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Criminal Law

Crime and Consequences

Criminal law issues from the perspective of victims of crime and the law-abiding public.
By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: November 25, 2008 at 18:31:33

News Scan

Posted on July 01, 2008
Guantanamo Detainee Charged in USS Cole Bombing: Almost 8 years after a small boat loaded with TNT detonated and ripped through the USS Cole at a Yemeni port, Guantanamo Bay detainee Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri has been charged for planning...

Florida to Resume Executions

Posted on July 01, 2008
Update: The execution was carried out on schedule and completed at 6:15 EDT. AP story here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Florida executions are scheduled to resume today following a de facto moratorium for the revision of procedures following the Diaz execution and the...

Blog Scan

Posted on June 30, 2008
Supreme Court Criminal Law Docket in 2007-2008: Kristina Moore at SCOTUSblog posted a summary of the criminal cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court this term. Moore reports that of the 24 cases involving criminal law, 12 involved sentencing guidelines...

Hubris on Deterrence

Posted on June 30, 2008
Cass Sunstein and Justin Wolfers have this op-ed in the Washington Post today, claiming that the Supreme Court has "misread" the evidence on deterrence. Professor Sunstein gives himself too much credit and gives Justice Scalia too little....

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News Scan

Posted on June 30, 2008
Death Penalty Opponents Vow More Lawsuits in Wake of Baze: While the Baze decision provides a fairly clear affirmation of the procedures used by Kentucky and 34 other states, Deborah Hastings of the Associated Press argues that death penalty opponents...

Dubious California Death Penalty Report Due Today

Posted on June 30, 2008
The California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice plans to release its report on the death penalty today. The press release is here. The circumstances of this commission's creation and its actions to date do not bode well for...

Death Penalty Debate Online

Posted on June 27, 2008
The Federalist Society has this online debate on the death penalty. "In light of the important death penalty questions considered [by the Supreme Court] this term, a panel of experts-- Former Chief of the Appellate Division in the U.S. Attorney's...

USCA2 Upholds Death Sentence

Posted on June 27, 2008
The Second Circuit doesn't decide a lot of death penalty cases. Vermont has decided not to have the death penalty through the democratic process. New York's was nullified by Their Imperial Highnesses at the NY Court of Appeals. Connecticut cases...

News Scan

Posted on June 27, 2008
SF Widow Pleads for Death Penalty: A week ago, Danielle Bologna of San Francisco was living with her husband and four children. Then suddenly half her family was gone, reports Jaxon Van Derbeken in the SF Chron. They were killed...

Knowles v. Mirzayance

Posted on June 27, 2008
You know something unusual is up when the three-judge panel of a U.S. Court of Appeals decides that a case is so mundane that it is not worth a published opinion, but the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case "certworthy,"...

The Complexity of Brain Scans

Posted on June 26, 2008
The purported rise of brain scanning technologies in criminal cases has paralleled the growth of neurolaw within legal scholarship. But as with many new interfaces with law, the tendency to overplay the implications such technologies have regarding entrenched legal norms...

Interpretation Nuggets in Heller

Posted on June 26, 2008
When reading Supreme Court opinions, I like to keep track of "nuggets," particularly nice statements of basic principles that may be useful in other contexts. The Heller opinion has a number of nuggets on the interpretation of enactments, applicable both...

More Apprendi Damage Control

Posted on June 26, 2008
The California Supreme Court decided People v. Towne, S125677, today, further squashing the notion that the Apprendi line of cases requires juries to decide practically everything relevant to sentencing. We conclude the aggravating circumstance that a defendant served a prior...

News Scan

Posted on June 26, 2008
Affirmation of Right to Face Accusers May Endanger Victims: Carrie Johnson reports for the Washington Post that the US Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of a man for murdering his ex-girlfriend because he could not challenge a statement she...

Right to Bear Arms

Posted on June 26, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that the Second Amendment right to bear arms creates an individual right, not limited to the militia. The D.C. Circuit ruling in Heller is affirmed. Update: The opinion is available on SCOTUSblog and downloads...

