popular, but ineffective
Posted on October 27, 2008Despite research that shows sex offender residency requirements actually hamper the rehabilitation of offenders, jurisdictions across the country continue to pass them, including Allegheny County last year. Experts say the laws, which prohibit convicted sex offenders from living within a...
Controversial DNA plan uncertain
Posted on October 27, 2008Immigrant advocacy organizations are decrying a proposal by the Bush administration to collect DNA samples from federal detainees, including illegal immigrants. Under the plan, the DNA samples would be added to the FBI's national database, which contains the genetic codes...
Louisiana Court of Appeals Trashed 2,500 Habeas Patitions
Posted on October 27, 2008A 2007 suicide note by a clerk of the Louisiana Court of Appeals who killed himself at the courthouse revealed that 2500 prisoner petitions had been summarily rejected over a period of 13 years without having been read. According to...
G. Kristian Miccio Sturm College of Law Professor of Criminal Law
Posted on October 26, 2008Prof. Miccio is a nationally recognized expert on the law as it affects survivors of male intimate violence. She has written, lectured, litigated and testified, at Congressional and State Legislative hearings, on the issue of male intimate violence, women survivors...
Debaters argue over Utah's approach to addressing polygamy
Posted on October 25, 2008Is Utah selling out children or protecting the constitutional rights of its citizens? Those were the clashing views of two speakers debating the state's approach to dealing with polygamy Wednesday at the University of Utah's College of Law. Marci A.....
Prop. 5 is no boon to violent offenders
Posted on October 24, 2008As a law professor who teaches criminal law and procedure in California, I feel compelled to weigh in on the debate over Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offender Rehabilitation Act. I write not as a supporter of Proposition 5 but as...
Judge backs county inmates in jail case
Posted on October 24, 2008A federal judge has sided with inmates' claims that conditions in Maricopa County jails continue to violate their constitutional rights. U.S. District Court Judge Neil V. Wake on Wednesday modified a 1995 judgment that laid guidelines for a wide range...
Chicago torture victims face uphill legal battle
Posted on October 24, 2008Melvin Jones says he screamed and begged for mercy as Chicago police touched metal clips to his feet and thighs, churned a hand-cranked device and sent shock waves of electricity through his body more than 25 years ago. He says...
Reporter kept the focus on police torture
Posted on October 23, 2008At this point, most people in Chicago probably accept as true the torture allegations against retired Chicago police commander Jon Burge and mostly wonder what took so long to indict him. It's easy to forget that was not always the...
Rodney Ellis: Lowering odds that innocents end up in prison
Posted on October 23, 2008The Dallas Morning News did the state a great service by investigating the causes of Dallas County's 19 DNA exonerations. While the cases involved men of different races and backgrounds, one thing remained the same in 95 percent of the...
Feds punch hole in 'perjury trap,' statute of limitations excuses
Posted on October 23, 2008That was the $7 million answer that a special prosecutor delivered two years ago in the case of former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge, accused with his men of torturing false confessions from as many as 148 defendants, most of...
San Francisco to Vote on Decriminalization of Prostitution
Posted on October 23, 2008In this live-and-let-live town, where medical marijuana clubs do business next to grocery stores and an annual fair celebrates sadomasochism, prostitutes could soon walk the streets without fear of arrest. San Francisco would become the first major U...
Reporter kept the focus on police torture
Posted on October 22, 2008At this point, most people in Chicago probably accept as true the torture allegations against retired Chicago police commander Jon Burge and mostly wonder what took so long to indict him. It's easy to forget that was not always the...
Rodney Ellis: Lowering odds that innocents end up in prison
Posted on October 22, 2008The Dallas Morning News did the state a great service by investigating the causes of Dallas County's 19 DNA exonerations. While the cases involved men of different races and backgrounds, one thing remained the same in 95 percent of the...
The European Legislature is Protesting the Scheduled Execution of Troy Davis
Posted on October 22, 2008From AP.com: The European parliament is strongly protesting plans to execute a man in the United States who has been sentenced to death for killing a police officer. Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed in Georgia on Oct. 27,...
Supreme Court's Second Amendment Decision in D.C. v. Heller May Help Fight Against Gun Violence, Brady Center Report Finds
Posted on October 22, 2008The U.S. Supreme Court's Second Amendment decision in D.C. v. Heller may have the "unintended consequence" of helping to enact stronger gun laws, according to a report issued today by the Legal Action Project of the Brady Center to Prevent...
Adult Crimes, Young Offenders: 'Where Do We Draw the Line?
Posted on October 22, 2008Victoria Price was startled from sleep by an intruder who tried to rape her. Chandler Goule was followed, forced to the concrete at gunpoint and robbed. Matthew Caspari was chased down an alley at knifepoint as his wife screamed in...
