Recent Legal Developments

Abstract

In the term whose final signed opinions were announced on June 29, 1988, the Supreme Court of the United States broke relatively little new ground in criminal law and procedure. There was exploration of the "independent source" rule and the "expectation of privacy" concept of the Fourth Amendment. Two major decisions concerning interrogation produced one victory each for the defense and the prosecution. The right to appellate counsel and the problem of defense counsel's conflict of interest were addressed. The Court ventured into two areas involving special concerns of and for young people in the criminal justice context, these being a state's attempt to give special courtroom consideration to child sex abuse victims and the constitutionality of the death penalty for juveniles. Most of the other capital punishment cases fine-tuned the law of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. First Amendment issues occupied a significant portion of the Court's docket, resulting in some 15 signed opinion cases. Only one of these, involving a municipality's attempted ban on residential picketing, appeared to have an important direct bearing on criminal justice.