Interesting criminal law or procedure issues
 

Totally random to be racking my brain and posting for help on here for this topic.

I'm trying to think of a topic for my criminal law and procedure seminar- something that i'll be writing a 20 page paper on and giving a 50 minute presentation. It can be about pretty much anything involving criminal law or criminal procedure. An example is that someone used bountyhunters as a topic last year.

Anyone see anything bizarre or interesting in the news lately?

Re: Interesting criminal law or procedure issues
 

It may be interesting to check out Dustin Honkin's capital murder trial from a few months ago (W.D. Fed Court, IA) - he was sentenced to death for the murder of four people, including a key witness against him in a trial 15 years ago in which he was sentenced to 25 years on drug conspiracy charges. He ran a relatively large-scale meth operation.

This case was a monster mess from the get-go, but it provides many interesting factors:

-intense (largely negative, largely emotional) PTP
-the case was re-opened after informants, mostly already in federal prison and including his ex-girlfriend serving time for the same drug charges, came forward
-extremely circumstantial, even for a murder trial
-a juror was dismissed for the sentencing round for tampering (boss reportedly told the juror to "fry him")
-he was still sentenced to death, the first in 40 years in that district

There were some other irregularities, but it provides an interesting study in any of those areas, and could serve as a case study for a larger examination of the area of, say, criminal informants. I know some people that did some work on the case (our firm deals almost exclusively with gagged civil litigation research, so i'm not much help there), so let me know if you'd like a little more information.

Good luck dude

It's not a new issue, but I'm still fascinated by what the former Governor Ryan did in Illinois with commuting the death sentences of everyone on death row in the state -- and the history of police abuse especially in Chicago.

I agree with Rob's take on criminal informants, too -- that's another good issue. Also, I think "drug court" programs are getting more and more popular (and more counties are implementing them) as a way to get drug offenders treatment instead of sending them to prison. I worked in one for a while and it was really cool. It creates some interesting issues, though, or at least it did where I worked, because the Judge liked to question people in court before appointing an attorney, and often people were not aware of their rights and that sometimes it's best to keep your mouth shut in court when everything you say is being put on the record before you even get an attorney.

What about that incident in Pittsburgh with the bondsmen who killed someone they were persuing? It was about 3 or 4 weeks ago I think .

He pretty much said we couldn't do that since someone did bountyhunting last year. :(

Thanks for the ideas everyone. Was going to go talk to the prof today but he's out sick. The informant thing could be interesting. I was thinking of something mob related, maybe mob informants or something. Lol, this is what i'll be spending my evening trying to figure out.

Two things that I am interested in:

The Andrea Yates case and how it got reversed. You can use that from the Procedure standpoint and discuss the type of reversible error the trial court made there and the expert witness' faulty testimony.


You can also talk about the Peterson trial and HOW IN THE WORLD that court allowed the jury to simply kick out the super juror (the Dr./Lawyer) That was such a ground for appeal. Actually, I believe the jury bounced a couple of people on a whim come to think of it. Of course, it could be that they let that fly for that very reason: to set the case up for appeal. Anyway, its worth exploring.