DOCSLIB.ORG

Defense Motion for Acquittal

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Defense Motion for Acquittal Case 1:10-cr-00485-LMB Document 438 Filed 02/16/15 Page 1 of 33 PageID# 3924 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA Alexandria Division UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) Criminal No. 1:10CR485 ) ) ) Hon. Leonie M. Brinkema v. ) ) JEFFREY ALEXANDER STERLING ) ) Defendant. ) JEFFREY STERLING'S MOTION FOR JUDGMENT OF ACQUITTAL OR, IN THE ALTERNATIVE, FOR A NEW TRIAL AND MEMORANDUM OF LAW IN SUPPORT THEREOF Jeffrey Sterling, through counsel, respectfully moves the Court to enter an order for a judgment of acquittal on all Counts, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 or, in the alternative, for a new trial on all Counts, pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33. BACKGROUND Prior to the close of the government's case, on January 20, 2015, Mr. Sterling moved to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that testimony by two government witnesses had violated the Protective Order entered by the Court. See DE 416. The Court denied the motion at that time, and Mr. Sterling hereby renews it in order to further preserve his argument.1 On January 21, 2015, at the close of the government's case, Mr. Sterling moved for a judgment of acquittal on all counts. The Court reserved on that motion. On the same day, at the close of all evidence, Mr. Sterling renewed his motion. The Court entered a judgment of acquittal as to Count Eight, but denied Mr. Sterling's motion with respect to the remaining 1 Mr. Sterling had also filed a Motion to Dismiss Based on Selective Prosecution, or, in the Alternative, To Take Discovery Related to Selective Prosecution on January 2, 2015. See DE 372. The Court reserved ruling on the issue, and Mr. Sterling hereby renews that motion as well. 1461968.1 1545747.1 1548766.1 1549076.1 Case 1:10-cr-00485-LMB Document 438 Filed 02/16/15 Page 2 of 33 PageID# 3925 counts. Mr. Sterling also separately moved for a Judgment of Acquittal pursuant to Fed. R. Crim. P. 29 on January 23, 2015 and, again, on January 25, 2015. See DE 423, 426. The Court stated it would not decide either of those motions while the jury was deliberating. On January 26, 2015, the jury returned a guilty verdict as to the remaining counts (Counts One-Seven, Nine and Ten). Following the verdict, the court ordered that counsel file post-trial motions within three weeks. See DE 428. ARGUMENT "If the jury has returned a guilty verdict, the court may set aside the verdict and enter an acquittal." Fed. R. Crim. P. 29(c)(2). A guilty verdict may only survive "if, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the verdict is supported by substantial evidence." United States v. Morris, 575 Fed. Appx. 174, 176 (4th Cir. 2014) (citation and quotations omitted). Substantial evidence is "evidence that a reasonable finder of fact could accept as adequate and sufficient to support a conclusion of a defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." United States v. Baylor, 537 Fed. Appx. 149, 163 (4th Cir. 2013) (citation and quotations omitted). Here, the verdict must be set aside for three reasons: (1) the government failed to establish venue in the Eastern District of Virginia for each of the counts; (2) the verdict is not supported by substantial evidence of Mr. Sterling's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and (3) prosecution of Count Nine is barred by the statute of limitations. Alternatively, "[u]pon the defendant's motion, the court may vacate [the] judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires." Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a). While "a court should exercise its discretion to grant a new trial sparingly," it should do so "when the evidence weighs heavily against the verdict." United States v. Sprouse, 517 Fed. Appx. 199, 204 (4th Cir. 2013). "When the motion attacks the weight of the evidence, the court's authority is much 2 Case 1:10-cr-00485-LMB Document 438 Filed 02/16/15 Page 3 of 33 PageID# 3926 broader than when it is deciding a motion to acquit on the ground of insufficient evidence." United States v. Arrington, 757 F.2d 1484, 1485 (4th Cir. 1985). "[T]he court may consider the credibility of witnesses and need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government in determining whether to grant a new trial." United States v. Souder, 436 Fed. Appx. 280, 289 (4th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted). Unlike the standard for entering a judgment of acquittal, "the trial court may grant relief if it determines that the evidence—even if legally sufficient to convict—weighs so heavily against the verdict that it would be unjust to enter judgment." Id. Thus, in Souder, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of a new trial when "the verdict was against the cumulative weight of the evidence[.]" Id. at 290 (citation and quotations omitted); see also United States v. Campbell, 977 F.2d 854, 860 