Criminal Law & Process – Page 104 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

New Law Review Comments Cover Social Networking, Wind Farms, Deceptive Trade Practices Act, Open Records Law, and Purchase Money Security Interests

Post author:Janine Y. Kim
Post published:December 20, 2010
Post category:Computer Law Criminal Law & Process Environmental Law First Amendment Intellectual Property Law Legal Scholarship Marquette Law School Privacy Rights Wisconsin Law & Legal System Wisconsin Supreme Court

Now available online, the recently published student comments in the Marquette Law Review cover a wide range of topics. They include Nathan Petrashek’s comment on the impact of online social networking on Fourth Amendment privacy. Since social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace attract both criminals (e.g., sexual predators, identity thieves) and the police who investigate them, the question whether users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their voluntary disclosures under the well-established Katz test is poised to become a significant issue in the near future. Petrashek relies on Fourth Amendment doctrine, as well as the First Amendment right of association and good public policy, to argue that user content should be shielded from police scrutiny in the absence of a warrant.

Meanwhile, Marvin Bynum’s Golden Quill-winning comment addresses the feasibility of establishing offshore wind farms in Lakes Michigan and Superior.

SCOTUS to Decide Whether Sentencing Judge Can Base Prison Term on Time Needed for Treatment Program

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:December 13, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing U.S. Supreme Court

On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to resolve a longstanding circuit split on the question of whether a federal sentencing judge may set the length of a prison term based on what the judge believes will be necessary for a defendant to complete a prison-based treatment program. The case is Tapia v. United States (No. 10-5400).

After being convicted of alien smuggling and bail jumping, Tapia was sentenced to 51 months in prison. The judge made clear that the sentence was based, at least in part, on what the judge anticipated would be necessary for Tapia to complete a drug treatment program:

I am going to impose a 51-month sentence[:] 46 months [for smuggling] plus five months for the bail jump[.] [O]ne of the factors that affects this is the need to provide treatment. In other words, so she is in long enough to get the 500 Hour Drug Program, number one.

The dispute over the permissibility of the judge’s reasoning has its roots in the origins of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984.

Convicted of Drug Distribution, Sentenced for Homicide

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:December 9, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Seventh Circuit

Just in time for exam-writing law professors comes the Seventh Circuit’s opinion in United States v. Krieger (No. 09-1333) — a case that has just that sort of counter-intuitive, “it can’t be right” flavor that makes great testing fodder. Among other things, the case illustrates the odd place we have ended up in our jurisprudence on procedural rights at sentencing under Apprendi v. New Jersey and Harris v. United States.

Here’s what happened. Jennifer Krieger was prescribed fentanyl, a powerful opioid, to help her with severe back pain. She gave some of the drug to her friend Jennifer Curry for recreational use. Curry misused the fentanyl, as well as a variety of other substances, and died the next day. Krieger was then indicted for distributing fentanyl with death resulting. That’s when things got really weird.

It turns out that the government’s main witness, the medical examiner who concluded that Curry died of fentanyl toxicity, had some serious legal problems of his own and fled the country.