This seminar will discuss the most pressing current issues and cases across the criminal justice spectrum, from arrest through appeal and collateral attack. The focus will be on the practice - how prosecutors and defense lawyers actually develop and use the latest cases and arguments. Some of the subjects are the ineffective assistance of counsel and the death penalty, the future of the sentencing guidelines, the "drug court" development, public prosecution and white collar crime.
Particular attention will be paid to ethical issues that arise in practice. Each student will choose a case from the Supreme Court's current criminal docket, and write about the ethical issues that either arose or should have arisen during any of the stages of the case. Understanding these issues will require a careful investigation of the case history and the way it is developed for the Supreme Court.