LAPD officers more likely to stop, search and arrest minorities than whites, report says
Posted on October 22, 2008Los Angeles police officers are far more likely to stop, search and arrest minorities than they are whites -- even after statistics were adjusted for high- and low-crime areas -- according to a nongovernmental report released Monday. The report by...
Federal Judges Publicly Criticize Supreme Court's Second Amendment Decision
Posted on October 21, 2008Four months after the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess guns, its decision is under assault ? from the right. Two prominent federal appeals court judges say that Justice Antonin Scalia?s majority opinion...
U.S. Drops War Crimes Charges against Guantanamo Detainees
Posted on October 21, 2008The Pentagon official in charge of prosecutions at Guantanamo on Tuesday dismissed war-charges against five detainees, the latest setback to the government?s military commission system. The official, Susan J. Crawford, has broad power over the military commission tribunals, including the...
Ninth Circuit Rules Statutory Rape in CA not Categorically a Deportable Offense
Posted on October 21, 2008The full 9th Circuit ruled that statutory rape does not necessarily constitute a deportable felony, offering hope for relief to a Mexican immigrant facing deportation for having consensual sex with his 16-year-old girlfriend when he was 20. The court agreed...
DAs fight bid to ease penalty for marijuana
Posted on October 21, 2008As a student at Stonehill College, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley found himself in a room with guys passing around a bong. "When it came to me, I inhaled so hard that it burned my lungs," he says. "I...
Police chief wants to ease rules on vehicle chases in Charlotte
Posted on October 21, 2008Tired of what he calls ?brazen disrespect? for police, Chief Rodney Monroe wants to loosen rules on Charlotte-Mecklenburg police chases. Too many suspects get away, he says, because current policy allows officers to chase suspects only when a life-threatening felony...
If you're arrested for drugs, you're more likely to get a second chance if you're white
Posted on October 21, 2008Anthony Smith Jr. is black, poor and a native of Cleveland's East Side. So is Dontez Orr. Both are in their early 20s. Each had a life-altering encounter with police two summers ago that grew from trivial events. Smith was...
FBI: Justifiable homicides at highest in more than a decade
Posted on October 20, 2008The number of justifiable homicides committed by police and private citizens has been rising in the past two years to their highest levels in more than a decade, reflecting a shoot-first philosophy in dealing with crime, say law enforcement analysts....
Experts: Fla. conviction possible without toddler's body
Posted on October 20, 2008Prosecutors have DNA tests and hair samples. They have testimony about "the smell of death" in the trunk of the suspect's car. What they do not have is a body. Prosecutors building a case against a single 22-year-old Florida mother...
Police camera maker is profitable for politicians
Posted on October 20, 2008WatchGuard Video, which provides patrol car cameras to state and local police forces across the nation, points with pride to the lawmakers who helped the company grow from a tiny technology startup into a government contracting powerhouse. And at least...
Alafair S. Burke Professor of Law Hofstra University School of Law
Posted on October 19, 2008Professor Burke teaches criminal law and criminal procedure subjects. Her research intersects criminal law and procedure and focuses on policing and prosecutorial policies. She has written about prosecutorial decision making, community policing and non-punitive responses to crime problems, and the...
LAPD blames faulty fingerprint analysis for erroneous accusations
Posted on October 18, 2008The Los Angeles Police Department has acknowledged in a confidential report that people have been falsely implicated in crimes because the department's fingerprint experts wrongly identified them as suspects. The 10-page internal report, obtained by The Times, highlighted two cases...
ACLU: Federal death row inmates denied health care
Posted on October 17, 2008TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) ? Death row inmates at the federal prison in Terre Haute are routinely denied access to medical, dental and mental health care, the American Civil Liberties Union said Wednesday in a letter to a governmental official....
First filings made for Ill. innocence petitions
Posted on October 17, 2008CHICAGO - Lawyers at Northwestern University on Wednesday filed four petitions on behalf of exonerated former Illinois inmates, the first under a new law that would allow them to seek compensation from the state. Under the law passed in September...
In many US airports, guns are OK outside security
Posted on October 17, 2008ATLANTA ? Flying in the U.S. has been transformed since Sept. 11, with passengers forced to remove their shoes, take out their laptop computers and put liquids and gels in clear plastic bags. Yet it's perfectly legal to take a...
Why Abolition of the Death Penalty was Important
Posted on October 16, 2008I wrote the introduction to today's topic, "Why abolishing the Death Penalty in New Jersey was Important" weeks ago, before the market crash and fear of a depression engulfed our country. It's understandable that everyone is focused on keeping their....
