Criminal Procedure

Criminal Procedure Synopsis

This casebook on investigative criminal procedure takes a fresh and uniquely contemporary doctrinal approach. It begins with enough history to enable students to follow the historical arguments that pervade the Supreme Court's great landmarks. Those landmarks receive extensive coverage. Scholarly lower-court opinions, however, often are used as force-multipliers, to synthesize and apply the ever-growing Supreme Court case law. Many of these opinions arose from civil actions, illustrating Section 1983 litigation even before the extensive chapter on constitutional remedies. That chapter deals with the exclusionary rule, but also with 1983 and Bivens suits. Institutional reform injunctions--the most dramatic development in the field in decades—receive extensive treatment. Brief but detailed Notes introduce pertinent academic literature, including empirical findings on stop-and-frisk and institutional reform injunctions, systemic feedback loops, the philosophical basis of the privilege against self-incrimination, and the role of race—past and present--in the law of criminal procedure. Prior books emphasize the Supreme Court's decisions applying the constitutional exclusionary rules. This understandable focus comes at a price. Too little attention is paid to the origins of our constitutional rights or to remedies for institutional violence as distinct from invasions of privacy. The prevailing focus on the e-rule risks devoting the whole course to only part (admittedly a very important part) of the law.

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