Criminal Procedure – 6085

Spring 2017

This course explores the key Supreme Court cases interpreting the 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments that form our constitutional criminal procedure law.  Addressing the cases that define the boundary between the individual and the state, we cover search and seizure, stop and frisk, the right against self-incrimination, involuntary confessions, line-ups, the right to counsel, and the role of defense counsel and prosecutors in an adversarial system.  To bring our study into the 21st Century, we will consider these cases in light of three important progressions the Supreme Court is perhaps belatedly but slowly acknowledging: the steady transformation of our adversarial process into an inquisitorial one focused on guilty pleas; the rapid rise in technology that has exponentially increased the possibilities for criminal law violation and detection; and the explosion of social science literature that informs the fundamentally human processes and interactions at the heart of encounters between citizens and police officers.  To that end, the course will introduce you to several guest speakers who, through their work in the trenches, have developed expertise in specific criminal justice areas.