n.6 (4th Cir. 1992) (same). Assuming arguendo that sufficient evidence existed to support Mr. Sterling's conviction, the Court should nonetheless set aside the verdict and grant a new trial because it was against the cumulative weight of the evidence. I. THE GOVERNMENT FAILED TO ESTABLISH VENUE FOR COUNTS ONE THROUGH SEVEN AND COUNT NINE OF THE INDICTMENT. "Proper venue in a criminal prosecution is a constitutional right." United States v. Bowens, 224 F.3d 302, 308 (4th Cir. 2000); see also United States v. Bolden, 305 Fed. Appx. 83, 84 (4th Cir. 2008) ("The right to trial where the criminal act occurred is rooted in the Sixth Amendment and Article III of the Constitution"). Thus, "[i]t is settled that, in a criminal case, venue must be narrowly construed, and venue must be proper for each separate count of a multi- count indictment." United States v. Jefferson, 674 F.3d 332, 365 (4th Cir. 2012). "The burden is on the government to prove venue by a preponderance of the evidence." United States v. Babb, 369 Fed. Appx. 503, 509 (4th Cir. 2010). To do so, the government must establish that an "essential conduct element" of each offense alleged against Mr. Sterling took 3 Case 1:10-cr-00485-LMB Document 438 Filed 02/16/15 Page 4 of 33 PageID# 3927 place in the Eastern District of Virginia. Jefferson, 674 F.3d at 365; see also Bowens, 224 F.3d at 311 ("[T]he place where a criminal offense is committed is determined solely by the essential conduct elements of that offense"); United States v. Barsanti, 943 F.2d 428, 434 (4th Cir. 1991) ("Venue on a count is proper only in a district in which an essential conduct element of the offense took place"). "This inquiry is twofold." Jefferson, 674 F.3d at 365 (citation omitted). The court must first identify the essential conduct constituting the offense and then determine where that criminal conduct was committed. Id. In this case, the government did not charge a conspiracy. The only count that charged a scheme to defraud was dismissed. The government did not pursue the theory of aiding and abetting, and the jury was not charged under this theory. Thus, the government must establish venue based on an essential conduct element of discrete substantive offenses, not based on any theory of continuing activity.2 The government's case for venue under § 793 and § 641 is certainly novel. Mr. Sterling is unaware of any other prosecution under the Espionage Act, even one involving aiding and abetting or conspiracy theories of liability, where venue lay in a district merely because a book containing classified information was distributed and sold there. The Fourth Circuit has cautioned that venue must be "narrowly construed." Jefferson, 674 F.3d at 365. Permitting venue in this District would result in an expansive, rather than narrow, construction of venue for criminal statutes that do not contain broad venue provisions. As the Supreme Court has explained, the constitutional underpinnings of requiring venue in the state or district where the crime was committed are rooted in the Framers' awareness "of 2 McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257, 270 n.8 (1991) (the verdict cannot be sustained based on a theory of liability on which the jury was not instructed); United States v. Winfield, 997 F.2d 1076, 1081 (4th Cir. 1993) ("convictions based on theories not submitted to the jury cannot stand"). 4 Case 1:10-cr-00485-LMB Document 438 Filed 02/16/15 Page 5 of 33 PageID# 3928 the unfairness and hardship to which a trial in an environment alien to the accused exposes him." United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 275 (1944). While the Court acknowledged that Congress could extend venue through the continuing offense doctrine, it also expressed that, "[p]lainly enough, such leeway not only opens the door to needless hardship to an accused by prosecution remote from home and from appropriate facilities for defense[,] [i]t also leads to the appearance of abuses, if not to abuses, in the selection of what may be deemed a tribunal favorable to the prosecution." Id. The Court further explained that, "Questions of venue in criminal cases, therefore, are not merely matters of formal legal procedure. They raise deep issues of public policy in the light of which legislation must be construed." Id. at 276. Therefore, "[i]t is significant that when Congress desires to give a choice of trial, it does so by specific venue provisions giving jurisdiction to prosecute in any criminal court of the United States through which a process of wrongdoing moves." Id.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Compensation Chart by State
