Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology articles from January 1994

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology archives from January 1994

Foreword: the criminal law and the luck of the draw. (Supreme Court Review)
January 1, 1994... I propose to consider what to make of a doctrine of the criminal law that seems to me not rationally supportable notwithstanding its near universal acceptance in Western law, the support of many jurists and philosophers, and its resonance with...

First Amendment - penalty enhancement for hate crimes: content regulation, questionable state interests and non-traditional sentencing. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Wisconsin v. Mitchell,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment does not prohibit a state from enhancing the penalty for a crime if the offender selected the victim because of the victim's...

Fourth Amendment - the plain touch exception to the warrant requirement. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Minnesota v. Dickerson,(1) the United States Supreme Court unanimously adopted the plain touch doctrine, thereby allowing officers to seize evidence recognized through the sense of touch during a lawful patdown...

Eighth Amendment - the excessive fines clause. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Austin v. United States,(1) the United States Supreme Court unanimously held that civil in rem forfeitures must comply with the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment.(2) In so doing, the Court reversed a...

Eighth Amendment - sentencer discretion in capital sentencing schemes. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Arave v. Creech,(1) the United States Supreme Court considered the constitutionality of a statutory aggravating circumstance to be considered by Idaho judges in capital cases. In accordance with its jurisprudence in...

Eighth Amendment - capital sentencing instructions. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Johnson v. Texas,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that the Texas capital sentencing statute did not violate the Eighth Amendment rights of petitioner Dorsie Lee Johnson, Jr.(2) The Court ruled that the trial...

Fourteenth Amendment - the standard of mental competency to waive constitutional rights versus the competency standard to stand trial. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Godinez v. Moran,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that due process does not require a higher competency standard for pleading guilty or waiving the right to an attorney than the standard for competency to...

Habeas corpus - limited review for actual innocence. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Herrera v. Collins,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that absent an accompanying constitutional violation, a claim of actual innocence by a death penalty petitioner is not grounds for federal habeas corpus...

Habeas corpus - retroactivity of post-conviction rulings: finality at the expense of justice. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Gilmore v. Taylor,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that the Seventh Circuit's ruling in Falconer v. Lane,(2) which declared unconstitutional the Illinois Pattern Jury Instructions for murder and voluntary...

Exemption 7(D) of the Freedom of Information Act - the evidentiary showing the government must make to establish that a source is confidential. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In United States Department of Justice v. Landano,(1) the Supreme Court held that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sources in criminal investigations are not presumed to be "confidential sources" pursuant to...

Plain error rule - clarifying plain error analysis under rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In United States v. Olano,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that the presence of alternate jurors during jury deliberations was not an error that the court of appeals could correct under Rule 52(b) of the Federal...

The fugitive dismissal rule applied to pre-appeal fugitivity. (Supreme Court Review) (Case Note)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION In Ortega-Rodriguez v. United States,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that appellate courts may dismiss the appeal of a criminal defendant who becomes a fugitive if the fugitive status has sufficient connection...

Brecht v. Abrahamson: harmful error in habeas corpus law. (Criminal Law)
January 1, 1994... I. INTRODUCTION: THE COURT'S NEW HARMLESS ERROR STANDARD FOR HABEAS CORPUS CASES For the past two and one-half decades, the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have applied the same rule for assessing the harmlessness of...

Expertise and the Daubert decision. (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) (Criminal Law)
January 1, 1994... Trials in the Anglo-American tradition were originally the means by which conventional disputes were resolved. The original mode of trial gathered together individuals with knowledge of local affairs to decide notorious disputes. The existence...