Criminal Law

Hylton on Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Criminal Law

Posted on August 04, 2010
Keith N. Hylton (Boston University) has posted Some Notes on Property Rules, Liability Rules, and Criminal Law (RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON THE ECONOMICS OF CRIMINAL LAW, A. Harel, K. Hylton, eds., Edward Elgar, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The...

"Treasury Department to issue license for terror suspect defense"

Posted on August 04, 2010
Jurist has this update on the challenge to the federal law requiring a special license to provide legal services to "Specially Designated Terrorists."

Jurisdictional Limits to Affirmative Duties?

Posted on August 04, 2010
Does a 911 operator have affirmative duties? Do they extand beyond the operator's jurisdiction? Does it matter if the operator is mistaken? All suggested by the following from the Lorenzen Wright case, as reported in the San Diego Union-Tribune: Police...

Chin & Miller on State Regulation of Immigration through Criminal Law

Posted on August 03, 2010
Gabriel J. Chin and Marc L. Miller (pictured, lower right) (both of University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law) have posted Cracked Mirror: SB1070 and Other State Regulation of Immigration through Criminal Law on SSRN. Here is the...

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"Passage of Fair Sentencing Act no guarantee of change"

Posted on August 03, 2010
Jurist has this commentary by Eric Sterling, President of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation. In part: For this long-awaited Act to be meaningful, we must see something in the U.S. Attorneys Manual or a memorandum from the Attorney General to...

"A must-read take on American justice courtesy of now-free Lord Conrad Black"

Posted on August 02, 2010
Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this article from Toronto's National Post. A snippet: In my 28 months as a guest of the U.S. government, I often wondered how my time in that role would end. I never...

"France ruling expands legal protections for persons held in police custody"

Posted on August 02, 2010
Jurist has the story. The Constitutional Council ruled "that French police may no longer hold suspects for 48 hours without telling them their rights or bringing charges."

Leo & Koenig on Gatehouses and Mansions Revisited

Posted on August 02, 2010
Richard A. Leo (pictured) and Alexa Koenig (University of San Francisco - School of Law and University of California, Berkeley - Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program) have posted The Gatehouses and Mansions: 50 Years Later (The Annual Review of Law...

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads

Posted on August 01, 2010
are here. The usual disclaimers apply: Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 2578 Arizona Senate Bill 1070: A Preliminary Report Gabriel J. Chin, Carissa Byrne Hessick, Toni M. Massaro, Marc L. Miller, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law,...

Roach on Prosecutorial Independence and Accountability in Terrorism Prosecutions

Posted on August 01, 2010
Kent Roach (University of Toronto - Faculty of Law) has posted Prosecutorial Independence and Accountability in Terrorism Prosecutions (Criminal Law Quarterly, Vol. 55, pp. 486-507, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The convention that the Attorney General should be...

Bradford & Jackson on Cooperating with the Police

Posted on July 31, 2010
Ben Bradford and Jonathan Jackson (pictured) (Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and London School of Economics & Political Science - Methodology Institute) have posted Cooperating with the Police: Social Control and the Reproduction of Police Legitimacy on SSRN...

The Federalization of Noncriminal Law: Internet Gambling

Posted on July 29, 2010
The New York Times has this story headlined Congress Rethinks Its Ban on Internet Gambling: WASHINGTON ? With pressure mounting on the federal government to find new revenues, Congress is considering legalizing, and taxing, an activity it banned just four...

The House of Representatives, Criminal Justice, and the Cocaine Sentencing Disparity

Posted on July 29, 2010
Jurist chronicles these notable developments: "US House approves commission to reform criminal justice system" "US House approves bill to reduce cocaine sentencing disparity"

"Ruling Against Arizona Is a Warning for Other States"

Posted on July 29, 2010
The New York Times has this analysis of yesterday's decision.. It also provides this link to the opinion.

Markel on Retributivism and Minors

Posted on July 29, 2010
Dan Markel (Florida State University College of Law) has posted May Minors Be Retributively Punished after Panetti (and Graham)? (Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 23, No. 1, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In this brief essay, I try to...

