Criminal Law Library Blog
All four of the recommendations submitted by the Criminal Justice Section to the ABA House of Delegates were unamiously approved on August 11, 2008:
Brief descriptions of the final versions of the recommendations are included below. Those seeking addtional information can contact the Criminal Justice Section at http://www.abanet.org/crimjust:
104A Recommends that Rule 32 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure be amended by the addition of subsections (c)(3) and (c)(4), that would call for availability of information received from parties and non-parties to ensure that both the government and the defense have an opportunity to review information to be considered by the sentencing court in determining the appropriate punishment.
104B Urges federal, state, tribal, local and territorial governments to develop comprehensive plans to ensure that the public is informed about conditions in correctional and detention facilities for adults and juveniles and that there is greater accountability to the public in the operation of those facilities, and adopts the “Key Requirements for the Effective Monitoring of Correctional and Detention Facilities, dated August 2008.
104C Urges federal, state, local and terrortial governments to enact effective legislation, policies and procedures to ban law enforcement’s use of racial or ethnic characteristics not justified by specific and articulable facts suggesting that an individual may be engaged in criminal behavior.
104D Urges federal, state, local, and terroritial trial judges to give a cross-racial identification jury instruction where appropriate to guard against the enhanced risk of eyewitness misidentification.