False Confession: Devine on his 12 Years in Office
Posted on October 16, 2008Outgoing Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine says he knows innocent people sometimes confess to crimes they didn't commit. He says it's one of the things he's learned in his time as the county's top prosecutor.
Ill. law school poised to help wrongly convicted on a shorter path to pardon, compensation
Posted on October 16, 2008Marlon Pendleton was released from an Illinois prison in 2006 after DNA evidence exonerated him in the sexual assault for which he was convicted in 1993. But nearly two years out of prison, Pendleton hasn't been pardoned for the crime,...
Drug Courts Offer Many Another Chance
Posted on October 15, 2008It was not your usual courtroom scene. For one thing, the judge choked up as he described one woman?s struggle with opiate addiction after her arrest for forging prescriptions. Over the last three years, she had repeatedly missed court-ordered therapy...
Killer Cooey is executed
Posted on October 15, 2008LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- Richard Wade Cooey III was executed this morning, forever silencing his personal argument that lethal injection is a cruel and flawed process that can cause an agonizing death. Cooey, 41, was pronounced dead at 10:28 a.m., only...
Macomb tests jury reform
Posted on October 15, 2008The Michigan Supreme Court is debating whether to change how juries operate during trials -- and some Macomb County residents will be among the first to test the proposed rules. For the next 14 months, jurors in Circuit Judge David...
Eyewitnesses still play key roles in cases where DNA, other evidence is lacking
Posted on October 15, 2008The fallibility of eyewitness testimony revealed by DNA exonerations in Dallas County and nationwide is not a relic of the past. Police and prosecutors still depend on the same discredited identification procedures to ensure convictions today. Police use these techniques...
Seattle police unit reaches out to the mentally ill
Posted on October 14, 2008The former social worker on Ravenna Avenue Northeast used to help the vulnerable. Now, she's the one who needs help. When she's delusional, the 66-year-old can be violent toward neighbors. In two years, her neighbors have called police a dozen...
Attacks by Teen Groups Rising in D.C. and Nation
Posted on October 14, 2008D.C. police say they are seeing a growing number of teenagers and young adults traveling in groups to assault and rob unsuspecting citizens, a trend that mirrors crimes in cities across the country. In an eight-hour period last week, five...
20 Top Crime Stories
Posted on October 14, 2008We?ve seen some amazing crime stories on News Gems lately. These Top Twenty from the past six months range from the jungles of Africa to a small town in Tennessee. Some are groundbreaking exposés while others tell stories from the...
Intuitions of Justice: Implications for Criminal Law and Justice Policy
Posted on October 13, 2008Recent social science research suggests that many if not most judgments about criminal liability and punishment for serious wrongdoing are intuitional rather than reasoned. Further, such intuitions of justice are nuanced and widely shared, even though they concern matters that...
Technology to track criminals will expand
Posted on October 13, 2008As the economy tightens the reins on the rest of us, San Bernardino County is shortening its leash even more on a special few. This is a group almost everyone is glad that someone is watching. It includes child molesters,...
Assessing Capital Punishment Trends In The U.S.
Posted on October 13, 2008This week, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal and said it needed more time to consider the fate of Troy Anthony Davis. Davis was granted a stay of execution just hours before...
Three Part Investigation into the 19 Wrongful Convictions in Dallas County
Posted on October 13, 2008From dallasnews.com: For nearly a century, police and prosecutors have been on notice that relying on eyewitness testimony is risky. But that hasn't stopped them from using it to prosecute cases - sometimes sending the innocent to prison. The Dallas....
Supreme Court Rejects Obesity Appeal
Posted on October 13, 2008The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from an Ohio prisoner who argued he is too obese to be executed. Richard Cooey is scheduled to be put to death Tuesday. The court denied his request for a stay without...
Unprecedented Number of Federal Judges under Investigation?
Posted on October 13, 2008U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent is the first federal judge to be indicted for alleged federal sex crimes, but he's only the latest in a string of jurists to face misconduct allegations in 2008, for behavior such as frequenting a...
Barry Friedman New York University School of Law
Posted on October 12, 2008Research Constitutional Theory Federal Jurisdiction Federalism Fourth Amendment Judicial Behavior Judicial Review Education J.D., Georgetown University Law Center, 1982 B.A., University of Chicago, 1978 Appointments Vice Dean, 2007 Jacob D. Fuchsberg Professor of Law, 2003 Professor of Law, 2000 Visiting...
Sentences on Trial
Posted on October 11, 2008YOGI BERRA could have written a recently released report on the failure of mandatory minimum sentences. The report, published by Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), chronicles lawmakers' rush in the 1950s to enact tough mandatory minimum sentences for what they...