Gross and O'Brien on False Convictions

Posted on July 28, 2010
Samuel R. Gross and Barbara O'Brien (University of Michigan Law School and Michigan State University - College of Law) have posted Reply to Richard A. Leo and Jon B. Gould (Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 9, 2010) on...

"Civilians take on police work in SFPD program"

Posted on July 28, 2010
From the San Francisco Chronicle: Fingerprints and DNA evidence are often not collected, Police Chief George Gascón said. To do so, a separate crime scene technician has to be called out, which could stretch into the next day. "When the...

Kotch & Mosteller on the Death Penalty and the North Carolina Racial Justice Act

Posted on July 27, 2010
Seth Kotch and Robert P. Mosteller (pictured) (University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - Center for the Study of the American South and University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill - School of Law) have posted The...

"China Pushes to End Public Shaming"

Posted on July 27, 2010
The story is in the New York Times: BEIJING ? The Chinese government has called for an end to the public shaming of criminal suspects, a time-honored cudgel of Chinese law enforcement but one that has increasingly rattled the public....

"Mel Gibson investigation focusing on medical records, text messages, sources say"

Posted on July 26, 2010
From the those-who-ignore-celebrity-cases-are-destined-to-learn-about-them-from-students file, courtesy of the Los Angeles Times: The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department investigation into Mel Gibson is focusing on physical evidence, witness testimony and text messages -- not highly publicized audio recordings -- to determine whether...

Rosenthal on Originalism, Race and Terry v. Ohio

Posted on July 26, 2010
Lawrence Rosenthal (Chapman University - School of Law) has posted Pragmatism, Originalism, Race, and the Case Against Terry v. Ohio (Texas Tech Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Perhaps no decision of the United States Supreme Court...

Block on Information Sharing and Tainted Evidence

Posted on July 25, 2010
Micah Block has published The New Silver Platter: How Today's Police are Serving up Potentially Tainted Evidence Without Even Revealing the Search that Produced It to Defendants or to Courts at The Legal Workshop. An excerpt: [T]he availability of the...

"Miranda Rule Should Not Be Weakened, Former FBI Special Agent Says"

Posted on July 25, 2010
ACSBlog has the post.

"Court Under Roberts Is Most Conservative in Decades"

Posted on July 25, 2010
From The New York Times: [T]he court not only moved to the right but also became the most conservative one in living memory, based on an analysis of four sets of political science data. . . . . Almost all...

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads

Posted on July 25, 2010
are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 2461 Arizona Senate Bill 1070: A Preliminary Report Gabriel J. Chin, Carissa Byrne Hessick, Toni M. Massaro, Marc L. Miller, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law,...

"Rough justice: America locks up too many people, some for acts that should not even be criminal"

Posted on July 24, 2010
Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy excerpts this interesting commentary from The Economist,

"Canada high court rules damages appropriate remedy for Charter rights violations"

Posted on July 24, 2010
Jurist reports on Friday's decision: The case arose after Vancouver lawyer Cameron Ward was mistakenly arrested for making threats against then-prime minister Jean Chretien [CBC profile]. Ward was detained and eventually arrested for breach of the peace, and he and...

"Drivers on Prescription Drugs Are Hard to Convict"

Posted on July 24, 2010
The story is in the New York Times: The issue is vexing police officials because, unlike with alcohol, there is no agreement on what level of drugs in the blood impairs driving. The behavioral effects of prescription medication vary widely,...

Robinson on Schabas and International Criminal Law

Posted on July 24, 2010
Darryl Robinson (Queen's University (Canada) Faculty of Law) has posted A Response to William Schabas and a Reflection on Discursive Assumptions: One Vision or Many? on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This article critically examines some of the criticisms leveled...

"Corporate Sector Sounds the Alarm Over Financial Reform's 'Bounty' System"

Posted on July 23, 2010
The story is at Law.com: Under the so-called Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC will pay whistleblowers cash rewards of between 10 percent and 30 percent of any monetary sanctions in excess of $1 million that the government, because of whistleblowers' assistance,...

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