    Updated 5/21/18 NQ COMPENSATION STATUTES: A NATIONAL OVERVIEW STATE STATUTE WHEN ELIGIBILITY STANDARD WHO TIME LIMITS MAXIMUM AWARDS OTHER FUTURE CONTRIBUTORY PASSED OF PROOF DECIDES FOR FILING AWARDS CIVIL PROVISIONS LITIGATION AL Ala.Code 1975 § 29-2- 2001 Conviction vacated Not specified State Division of 2 years after Minimum of $50,000 for Not specified Not specified A new felony 150, et seq. or reversed and the Risk Management exoneration or each year of incarceration, conviction will end a charges dismissed and the dismissal Committee on claimant’s right to on grounds Committee on Compensation for compensation consistent with Compensation Wrongful Incarceration can innocence for Wrongful recommend discretionary Incarceration amount in addition to base, but legislature must appropriate any funds CA Cal Penal Code §§ Amended 2000; Pardon for Not specified California Victim 2 years after $140 per day of The Department Not specified Requires the board to 4900 to 4906; § 2006; 2009; innocence or being Compensation judgment of incarceration of Corrections deny a claim if the 2013; 2015; “innocent”; and Government acquittal or and Rehabilitation board finds by a 2017 declaration of Claims Board discharge given, shall assist a preponderance of the factual innocence makes a or after pardon person who is evidence that a claimant recommendation granted, after exonerated as to a pled guilty with the to the legislature release from conviction for specific intent to imprisonment, which he or she is protect another from from release serving a state prosecution for the from custody prison sentence at underlying conviction the time of for which the claimant exoneration with is seeking transitional compensation.
    [Show full text]
  • Introductory Handbook on the Prevention of Recidivism and the Social Reintegration of Offenders
    Introductory Handbook on The Prevention of Recidivism and the Social Reintegration of Offenders CRIMINAL JUSTICE HANDBOOK SERIES Cover photo: © Rafael Olivares, Dirección General de Centros Penales de El Salvador. UNITED NATIONS OFFICE ON DRUGS AND CRIME Vienna Introductory Handbook on the Prevention of Recidivism and the Social Reintegration of Offenders CRIMINAL JUSTICE HANDBOOK SERIES UNITED NATIONS Vienna, 2018 © United Nations, December 2018. All rights reserved. The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Secretariat of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area, or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Publishing production: English, Publishing and Library Section, United Nations Office at Vienna. Preface The first version of the Introductory Handbook on the Prevention of Recidivism and the Social Reintegration of Offenders, published in 2012, was prepared for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) by Vivienne Chin, Associate of the International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, Canada, and Yvon Dandurand, crimi- nologist at the University of the Fraser Valley, Canada. The initial draft of the first version of the Handbook was reviewed and discussed during an expert group meeting held in Vienna on 16 and 17 November 2011.Valuable suggestions and contributions were made by the following experts at that meeting: Charles Robert Allen, Ibrahim Hasan Almarooqi, Sultan Mohamed Alniyadi, Tomris Atabay, Karin Bruckmüller, Elias Carranza, Elinor Wanyama Chemonges, Kimmett Edgar, Aida Escobar, Angela Evans, José Filho, Isabel Hight, Andrea King-Wessels, Rita Susana Maxera, Marina Menezes, Hugo Morales, Omar Nashabe, Michael Platzer, Roberto Santana, Guy Schmit, Victoria Sergeyeva, Zhang Xiaohua and Zhao Linna.
    [Show full text]
  • Commitment After Acquittal on Grounds of Insanity M
    Maryland Law Review Volume 22 | Issue 4 Article 3 Commitment After Acquittal On Grounds of Insanity M. Albert Figinski Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr Part of the Criminal Procedure Commons Recommended Citation M. A. Figinski, Commitment After Acquittal On Grounds of Insanity, 22 Md. L. Rev. 293 (1962) Available at: http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol22/iss4/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Academic Journals at DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maryland Law Review by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UM Carey Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1962] COMMITMENT AFTER ACQUITTAL 293 COMMITMENT AFTER ACQUITIAL ON GROUJND'S OF INS'ANITYt By M. ALBERT FIGINsKI* I. THE PROCEDURES OF CRIMINAL COMMITMENT GENERALLY "Jurors, in common with people in general, are aware of the meanings of verdicts of guilty and not guilty. It is common knowledge that a verdict of not guilty means that the prisoner goes free and that a verdict of guilty means that he is subject to such punishment as the court may impose. But a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity has no such commonly understood meaning."' This lack of knowledge can logically result from two factors. One, the verdict is a rare one in our society, given the state of extreme dementation required by the "right and wrong test" to acquit. Second, unlike the verdicts of guilty and not guilty which have the same meaning and effect throughout Anglo-American jurisprudence, the meaning and effect of a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity are dependent upon statutes and vary among the states.
