Criminal Law

Argument transcript in Armed Career Criminal Act case

Posted on January 12, 2011
The case is Sykes v. United States.

This week's criminal law/procedure oral arguments

Posted on January 11, 2011
Issue summaries from ScotusBlog: Wednesday, Jan. 12 Sykes v. US: Whether fleeing the police in a car, after being ordered to stop, constitutes a ?violent felony? within the meaning of the Armed Career Criminal Act, which imposes heightened sentences for...

Logan on Contingent Constitutionalism

Posted on January 11, 2011
Wayne Logan (Florida State) has published Contingent Constitutionalism: State and Local Criminal Laws and the Applicability of Federal Constitutional Rights at The Legal Workshop. An excerpt: Although federal constitutional law nominally serves as the nation?s connecting sinew, its application, as...

Felony Murder and the Unsecured Load

Posted on January 11, 2011
My colleague, Shaun Martin, has a few things to say at his California Appellate Report Blog about this recent opinion from the intermediate appellate court: Cole Wilkins sneaks onto a deserted construction site late at night, piles some construction materials...

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Dissent from cert denial in commerce clause challenge to federal prohibition on felon's possession of body armor

Posted on January 10, 2011
Justice Thomas's dissent in Alderman v. United States is here. Justice Scalia concurs in all but footnote 2.

Criminal law/procedure cert grants

Posted on January 10, 2011
from Friday. Summaries from ScotusBlog, which also links to cert papers and opinions below: Lafler v. Cooper: Whether a state habeas petitioner is entitled to relief when his counsel deficiently advises him to reject a favorable plea bargain but the....

Robinson on a Comparative Summary of American Criminal Law

Posted on January 10, 2011
Paul H. Robinson (University of Pennsylvania Law School) has posted [A Brief Comparative Summary of the Criminal Law of The] United States (THE HANDBOOK OF COMPARATIVE CRIMINAL LAW, Kevin Jon Heller & Markus D. Dubber, eds., Stanford University Press, 2011)...

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads

Posted on January 09, 2011
are here. All the rankings are unchanged since last week. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 367 The Facade of FCPA Enforcement Mike Koehler, Butler University College of Business, Date posted to database: November 9, 2010 2...

"DNA Evidence Clears Man After 30 Years"

Posted on January 08, 2011
From The New York Times: Thirty years after Cornelius Dupree Jr. was imprisoned for rape and robbery, prosecutors in Dallas declared him innocent on Monday in light of new DNA evidence. Mr. Dupree, 51, has served more years in a...

Barak-Erez and Scharia on Freedom of Speech and Support of Terrorism

Posted on January 08, 2011
Daphne Barak-Erez (pictured) and David Scharia (Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law and Counter Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate UN Security Council) have posted Freedom of Speech, Support for Terrorism, and the Challenge of Global Constitutional Law (Harvard National...

Bowman on the state of criminal justice policy

Posted on January 07, 2011
Frank O. Bowman III (University of Missouri School of Law) has posted Prolegomenon on the Status of the Hopey, Changey Thing in American Criminal Justice (Federal Sentencing Reporter, Vol. 23, No. 2, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: This...

Berger on Conscience and Criminal Justice

Posted on January 06, 2011
Benjamin L. Berger (University of Victoria - Faculty of Law) has posted The Abiding Presence of Conscience: Criminal Justice Against the Law and the Modern Constitutional Imagination (University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 61, No. 4, 2011) on SSRN. Here...

Scientific Fraud as Criminal Harm?

Posted on January 06, 2011
The question is suggested by this CNN report: (CNN) -- A now-retracted British study that linked autism to childhood vaccines is an "elaborate fraud," according to a medical journal -- a charge the physician behind the study vigorously denies. The...

Capers on the New Vision of Home

Posted on January 05, 2011
I. Bennett Capers (Hofstra University - School of Law) has posted Home Is Where the Crime Is (Michigan Law Review, Vol. 109, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: There is a new vision of home that is beginning to...

"City Crime Reporting Comes Under New Scrutiny"

Posted on January 05, 2011
The story is in the New York Times: Facing questions over whether crime statistics have been manipulated to cast the New York Police Department in a more positive light, the police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, announced the creation of a...

