Use Text Mining Approach to Generate the Draft of Indictment for Prosecutor

Motivation: The quantity of criminal cases year 2009 in Taiwan is up to 1.8 millions, Each prosecutor must handle over 211 cases per month, complaints on over loading is laud and clear. While 70 % of criminal cases are drug Abuse, public danger, larceny and fraud, these types of criminal cases may have different story though, the complexity are relative simple than cases of killing, corruption etc., but prosecutors still spend costly time on these cases handling. In this paper we try to use text mining technology to provide solution on this issue. Approach: We use the police’s investigation document of criminal case to compare with judgment history of court, and use Cosine Similarity algorithm to calculate coefficient of similarity, base on the highest coefficient, we find the closest judgment of this type of criminal case, that can be used to decide and generate the draft of indictment for prosecutor

High Crimes and Misconceptions: The ICC and Non-party States

The dilemma underlying the debate about the International Criminal Court\u27s jurisdiction over non-party nationals stems primarily from the conflicting needs for the ICC to have sufficient jurisdictional powers to bring to justice perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, and simultaneously, for states to retain appropriate discretion regarding methods of dispute settlement when the lawfulness of their official acts is in dispute

Reforming the Federal Grand Jury and the State Preliminary Hearing to Prevent Conviction Without Adjudication

It is this Article\u27s thesis that the substitution of plea-bargaining for the criminal trial as our primary method for determining legal guilt requires a fundamental reassessment of our pretrial screening processes. In a system where the prosecutor\u27s decision to file charges is usually followed by a negotiated guilty plea, we can no longer pretend that the pretrial process does not adjudicate the defendant\u27s guilt. Accordingly, this Article argues that it no longer makes sense to rely primarily on the trial to safeguard essential accusatorial principles when pretrial screening devices like the preliminary hearing and the grand jury perform the only independent adjudication of the defendant\u27s guilt before conviction in most cases

Contemplating the Successive Prosecution Phenomenon in the Federal System

Constitutional scholars have long debated the relative merits of a conduct-based compulsory joinder rule. The dialogue has centered on the meaning of the “same offence” language of the Double Jeopardy Clause, concentrating specifically on whether it includes the factual circumstances giving rise to criminal liability or applies only to the statutory offenses charged. However, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Dixon, abandoned as “unworkable” a limited conduct-based approach it had fashioned just three years before in Grady v. Corbin. This Article does not assess the frequency with which federal authorities prosecute joinable offenses separately. While such information ultimately is necessary to determine the absolute dollar costs of repeat prosecution, this Article concentrates on the opportunities to abuse power that the current approach leaves open to federal prosecutors. In addition, this Article does not precisely define the “transaction rule.” The purpose of this Article is not to offer yet another definition of the criminal transaction but to explore the implications of imposing any compulsory joinder requirement on the federal system. Thus, the “transaction rule” discussed herein generically denotes a factually-driven joinder requirement that might range in scope from the conduct formula embraced in Grady v. Corbin to a sweeping mandate that prosecutors include all joinable offenses “which substantially overlap” in a single indictment. This Article revisits the “transaction” rule debate in the context of a hypothetical statutory joinder requirement for the federal system. Section II considers the sources of repeat prosecution in the federal arena, the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on prosecutorial charging behavior, and the costs traditionally attributed to successive prosecution. Section III examines the arguments in favor of and against a statutorily-imposed compulsory joinder approach, questioning whether either the definitional uncertainties of a transaction rule or the political benefits of the current approach are worth the individual and systemic costs inherent in an unchecked reprosecution power. Section IV offers preliminary observations on issues that must be resolved if compulsory joinder of any variety is to succeed in the federal environment

Contemplating the Successive Prosecution Phenomenon in the Federal System

Constitutional scholars have long debated the relative merits of a conduct-based compulsory joinder rule. The dialogue has centered on the meaning of the “same offence” language of the Double Jeopardy Clause, concentrating specifically on whether it includes the factual circumstances giving rise to criminal liability or applies only to the statutory offenses charged. However, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Dixon, abandoned as “unworkable” a limited conduct-based approach it had fashioned just three years before in Grady v. Corbin. This Article does not assess the frequency with which federal authorities prosecute joinable offenses separately. While such information ultimately is necessary to determine the absolute dollar costs of repeat prosecution, this Article concentrates on the opportunities to abuse power that the current approach leaves open to federal prosecutors. In addition, this Article does not precisely define the “transaction rule.” The purpose of this Article is not to offer yet another definition of the criminal transaction but to explore the implications of imposing any compulsory joinder requirement on the federal system. Thus, the “transaction rule” discussed herein generically denotes a factually-driven joinder requirement that might range in scope from the conduct formula embraced in Grady v. Corbin to a sweeping mandate that prosecutors include all joinable offenses “which substantially overlap” in a single indictment. This Article revisits the “transaction” rule debate in the context of a hypothetical statutory joinder requirement for the federal system. Section II considers the sources of repeat prosecution in the federal arena, the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines on prosecutorial charging behavior, and the costs traditionally attributed to successive prosecution. Section III examines the arguments in favor of and against a statutorily-imposed compulsory joinder approach, questioning whether either the definitional uncertainties of a transaction rule or the political benefits of the current approach are worth the individual and systemic costs inherent in an unchecked reprosecution power. Section IV offers preliminary observations on issues that must be resolved if compulsory joinder of any variety is to succeed in the federal environment

Special Court for Sierra Leone: Achieving Justice?

The Sierra Leone war, which lasted between 1991 and 2002, gained notoriety around the world for “blood or conflict diamonds and some of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated against civilians in a modern conflict. On January 16, 2002, the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone signed an historic agreement to establish the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). In setting up a new type of ad hoc criminal tribunal, the parties sought to achieve two key objectives. First, to dispense credible justice by enabling the prosecution of those bearing greatest responsibility for the wartime atrocities based on international standards of justice, fairness and due process of law. Second, to help restore peace and promote national reconciliation in Sierra Leone. Today, as the SCSL completes its last and most important trial (of former Liberian President Charles Taylor) in The Hague, this article uses the stated objectives of its founders to assess whether the tribunal has fulfilled its intended goals. It is argued that, while the SCSL ably discharged part of its core mandate, it also had some serious shortcomings given the limited number of persons ultimately prosecuted and the gross inequality of arms between the Prosecution and the Defense