Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology articles from June 1996

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology archives from June 1996

Foreword: statutory interpretation and the federalization of criminal law.(Supreme Court Review)
June 22, 1996... A wiser course than judicial legislation, I submit, is simply to adopt a literal, reasonable construction of the text that Congress drafted.(1) One of the striking features of the criminal law is the accelerating "federalization" of...

Expanding exclusionary rule exceptions and contracting Fourth Amendment protection.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Arizona v. Evans,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that the exclusionary rule does not apply where an unlawful search is the result of a clerical error by a court employee.(2) The Court reasoned that the...

Fourth Amendment - must police knock and announce themselves before kicking in the door of a house?(Supreme Court Review)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Wilson v. Arkansas,(1) the United States Supreme Court addressed the question of whether an unannounced entry by police armed with a search warrant violates the Fourth Amendment.(2) This question had been left...

Random, suspicionless drug testing of high school athletes.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton,(1) the United States Supreme Court addressed whether a school district could impose random and suspicionless urinalysis drug testing on high school student athletes. The Court held...

Innocence as mere gatekeeper.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Schlup v. Delo,(1) the United States Supreme Court addressed Lloyd E. Schlup, Jr.'s petition for the federal writ of habeas corpus. Schlup, an inmate on Missouri's deathrow, presented new evidence indicating that he...

Level of scienter required for child pornography distributors: the Supreme Court's interpretation of "knowingly" in 18 U.S.C. 2252.(Supreme Court Review)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In United States v. X-Citement Video, Inc.,(1) the United States Supreme Court held that [sections] 2252,(2) a statute criminalizing the distribution of child pornography, required the government to prove that a...

The Supreme Court's bipolar approach to the interpretation of 18 U.S.C. 1503 and 18 U.S.C. 2232 (c).(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. Introduction In United States v. Aguilar,(1) the United States Supreme Court ruled on questions regarding the limits of the Omnibus Clause of 18 U.S.C. [sections] 1503,(2) which prohibits a person from endeavoring to obstruct or...

Eighth Amendment - the constitutionality of the Alabama capital sentencing scheme.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... INTRODUCTION In Harns v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Alabama capital sentencing scheme.(1) Chief among the provisions of the sentencing scheme is that the jury issues an advisory sentence...

Waiver of the plea-statement rules. (Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In United States v. Mezzanatto,(1)the United States Supreme Court held that a criminal defendant could waive his right to the plea-statement exclusionary provisions embodied in Federal Rule of Evidence 410(2) and Federal...

Death or declaration?(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Kyles v. Whitley, (1) the Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether police misconduct resulted in an innocent man's conviction and death sentence. Kyles claimed that, contrary to the findings of lower...

Reversing the tide under the Commerce Clause.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION America's children are at war and the school yard is the battlefield. During 1990 alone, nearly 4,200 teenagers were killed by guns.(1) Not including accidental deaths and suicides, it is expected that 120 American...

Double jeopardy and the United States sentencing guidelines.(Supreme Court Review)(Case Note)
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION In Witte v. United States,(1) the Supreme Court held that where the legislature has authorized a particular punishment range for a given crime, a sentence within that range constitutes punishment only for the convicted...

The Martinsville Seven: Race, Rape, and Capital Punishment.
June 22, 1996... The execution of black men for allegedly raping white women is a defining characteristic of the history of race relations in the South. In the years between the Civil War and the early 1930s, these executions often took the form of extra-legal...

Sentencing Matters.
June 22, 1996... I. INTRODUCTION The laws and legal institutions that govern sentencing have been changing more rapidly over the past two decades than any other part of the legal landscape of American criminal justice. Prior eras have seen analogous,...