Obama on Kennedy v. Louisiana

Posted on June 25, 2008
This being an election year, the ink was not dry on the opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana before bloggers (and blog commenters) were asking how it would affect the presidential election and whether it would give a boost to John...

Blog Scan

Posted on June 25, 2008
Thursday, The Last Day of the 2007 Term: Tony Mauro at Blog of the Legal Times (BLT) has a post on what will happen tomorrow, Thursday, June 26, when the U.S. Supreme Court releases all remaining cases that are "ready"...

Confrontation and the Murdered Witness

Posted on June 25, 2008
Although most of the attention today is on the Kennedy opinion, the case of Giles v. California will have a greater impact on the regular practice of criminal law. The case continues the reworking of the Confrontation Clause begun by...

Cunningham Sequel Tomorrow

Posted on June 25, 2008
Tomorrow, the California Supreme Court will announce its decision in People v. Towne, S125677. This case is another sequel to Cunningham v. California, 549 U.S. 270 (2007), the case that applied the rule of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S....

News Scan

Posted on June 25, 2008
Ninth Circuit Overturns Death Penalty, Allows Conviction to Stand: Paul Elias reports for the Associated Press that the Reinhart court has ruled that the defense's failure to investigate blood evidence that did not belong to either the defendant or the...

Death Penalty Barred for Child Rape

Posted on June 25, 2008
The Supreme Court this morning decided in Kennedy v. Louisiana that the death penalty is unconstitutional for the crime of the rape of a child. The primary reason for the holding is the national consensus the Court found in state...

Jessica's Law in Massachusetts

Posted on June 24, 2008
The Massachusetts legislature is presently considering a version of "Jessica's Law," reports Dave Wedge for the Boston Herald. (Hat tip, James Taranto.) Incredibly, the House removed a provision for mandatory prison time for rape of a child before passing the...

News Scan

Posted on June 24, 2008
Supreme Court Grants 3rd Hearing to TN Death Row Inmate: According to Adam Liptak's article in the New York Times, the US Supreme Court has granted a third hearing to Gary B. Cone, who was sentenced to death for double...

A Precursor to Oregon v. Ice

Posted on June 24, 2008
Hat tip to Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy for the post directing us to today's Supreme Court of Tennessee decision in State v. Allen, No. W2005-0285-SC-R11-CD. The decision, authored by Judge Cornelia Clark, addressed whether Tennessee's consecutive...

Blog Scan

Posted on June 23, 2008
The Remaining Supreme Court Decisions: Tom Goldstein at SCOTUSblog posted his predictions for the 2007-2008 cases that are still unresolved. Based on his SCOTUS sudoku method, Goldstein predicts Justice Scalia is the author of District of Columbia v. Heller, indicating...

Crime and the Election

Posted on June 23, 2008
More Prisoners, Less Crime: George Will has this column in Sunday's WashPost on the conspicuous absence of crime from the current political campaign. "Listening to political talk requires a third ear that hears what is not said. Today's near silence....

News Scan

Posted on June 23, 2008
"Enemy Combatant" Classification Overturned: The Associated Press article at Fox News details the new Federal Appeals Court decision which overturned an American citizen's classification as an enemy combatant. The decision, reached Friday, is not currently available to the public because...

GVR on Collateral Review Waivers

Posted on June 23, 2008
In two cases today, the Supreme Court issued grant-vacate-and-remand orders (GVR), directing the Seventh Circuit to take another look based on a new position by the Solicitor General regarding the scope of review waivers in plea agreements. The cases are...

A Narrow, Almost Vanishing, Opinion on Counsel

Posted on June 23, 2008
Understatement of the day award goes to Justice David Souter, writing for the Court in Rothgery v. Gillespie County, Texas, No. 07-440. "Our holding is narrow." Indeed, the holding decides an easy technical question but resolves nothing of consequence...

Certiorari Grants

Posted on June 23, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court accepted three criminal and habeas cases for review next term. We previously noted Cone v. Bell, No. 07-1114 on procedural default and Harbison v. Bell, No. 07-8521 on federally funded counsel for state clemency petitions. Also...

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