    [Show full text]
  • Discriminatory Acquittal
    William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal Volume 18 (2009-2010) Issue 1 Article 4 October 2009 Discriminatory Acquittal Tania Tetlow Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons Repository Citation Tania Tetlow, Discriminatory Acquittal, 18 Wm. & Mary Bill Rts. J. 75 (2009), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol18/iss1/4 Copyright c 2009 by the authors. This article is brought to you by the William & Mary Law School Scholarship Repository. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj DISCRIMINATORY ACQUITTAL Tania Tetlow* ABSTRACT This article is the first to analyze a pervasive and unexplored constitutional problem: the rights of crime victims against unconstitutional discrimination by juries. From the Emmett Till trial to that of Rodney King, there is a long history of juries acquitting white defendants charged with violence against black victims. Modem empirical evidence continues to show a devaluation of black victims; dramatic dis- parities exist in death sentence and rape conviction rates according to the race of the victim. Moreover, just as juries have permitted violence against those who allegedly violated the racial order, juries use acquittals to punish female victims of rape and domestic violence for failing to meet gender norms. Statistical studies show that the "appropriateness" of a female victim's behavior is one of the most accurate predictors of conviction for gender-based violence. Discriminatory acquittals violate the Constitution. Jurors may not constitutionally discriminate against victims of crimes any more than they may discriminate against defendants. Jurors are bound by the Equal Protection Clause because their verdicts constitute state action, a point that has received surprisingly little scholarly analysis.
    [Show full text]
  • Treat Or Repeat
    Treat or Repeat A State Survey of Serious Mental Illness, Major Crimes and Community Treatment September 2017 TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org/treat-or-repeat The gatekeepers of the chronically mentally ill must recognize that a failure to assess not just the rights of the mentally ill persons, but also their ability to achieve a minimum standard of acceptable behavior in the community will further erode public confidence in the professionals who govern patient care. … When the personal freedom of the mentally ill is given priority over all other considerations, the tyranny of some will jeopardize the autonomy of all. — Gary Maier, M.D., 1989 “The Tyranny of Irresponsible Freedom” Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 40, 453 Treat or Repeat A STATE SURVEY OF SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS, MAJOR CRIMES AND COMMUNITY TREATMENT E. Fuller Torrey, M.D. Founder Treatment Advocacy Center Lisa Dailey, J.D. Legislative and Policy Counsel Treatment Advocacy Center H. Richard Lamb, M.D. Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California Elizabeth Sinclair, M.P.H. Research Associate Treatment Advocacy Center John Snook, J.D. Executive Director Treatment Advocacy Center Online at TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org/treat-or-repeat © 2017 Treatment Advocacy Center Arlington, Virginia TREAT OR REPEAT n TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary ................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ..........................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Evidentiary Use of Prior Acquitted Crimes: the “Relative Burdens of Proof” Rationale
    Washington University Law Review Volume 64 Issue 1 1986 Evidentiary Use of Prior Acquitted Crimes: The “Relative Burdens of Proof” Rationale Alexander H. Gillespie Washington University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview Part of the Evidence Commons, and the Legal Remedies Commons Recommended Citation Alexander H. Gillespie, Evidentiary Use of Prior Acquitted Crimes: The “Relative Burdens of Proof” Rationale, 64 WASH. U. L. Q. 189 (1986). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_lawreview/vol64/iss1/6 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Law Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTES EVIDENTIARY USE OF PRIOR ACQUITTED CRIMES: THE "RELATIVE BURDENS OF PROOF" RATIONALE The fifth amendment guarantee against double jeopardy' protects a de- fendant from prosecution for an offense of which he has been previously acquitted.2 In Ashe v. Swenson,3 the Supreme Court held that criminal collateral estoppel,4 as derived from the double jeopardy clause, pre- cludes relitigation of an issue of "ultimate fact"5 determined in a previ- ous trial. In Ashe, the defendant was accused of robbing one of six poker players. In the first trial, Ashe was acquitted. In a second trial, Ashe was accused of robbing a different player in the same poker game. This time, Ashe was convicted.6 The identity of Ashe as a robber was the sole issue in dispute in the first trial.7 The acquittal in the first trial necessar- ily established that Ashe was not one of the robbers.
