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Criminal Law

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Criminal law resources, information, and news for the academic community.

Post Frequency: 25.9/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 16:40:00

Hire ex-con in Philly, get $10K annual tax credit

Posted on May 30, 2008
One-time thief Heber Nixon Jr. has filled out his share of futile job applications. All said being a felon wouldn't stand in his way _ but the promised calls from managers never came. He finally got a second chance when...

Lots of answers, but no easy fixes

Posted on May 30, 2008
When Long Beach Police Sgt. Kevin Coy recently came across a 14-year-old girl riding in a car with a paroled gang member, her neck marbled in hickeys, he did what police officers are paid to do. He checked to see...

Mentally incompetent defendants on rise

Posted on May 30, 2008
The number of accused felons declared mentally incompetent to stand trial is rising in 10 of the nation's 12 largest states, delaying local prosecutions and swamping state mental health and prison systems, a USA TODAY review finds.These defendants cost hundreds...

Childhood lead exposure linked to adult crime

Posted on May 29, 2008
In what may be the strongest link yet between lead exposure and crime rates, researchers at the University of Cincinnati on Tuesday released new evidence, spanning more than 20 years, that draws a direct relationship between the amount of lead...

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A Justification Theory of Police Violence

Posted on May 29, 2008
RACHEL HARMON University of Virginia - School of Law Northwestern University Law Review, Forthcoming Abstract: The Supreme Court's Fourth Amendment doctrine regulating police violence, including its recent decision in Scott v. Harris, is unprincipled and indeterminate...

Transforming juvenile justice

Posted on May 29, 2008
Far fewer youths file into Marion County's juvenile lockup each day, a key result of a reform effort that has reduced crowding and diverted thousands of children into programs outside the center's walls.But architects of the overhaul of the juvenile....

Los Angeles County braces for an influx of state prisoners

Posted on May 28, 2008
With jails, drug-rehab centers and probation offices already swamped, Los Angeles County officials are bracing to take on thousands of additional low-risk convicts who could come their way as part of a proposed legal settlement to reduce state prison overcrowding...

They didn't do it: Convicting the innocent

Posted on May 28, 2008
At least 23 New Yorkers have been jailed for serious crimes they didn?t commit. Here?s how we can stop that from happening. ?You don?t have to be involved in anything wrong to have this happen to you. I had never...

Defense reform needed for poor

Posted on May 28, 2008
A recent Supreme Court panel's declaration that the criminal defense offered to Nevada's poor is in crisis, along with its order for new standards to improve the system, has sent prosecutors, public defenders, county officials and others scrambling to assess...

Young Criminals Need Guidance, Not Jail

Posted on May 27, 2008
So, what's it really like inside a youth detention center? Mario Chavez spent his teenage years in and out of juvenile hall. After he was convicted as an adult at 17 for Second Degree Murder, he spent over 8 years...

A Closer Look: Kids in Court

Posted on May 27, 2008
It's no secret that sometimes kids commit crimes, but should they go through the same justice system and pay the same price as an adult? In our continuing look at the criminal justice system, Farai Chideya welcomes Carole Shauffer, Executive...

Study: Sentencing guidelines ease discrimination

Posted on May 27, 2008
RICHMOND, Va. - State sentencing guidelines virtually erase discrimination in criminal punishments, regardless of how much judges are allowed to deviate from recommended prison terms, according to a study released Thursday.

Police Interrogation and American Justice

Posted on May 26, 2008
"Harvard University Press has just published University of San Francisco Law Professor Richard Leo's new book, Police Interrogation and American Justice (2008). Based on more than a decade of research, including a significant amount of primary research most scholars in...

Patrick Says State's Crime Laboratories Improving

Posted on May 26, 2008
Gov. Deval Patrick says the State Police Crime Lab and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner are both improving after some high-profile problems.Speaking Thursday to a meeting of state prosecutors, the governor said 18,000 DNA samples in cold storage...

Judge to allow dead witness's testimony

Posted on May 26, 2008
A Burleson County district judge ruled Wednesday that the transcribed testimony of a dead witness will be allowed in the retrial of Anthony Graves, whose capital murder conviction was overturned for prosecutorial misconduct.

