Determining Jury Instructions

In 1998 the defendant, Cedrick Shuler, 36, shot and killed Renee LaShawn Best, 26, in Southeast Washington as he fired at a man he believed killed one of his friends. The trial court used two theories of mens rea to instruct the jury on first-degree murder while armed: first, Mr. Shuler intended to kill Ms. Best, or second, Mr. Shuler’s intention to kill transferred to Ms. Best under the transferred intent doctrine.

Incentivized Witnesses: A Threat to Prosecutorial Integrity?

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On December 18, 2014, Rickey Dale Wyatt became the 325^th person in the United States exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing.  Wyatt had been charged and convicted of aggravated rape stemming from an incident occurring on November 1, 1980.  In 1981, he was sentenced to ninety-nine years in prison.  Wyatt initially secured his release in 2012 through the assistance of the Innocence Project, in cooperation with the Dallas County District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit.  This unit, started in 2006 under then-District Attorney Craig Watkins, was the first of its kind in the United States. Today, the Center for Prosecutorial Integrity credits these such units with “forging a new model of justice,” and the organization’s front page contains links to sixteen units in thirteen states, the most recently created in Pima County, Arizona.  In light of the creation of these units, perhaps it is a good time to examine the role prosecutorial practices play within the overall scheme of prosecutorial integrity.  More particularly, this blog post will focus on the use of informants and incentivized witnesses in the prosecutorial scheme.