Anti-gang squad shows an impact; 300 arrests, 25 guns taken
Posted on October 10, 2008Six months after a Gang Impact Squad was formed to combat violence in Cleveland, the unit has arrested scores of violent criminals. The seven-officer squad has confiscated 25 guns and arrested more than 300 people for drugs, guns and violent...
Criminal Prosecutions Predicted to Surge Over Financial Crisis
Posted on October 10, 2008With public anger reaching a boiling point over plunging stock prices and Wall Street "greed," white-collar defense attorneys are preparing for an inevitable surge in criminal prosecutions. Stanley S. Arkin, for one, said he expects that the anger, hysteria and...
Task force recommends changes to state's involuntary commitment laws
Posted on October 10, 2008A mental health system facing a critical shortage of hospital beds, riddled with breakdowns in communication and hamstrung by the state's commitment laws helped create the conditions that led to the killing of Sierra Club worker Shannon Harps outside her...
SCOTUS Saves Death Row Inmates' Appeal for Another Day
Posted on October 09, 2008From Examiner.com: The United States Supreme Court says it needs more time to look at an appeal from Georgia death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. Davis, 39, was convicted of the 1989 shooting death of off-duty officer Mark Allen McPhail,...
Md. Police Put Activists' Names On Terror Lists
Posted on October 09, 2008The Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects, the state police chief acknowledged yesterday. Police Superintendent Terrence B...
New fingerprint technology urged
Posted on October 08, 2008When Stephanie Hartnett saw the man who had followed her 13-year-old daughter to her Roslindale home, she knew he was not the teenager he claimed to be in text messages and e-mails. But when Boston police responded to her call,...
After domestic killing, Rhode Island requires schools to teach students about dating violence
Posted on October 08, 2008NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) -- Ann Burke saw signs of trouble with her daughter's boyfriend. He'd incessantly call her at night, keep her from her family, and, ultimately, physically abuse her during a tumultuous relationship that ended with her death...
Sleuths go door to door to sniff out Medicare fraud
Posted on October 08, 2008MIAMI ? Medicare investigators Suzanne Bradley and Cecilia Franco rap on an apartment door a little before 10 a.m. on a muggy Thursday. They're seeking an 86-year-old man ? allegedly a homebound diabetic whose home health care agency is billing...
Justice issues collide on ballot
Posted on October 07, 2008Law and order activists, critics of California's drug laws and victims rights groups independently have loaded three separate crime measures onto the Nov. 4 ballot, and they're not making it easy for state voters to sort them out. Together, Propositions...
Minneapolis' 'blueprint' to attack youth violence is a success
Posted on October 07, 2008When a politician hails an initiative as a "blueprint" for change, it often fails to deliver any substantial results. This doesn't appear to be the case with Minneapolis' blueprint to prevent youth violence, which started in January. Gathering outside the...
Cincinnati: Homicides ahead of '07 pace Drug Shortage to Blame
Posted on October 07, 2008Cincinnati has been a violent place lately. In the last week, there have been five homicides - increasing the number this year to 58, compared to 55 homicides at this time last year. On Sept. 29 and Sept. 30 alone,...
U.S. Supreme Court Denies Rehearing in Kennedy v. Louisiana Opinion
Posted on October 06, 2008On October 1, the U.S. Supreme Court denied Louisiana's request for a rehearing of the Court's ruling striking down the death penalty for non-homicidal offenses against individuals. Louisiana contended that a recent adjustment to military law that continued to allow...
International Law Experts Question Supreme Court Decision in Medellin Case
Posted on October 06, 2008Notable international law experts cited in a recent article in the Washington Lawyer criticized the Supreme Court?s 2008 decision on whether an international treaty was binding on Texas in the case of death row inmate Jose Medellin. Carolyn Lamm, an....
New Justices content with their dip in the pool
Posted on October 06, 2008As detailed in this Tony Mauro piece, the new SCOTUS Justices apparently are content to continue to rely on the cert pool to help screen cert petitions: As they enter their second term, the Supreme Court's two newest justices have...
Marie Ashe Professor of Law Suffolk University Law School
Posted on October 05, 2008Dep. Public Defender, Lancaster County Public Defender Office, Lincoln, 1980-83; Staff Attorney, Nebraska Advocacy Services, Lincoln, 1983-84; Private Practice, Sole, Lincoln, 1983-84; Supervisory Attorney, Civil Clinical Program - Nebraska, Lincoln, 1983; Director, 1984; Visiting Assistant Professor, Nebraska, 1984-85; Assistant Professor,...
State rule clarifies 60-day supply of medical marijuana
Posted on October 04, 2008A new rule determining how much pot constitutes a 60-day supply for medical-marijuana users was finalized on Thursday, a decade after Washington voters passed an initiative legalizing marijuana for people suffering from terminal and debilitating illnesses...
