About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


93 Marq. L. Rev. 339 (2009-2010)
Criminal Appeals: Past, Present, and Future

handle is hein.journals/marqlr93 and id is 345 raw text is: MARQUETTE LAW REVIEW Volume 93 Winter 2009 Number 2 CRIMINAL APPEALS: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE CHAD M. OLDFATHER* MICHAEL M. O'HEAR** This issue of the Marquette Law Review presents materials from the Marquette University Law School conference, Criminal Appeals: Past, Present, and Future, which was held at the Law School on June 15-16, 2009. The conference brought together leading criminal law and judicial process scholars, as well as a panel of current and former state high court judges and justices, to examine enduring and emerging issues relating to the exercise of the appellate function in criminal cases. Two factors provided the impetus for the conference. The first is the sheer timeliness of the topic. The past decade has witnessed the emergence of widespread concern over the fairness and reliability of the American criminal justice system. The ascendance of DNA evidence, and the resulting wave of exonerations, has demonstrated the fallibility of the criminal trial process to an extent previously only imaginable. This suggests the possibility of a greater role for appellate courts in policing the accuracy of trials. At the same time, efforts in many jurisdictions to guide and constrain the sentencing discretion of trial court judges have already resulted in new responsibilities for appellate courts to review the appropriateness of sentences. The second impetus for the conference was our sense that there has been a relative lack of scholarly attention paid to the institutional role of appellate courts in the criminal context. Most of the scholarship concerning the functions of appellate courts, and indeed relating to the judicial role more generally, focuses on the civil system. Yet there are many reasons to believe that the lessons do not transfer from one context to another. Criminal law is different. As Roscoe Pound put the matter seventy years ago: * Associate Professor, Marquette University Law School. ** Associate Dean for Research and Professor, Marquette University Law School.