CrimProf Blog

2 New Blogs Join Law Professor Blogs Network

We are pleased to announce the launch of two new blogs as part of our Law Professor Blogs Network:

• Business Law Prof Blog (Dale Oesterle (Ohio State))
• Elder Law Prof (Anne Kimberly Dayton (William Mitchell))

These blogs join our existing blogs:

• AntitrustProf Blog (Shubha Ghosh (SUNY Buffalo))
• ContractsProf Blog (Carol Chomsky (Minnesota) & Frank Snyder (Texas-Wesleyan))
• CrimProf Blog (Jack Chin (Arizona) & Mark Godsey (Cincinnati))
• Health Law Prof Blog (Betsy Malloy (Cincinnati) & Tom Mayo (SMU))
• LaborProf Blog (Rafael Gely (Cincinnati))
• Law Librarian Blog (Joe Hodnicki (Cincinnati))
• Law School Academic Support Blog (Dennis Tonsing (Roger WIlliams) & Ellen Swain (Vermont))
• Media Law Prof Blog (Cristina Corcos (LSU))
• Sentencing Law & Policy Blog (Douglas Berman (Ohio State))
• TaxProf Blog (Paul Caron (Cincinnati))
• Tech Law Prof Blog (Jonathan Ezor (Touro) & Michelle Zakarin (Touro))
• White Collar Crime Prof Blog (Peter Henning (Wayne State) & Ellen Podgor (Georgia State))
• Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog (Gerry Beyer (Texas Tech))

LexisNexis is supporting our effort to expand the network into other areas of law.  Please email us if you would be interested in finding out more about starting a blog as part of our network.

Background Checks for Dating Services? UPDATED

Florida legislators are considering making online dating services disclose whether they conduct criminal background checks of their customers.  (Also helpful is this site telling you how to figure out if someone is lying.)  [Jack Chin]   UPDATE: Other states are also considering this legislation.

Harvard Research: Children Who Witness Violent Crime More Likely to Commit Crime

Press release here. [Jack Chin]

Supreme Court Reverses Arthur Andersen Conviction

The Supreme Court unanimously reversed Arthur Andersen's conviction.  Opinion here, Forbes story quoting Stanford CrimProf Robert Weisberg and Arizona CrimProf Jack Chin here. [Jack Chin]

Watergate Informer Deep Throat Identified

Mark Felt, former FBI executive. Story here. [Jack Chin]

Podgor on Scrushy

GSU CrimProf Ellen Podgor is quoted in the New York Times on the Scrushy trial. [Jack Chin]

NC: TV Thief Paroled after 35 Years

A man who served 35 years of a life sentence for a burglary netting him a black and white TV was finally paroled.  UNC CrimProf Rich Rosen worked on the case. [Jack Chin]

Who Will Replace Rehnquist?

Talkleft speculates here.  [Mark Godsey]

Number of Countries With Death Penalty Declines in 2004

From the DPIC:  " In its annual report on human rights around the world, Amnesty International noted the abolition of the death penalty in five nations in 2004. Last year, Bhutan, Greece, Samoa, Senegal and Turkey joined a growing list of countries that have abandoned capital punishment for all crimes. (Amnesty International Report 2005, May 2005).  Read the report."  [Mark Godsey]

NY Mayor Prosecuted for Attempting to Marry Gay Couples

From Law.com:  "The village mayor who challenged New York law by attempting to marry gay couples last year will face trial, the state's highest court ruled Friday. New Paltz, N.Y., Mayor Jason West faces 24 misdemeanor counts of violating the state's domestic relations law by marrying couples without licenses in late February 2004. He faces fines and up to a year in jail if convicted. West's actions came amid a flurry of efforts in various states to wed gay couples after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom allowed gay couples there to marry in February 2004. Those efforts have largely been put on hold by the courts. West has maintained he was upholding the gay couples' constitutional rights to equal protection -- and thus his oath of office -- by allowing them to wed in the Hudson Valley college town in late February 2004. But state officials, including Gov. George Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, have said same-sex ceremonies violate state law."  Story . . .  [Mark Godsey]

Law Professor a War Criminal?

