Majority Verdicts

Majority Verdicts PDF Author: New South Wales. Law Reform Commission
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780734726193
Category : Criminal procedure
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
It is generally considered that the requirement of unanimity results in more hung juries than does the alternative system of requiring only a majority of jurors to agree on a verdict. What constitutes a majority differs between jurisdictions that have embraced the concept, and may also depend on the type of offence being tried. This Report examines arguments for and against preserving the unanimity rule.

Majority Verdicts

Majority Verdicts PDF Author: New South Wales. Law Reform Commission
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780734726193
Category : Criminal procedure
Languages : en
Pages : 100

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Book Description
It is generally considered that the requirement of unanimity results in more hung juries than does the alternative system of requiring only a majority of jurors to agree on a verdict. What constitutes a majority differs between jurisdictions that have embraced the concept, and may also depend on the type of offence being tried. This Report examines arguments for and against preserving the unanimity rule.

Jury Verdicts

Jury Verdicts PDF Author: Brooklyn College. Center for Responsive Psychology
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Jury
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description


The Third Degree

The Third Degree PDF Author: Scott D. Seligman
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1640120602
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
If you've ever seen an episode of Law and Order, you can probably recite your Miranda rights by heart. But you likely don't know that these rights had their roots in the case of a young Chinese man accused of murdering three diplomats in Washington DC in 1919. A frantic search for clues and dogged interrogations by gumshoes erupted in sensational news and editorial coverage and intensified international pressure on the police to crack the case. Part murder mystery, part courtroom drama, and part landmark legal case, The Third Degree is the true story of a young man's abuse by the Washington police and an arduous, seven-year journey through the legal system that drew in Warren G. Harding, William Howard Taft, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John W. Davis, and J. Edgar Hoover. The ordeal culminated in a sweeping Supreme Court ruling penned by Justice Louis Brandeis that set the stage for the Miranda warning many years later. Scott D. Seligman argues that the importance of the case hinges not on the defendant's guilt or innocence but on the imperative that a system that presumes one is innocent until proven guilty provides protections against coerced confessions. Today, when the treatment of suspects between arrest and trial remains controversial, when bias against immigrants and minorities in law enforcement continues to deny them their rights, and when protecting individuals from compulsory self-incrimination is still an uphill battle, this century-old legal spellbinder is a cautionary tale that reminds us how we got where we are today and makes us wonder how far we have yet to go.

Murder and the Reasonable Man

Murder and the Reasonable Man PDF Author: Cynthia Lee
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814765149
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
A man murders his wife after she has admitted her infidelity; another man kills an openly gay teammate after receiving a massage; a third man, white, goes for a jog in a “bad” neighborhood, carrying a pistol, and shoots an African American teenager who had his hands in his pockets. When brought before the criminal justice system, all three men argue that they should be found “not guilty”; the first two use the defense of provocation, while the third argues he used his gun in self-defense. Drawing upon these and similar cases, Cynthia Lee shows how two well-established, traditional criminal law defenses—the doctrines of provocation and self-defense—enable majority-culture defendants to justify their acts of violence. While the reasonableness requirement, inherent in both defenses, is designed to allow community input and provide greater flexibility in legal decision-making, the requirement also allows majority-culture defendants to rely on dominant social norms, such as masculinity, heterosexuality, and race (i.e., racial stereotypes), to bolster their claims of reasonableness. At the same time, Lee examines other cases that demonstrate that the reasonableness requirement tends to exclude the perspectives of minorities, such as heterosexual women, gays and lesbians, and persons of color. Murder and the Reasonable Man not only shows how largely invisible social norms and beliefs influence the outcomes of certain criminal cases, but goes further, suggesting three tentative legal reforms to address problems of bias and undue leniency. Ultimately, Lee cautions that the true solution lies in a change in social attitudes.

The American Jury

The American Jury PDF Author: Harry Kalven
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


The Sun Does Shine

The Sun Does Shine PDF Author: Anthony Ray Hinton
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1250124719
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
"A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit"--

Felony Murder

Felony Murder PDF Author: Guyora Binder
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804781702
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
The felony murder doctrine is one of the most widely criticized features of American criminal law. Legal scholars almost unanimously condemn it as irrational, concluding that it imposes punishment without fault and presumes guilt without proof. Despite this, the law persists in almost every U.S. jurisdiction. Felony Murder is the first book on this controversial legal doctrine. It shows that felony murder liability rests on a simple and powerful idea: that the guilt incurred in attacking or endangering others depends on one's reasons for doing so. Inflicting harm is wrong, and doing so for a bad motive—such as robbery, rape, or arson—aggravates that wrong. In presenting this idea, Guyora Binder criticizes prevailing academic theories of criminal intent for trying to purge criminal law of moral judgment. Ultimately, Binder shows that felony murder law has been and should remain limited by its justifying aims.

Unanimous for Murder

Unanimous for Murder PDF Author: James M Redwine
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Both Black Americans and Native Americans have been repeatedly betrayed by America's legal system. The murders of five Black men by a well organized confederation of powerful white men on the campus of the Posey County, Indiana courthouse on October 12, 1878 and the beheading of a Black man on the ranch of a powerful white man on the Osage Indian Nation before Oklahoma became a state are intricately intertwined in Unanimous for Murder. The corruption of the justice systems of both jurisdictions has lead to multiple denials of human rights. Judges John Eagleson of Posey County, Indiana and Bernice Spotted Horse O'Reilly of Osage County, Oklahoma must now confront the sins of the past as they attempt to afford closure and justice in the present.

The Injustice System

The Injustice System PDF Author: Clive Stafford Smith
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143124161
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
An Atlantic Book of the Year and finalist for the Orwell Prize: a riveting true crime tale from the defense attorney who inspired John Grisham’s The Chamber Legendary criminal defense attorney Clive Stafford Smith has devoted his career to helping save penniless defendants from a justice system whose goal is not so much to find the right man as to get a conviction. Miami, 1986. Kris Maharaj is arrested, tried, and sentenced to death for the brutal murder of his ex–business partner, Derrick Moo Young, and Derrick’s son, Duane. Suspecting Kris may be innocent, as he claims, Stafford Smith begins his own investigation, which takes him from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas to Colombia in search of the real killer. Interweaving the author’s inspiring personal story with a spellbinding page-turner, The Injustice System exposes our broken legal process—and drops a bombshell that should reopen a long-closed case.

Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder

Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O. J. Simpson Got Away with Murder PDF Author: Vincent Bugliosi
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393075700
Category : True Crime
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
"Provocative and entertaining…A powerful and damning diatribe on Simpson’s acquittal." —People Here is the account of the O. J. Simpson case that no one dared to write, that no one else could write. In this #1 New York Times bestseller, Vincent Bugliosi, the famed prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter, goes to the heart of the trial that divided the country and made a mockery of justice. He lays out the mountains of evidence; rebuts the defense; offers a thrilling summation; condemns the monumental blunders of the judge, the "Dream Team," and the media; and exposes, for the first time anywhere, the shocking incompetence of the prosecution.