Christopher Slobogin

Without our consent and often without our knowledge, the government can constantly monitor many of our daily activities, using closed circuit TV, global positioning systems, and a wide array of other sophisticated technologies. With just a few keystrokes, records containing our financial information, phone and e-mail logs, and sometimes even our medical histories can be readily accessed by law enforcement officials. As Christopher Slobogin explains in Privacy at Risk, these intrusive acts of surveillance are subject to very little regulation.Applying the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures, Slobogin argues that courts should prod legislatures into enacting more meaningful protection against government overreaching. In setting forth a comprehensive framework meant to preserve rights guaranteed by the Constitution without compromising the government’s ability to investigate criminal acts, Slobogin offers a balanced regulatory regime that should intrigue everyone concerned about privacy rights in the digital age.

"In this new interpretation of a significant but neglected area of jurisprudence, a leading authority in mental health law provides innovative, normatively and pragmatically justified solutions to enduring problems associated with criminal responsibility, the protection of society from dangerous individuals, and the concept of autonomy. Using famous cases such as those of John Hinckley, Andrea Yates, and Theodore Kaczynski, Christopher Slobogin describes and critically analyzes the insanity defense and related doctrines, sentencing statutes that recognize a role for mental disability, commitment laws that authorize indeterminate incapacitation of dangerous offenders (e.g., "sexual predators"), and rules that require competency to participate in the criminal process."--BOOK JACKET.

"This publication covers the law governing the criminal process, excluding sentencing. The first half of the book examines legal strictures on investigative techniques--search and seizure, interrogation, subpoenas, identification procedures, and undercover work--and the second half discusses the adjudicatory process, from pretrial detention and the charging decision through preliminary hearings, discovery, plea bargaining, trial, appeal, and habeas, as well as double-jeopardy doctrine, right-to-counsel issues, and state constitutional law. Each chapter ends with a summary of the law and a bibliography."--Publisher's website.

"Both culpability and dangerousness are exceedingly difficult to gauge; even mental health professionals well-versed in the behavioral sciences cannot claim a high degree of reliability in their efforts to address these issues. Though the current trend in evidence law is to demand a rigorous demonstration of scientific validity from expert witnesses, especially when those experts are mental health professionals are proffered by the defense, this book argues that this is a mistake. Such a position undermines the fairness of the process and could quite possibly even diminish its reliability, given the defense's constitutional entitlement to tell its story and the inscrutability of past and future mental states. At the same time, Professor Slobogin proposes a number of ways the courts can ensure that experts provide the best possible information about ultimately unknowable past mental states and future behavior."--Jacket.