Criminal Law & Process – Page 113 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Seventh Circuit Cleans Up the “Other Bad Acts” Mess (a Little)

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:August 11, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Evidence Federal Criminal Law & Process Seventh Circuit

I’ve blogged on a number of occasions about the messy state of the law relating to the admissibility of “other bad acts” evidence (e.g., here and here). Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) indicates that other bad acts may not be used against a criminal defendant to show bad character or a propensity to commit crime. However, the Rule includes a number of exceptions, and courts have not only tended to interpret those exceptions expansively, but have also recognized an additional exception for evidence that is “inextricably intertwined” with proof of a charged offense.

Given the expansively interpreted exceptions set forth in Rule 404(b) itself, the inextricable intertwinement exception seemed to me an unnecessary and confusing addition to the law. The Seventh Circuit has now indicated its agreement with that view.

Going the Distance

Post author:Mary Wagner
Post published:August 5, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Legal Practice

I brought a chocolate sheet cake to work the other day. I’d asked for an “outer space” theme for the decoration, and the cake decorator at my favorite bakery didn’t disappoint. There was a quarter moon, and a sky full of stars, and even the planet Earth in blue and green frosting, showing the Western Hemisphere side of things.

The reason for the celebration was to mark the ten-year anniversary of my joining the staff of the Sheboygan District Attorney’s office as a state prosecutor.

The “outer space” theme was to mark the fact that in those ten years, I’ve driven more than 130,000 miles back and forth from home to office. If you look that up, you’ll find it’s more than half the distance from the earth to the moon.

Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “going the distance”!

Tough Enough?

Post author:Mary Wagner
Post published:August 1, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Legal Practice

The scene in the courtroom still haunts me ten years later.

I remember the tears that sprang hot to my eyes as I shut the door behind me and walked down the corridor, thinking “I am not tough enough to do this job.” I was a law student then, a seasoned criminal prosecutor now. And from time to time, out of nowhere, still comes that memory. It is seared into my consciousness, a testament to “collateral damage,” and a mother’s grief — two mothers, in fact — and consequences reaped by horrific acts, and how nothing in life, either evil or good, ever happens in a vacuum.

But first, a bit about my job.