"Abolish Drunk Driving Laws / If lawmakers are serious about saving lives, they should focus on impairment, not alcohol"

Posted on January 04, 2011
FourthAmendment.com excerpts this article from Reason.com: Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo wants to create a new criminal offense: ?driving while ability impaired.? The problem with the current Texas law prohibiting ?driving while intoxicated? (DWI), Acevedo explained to the Austin-American Statesman...

"Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You"

Posted on January 03, 2011
The story is in the New York Times: Perched above the prison yard, five cameras tracked the play-acting prisoners, and artificial-intelligence software analyzed the images to recognize faces, gestures and patterns of group behavior. When two groups of inmates moved...

Hughes on Mitigating Death

Posted on January 03, 2011
Emily Hughes (Washington University School of Law in St. Louis) has posted Mitigating Death (Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 18, p. 337, 2009) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Capital mitigation specialists are critical members of the...

"Strange Things Happening With the Exclusionary Rule: The Introduction of Case-by-Case Balancing After Herring v. United States"

Posted on January 03, 2011
Orin Kerr has this interesting post at The Volokh Conspiracy. The beginning: When the Supreme Court handed down Herring v. United States, 555 U.S. 135 (2009), a case about the Fourth Amendment?s exclusionary rule, there was an interesting blog debate...

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads

Posted on January 02, 2011
are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 367 The Facade of FCPA Enforcement Mike Koehler, Butler University College of Business, Date posted to database: November 9, 2010 2 316 Good Faith, New Law, and the Scope...

Mandiberg on Reasonableness in Miranda and Fourth Amendment Cases

Posted on January 01, 2011
Susan F. Mandiberg (Lewis & Clark Law School) has posted Reasonable Officers vs. Reasonable Lay Persons in the Supreme Court?s Miranda and Fourth Amendment Cases (Lewis & Clark Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract; This Article examines...

If Lawyers Ran Sports?Oh, That's Right, They Do

Posted on December 30, 2010
Some students understand a point about criminal law when they see the point played out in another setting with which they are familiar. Thank God for sports! Two articles in today's papers illustrate the point: the coverage in The New...

Simons on Moral and Criminal Law Norms

Posted on December 29, 2010
Kenneth W. Simons (Boston University - School of Law) has posted Understanding the Topography of Moral and Criminal Law Norms (PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CRIMINAL LAW, R.A. Duff, Stuart P. Green, eds., Oxford University Press, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the...

Chesney on Military Detention and Habeas

Posted on December 27, 2010
Robert Chesney (University of Texas School of Law) has posted Who May Be Held? Military Detention Through the Habeas Lens (Boston College Law Review, Vol. 52, No. 3, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: We lack consensus regarding who...

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads

Posted on December 26, 2010
are here. The usual disclaimers apply. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 362 The Facade of FCPA Enforcement Mike Koehler, Butler University College of Business, Date posted to database: November 9, 2010 2 315 Good Faith, New Law, and the Scope...

Waldron on Torture, Suicide, and Natural Law

Posted on December 23, 2010
Jeremy Waldron (New York University (NYU) - School of Law) has posted Torture, Suicide, and Determinatio (The American Journal of Jurisprudence, Vol. 55, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: In natural law theory, "determinatio" is the process by which...

Hughes on Innocence Unmodified

Posted on December 22, 2010
Emily Hughes (Washington University School of Law in St. Louis) has posted Innocence Unmodified (North Carolina Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: The Innocence Movement has unwittingly participated in the construction of a binary between ?actual? and...

Said on the Terrorist Informant

Posted on December 22, 2010
Wadie E. Said (University of South Carolina School of Law) has posted The Terrorist Informant (Washington Law Review, Vol. 85, No. 4, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: A man sets himself on fire in front of the White...

Joy on Safeguards Against Informant Perjury

Posted on December 22, 2010
Peter A. Joy (Washington University School of Law) has posted Constructing Systemic Safeguards Against Informant Perjury (Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 7, p. 677, 2010) on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Reliance on an informant's testimony as the...

"Drunk driver who killed Angels' Nick Adenhart sentenced to 51 years in prison"

Posted on December 22, 2010
The L.A. Times has the story: An Orange County judge handed down the sentence for Andrew Thomas Gallo, 23, on Wednesday morning. . . . Gallo had been convicted of driving under the influence three years before the crash and...

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