Interpersonal and Physical Dating Violence Among Teens
Posted on October 03, 2008The death of a 16 year-old girl, shot and killed by her 17 year-old boyfriend in Oakland, California, epitomizes the potential of interpersonal violence to escalate to a tragic extreme (Contra Costa Times, 2008). Exposure to interpersonal violence often begins...
Mackerel Economics in Prison Leads to Appreciation for Oily Fillets
Posted on October 03, 2008When Larry Levine helped prepare divorce papers for a client a few years ago, he got paid in mackerel. Once the case ended, he says, "I had a stack of macks." Mr. Levine and his client were prisoners in California's...
Second Circuit Overturns Terrorism Convictions
Posted on October 03, 2008Finding that a Yemeni cleric and his assistant had been deprived of a fair trial because of errors by the presiding judge, a federal appeals panel in New York on Thursday overturned their convictions in a prominent terrorism case once...
Mistrial Motion Being Considered in Trial Of Sen. Ted Stevens
Posted on October 02, 2008The trial of Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, teetered on the verge of a mistrial or even a dismissal of the charges on Thursday because of the discovery that Justice Department prosecutors had withheld information that they were supposed...
Murders send city crime rate upwards
Posted on October 02, 2008The city's crime rate jumped last month, led by a spike in murders, NYPD statistics show. The murder rate rose nearly 77% to 46 homicides through Sept. 28, compared with 26 through the same date in September 2007. Shooting crimes...
Judge: No Internet for stalker
Posted on October 02, 2008A local artist who pleaded guilty to cyberstalking has been given a sentence that includes writing ?I will not interfere with the Plaza Central Art Krawl? 1,000 times. Kevin Starr, whose real name is Herschel Crumbley, was accused of sending...
Temple professor ponders role in Phila. parole review
Posted on October 02, 2008The Temple University professor who hastily accepted Gov. Rendell's request Monday to conduct a "top-to-bottom" review of Pennsylvania's parole system knows very little about the new assignment or how long it will take to complete. John S. Goldkamp, head of...
Crime lab shutdown slammed as too fast
Posted on October 01, 2008A group of scientists told the Detroit City Council on Tuesday that the closing of the police crime lab was hasty and left a slew of employees with tarnished reputations and job uncertainty. Cathy Carr, 50, a senior forensic biologist,...
High court rebuffs Louisiana in child rape case
Posted on October 01, 2008WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court declined Wednesday to revisit its recent decision outlawing executions for people convicted of raping children. The unusual request, from Louisiana and the Bush administration, was based on the failure of anyone involved in the case...
When deadly force is justified
Posted on October 01, 2008The Indiana law that justifies use of deadly force for people defending themselves, their home or others in danger is seldom used, but this week's case involving a Northwestside family brings it to the spotlight. Sunday, Robert McNally put a...
SCOTUS Grants Cert. in Seven Criminal Cases
Posted on October 01, 2008The U.S. Supreme Court today granted review in seven criminal cases. Among the issues the Court will address are two Sixth Amendment issues: whether a defendant whose Sixth Amendment right to counsel has attached and who has been appointed counsel...
Third Circuit Requires Reasonable Suspicion for Border Searches of Sleeping Compartments
Posted on September 30, 2008The Fourth Amendment generally prohibits federal agents from conducting border searches of sleeping compartments on vessels unless the agents have reasonable suspicion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit announced Sept. 4 (United States v...
D.C. Police Officers Carry iPhones, Panasonic Toughbooks
Posted on September 30, 2008Tucked in with their Tasers and service weapons, some District of Columbia police officers are now sporting iPhones. An initiative spearheaded by Vivek Kundra, chief technology officer for the District of Columbia, is putting Apple's smartphone -- along with Panasonic...
No Charges Expected in Dismissal of Attorneys
Posted on September 30, 2008A Justice Department investigation offers a blistering critique of the political motivations that led to the firings of a group of United States attorneys in late 2006 but stops short of recommending criminal charges against former Attorney General Alberto R...
Colorado sex-crime database perplexes
Posted on September 29, 2008When President Bush signed the Adam Walsh Act into law, it required states to contribute to a national database of sex offenders with more current and stringent registration requirements. But states and American Indian tribes are having a tough time....
Opponents of Tough Federal Sentencing Rules Take Up Heller for Help
Posted on September 29, 2008The federal judge that sentenced Weldon Angelos to 55 years and one day in prison in 2004 said his hands were tied by mandatory-minimum gun laws, calling his own sentence "unjust, cruel, and even irrational." Now a law professor and...
