Criminal Law

CrimProf Christo Lassiter Receives Goldman Prize

Posted on April 24, 2008
University of Cincinnati College of Law CrimProf Christo Lassiter is the recipient of the 2008 Goldman Prize for Teaching Excellence " CrimProf Lassiter expounds the ideal that law school is about ?learning to think like a lawyer,? wrote his students...

Wesley Snipes Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison

Posted on April 24, 2008
From the New York Times: The actor Wesley Snipes was sentenced to a maximum of three years in federal prison on Thursday for three misdemeanor convictions of failure to file his income taxes. Mr. Snipes was also sentenced to one...

New Article Spotlight: The Political Economies of Criminal Justice

Posted on April 23, 2008
Stanford CrimProf Mariano-Florentino Cuellar has published The Political Economies of Criminal Justice on SSRN. The Abstract: "Long understood as a specialized branch of law applicable to unambiguously harmful transgressions, criminal law has become instead a mechanism for routine social regulation...

CrimProf Corinna Barrett Lain Discusses the Reas why the Innocent Confess

Posted on April 23, 2008
An op-ed piece in the April 22 Richmond Times Dispatch by Richmond School of Law CrimProf Corinna Barrett Lain offers insight into issues surrounding the "Norfolk Four" case in which four Navy sailors were convicted and imprisoned for a 1990...

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Man Gets 15 Years for Threat Letters

Posted on April 23, 2008
From washingtonpost.com: For two decades, Scott L. Rendelman has sent letters threatening judges, prosecutors, presidents and others with graphic violence. Yesterday, as he was sentenced in federal court in Greenbelt, Rendelman told U.S. District Judge Roger W...

Ninth Circuit Upholds Border Laptop Searches without Individualized Suspicion

Posted on April 23, 2008
From Law.com: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that border control agents who found child porn on a traveler's laptop didn't violate the man's right to be free from unreasonable searches. "We are satisfied that reasonable suspicion....

Thoughts on Virginia v. Moore

Posted on April 23, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court decided Virginia v. Moore today. The Court rejected Moore's claim that his arrest, and the search incident thereto, violated the Fourth Amendment by virtue of the fact that the arrest was made in violation of state...

New Article Spotlight: A Reentry-Centered Vision of Criminal Justice

Posted on April 22, 2008
Maryland CrimProf Michael Pinard has posted this abstract on SSRN: "In recent years, record numbers of individuals have been released from U.S. correctional facilities and have reentered their communities. At present, approximately 650,000 individuals are released annually from U...

The Scalia vs. Stevens Opinion Concerning the Death Penalty

Posted on April 22, 2008
From npr.com: U.S. Supreme Court Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia both voted last week that lethal injections in death penalty cases are constitutional. But that was where the agreements ended. In Stevens' opinion, he reversed the stance he...

Students Put their heads Together to Fix Maryland's Crime Problem

Posted on April 22, 2008
From baltimoresun.com: In a city where leaders have for years tried and failed to curtail one of the nation's highest crime rates, a University of Maryland law professor has turned his classroom into a crime-fighting think tank. University of Maryland...

New (and somewhat Scary) Ways to use DNA

Posted on April 21, 2008
From washingtonpost.com: Twenty years after DNA fingerprints were first admitted by American courts as a way to link suspects to crime scenes, a new and very different class of genetic test is approaching the bench. Rather than simply proving, for...

New Article Spotlight: Victims, 'Closure', and the Sociology of Emotion

Posted on April 19, 2008
Highly Cited DePaul CrimProf Susan Bandes (visiting at Chicago) presented this paper at Arizona last week; a very persuasive and perceptive piece of work. The abstract: "The concept of closure, almost unknown two decades ago, has had a meteoric rise....

New Article Spotlight: Correcting Search and Seizure History

Posted on April 18, 2008
Tennessee CrimProf Thomas Davies has posted Correcting Search-and-Seizure History: Now-Forgotten Common-Law Warrantless Arrest Standards and the Original Meaning of Due Process of Law on SSRN. The abstract: "The conventional view that search-and-seizure history is simply Fourth Amendment history is incorrect...

SCOTUS Hears Death Penalty for Rape Case

Posted on April 18, 2008
From npr.com: The Supreme Court on Wednesday takes up a major death penalty case testing whether capital punishment is constitutional for the rape of a child. It is the first time that the newly constituted Supreme Court will be examining...

