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Snap judgment
No full textIn the third installment of Marcia Clark’s bestselling series, attorney Samantha Brinkman’s investigation into a family’s deadly secrets is compromised by a threat from her past. When the daughter of prominent civil litigator Graham Hutchins is found with her throat slashed, the woman’s spurned ex-boyfriend seems the likely suspect. But only days later, the young man dies in what appears to be a suicide. Or was it? Now authorities are faced with a possible new crime. And their person of interest is Hutchins. After all, avenging the death of his daughter is the perfect reason to kill. If he’s as innocent as he claims, only one lawyer has what it takes to prove it: his friend and colleague Samantha Brinkman. It’s Sam’s obligation to trust her new client. Yet the deeper she digs on his behalf, the more entangled she becomes in a thicket of family secrets, past betrayals, and multiple motives for murder. To win her case, she’s prepared to bend any law and cross any boundary that stands in her way. Sam has always played by her own rules, and it’s always worked…so far. But this case cuts so deep and so personal that one false move could cost her everything
Justice burning
No full textFormer defense attorney Darren Street is desperately trying to put his life back together after spending two years in a maximum-security prison for a murder he didn’t commit. He’s rebuilding his law practice, reconnecting with his son, and falling more deeply in love with his girlfriend, fellow attorney Grace Alexander. But the past casts a long shadow, and for Street, there’s no outrunning it. Tormented by nightmares and violent mood swings, Street is seeking treatment for PTSD when a new trauma shakes his world: his mother is killed in an explosion, but the police believe Street was the intended target. Payback from an old enemy, or the calling card of a deadly new foe? Whoever’s behind it, Street begins to lose his grip on reality and decides to take matters in his own hands. And the law won’t stop him from revenge. Justice has a new name: Darren Street.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2018/1019/thumbnail.jp
Al-Tounsi : a novel
No full textThe powerful debut novel by Anton Piatigorsky. How do the personal lives of Supreme Court Justices affect their decisions? Al-Tounsi tells the behind-the-scenes story of U.S. Supreme Court Justices as they consider a landmark case involving the rights of detainees held in an overseas U.S. military base. Inspired by a true case from 2008 addressing Guantanamo Bay, the fictional lawsuit of Al-Tounsi v. Shaw pits Majid Al-Tounsi, an Egyptian prisoner, against the President of the United States. It challenges U.S. laws that apply to non-citizens under wartime circumstances and the extent of executive power. As the controversial case maneuvers through the minds and hands of the Justices, the novel explores in detail how the personal life dramas, career rivalries, and political sympathies of these judicial titans blend with their philosophies to create the most important legal decisions of our time.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2018/1018/thumbnail.jp
Administrative Law
No full textFor instructors who prefer a case-oriented approach, the fourth edition of Administrative Law is a case-rich text that focuses on the core issues in administrative law. Lightly-edited cases preserve the feel of reading entire opinions and include facts, content, full analyses, and citations. Introductory material and questions following the cases focus students’ reading and stimulate class discussion. Keystone cases introduce important themes and topics, and helpful notes facilitate keen understanding of legal doctrines. ‘Theory Applied’ sections at the conclusion of major parts offer teachers an opportunity to evaluate students’ grasp of the materials in new factual and legal contexts. This flexible, easily teachable text is designed for a 3-unit course, yet its self-contained parts can be taught in any order.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/fac_books/1057/thumbnail.jp
The Problem with Inference and Juvenile Defendants
Get PDFMuch of criminal law relies on proof by inference. The value of evidence frequently lies in what it suggests as much as what it shows. An outstretched hand in a dark alley is either an illicit drug deal or a handshake; a semi-coherent moan is either encouragement of, or resistance to, a sexual advance; shouted words to “fuck up” a school principal could be either a promise of harm to come or meaningless bravado. In criminal law, fact finders untangle not only what happened, but why it happened, or perhaps more accurately, what the defendant\u27s state of mind was when it was happening. As all other superfluous facts fall away, the question of mental state lingers as a fulcrum around which culpability swings in criminal law. Reaching the answer to the mental state question, however, is a deceptively complex one. The fact finder must engage in an interpretive act, considering not only what can be seen or heard as evidence, but also the significance of that testimonial or physical evidence in real-world contexts--both the world in which the events occurred, and the fact finder\u27s own world. This act of interpretation seeks to give evidence meaning that the law can recognize. Developments in neuroscience suggest that in the context of juvenile defendants, this moment of interpretation is fraught with particular risks. The emergence of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology has provided significant insights into adolescent brain development and its effect on adolescent thought processes. As a result, scientists (and courts) recognize that adolescent actors are more likely to engage in risky behavior, fail to properly comprehend long-term consequences, and overvalue reward. In short, science has proven what most long suspected: kids think and react differently than do adults. Although criminal law has long accounted for this difference procedurally, particularly in the creation of an independent juvenile justice system, there has been little exploration of its significance in the realm of substantive criminal law. This Article argues that what is known of adolescent brain development suggests that adult fact finders are poorly positioned to accurately assess a juvenile defendant\u27s state of mind. In short, current treatment of the state of mind element is insufficient and risks inaccurate results. The current approach to assessing mental state relies on judgments by fact finders who, as adults, lack the perspective of those whose actions and words they seek to interpret in the process of judgment--juvenile defendants. Rather than asking adult fact finders to perform the impossible task of placing themselves in an adolescent\u27s mind, substantive criminal law should instead acknowledge the difference in perspective between adults and adolescents. Further, it should permit evidentiary presentation and jury instructions akin to defenses which rely on the defendant\u27s actual, as opposed to imagined, perspective
Dignity Takings in the Criminal Law of Seventeenth-Century England and the Massachusetts Bay Colony Dignity Takings and Dignity Restoration
Get PDFClerking for Grown-Ups: A Tribute to Judge Ed Carnes Writing in Tribute to Chief Judge Carnes\u27 25 Years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Get PDFClose to home
No full textWhile investigating the hit-and-run death of a young boy, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite makes a startling discovery: the suspect is an active-duty serviceman at a local naval base. After a key piece of case evidence goes missing, he is cleared of charges in a military court. But Tracy knows she can’t turn her back on this kind of injustice. When she uncovers the driver’s ties to a rash of recent heroin overdoses in the city, she realizes that this isn’t just a case of the military protecting its own. It runs much deeper than that, and the accused wasn’t acting alone. For Tracy, it’s all hitting very close to home. As Tracy moves closer to uncovering the truth behind this insidious conspiracy, she’s putting herself in harm’s way. And the only people she can rely on to make it out alive might be those she can no longer trust.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2018/1006/thumbnail.jp
It happened at two in the morning
No full textIn this fast-moving, fast-talking legal thriller, brash young New York lawyer Tom Weldon happens to witness the 2 a.m. murder of a business tycoon and finds himself held captive with the murdered man’s arrogant daughter. The two escape and go on the run, trying to stay one step ahead of a hitwoman while Tom unravels the mystery behind the violence. Alan Hruska is the author of the novels Pardon the Ravens and Wrong Man Running, the writer of several plays, and the writer and director of multiple films, most recently The Man on Her Mind. A former trial lawyer, he is a New York native and a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School.https://scholarship.law.ua.edu/harper_lee_prize_books_2018/1011/thumbnail.jp