More hurt in spring prison riot than originally reported
Posted on September 29, 2008The April riot that left two inmates dead at the U.S. Penitentiary in Florence lasted nearly a half-hour and injured six times the number of people the Bureau of Prisons announced at the time, according to an incident report obtained...
Prosecutor Appointed to Investigate U.S. Attorney Firings
Posted on September 29, 2008An internal Justice Department investigation concluded Monday that political pressure drove the firings of several federal prosecutors in a 2006 purge, but said that the refusal of major players at the White House and the department to cooperate in the...
Joseph T. Thai
Posted on September 28, 2008Professor Joseph Thai joined the law faculty in 2003. He teaches Supreme Court decision making, First Amendment, criminal procedure, and criminal law, and writes in related areas. Thai has served as law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens and Justice....
Change of the Guard in Corrections Department
Posted on September 27, 2008In her 19 years as a corrections officer on Rikers Island, Barbara Williams has been trapped in a mess hall with rioting inmates and thrown against an iron gate by a man twice her size who left her with a...
N.Y. Law Treats Child Prostitutes as Crime Victims not Offenders
Posted on September 27, 2008Ending years of debate and delay, Gov. David A. Paterson on Friday signed into law a bill shielding sexually exploited girls and boys from being charged with prostitution. The law, known as the Safe Harbor for Exploited Youth Act, will...
Taser Use in Man?s Death Broke Rules, Police Say
Posted on September 27, 2008The firing of a Taser stun gun that led an emotionally disturbed man to fall from a Brooklyn building ledge to his death on Wednesday appeared to have violated departmental guidelines, the police said on Thursday. The guidelines tell officers...
FBI did not analyze anthrax from biodefense lab
Posted on September 26, 2008The FBI never examined anthrax samples from the 2001 contamination of a biodefense lab that was covered up by their lead suspect in the anthrax mailings ? a decision that one of the FBI's leading anthrax experts calls "weird." Researcher...
North Charleston police take step into the future
Posted on September 26, 2008The day when police can swipe a suspect's finger through a device and check him instantly against a nationwide criminal database, all while standing on a city street, may not be far off. North Charleston Police Chief Jon Zumalt said...
Mo. prison program fosters family ties behind bars
Posted on September 26, 2008VANDALIA, Mo. ? The crayons, construction paper and toddlers scattered on the floor suggest a typical daycare center or kindergarten classroom. The armed guards and surveillance cameras reveal a painful reality. The handful of inmates gathered for the monthly program...
FBI Opens Probe of Finance Giants
Posted on September 25, 2008The FBI is investigating whether fraud played a role in the troubles at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Lehman Brothers and American International Group, bringing to 26 the number of bureau investigations of institutions tied to the mortgage debacle, according to...
Rape reports jump 40% in S.F., police say
Posted on September 25, 2008Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 7, there have been 130 reported rapes in the city, compared with 94 over the same period last year, according to statistics presented at City Hall this week. Police officials said they did not know...
In the New Term, High Stakes for the High Court
Posted on September 25, 2008Following a blockbuster term involving guns, Guantanamo Bay and the death penalty, the U.S. Supreme Court opens its doors to a new term with less drama, more cases initially and many challenges having potentially major implications for business, the environment,...
U.S. Supreme Court delays execution of Ga.
Posted on September 24, 2008ATLANTA (AP) ? The U.S. Supreme Court gave a reprieve to a Georgia inmate less than two hours before his scheduled execution Tuesday for the 1989 slaying of an off-duty police officer. Family and advocates of 39-year-old Troy Davis have...
Innocent Until Reported Guilty
Posted on September 24, 2008As guards led Ellen Reasonover to the van that would transport her to prison, she could not comprehend that a St. Louis County, Mo., jury had just found her guilty of a cold-blooded murder. A 24-year-old single mother of a...
Scavenging - and theft of recyclables - on rise
Posted on September 24, 2008Less than five minutes into Lisa Poston's shift, the San Diego code-enforcement officer spotted a scraggly man on a bicycle that had been modified to carry garbage cans. Poston pulled her unmarked car next to him and politely explained that...
Bernard Kerik Claims Selective Prosecution
Posted on September 24, 2008Disgraced former NYPD boss Bernard Kerik doesn't think it's fair for him to face criminal charges for not paying nanny taxes when other top officials skated for similar offenses. Kerik's lawyers cited one-time U.S. attorney general nominee Zoe Baird and...
Searches of old criminal records end school jobs
Posted on September 23, 2008The impact has been especially evident among nonteaching employees who, until this year, did not have to undergo the kind of comprehensive background checks done for teachers. Now, staffers such as custodians, secretaries and cafeteria workers may face dismissal for...
