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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 March 31, 2008
More on Medellin: An editorial in today's Washington Post reports its agreement with the Court's decision last week in Medellin v. Texas....

Posted on March 31, 2008
Not much of interest in criminal law in the Supreme Court today. The Court decided an original jurisdiction case, New Jersey v. Delaware, involving a long-running dispute between those states regarding jurisdiction over the Delaware River. The only point of...

More Cops, Less Crime?

Posted on March 31, 2008
In conjunction with James Q. Wilson's op-ed about the recent Pew report on incarceration and crime rates, Bill Stuntz states about a week ago: One of the key lessons of the Iraq surge is that putting more boots on violent...

Final Cal. Commission Hearing

Posted on March 30, 2008
Meanwhile, back on the Left Coast, the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held its third and final hearing in Santa Clara. Howard Mintz of the San Jose Mercury-News was there and has this story. This commission was...

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Yet Another Stacked Death Penalty Commission

Posted on March 30, 2008
While a death penalty repeal proposal was defeated in the Maryland Legislature, a bill creating yet another death penalty study commission did pass. One might have thought that the same persons of sense who defeated the repeal would have insured...

News Scan

Posted on March 28, 2008
Spy drones for crime fighting may soon be used in Miami. Tom Brown from the Herald Tribune reports this new 14-pound drone is awaiting approval from the U. S. Federal Aviation Administration. The drones will be used as an extra...

New Sentecing Hearing for Mumia Abu-Jamal

Posted on March 27, 2008
The Third Circuit has ordered a new sentencing hearing in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. The lengthy 118 page opinion is here and the Fox news story here....

Medellin: What Would Congressional Implementation of Avena Look Like?

Posted on March 27, 2008
Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Supreme Court's decision in Medellin v. Texas, the holding is not all that remarkable. It has long been established that not all treaties are self-executing, and the Court held that...

The Supreme Penalty

Posted on March 27, 2008
Erin Sheley has an interesting column in the Weekly Standard on the two death penalty cases before the Court this term. As she puts it: In Baze, two Kentucky death row inmates--one convicted of murdering two police officers, the other...

Neurolaw Postdoc Opportunity

Posted on March 27, 2008
The MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project is seeking postdocs in the area of neurolaw: POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH POSITION MACARTHUR LAW AND NEUROSCIENCE PROJECT Area of Research: Law and Neuroscience...

Nebraska Death Penalty Repeal Fails

Posted on March 26, 2008
Nebraska's one-house Legislature rejected the bill to repeal the death penalty 28-20. AP story here. However, the Legislature has not provided a statutory replacement for the electric chair thrown out by the Nebraska Supreme Court, as discussed here....

Panetti Follow Up

Posted on March 26, 2008
On remand after the U.S. Supreme Court decision last June in Panetti v. Quarterman, No. 06-6407, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas has found Scott Panetti to be competent to be executed. The decision, in two...

News Scan

Posted on March 26, 2008
Big Sister on the Prowl. In today?s Washington Post Courtland Milloy reports on D.C. police chief, Cathy Lanier, who started her Safe Homes Initiative, primarily with women in mind. This new initiative would allow searching of homes if there were...

Confrontation and Blumenthal

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Confrontation Clause has bestowed a freebie on an unlikely beneficiary. Sidney Blumenthal, former aide to President Clinton and present adviser to presidential candidate Clinton was charged in New Hampshire with aggravated drunken driving and doing 70 in a 30...

Medellin Decided

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Supreme Court decided the case of Medellin v. Texas, 5-1-3. The case involves a decision of the International Court of Justice that the United States must reconsider the claims of about 50 Mexican nationals that their rights under the...

News Scan

Posted on March 24, 2008
Elderly Killers: Victoria Kim from the L.A. Times reports on two elderly women, Helen Golay, 77 and Olga Rutterschimdt, 75, who are on trial for staging hit-and-runs to collect life insurance. The two victims, Kenneth McDavid and Paul Vados, were...

News Scan

Posted on March 19, 2008
Gruesome pictures bring jury to tears as they see the room where 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown was bound to a chair, starved and forced to urinate in a litter box. Reported by The New York Times yesterday, Cesar Rodriguez was convicted...

SCOTUS Sudoku Update

Posted on March 19, 2008
With yesterday's decision in Washington State Grange and today's decision in Snyder, we return once again to our SCOTUS sudoku puzzle, trying to figure out who is writing the remaining cases. The premise of SCOTUS sudoku is that no justice...

Batson, Again

Posted on March 19, 2008
Today the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Snyder v. Louisiana, No. 06-10119. There were 5 black veniremembers in the 36 who survived the for-cause stage of jury selection, and the prosecution peremptorily challenged all 5. That looks bad,...

What's in a Name?

Posted on March 19, 2008
As mentioned previously, the idea that pedophilia is a mental illness on par with schizophrenia or other strongly biologically caused illnesses of the mind is weak. Yet that hasn't stopped many from suggesting otherwise. And when it comes to the...

The Gun Case

Posted on March 18, 2008
The big news today in the press and the blogs is the argument in the D.C. gun case, District of Columbia v. Heller. The transcript is available on the Supreme Court website, and there is audio at CSPAN. CJLF did...

The Miura Case: Foreign Judgments, Double Jeopardy, and Ex Post Facto

Posted on March 18, 2008
Japanese media are abuzz with the case of Kazuyoshi Miura, a Japanese businessman accused of killing his wife and then claiming they had been mugged during a visit to Los Angeles in 1981. But the Los Angeles District Attorney has...

Facial Challenges

Posted on March 18, 2008
The Supreme Court issued one opinion today in the political case of Washington State Grange v. Washington State Republican Party, No. 06-713. For criminal law practitioners, the case is primarily of interest for the Court's continuing hostility to "facial" challenges...

News Scan

Posted on March 17, 2008
DNA database: According to Gary Pugh, who is soon to be the chief spokesperson for the Association of Chief Police Officers? (ACPO), England does not collect enough DNA samples from the ?right people? and could benefit from targeting samples from...

Monday Orders

Posted on March 17, 2008
The Monday orders list is here. Among the cases listed in Friday's conference post, the Court granted certiorari in Melendez-Diaz, the lab report confrontation case, Sarausad on state-law issues and habeas, and Ice on Apprendi and consecutive sentencing...

Anesthesia Monitor Questioned

Posted on March 14, 2008
Anesthesia awareness is the phenomenon of patients waking up during surgery. This issue has been involved in the challenges to lethal injection and the pending Supreme Court case of Baze v. Rees. One proposed solution to the problem is a...

Confrontation and Depositions

Posted on March 14, 2008
The Florida Supreme Court held yesterday that a discovery deposition is insufficient to satisfy the requirement of Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) that the defendant have an opportunity to cross-examine before an out-of-court "testimonial" statement can be introduced...

News Scan

Posted on March 14, 2008
Love hurts. A Pennsylvania doctor was sentenced to life in prison for killing his best friend thirty years ago, so he could marry the friend's wife. Michael Rubinkam, from the AP staff writes that Dr. Stephen Scher was convicted in...

SCOTUS Conference

Posted on March 14, 2008
The U.S. Supreme Court held a private conference today. The same-day orders list has only routine orders. The SG gets into oral argument in Indiana v. Edwards, as always. The full orders list with grants and denials of certiorari will...

Vote Swapping

Posted on March 13, 2008
Activities which are legal when freely given but criminal when purchased have been much in the news in last couple of days. Another of these is voting. In 2000, there was a scheme set up where people who really wanted...

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