    [Show full text]
  • Justice Denied: the Harmful and Lasting Effects of Pretrial Detention
    Vera Evidence Brief For the Record Justice Denied: The Harmful and Lasting Effects of Pretrial Detention By Léon Digard, Senior Research Editor, and Elizabeth Swavola, Program Manager, Vera Institute of Justice April 2019 Summary Approximately two-thirds of the more than 740,000 people held As the use of financial conditions of pretrial release has in- in locally run jails across the United States have not been con- creased, many local jurisdictions have failed to put in place victed of a crime—they are presumed innocent and simply wait- measures to ensure that monetary bail does not result in unnec- ing for their day in court.a This “pretrial population” has grown essary pretrial detention simply because people cannot afford it. significantly over time—increasing 433 percent between 1970 Such measures include b and 2015, from 82,922 people to 441,790. People held in pretrial › assessment of people’s ability to pay bail; detention accounted for an increasing proportion of the total jail › early assignment of defense counsel; and population over the same time period: 53 percent in 1970 and 64 › adversarial hearings to determine appropriate condi- percent in 2015.c tions of pretrial release that would provide reasonable This growth is in large part due to the increased use of monetary assurance that people will appear for court and avoid bail. Historically, the purpose of bail was to facilitate the release new charges. of people from jail pending trial, with conditions set to ensure Without these protective measures, people who cannot afford to their appearance in court. Over time, however, those conditions post bail—in particular, people from poor communities—remain have shifted away from no requirement that money be paid—or in jail, often until their cases are resolved, while those who have a requirement that money be paid only when people failed access to financial resources are able to secure their liberty.
    [Show full text]
  • Criminal Collateral Estoppel and the Use of Acquitted Act Evidence
    ACQUITTALS IN JEOPARDY: CRIMINAL COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL AND THE USE OF ACQUITTED ACT EVIDENCE CYNTHIA L. RANDALLt INTRODUCTION A man is tried for attempting to rob a home while using a mask and gun. In spite of the victim's positive identification, he is acquitted. Later, he is brought to trial for a bank robbery commit- ted with a mask and gun. At the second trial, the prosecution introduces evidence of the first robbery to prove defendant's identity as the masked man.' Persuaded that the defendant is a habitual criminal, the jury convicts. The judge, taking evidence of the earlier robbery into account during sentencing, imposes a 2 harsher sentence. Was this defendant tried and punished for a crime for which he had already been acquitted? If so, should the Double Jeopardy Clause protect him? These questions, long debated in the lower courts,3 were recently addressed by the Supreme Court in Dowling t B.A. 1986, Duke University; M.A. 1988 English, Duke University;J.D. Candidate 1993, University of Pennsylvania. I would like to thank my hardworking colleagues on the Law Review for their generous assistance with this Comment, and my husband Lou for his love and support throughout law school. 1This hypothetical closely resembles the facts of Dowling v. United States, 493 U.S. 342 (1990). Although Rule 404(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence prohibits the use of evidence of other crimes or acts "to prove the character of a person in order to show action in conformity therewith," it allows such evidence for "other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake or accident." FED.
    [Show full text]
  • Double Jeopardy: When Is an Acquittal an Acquittal? Jason Wiley Kent
    Boston College Law Review Volume 20 Article 3 Issue 5 Number 5 7-1-1979 Double Jeopardy: When Is an Acquittal an Acquittal? Jason Wiley Kent Follow this and additional works at: http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr Part of the Criminal Procedure Commons Recommended Citation Jason W. Kent, Double Jeopardy: When Is an Acquittal an Acquittal?, 20 B.C.L. Rev. 925 (1979), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/bclr/ vol20/iss5/3 This Notes is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Boston College Law Review by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Boston College Law School. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTES DOUBLE JEOPARDY: WHEN IS AN ACQUITTAL AN ACQUITTAL? A fundamental principle of double jeopardy jurisprudence cautions pros- ecutors that an acquittal in a criminal case, once received, will bar forever a second prosecution for the same offense.' The notion that underlies this fifth amendinent, 2 post-acquittal protection is rudimentary to the American criminal justice system. It is that the power to prosecute, if improperly exer- cised, represents so significant a threat, to individual rights that the state must be limited to one bite at the prosecutorial apple lest the individual, innocent in the eyes of the law, be exposed to the possibility of oppressive repeated prosecutions for the same offense. 3 The relative simplicity of the concept, however, belies the complexity as- sociated with its application in clay-to-day criminal prosecutions. In reality, defendants often are discharged from prosecution following judgments that resemble in effect but not in timing or legal significance the post-trial verdict of innocence one commonly associates with the term "acquittal."' As a result, the availability of a post-acquittal double jeopardy defense has come to turn on subtle and often confusing distinctions in the manner in which the initial ' See United States v.