Public defender wants alternatives to juvenile detention
Posted on September 23, 2008Nashville's new public defender says she is most proud of two things: the good work her office does in representing the city's poor and being the city's first woman to hold the office. Dawn Deaner, a 12-year veteran of the...
'CLUELESS' CRIME LABS
Posted on September 23, 2008A federal panel of experts looking into the reliability of CSI tests has heard damning evidence against some of the most common techniques used to convict killers, rapists and other criminals, The Post has learned. The analysis of fingerprints, tire....
At Sentencing, Youth Bares Soul, and Judge Bares His Pain
Posted on September 22, 2008How much misery was appropriate to inflict on a promising 19-year-old, who himself had inflicted misery on society by dealing drugs, the judge asked himself out loud. ?It?s almost an impossible calculus,? said Justice Farber, who sits in State Supreme...
Anxiety-detecting machines could spot terrorists
Posted on September 22, 2008UPPER MARLBORO, Md. ? A scene from the airport of the future: A man's pulse races as he walks through a checkpoint. His quickened heart rate and heavier breathing set off an alarm. A machine senses his skin temperature jumping....
Police tactics in '75 murder case debated
Posted on September 22, 2008Three weeks out of a mental hospital, Curtis Jasper Moore spent the night of Jan. 8, 1975, at the Emporia police station asking for his mother. He sang "The Ballad of Paladin," the theme song of an old television Western,...
Patricia W. Bennett Professor of Criminal Law Mississippi College of Law
Posted on September 21, 2008Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School Trial Advocacy Program, October 1990, January 1993, and September 1995. Visiting Professor, Emory University School of Law Trial Techniques Program, Summer 1992, Summer 1993, Summer 1995, Summer 1996, Summer 1999, and Summer 2000...
U.S. Court Is Now Guiding Fewer Nations
Posted on September 20, 2008WASHINGTON ? Judges around the world have long looked to the decisions of the United States Supreme Court for guidance, citing and often following them in hundreds of their own rulings since the Second World War. But now American legal...
Limit on Gun Law Passes; Senate Vote Unlikely
Posted on September 19, 2008The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly yesterday to legalize semiautomatic rifles in the District and repeal its gun registration laws, but the bill's future appeared in doubt as a prominent senator announced she would try to block it. "If this...
After fatal call, judge should resign
Posted on September 19, 2008She should call a news conference before the week is out, apologize for the pivotal role she played in a killing last week and tender her letter to the administrative judge of the Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court. Her apology should...
Cell Phone Cameras and Crime Reporting
Posted on September 19, 2008One morning last month, a 28-year-old woman was struggling up the stairs at the Dyckman Street elevated station on her way to work. Normally, she would hold her skirt around her legs, but that day she was juggling a cup...
The Challenges of Sentencing Young Drug Offenders
Posted on September 19, 2008Justice Thomas Farber?s dilemma in a Manhattan courtroom on Thursday played itself out like a dramatic monologue. How much misery was appropriate to inflict on a promising 19-year-old, who himself had inflicted misery on society by dealing drugs, the judge...
15 LAPD officers face discipline in May Day melee
Posted on September 18, 2008Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton announced Tuesday his plans to discipline 11 officers and called for the termination of four others for their roles in a May Day melee last year in which police were accused of using...
Circuit Court Reinstates Convictions of Mob Cops
Posted on September 18, 2008The racketeering convictions of two retired New York City detectives who helped to kill at least eight men in their role as mob assassins were ordered reinstated on Wednesday by a federal appeals court. It ruled that a trial judge...
Video from 11th Circuit Excessive Force Case Finds Way to YouTube
Posted on September 18, 2008When Judge Beverly B. Martin this month dissented to a federal appeals decision in favor of a sheriff's deputy accused of civil rights violations for using a Taser on a handcuffed man, she urged that a video of the events...
Officials unite to fight marijuana initiative
Posted on September 18, 2008Law enforcement officials statewide are uniting against a referendum question they fear will increase marijuana use among teenagers and generate more crime across the state. The state's 11 district attorneys are unanimously opposing Question 2 and are being joined by...
Fewer police shootings in '07 called a good trend
Posted on September 18, 2008There were two police shootings in Portland in 2007, the fewest in a decade. At the same time, police discipline is up, indicating that Portland officers are being held more accountable, according to an annual report by the city's Independent...
Senate backs early release for nonviolent Pa. criminals
Posted on September 18, 2008HARRISBURG - Legislation designed to move thousands of nonviolent criminals out of Pennsylvania prisons more quickly and rein in booming correctional costs is nearing final approval. After making minor changes to the bill, regarded as the biggest change to the...
