Balancing Hearsay and Criminal Discovery

and prosecutors. Part I of this Article argues that the conventional theory of hearsaydiscovery balance does not reflect the reality of modem federal practice. An imbalance has arisen because, in the last quarter century, developments in the law of evidence and confrontation are at odds with developments-or one might say nondevelopments-in the law of criminal discovery. Since enactment of the Federal Rules of Evidence in 1975, both the law of evidence and modem Confrontation Clause doctrine have evolved toward broader admission of hearsay in criminal cases. Contrary to conventional theory, that evolution has at least matched-and probably has outpaced-the trend toward more liberal admission of hearsay in civil cases. But while federal courts criminal cases, the rules of criminal discovery show no sign of adapting to that reality. As a result, in comparison to other litigants, federal criminal defendants now face a litigation environment that features both minimum discovery and maximum admissible hearsay. Part II offers some proposals to address that imbalance by expanding a defendant\u27s right to learn in advance what hearsay he must face, and his right to gather ammunition to contest that hearsay. Where appropriate, I have included proposals that would require the amendment of existing rules. But recognizing the practical difficulties facing any rule-making initiative, my principal focus is to suggest more effective means of applying Rule 16, the Jencks Act, and the Brady doctrine-the major discovery tools presently available to criminal defendants-to the task of contesting prosecution hearsay. This Article is not a critique of developments in the law of evidence, nor of the Court\u27s application of the Confrontation Clause to hearsay. It is not an argument that more, or less, hearsay should be admitted in criminal cases. Instead, it takes as a starting point the undeniable reality that, for good or ill, today\u27s federal criminal trials include a wider variety of admissible hearsay than ever before. My aim is to show how the process of criminal discovery can and should adapt to that reality to correct the hearsay-discovery balance when the government relies on hearsay

The Twin Astrographic Catalog (TAC) Version 1.0

A first version of the Twin Astrographic Catalog (TAC) of positions for 705,679 stars within $-18^{\circ} \le \delta \le 90^{\circ}$ has been produced. The sky coverage of the TAC is complete to over 90\% in that area. The limiting magnitude is about B=11.5. Positions are based on $4912$ plates taken with the U.S. Naval Observatory Twin Astrograph (blue, yellow lens) at epochs 1977--1986. The TAC is supplemented by proper motions which are obtained from a combination with a re--reduced Astrographic Catalog (AC). Some AC zones are available now and a complete northern hemisphere is expected by fall 1996. Proper motions of almost all TAC stars will be generated as the AC work progresses. The average precision of a catalog position is 90 mas per coordinate at epoch of observation. A large fraction of that error is introduced by the currently available reference stars. The inherent precision of the TAC data is considerably better. The precision of the proper motions is currently 2.5 to 4 mas/yr. Magnitude--dependent systematic errors have been found and preliminarily corrected. The final reduction of this plate material will be performed with the Hipparcos catalog in 1997. The TAC is about 3 times more precise than the PPM or ACRS in the northern hemisphere at current epochs and contains about 3 times more stars. The TAC has a higher star density than the Tycho catalog and provides independent, high precision positions for a large fraction of the Tycho stars at an epoch about 10 years earlier than the Tycho mean epoch. The TAC version 1.0 data are released as the AC zones become available. For latest information, look at the US Naval Observatory World Wide Web page http://aries.usno.navy.mil/ad/tac.html.Comment: 22 pages LaTex, accepted by AJ, scheduled for Nov., no figures provided, needs aasms4.st

The polymerisation of fluorinated Olefins

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Confronting the Reluctant Accomplice

The Supreme Court treats the Confrontation Clause as a rule of evidence that excludes unreliable hearsay. But where the hearsay declarant is an accomplice who refuses to testify at defendant\u27s trial, the Court\u27s approach leads prosecutors and defendants to ignore real opportunities for confrontation, while they debate the reliability of hearsay. And even where the Court\u27s doctrine excludes hearsay, it leads prosecutors to purchase the accomplice\u27s testimony through a process that raises equally serious questions of reliability. Thus, the Court\u27s approach promotes neither reliability nor confrontation. This Article advocates an approach that applies the Confrontation Clause to hearsay declarants in much the same way it applies to testifying witnesses. Rather than exclude unreliable hearsay, the Clause guarantees fair adversarial testing of hearsay. Prosecutors cannot introduce accomplice hearsay without using available means to bring about real confrontation. Defendants cannot rely on confrontation rights that they are not willing to exercise. And courts must take a harder look when accomplices assert a blanket right not to testify. Rather than pitting hearsay against confrontation, this approach embraces solutions which allow both hearsay and confrontation

The Risks of Insider Guaranties

Loan payments made within a year of a bankruptcy filing could be considered avoidable preferences if the loan were guaranteed by a corporate insider. In this article, Prof Boshkoff argues that bankers should value insider guaranties only as a second source of payment, not for any subtle pressure they may exert on the borrower

The Breard Case and the Virtues of Forbearance

At a time when the scheduled execution of Angel Francisco Breard made Virginia the focus of a groundbreaking controversy over the reach of internationallaw into the domestic criminal process of the United States, law students and faculty at the University of Richmond had the unique opportunity to consider the case along with Philippe Sands, then a Visiting Allen Chair Professor at the University