Some Thoughts on Baze v. Rees

Posted on May 25, 2008
I know it's been a few weeks since Baze v. Rees, but I thought I would post some overdue comments regarding my impressions of the case -- overdue because of a horrendously busy April, some emergency home repairs, a dying...

Huge gains reported at crime lab's DNA unit

Posted on May 25, 2008
MAYNARD - The M-48 sits on a countertop inside a clean room where masks and gloves are required wear. It is a large, rectangular machine that resembles a doughnut box with a see-through pane, and it is one of the...

Criminal Law Scholar Bowers to Join Law Faculty

Posted on May 25, 2008
Josh Bowers, a legal scholar and former defense attorney who specializes in innovative examination of the real-world application of criminal law, will join the Law School this fall. Bowers is currently a Bigelow Teaching Fellow and lecturer of law at...

Legal Challenge Highlights Relationship Between Asset Forfeiture and Right to Counsel

Posted on May 25, 2008
Law.com: For six years, Kerri Kaley worked at a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, selling the company's latest surgical innovations to hospitals. But she and about two dozen other salespeople of J&J's Ethicon Endosurgery got into trouble with federal authorities...

Pa. lawmakers: No parole for violent criminals

Posted on May 24, 2008
Standing next to pictures of the three men accused in the killing of Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski, State Rep. John M. Perzel today issued this message: Violent offender - no parole.

Government Pushes Criminal Prosecution of Unauthorized Immigrant Workers

Posted on May 24, 2008
N.Y. Times: Waterloo, Iowa ? In temporary courtrooms at a fairgrounds here, 270 illegal immigrants were sentenced this week to five months in prison for working at a meatpacking plant with false documents. The prosecutions, which ended Friday, signal a...

Adam Liptak Examines Elected Judges in the United States

Posted on May 24, 2008
N.Y. Times: Last month, Wisconsin voters did something that is routine in the United States but virtually unknown in the rest of the world: They elected a judge. The vote came after a bitter $5 million campaign in which a...

UN Faults US on Racism

Posted on May 23, 2008
The UN?s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination harshly criticized the US record on race after considering oral and written testimony submitted by the US government. In its conclusions issued today, the committee urged the US to rectify the...

Over Three in Five Americans Believe in Death Penalty

Posted on May 23, 2008
Over the past few years there have been many high profile cases where those on death row have been found to be innocent and some states have halted executions. In the minds of Americans, this may have had an impact...

Executions Resume, as Do Questions of Fairness

Posted on May 23, 2008
The release of the third death row inmate in six months in North Carolina last week is raising fresh questions about whether states are supplying capital-murder defendants with adequate counsel, even as an execution on Tuesday night in Georgia ended....

Georgia Man's Death Sentence Commuted Hours Before Scheduled Execution

Posted on May 23, 2008
From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution online: "In just the third time out of 24 requests since 1995, the Georgia Pardons and Parole Board on Thursday commuted a death sentence, just hours before the convicted killer was to be executed by lethal...

Cleared by DNA, man tries to reclaim his life

Posted on May 22, 2008
James Woodard is slowly returning to life. He is starting over after spending 27 years behind bars. He was wrongly imprisoned and cleared by DNA.

Eye Wtiness Identification Reform: Flaws in the ABA?s Jury Instruction on Cross-Race

Posted on May 22, 2008
At a groundbreaking two-day eye-ID litigation conference in NYC in March co-sponsored by the Eyewitness ID Reform Litigation Network, we addressed the issue of cross-race instructions, including the ABA version referred to this week at the Kansas Defenders blog...

DNA cleared them, but they'll never feel free

Posted on May 22, 2008
Wiley Fountain is homeless just five years after he walked out of prison an innocent man. He is one of the 17 men wrongfully convicted in Dallas County, Texas, then cleared by DNA evidence. He was one of the lucky...

The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for Youth Offenders

Posted on May 21, 2008
Youth (persons below the age of 18) can and do commit terrible crimes, causing enormous suffering to victims and their families. When youth commit such crimes,they should be held accountable, but in a manner that reflects their age and immaturity...

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