Criminal Law & Process – Page 74 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

New Criminal Law Blogs

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:May 1, 2012
Post category:Computer Law Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Seventh Circuit

Criminal law aficionados might want to check out two new blogs with Marquette connections. First, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Updates tracks new decisions by the Seventh Circuit in criminal cases. The authors are Amelia Bizzaro ’03, Tony Cotton ’05, Chris Donovan ’05, Josh Uller ’05, and your truly.

Second, Cybercrime Review explores “new technology, recent legal developments, and interesting arguments at the intersection of computers and the law.” The authors are a current Marquette student, Justin Webb, and Jeffrey Brown, a student at the University of Mississippi School of Law. In addition to being law students, both Justin and Jeffrey have impressive professional credentials in the IT field. Justin’s comment on GPS tracking and the Fourth Amendment appeared in the most recent issue of the Marquette Law Review.

SCOTUS to Decide on Padilla Retroactivity

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:April 30, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Federal Criminal Law & Process Public Seventh Circuit U.S. Supreme Court

Earlier today, the Supreme Court granted cert. in Chaidez v. United States, 655 F.3d 684 (7th Cir. 2011). Chaidez held that the Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473 (2010), would not be applied retroactively to defendants whose convictions were already final when Padilla came out. In Padilla, the Court held that a lawyer performs below minimal constitutional standards when he or she fails to advise a client of the deportation risks of a guilty plea. Now, the Court itself will have an opportunity to determine whether its decision should have retroactive effect.

The majority and dissenting judges in Chaidez all agreed that the case turned on whether Padilla announced a new rule of criminal procedure, within the meaning of Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989). With only a couple of execeptions not relevant here, Teague prohibits retroactivity for new rules. So, the question in Chaidez seems to boil down to whether Padilla announced a new rule or merely applied the basic ineffective assistance test of Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984).

Connecticut Abolishes the Death Penalty

Post author:David R. Papke
Post published:April 13, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public

The campaign to end the death penalty received a boost last week when Connecticut decided to abandon the use of capital punishment. Connecticut is the fifth state in the last eight years and the seventeenth state overall to do away with capital punishment.

Repeal proposals are being debated in Kansas and Kentucky, and anti-capital punishment groups have also succeeded in getting the issue directly to the voters of California. An initiative to end capital punishment will be on the California ballot this coming November.

Of course it will take some time before capital punishment is ended in Texas and in assorted states in the Deep South. But one can be more optimistic than ever before that the United States will eventually end capital punishment. Its continued use is an embarrassment for the nation in the world community.

How irrational, primitive, and bloodthirsty champions of capital punishment seem to this observer. There is no credible evidence that the possibility of capital punishment has a deterrent effect. Eye-for-an-eye thinking seems a remnant of Biblical times, if not earlier. And a genuine and abiding respect for humanity precludes killing even the worst of the wrongdoers among us.