    [Show full text]
  • The Reasonable Doubt Rule and the Meaning of Innocence Scott E
    University of Miami Law School University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository Articles Faculty and Deans 1989 The Reasonable Doubt Rule and the Meaning of Innocence Scott E. Sundby University of Miami School of Law, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/fac_articles Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, and the Law and Society Commons Recommended Citation Scott E. Sundby, The Reasonable Doubt Rule and the Meaning of Innocence, 40 Hastings L.J. 457 (1989). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty and Deans at University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of University of Miami School of Law Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Articles The Reasonable Doubt Rule and the Meaning of Innocence by SCOTT E. SUNDBY* More grandiose prose rarely is found than that used to describe the role of the presumption of innocence in Anglo-American criminal law. The presumption has been called the "golden thread" that runs through- out the criminal law,1 heralded as the "cornerstone of Anglo-Saxon jus- ' 3 tice," 2 and identified as the "focal point of any concept of due process." Indeed, the presumption has become so central to the popular view of the criminal justice system, it has taken on "some of the characteristics of superstition."4 * Associate Professor, University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Profes- sors Jerome Hall, Louis Schwartz, and David Jung generously gave of their time to comment on earlier drafts.
    [Show full text]
  • Meanings and Measures of Recidivism
    MEANINGS AND MEASURES OF RECIDIVISM ROBERT WEISBERG* I. INTRODUCTION What causes crime and why crime rates vary over time and place— these are vast questions that dominate the careers of criminologists. The related question of what we can expect government agencies to do about crime—that is, what we can hold government responsible for—occupies much of our civic discourse. My subject here is deceptively more modest: how we identify and address one major problem that government agencies, most obviously criminal justice agencies are supposed to resolve: the elusive phenomenon called recidivism. In this Essay I will undertake some admittedly impressionist reflections on recidivism. I will suggest that because of the power and salience of the term in our discourse, we need to be more self-critical in deploying it. Turning to more pragmatic concerns of criminal justice, I will review how variable and contingent are the formal definitions of measures of recidivism, and I will address the need for sensibly self-critical stipulations of the meaning of the term in order to make the most of any pragmatic use of the term feasible. But first, to suggest what a multimeaning term recidivism is and what a complex phenomenon it may signify, I beg indulgence for a quick narrative of developments in California. A decade ago California’s prison system fell under federal court control because of its unconstitutional conditions and overcrowding.1 The scrutiny given the state prison system was marked by the lament that California had the nation’s “highest recidivism rate.”2 By what measure? * Professor of Law, Stanford Law School.
    [Show full text]
  • Presumption of Innocence John A
    Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume 25 Article 5 Issue 1 May-June Summer 1934 Presumption of Innocence John A. Seiff Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation John A. Seiff, Presumption of Innocence, 25 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 53 (1934-1935) This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. THE PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE JoHN A. SEIFF* The patriots of 1776 declared, "All men are created equal."', Th6 concentration of wealth in America and the different strata of society prove that this is an ideal but not real. Opposed to the .rule of law "every accused is presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty,"2 we have the belief hammered home by actual experience "of 1,000 defendants, 1,000 are guilty or ought to be."s Despite the presumptions in law of innocence, 4 honesty5 and reg- ularity,8 the tendency is to cast a stone whenever an unfortunate is charged with the commission of .an offense either against morals or the law. As in Biblical days, we hope that an omniscient being will save the innocent7. Often, in criminal cases, the state offers a verbal confession made to the arresting officer. With respect to these confessions,
    [Show full text]