From the Los Angeles Times:  "John Yoo doesn’t come across like a war criminal, though that’s one of the more flamboyant charges leveled against the smooth young law professor from the University of California- Berkeley.  With his even tones and calm demeanor, his natty suits and warm charm, the 37-year-old constitutional scholar is the embodiment of “reasonable,” not the first person you’d expect to find at the heart of an international fight over terrorism, torture and the American way.  But while working for the Department of Justice after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Yoo helped write a series of legal memos redefining torture and advising President Bush that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to members of al-Qaida and the Taliban.  Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., demanded from the Senate floor last month that Yoo and other civilian officials be held accountable for their part in what he called the “torture scandal” over treatment of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Legal scholar Scott Horton, president of the New York-based International League for Human Rights, called last month for Yoo and others to be investigated as war criminals for their part in drafting the memos.  And in a lengthy analysis to be published in the Columbia Law Review this fall, Jeremy Waldron, an author, scholar and Yoo’s former colleague at the UC Berkeley School of Law, said that the “defense of torture” by Yoo and other prominent lawyers had caused “dishonor for our profession.”"  Story . . .  [Mark Godsey] 

Battered Spouse Paroled in New York

A woman who would have been eligible for treatment as a battered spouse, had such laws existed at the time, was paroled in New York.  Her family established a website advocating for her. [Jack Chin]

Virginia Innocence Report

The Innocence Commission for Virginia has released a report on how to prevent wrongful convictions. [Jack Chin]

Pharmaceutical Maker of OxyContin Offering Rewards to Fight Theft of Drug

Purdue, the maker of the drug OxyContin, is fighting illegal use of the drug by offering $1,000 rewards to individuals who provide police with information leading to the arrest of individuals who steal the drug from pharmacies.  Story . . .  [Mark Godsey]

Steve Bright: Give Capital Inmates Schiavo Review

Editorial here. [Jack Chin]

Hate Crime Bill Introduced in House

A new hate-crime bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday with explicit protections against crimes based on sexual orientation.  Story . . .  [Mark Godsey]

CrimProf Spotlight: Suffolk's Frank Cooper

This week CrimProf Blog spotlights Frank Cooper, Associate Professor at Suffolk.  Frank joined Suffolk this year after serving as an Assistant Professor at Villanova  for four years.  Frank writes and teaches in the areas of Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure and Critical Race Theory. He received his B.A. from Amherst College and his J.D. from Duke. While in law school, he was a staff editor of the Journal of Gender Law & Policy and a research assistant to Professor Jerome Culp.  He also was the recipient of the Neil James Blue Merit Scholarship and was Best Oralist Runner-up in the National First Amendment Competition. Following law school, he clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver, Jr.  Frank then worked at Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer and later at the law office of Charles Trevillion. He also served as a teaching assistant for undergraduate courses in African American Studies and Feminism at Harvard University.

Frank's writings include Cultural Context Matters:  Terry’s Seesaw Effect, 56 OKLA L. REV. 833  (2003); Understanding “Depolicing”:  Symbiosis Theory and Critical Cultural Theory, 71 UMKC L. REV. 355  (2002); and The Un-Balanced Fourth Amendment:  A Cultural Study of the Drug War, Racial Profiling and Arvizu, 47 VILL. L. REV. 851 (2002).  He also has a book chapter coming out called “The Seesaw Effect” From Racial Profiling to Depolicing:  Toward a Critical Cultural Theory, in NEW CIVIL RIGHTS RESEARCH:  A CONSTITUTIVE APPROACH  (forthcoming 2005) (Benjamin Fleury-Steiner, Laura Beth Nielsen and Idit Kostiner eds.).

Does a Juror's Use of the N Word Require a New Trial?

A former Third Circuit judge urges a new trial for a Texan sentenced to death by a jury that included a man who freely used the N word.  5th Circuit Opinion here, editorial here. [Jack Chin]

iPODs to Blame For High Crime Stats in London

From News24.com:  "London - Britain's most senior police office has linked Apple's trendy iPod personal music player with a sharp rise in street robbery in London.  Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair made the claim on Thursday after new figures showed a 26.4% rise in robberies — including street crime and theft of personal items — in April, compared to the same month last year.  "In street robbery our concern has been around the smaller portable pieces of kit — the new generation of mobile phones and iPods," he told the Metropolitan police authority.  "They have different coloured leads. It is very obvious when someone is wearing an iPod. That is what is fuelling this."  [Mark Godsey]

NC: Cross-Burnings

Is That Legal has a link. [Jack Chin]