Criminal Law

Justice Scalia Stands Behind Physical Interrogation in Certain Cases

Posted on February 13, 2008
From Reuters.com - Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said on Tuesday some physical interrogation techniques can be used on a suspect in the event of an imminent threat, such as a hidden bomb about to blow up. In...

New FISA Provides Greater Protections for Americans

Posted on February 13, 2008
From NPR.com: A standoff in the Senate over expanding the government's eavesdropping powers has finally come to a conclusion. Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama left the campaign trail to join in a series of votes to amend the wiretapping...

Men Rob Zurich Museum of a Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh, and Monet

Posted on February 12, 2008
From latimes.com: Three armed men in ski masks stole four paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet worth $163.2 million from a Zurich museum in one of Europe's largest ever art heists, police said today. The robbers, who were...

Sullofol County NY PLans to Videotape all Interrogations

Posted on February 12, 2008
From newsday.com: Suffolk, NY's plan to begin videotaping police interrogations of homicide suspects has been several months in the making, and largely prompted by jurors' requests for more transparency in the taking of confessions, Suffolk District Attorney Thomas Spota said...

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Us Seeks the Death Penalty for Six Detainees

Posted on February 12, 2008
From NYTimes.com: Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday....

CrimProf Henry Karlson Discusses Smothered Baby Case

Posted on February 11, 2008
From indystar.com: Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis CrimProf Henry Karlson discusses the case of an Indianapolis woman accused of smothering her son by passing out on top of him began drinking gin as much as 12 hours earlier. Marion County...

CrimProf Abraham Dash Comments on the Exclusion of Evidence in Homeland Official's Murder Trial

Posted on February 11, 2008
From washingtonpost.com: University of Maryland School of Law CrimProf Abraham Dash comments on the evidence being excluded in the trial in which homeland security official Keith Washington is accused of shooting two unarmed furniture delivery men. Evidence about a psychiatrist's...

Nebraska Supreme Court Declares Death by Electrocution Unconstitutional

Posted on February 11, 2008
From nytimes.com: The electric chair is cruel and unusual punishment, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled Friday, effectively suspending executions in the only state that made sole use of the practice, once the dominant form of execution in the United States...

Government Acknowledges Use of Waterboarding

Posted on February 07, 2008
From washingtonpost.com: Senate Democrats demanded a criminal investigation into waterboarding by government interrogators Tuesday after the Bush administration acknowledged for the first time that the tactic was used on three terror suspects. In congressional testimony Tuesday, CIA Director Michael Hayden...

Utah Passes Wrongly Incarcerated Compensation Bill

Posted on February 07, 2008
From sltrib.com: While money would not erase the pain of being wrongly convicted and imprisoned for a crime, it could help exonerated individuals start new lives when they walk out of prison and re-enter society. Such is the motivation behind...

Annapolis Tries for Videotaped Interrogations

Posted on February 06, 2008
From mobtown beat: The video-interrogations measure is getting a third try this year in Annapolis, having failed in two previous sessions. This year's model is called House Bill 6 (HB 6), and the continuing opposition it faces from most of...

British Justice Secretary Looks into Eavesdropping Scandal

Posted on February 06, 2008
From NPR.com: British Justice Secretary Jack Straw will investigate allegations that officials eavesdropped on a conversation between a Muslim member of Parliament and a man imprisoned while awaiting extradition to the U.S. to face terrorism charges. Listen...

UH LawProf Michael Olivas on Hernandez v. Texas, the "Criminal Law Companion to Brown"

Posted on February 05, 2008
Michael Olivas, William B. Bates Distinguished Chair of Law at Houston, has posted Colored Men and Hombres Aqui, Hernandez v. Texas and the Emergence of Mexican American Lawyering on SSRN. The abstract: An important case was decided by a unanimous...

CrimProf Jeremy Horder to Present "Law Reform, Government, and the Law Commission" at University of Maryland Law School

Posted on February 05, 2008
On Tuesday, February 12, Distinguished Visiting Professor Jeremy Horder will present "Law Reform, Government and the Law Commission: The Case of Murder." The presentation will take place at 5 p.m. in the Ceremonial Court Room at the UNiversity of Maryland...

CrimProf Keith Findley Gets Client a New Trial in Shaken Baby Case

Posted on February 05, 2008
Twelve years after Audrey Edmunds of Waunakee was sent to prison on charges of shaking a baby to death, a Wisconsin appeals court has overturned her conviction and ordered a new trial, based on new research on shaken baby syndrome....