O.J. Simpson jury selection renews questions of race
Posted on September 17, 2008LAS VEGAS -- As testimony in O.J. Simpson's trial on robbery charges gets underway this week, one thing is already abundantly clear: When the former football star enters a courtroom, so does a debate about race. In jury selection last...
Missouri leads the nation in juvenile justice reform
Posted on September 17, 2008ST. LOUIS ? Hope for the once-fallen teen sparkles in an emerald green class ring under the fluorescent lights of the Hogan Street Regional Youth Center. "It's a blessing," says Terrell, 17, fingering the ring he earned for passing his...
Prison push offers skills to prevent repeat visits
Posted on September 17, 2008Anew, privately owned medium-security prison in Shelby County that is scheduled to be dedicated today by Gov. Bob Riley will try to do something public prisons can't: Keep inmates from coming back. The prison, built in an old factory in...
Violent Crime Reported Down in 2007
Posted on September 16, 2008Data released Monday by the FBI show violent crime dipped slightly nationwide in 2007. That ended two years of increases in murders, robberies and other kinds of the worst crime in U.S. cities. An estimated 1.4 million violent crimes were...
Brain test could be next polygraph
Posted on September 16, 2008A Seattle scientist who has developed an electronic brain test that he says could improve our ability to force criminals to reveal themselves, identify potential terrorists and free those wrongly convicted may have finally broken through the bureaucratic barriers that...
Suburban police accused of racially profiling of Latinos
Posted on September 16, 2008Four years after meeting at a Robinson restaurant, Melody Luchuck and Eduardo Vielma decided to marry, planning a simple ceremony at the Phipps Conservatory. But two weeks before the Aug. 15 event, Robinson police detained Mr. Vielma and his brother,...
States Restore Voting Rights for Ex-Convicts
Posted on September 16, 2008Striding across a sweltering strip-mall parking lot with her clipboard in hand, Monica Bell, a community field organizer in Orlando, Fla., was looking for former convicts to add to the state?s voter rolls. Antonious Benton, a gold-toothed 22-year-old with a...
Political Crimes: Left Wants To Prosecute the Bush Administration
Posted on September 15, 2008With ?Bush derangement syndrome? having infected large swaths of the Left, it is no surprise that their fever dreams feature the prosecution of Bush Administration heavies for their ?crimes against humanity? and the U.S. Constitution. This weekend, the otherwise unremarkable...
University Brings Charges Against White Hat Hacker
Posted on September 15, 2008"A university student at Carleton is learning that no good deed goes unpunished. After hacking into what was probably a not-so-secure university network, this guy took the time to write a 16-page paper on his methods and sent it to...
Stimulant Use Surges in Asia, Mideast
Posted on September 15, 2008emand for amphetamines, ecstasy and other synthetic drugs appears to have stabilized in the West, but the problem is worsening in Asia and spreading to new markets in the Middle East, a U.N. report said Tuesday. Manufacturing and trafficking of...
New rules would give FBI more freedom in U.S. operations
Posted on September 15, 2008WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department is finalizing rules that would allow FBI agents to solicit informants and use other new techniques to bolster the agency's intelligence-gathering operation in the United States, officials said Friday. The changes would expand rules the...
Professor Etienne University of Illinois College of Law
Posted on September 14, 2008Professor Etienne received her bachelor's degree in History with honors from Yale University, and earned her law degree from Yale Law School. Following law school, Etienne clerked for Judge Diana G. Motz on the United States Court of Appeals for...
ROBERT BADINTER in conversation with NEAL KATYAL
Posted on September 13, 2008Robert Badinter, the French Minister of Justice between 1981 and 1986, led the battle to abolish the death penalty in France. He became a militant abolitionist after watching one of his clients unjustly guillotined in 1972. Over the next decade,...
Juvenile program 'a place of last resort,' not rehabilitation
Posted on September 12, 2008Hennepin County is spending too much on residential treatment programs for juvenile offenders and could save money and get better results by leaving more young offenders with their families and placing them in daytime rehabilitation programs. That's the finding of...
?Governing Through Crime?
Posted on September 12, 2008Rehearsing again the grim statistics of American crime and punishment is depressing. The Pew Center on the States reminds us that one in every hundred American is behind bars, a rate of incarceration far greater than in other developed countries....
Public defenders reject new cases
Posted on September 12, 2008Public defenders are being hit so hard by budget cuts and growing caseloads that offices in several states are refusing to take on more cases because they say defendants' rights are being hurt. Other jurisdictions say they may follow suit....
Execution halted amid rumors of affair between judge, D.A.
Posted on September 11, 2008McKINNEY, Texas (AP) -- A death row inmate whose lawyers argued a secret romantic relationship between the judge and prosecutor tainted his trial has won a reprieve -- but not because of the alleged affair. T