Criminal Law and Policy News and Events for the University of Arizona Community

Fontaine on Provocation and Interpretational Bias

Congratulations to Prof. Reid Griffith Fontaine, who has published THE WRONGFULNESS OF WRONGLY INTERPRETING WRONGFULNESS: PROVOCATION, INTERPRETATIONAL BIAS, AND HEAT OF PASSION HOMICIDE in the New Criminal Law Review.   The abstract: "In U.S. criminal law, a defendant charged with murder can invoke the heat of passion defense, an affirmative, partial-excuse defense so that he may be instead found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. This defense requires the defendant
to demonstrate that he was significantly provoked and, as a direct result of the provocation, became extremely emotionally disturbed and committed the killing while in this uncontrolled emotional state. In this way, the law makes a partial allowance for emotional dysfunction—the wrongfulness of the homicide is mitigated when the emotionally charged reactivity restricts the actor’s capacity for rational thought and reasoned behavior. However, the defense makes no such allowance for cognitive dysfunction, despite the widely replicated finding in psychology that violent reactivity is associated with distorted cognitive processing. In particular, reactive violence is often attributed, in part, to provocation interpretational bias—a set of cognitive difficulties by which certain ambiguous-provocation situations are interpreted as intentional, hostile, and wrongful by the reacting aggressor. The present paper discusses how affording a partial excuse for emotional—but not cognitive—dysfunction poses both a logical inconsistency and a moral dilemma for American provocation law. Recommendations for reframing the heat of passion doctrine and resolving these issues are made. Full text here.

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

TECH: On the Anonymity of Home/Work Location Pairs

An interesting study from Stanford's Palo Alto Research Center regarding the use of geolocating devices (e.g., cell phones, laptops) to uniquely identify individuals is available at:

Your Morning Commute is Unique

--Don

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

Excellent Video on Interrogation Techniques Leading to False Confessions

From a National Geographic Special here. (Thanks, Mica Gilmore)

This week's trials in Pima County Superior Court

This week's Superior Court Criminal trials are shown here:

http://www.pcao.pima.gov/press.htm

Criminal Law Speaker Wednesday: The Municipal Role in Public Safety.

On Wednesday, April 29, in Room 160, Dr. Rodney Glassman, Ph.D., J.D. '07, Tucson City Council, Mike Rankin, '93, Tucson City Attorney, will speak on The Municipal Role in Public Safety.  Pizza will be served at 12:05 p.m., the talk will start at 12:20 p.m., and end by 1:20 p.m. CLE credit for Arizona attorneys.Download CLE Certificate

Local case leads to significant Fourth Amendment decision by Supreme Court today

Arizona v. Gant, --- S.Ct. ----, 2009 WL 1045962, U.S.Ariz., April 21, 2009 (NO. 07-542)

The U.S. Supreme Court today decided Arizona v. Gant, a significant Fourth Amendment ruling in a case arising out of Tucson.  The 5-4 decision was authored by Justice Stevens.

Stating that "[t]he doctrine of stare decisis does not require us to approve routine constitutional violations," the Court ended "blind adherence" to New York v. Belton, 453 U.S. 454 (1981).  In Belton, the Court had held that when an officer lawfully arrests “the occupant of an automobile, he may, as a contemporaneous incident of that arrest, search the passenger compartment of the automobile” and any containers in it. See Belton, 453 U. S. at 460.

Defendant Gant had been convicted of felony drug charges based on cocaine police found in a jacket in the backseat of his car; that search was not authorized by warrant or exigency, but rather was conducted as a search incident to Gant's arrest for driving on a suspended license.  At the time police searched the car--ostensibly a search authorized by Belton--Gant had already been handcuffed and locked in the police cruiser.

Noting that the Arizona Supreme Court "correctly held that this case involved an unreasonable search," the Court ruled that a search of a passenger compartment of a car incident to arrest is permissible only if "the arrestee is within reaching distance of the passenger compartment at the time of the search or it is reasonable to believe the vehicle contains evidence of the offense of arrest."  The ruling reaffirms the rationale for such searches originally articulated in Chimel v. California, 395 U. S. 752 (1969) -- officer safety and preservation of evidence.

Gant's attorney, UA alum Tom Jacobs, prepared for his Supreme Court argument with a moot hearing at the Rogers College of Law several months ago.  Congratulations to Tom for this important win.