Problems WIth DNA Backlog

Posted on February 05, 2008
From denverpost.com: Throughout the country, DNA tests that could pave the way to jailing violent predators are routinely delayed, sometimes for years, because of staffing and funding constraints at crime labs and increasing numbers of convicts being tested...

Criminal Law Conversations Invitation

Posted on February 04, 2008
Criminal Law Conversations Leading Scholars Debate the Fundamental Questions of Modern Criminal Law http://www.law.upenn.edu/phr/conversations/status/ * Peer-engaged B community of scholars nominates works on which to comment * Short comments (800 words) by those interested, with author response * Direct engagement...

Archivist Steal New York's History

Posted on February 04, 2008
From NPR.com: Archivist Daniel Lorello was arrested this past week, charged with stealing hundreds of historic documents from the New York State Library over the last six years. Lorello sold the historic documents ? some to collectors and some on...

CrimProf Spotlight: Susanna L. Blumenthal

Posted on February 02, 2008
This week the CrimProf Blog spotlights University of Minnesota School of Law CrimProf Susanna L. Blumenthal. CrimProf Blumenthal researches and teaches in the areas of American legal history, criminal law, property, and trusts and estates. She is currently working on...

Texas Finds Real Rapist After Wrongly Convicting an Innocent Man

Posted on February 01, 2008
From dallasnew.com: A man found to be the actual perpetrator in a 1994 rape and murder after DNA cleared another man is alive and serving prison time for aggravated sexual assault of a child and aggravated kidnapping. On Tuesday prosecutors...

Private Lab Offers Free Testing to Persue Justice

Posted on February 01, 2008
from dispatch.com: For 12 hours, they showed him photos from the bloody crime scene, screamed in his ears, threatened him with the death penalty, told him he failed a lie-detector test and even followed him into the bathroom, until Robert...

Text Message Scandal Builds In Detroit

Posted on January 31, 2008
From NPR.com: The office of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is reeling following publication of a series of e-mails between him and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty. The messages suggest that the pair lied under oath last year in denying...

Federal Judge Denies Motion to Suppress in Obscenity Case

Posted on January 31, 2008
From post-gazette.com: A federal judge yesterday denied a motion to suppress statements made by a Pennsylvania woman charged with transmitting obscene materials. Karen Fletcher, 56, is charged with six counts of sending lewd stories, depicting the rape and killing of...

11th Circuit Lifts Stay of Execution

Posted on January 31, 2008
From ap.com: A federal appeals court has lifted a stay of execution for James Harvey Callahan, who is scheduled to be executed Thursday, but it could be delayed again by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court on Jan. 7...

Tony Rezko Sent to Jail

Posted on January 29, 2008
From abcnews.com: A federal judge sent accused Illinois political fixer Antoin "Tony" Rezko to jail today after federal prosecutors accused him of violating his bail terms by a convoluted series of financial transactions with Mideast banks. Rezko has become an...

FBI Attempts to Develop a Voice Fingerprint

Posted on January 29, 2008
From NPR.org: The FBI is trying to develop a system that could make your voice as unique and recognizable as your fingerprint. Although not yet at its peak potential, the technology currently helps investigators with tasks such as verifying Osama...

Investigation Reveals Fatal Flaws in Ohio Inmate DNA Testing Program

Posted on January 28, 2008
From dispatch.com: A man on Ohio's Death Row held faint hope that a DNA test might keep him from his grave. But no one could find the evidence in the Cleveland man's murder case. Another man was changing a flat...

Columbia Law Review recently released

Posted on January 28, 2008
Columbia Law Review recently released "Judging Innocence" by Brandon Garret. Here is the summary: This empirical study examines for the first time how the criminal system in the United States handled the cases of people who were subsequently found innocent...

Mississippi Innocence Project to WIn its First Exoneration

Posted on January 25, 2008
It looks to be a busy year for the Mississippi Innocence Project, which began operation this month. The clinic housed at the University of Mississippi School of Law has started examining cases and will be pushing for legislative reform. Project...

Death Penalty Authority Victor Streib to Teach at Elon University School of Law

Posted on January 25, 2008
Victor Streib, a noted national authority on the death penalty and its application to women and juveniles, will teach spring semester courses in criminal law and criminal procedure At Elon University School of Law Streib serves as the Fisher Professor...

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