Yale Law School Pocket Part Calls For Papers

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Yale Law Journal Pocket Part is soliciting commentaries and essays related to the legal issues presented by virtual worlds and economies. Submissions may address, but need not be limited to, the overlap with and implications for real-world institutions.

Michigan Law School Launches new Innocence Clinic

Posted on April 18, 2008
DNA evidence has already freed dozens of wrongfully convicted prisoners around the country, and that?s one reason Michigan Law?s new Innocence Clinic, opening in January, will focus on a potentially far larger group: prisoners convicted in cases where biological evidence...

SCOTUS Backs Lethal Injection

Posted on April 17, 2008
From NPR.com: The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Kentucky's use of lethal injections for executions, clearing the way for a number of states to proceed with scheduled executions. In a 7-2 decision, the justices rejected a constitutional challenge to the...

Abstracts Needed for Neuroscience, Law, and Government Symposium

Posted on April 17, 2008
On September 25 and 26, 2008, The University of Akron School of Law will host a symposium on Neuroscience, Law & Government.

Faulty Phot ID Practice was the Cause of Yet Another Wronful Conviction

Posted on April 17, 2008
From dallasnews.com: A questionable identification process nearly 23 years ago helped strip away freedom from Thomas Clifford McGowan Jr. Now the certainty of DNA testing is about to restore it.

Judge Tapped for Public Safety Chief

Posted on April 15, 2008
From clarionledger.com: Improving the state Crime Lab and naming a medical examiner will be priorities for Stephen Simpson if he's confirmed as the next commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Public Safety. On Friday, Gov. Haley Barbour nominated Simpson, a...

Lawmakers Wants to Limit FBI Access to Data

Posted on April 15, 2008
From washingtonpost.com: Bipartisan groups in Congress are pressing to place new controls on the FBI's ability to demand troves of sensitive personal information from telephone providers and credit card companies, over the opposition of agency officials who say they deserve...

SCOTUS Looks into Whether Judges Must Notify After Sentencing Guideline Deviation

Posted on April 15, 2008
From NPR.com: The Supreme Court on Tuesday hears a case involving whether a judge must notify the defense if he deviates from the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. A pre-sentence report recommended a sentence of 41 to 51 months in prison for...

Making Pot Possession the Lowest Priority

Posted on April 14, 2008
From NPR.com: Marijuana legalization activists are pushing for new city ordinances to make enforcement of pot possession the lowest priority for police and prosecutors. Seattle passed such a measure in 2003. Has anything changed on the streets there over the...

Budget Cuts Put More Pressure on Public Defenders

Posted on April 14, 2008
From maysville-online.com: In response to the General Assembly decision to cut $2.5 million in Department of Public Advocacy funding in the next fiscal year, the DPA issued a three-page announcement regarding the future of public defender availability in Kentucky...

Questioning Government Monitoring

Posted on April 14, 2008
washingtonpost.com: Imagine a world of streets lined with video cameras that alert authorities to any suspicious activity. A world where police officers can read the minds of potential criminals and arrest them before they commit any crimes. A world in...

New Article Spotlight: Charles Weisselberg on Mourning Miranda

Posted on April 13, 2008
Berkeley CrimProf Charles Weisselberg has published Mourning Miranda on SSRN. The abstract: "The article presents new field research about police interrogation tactics and training and discusses that research in light of recent science literature and judicial decisions...

CrimProf Spotlight: Paul Marcus

Posted on April 12, 2008
This week the CrimProf Blog spotlight William and Mary College of Law CrimProf Paul Marcus. Joined the faculty in 1992. Clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Practiced law at Loeb and Loeb in...

Detainee Boycotts Trial

Posted on April 11, 2008
From LATimes.com: A Sudanese prisoner with long ties to Osama bin Laden told the war-crimes tribunal here Thursday that the Sept. 11 attacks dealt heavy blows to U.S. security and exposed the "hypocrisy" behind American claims that it stands for...

Race and the Death Penalty: Is Justice Color Blind?

Posted on April 11, 2008
Widener Law is teaming up with area civic groups to present an evening forum that showcases legal academics and practitioners in a conversation on capital punishment, led by the woman who co-founded the Cornell Death Penalty Project 15 years ago....

Nebraska Supreme Court Refuses to Reconsider Electrocution as Cruel and Unusual

Posted on April 10, 2008
From journalstar.com: The Nebraska Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to reconsider its decision that electrocution is unconstitutional. The decision was handed down by the court in response to Attorney General Jon Bruning?s request for another hearing in the case...

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