Federal criminal sentencing in the wake of Blakely v. Washington is, to put it charitably, a mess. In holding that Blakely's sentence under the Washington State Sentencing Guidelines was imposed in a manner inconsistent ...

The Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, ___ U.S. ___ (2000), held as a matter of due process that any fact, other than a prior conviction, that increases the penalty for an offense beyond the prescribed statutory maximum must ...

This article examines two aspects of the jury system that have attracted far less attention from scholars than from the popular press: avoidance of jury duty by some citizens, and misconduct while serving by others. ...

This Article tells the story of how fundamental shifts in state sentencing policy collided with fundamental shifts in federal habeas policy to produce a tangled and costly doctrinal wreck. The conventional assumption is ...

We ask a lot of our jurors. The financial and emotional burdens of jury duty can be significant even in mundane cases. Deciding another's fate is often a trying ordeal, aggravated by unintelligible instructions, hostile ...

In "Powers v. Ohio," the Court held that a peremptory challenge based on race violates the equal protection right of the challenged veniremember not to have her opportunities for jury service determined by her skin color. ...

n 2007, researchers from the National Center for State Courts and Vanderbilt University Law School reported the findings from a study of litigation in 2384 randomly selected, non-capital habeas cases, approximately 6.5% ...

Consider what plea bargains would be like if legal rules were taken more seriously than they currently are. A court would recognize a defendant's willingness to be convicted of an offense only when certain conditions were ...

The Supreme Court in Missouri v. Frye1 and Lafler v. Cooper2 broke new ground by holding for the first time that a defendant’s right to the effective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment can be violated by the ...

The choice of whether to adopt or preserve judicial peremptories should not turn on the resolution of one issue. The risk that such challenges will be used to discriminate between judges on the basis of race must be ...