CrimProf Blog

Burke on "The Wire"

Alafair S. Burke  (Hofstra University - School of Law) has posted I Got the Shotgun: Reflections on The Wire, Prosecutors and Omar Little (Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The Wire is a show about institutions, the people trapped inside of them, and a society made static by their inaction, indifference, and ineptitude. Whether the series was exploring the drug trade, police departments, city hall, unions, or public schools, the individual actors within those systems were depicted as having little control over either the institutions or their individual fates within them. As a result, the constituencies supposedly served by those institutions continually got the shaft.

To say that The Wire is about the tolls of unmitigated capitalism and inflexible bureaucracies is not to say, however, that the show is silent on, or indifferent to, the criminal justice system that encompasses its main characters. I became especially intrigued by an episode in the first season in which police and prosecutors rely on the testimony of Omar Little in a murder trial, despite doubts about Omar’s first-hand knowledge of the crime. This essay is a reflection on the depiction of law enforcement in The Wire, both generally and with respect to the single scene that first made me a Wire addict.

Wright & Miller on Prosecutorial Accountability

Ronald F. Wright (pictured) and Marc L. Miller  (Wake Forest University - School of Law and University of Arizona - James E. Rogers College of Law) have posted The Worldwide Accountability Deficit for Prosecutors (Washington and Lee Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In democratic governments committed to the rule of law, the prosecutor must be accountable both to the people and to their laws. The theoretical need for prosecutor accountability, however, meets practical shortcomings in criminal justice systems everywhere. Because individual responsibility is the origin of good behavior among prosecutors, it does not generate the level of public trust that one might expect in a government of laws. Institutional strategies to guarantee prosecutor accountability all fall short of the mark. Call it the accountability deficit.

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Argument transcript in case on damages in prison suit under Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act

The transcript in Sossamon v. Texas is here.

Argument transcript regarding regulation of violent video games

The transcript in Schwarzenegger v. Entertainment Merchants is here.

Brown on Prosecutors' Powers and Obligations in Plea Bargaining

Darryl K. Brown  (University of Virginia School of Law) has posted American Prosecutors’ Powers and Obligations In the Era of Plea Bargaining  (TRANSNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON PROSECUTORIAL POWER, Erik Luna, ed., Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This paper, written as a chapter for a forthcoming volume on international comparisons of prosecutors’ roles in various jurisdictions, provides a basic overview of the different rules and practical constraints on American prosecutors. It offers a critical view of how state and federal prosecutors differ in the exercise of their discretion and ability to influence adjudication outcomes according to variations in such factors as sentencing rules, control over investigations, resource constraints and the pervasiveness of plea bargaining. It describes, for instance, the effect of generally stronger evidence gathering in federal prosecutions and the ability of charging discretion to compensate for weak government evidence in achieving convictions through pleas.

Logan on Migration of Sex Offender Provisions

Wayne A. Logan  (Florida State University - College of Law) has posted Prospects for the International Migration of U.S.-Style Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification Laws (International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, Vol. 34, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Sex offender registration and community notification laws have proved enormously popular in the U.S. This is so even though the avowed sexual violence preventive benefits of the laws remain largely untested and unproven; indeed, it remains an open question whether the laws actually have anti-therapeutic and criminogenic effect. This paper, part of a symposium, examines why this data deficit has characterized the social and political evolution of the laws and considers the prospects for the migration of U.S.-style registration and community notification to other nations.

Dissent from cert denial in habeas case involving judicial comment on evidence

Justice Alito dissents, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Scalia, in Wong v. Smith. Justice Alito would grant cert to "correct the Ninth Circuit's error" in granting habeas, arguing that the sparse case law limiting coercive judicial comment did not render the state courts' conclusion of constitutionality unreasonable under the AEDPA.

Today's criminal law/procedure cert grants

The description of the issue is from a post on ScotusBlog, which also links to opinions and cert papers:

• J.D.B. v. North Carolina: Whether the North Carolina Supreme Court was correct in barring consideration of age as a factor in determining when Miranda warnings are required.
• Davis v. United States: Whether the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies to a search authorized by precedent at the time of the search that is subsequently ruled unconstitutional.
• Turner v. Price: 1) Whether an indigent defendant has a constitutional right to appointed counsel at a civil contempt proceeding that results in his incarceration; and 2) whether the Court has jurisdiction to review the decision of the South Carolina Supreme Court.