James Duane (professor)

Not to be confused with James Duane (revolutionary leader).

James Duane is a Regent University School of Law professor, former criminal defense attorney, and Fifth Amendment expert.[1] He received some notoriety for his "Don't Talk To Police" video of a lecture he gave to a group of law students, which instructs citizens to never talk to police under any circumstances. After gaining mild popularity on sites such as YouTube and Google, his lecture received criticism from a blogger on the neoconservative website, The Weekly Standard.[2][3]

In support of his "Don't Talk to Police" mantra, Duane cites, among other things that: 1) police have the ability to lie to criminal suspects during questioning, and sometimes employ this tactic; 2) police may have substantial evidence against even innocent witnesses and; 3) individuals convinced of their own innocence may have unknowingly committed a crime which the inadvertently confess to during questioning.[4] This follows the reasoning of Justice Robert Jackson in Watts v. Indiana.

He has also written about what he views to be bizarre legislative drafting errors in the Virginia Statute on Privileged Marital Communications[5] as well as issues involving the introduction of hearsay evidence at trial (known as "bootstrapping").[6]

References

  1. ^ James Duane, Regent University, http://www.regent.edu/acad/schlaw/faculty_staff/duane.cfm 
  2. ^ Sneider, Jaime (August 6, 2008), Regent Law Professor: Don't Talk to Police, http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/08/white_lawyer_says_dont_talk_to.asp 
  3. ^ James Duane, Talking to the Police, http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8167533318153586646# 
  4. ^ Professor speaks to Federalist Society on Genius of the Fifth Amendment, March 25, 2009, http://www.campbell.edu/news/item/Professor-speaks-to-Federalist-Society-on-Genius-of-the-Fifth-Amendmen 
  5. ^ Duane, James Joseph (1999-2000), Bizarre Drafting Errors in the Virginia Statute on Privileged Marital Communications, The, 12, Regent U. L. Rev., http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/regulr12&section=12 
  6. ^ Duane, James Joseph (1996-1997), Trouble with United States v. Tellier: The Dangers of Hunting for Bootstrappers and other Mythical Monsters, The, 24, Am. J. Crim. L., http://heinonlinebackup.com/hol-cgi-bin/get_pdf.cgi?handle=hein.journals/ajcl24&section=16