Criminal Justice Section reports on the state of criminal justice, 2006

A new report from the American Bar Association Section of Criminal Justice pulls together data from around the country to reveal trends in the criminal justice system. What can be expected in the coming years in the area of white collar crime? What steps are some states taking in efforts to utilize the newest DNA technologies? How do losses from cybercrime compare with losses from physical crime?

The State of Criminal Justice 2006 looks at these topics and more, including alternative sentencing and prisoner re-entry, parallel proceedings, international anti-cartel enforcement, the death penalty, and minority and juvenile crime. The report also recaps Supreme Court decisions on criminal law and related topics during the 2005-2006 term. "A number of the Court’s decisions," reads the report, "addressing civil aspects of criminal cases, such as Garcetti, O Centro, and Gonzales v. Oregon, will have lasting implications for government lawyers." In addition, several decisions relating to Fourth Amendment rights were handed down, including the "relatively trivial case, Hudson v. Michigan, in which police who had a warrant waited only a few second before blasting in to a residence."

Also recapped in the volume is an analysis of parallel proceedings. The report examines U.S. vs. Scrushy as well as U.S. v. Stringer: "In two recent examples, district courts found that the DOJ utilized a civil investigation to gain discovery and built a criminal case against a defendant under the guise of an otherwise proper parallel proceeding."

A portion of The State of Criminal Justice 2006 analyzing science and technology implications for criminal justice is available by scrolling down to the "more information" section in the ABA Webstore.

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