Michael Cicchini's Law Review Articles

In my efforts to advocate for legal reform I have also published extensively in law reviews (organized by topic, below). My articles have been cited in state and federal court decisions, annotated statutes, legal treatises, attorneys' motions and briefs, legal reform initiatives, books, newspaper articles, social science journal articles, and in other law review articles. Law review articles are not legal advice. If you have a legal issue or question of any kind, immediately call me or a licensed attorney in your state.

Preliminary Hearings

Substance, Form, and the Adversary System, 78 South Carolina L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming, 2027) (SSRN)
The Preliminary-Hearing Swindle: A Crime Against Procedure, 58 Loyola L.A. L. Rev. 117 (2025)
Defense Lawyer Decision-Making and the Preliminary Hearing, 119 Northwestern U. L. Rev. Online 165 (2024)
Improvident Prosecutions, 12 Drexel L. Rev. 465 (2020)

Plea Bargaining

What is a Guilty Plea? (under submission)
Plea Bargains, Prosecutorial Breach, and the Curious Right to Cure, 89 Brooklyn L. Rev. 1095 (2024) (SSRN)
Preliminary-Hearing Waivers and the Contract to Negotiate, 2023 Pepperdine L. Rev. 35 (2023)
Deal Jumpers, 2021 U. Illinois L. Rev. 1325 (2021)
Under the Gun: Plea Bargains and the Arbitrary Deadline, 93 Temple L. Rev. 89 (2020) (SSRN)
Broken Government Promises: A Contract-Based Approach to Enforcing Plea Bargains, 38 New Mexico L. Rev. 159 (2008)

Miranda and Interrogations

The New Miranda Warning, 65 SMU L. Rev. 911 (2012)
Overcoming Miranda: A Content Analysis of the Miranda Portion of Police Interrogations, 49 Idaho L. Rev. 1 (2012) (coauthored) (SSRN)
An Empirical Basis for the Admission of Expert Testimony on False Confessions, 40 Arizona St. L.J. 1 (2008) (coauthored) (SSRN)

Other Pretrial Matters

Bail Jumping While Behind Bars, 73 U. Kansas L. Rev. 575 (2024) (SSRN)
The New Absurdity Doctrine, 125 Penn St. L. Rev. 353 (2021)
Criminal Repeater Statutes: Occasions, Convictions, and Absurd Results, 11 Houston L. Rev. Online 1 (2020)
An Economics Perspective on the Exclusionary Rule and Deterrence, 75 Missouri L. Rev. 459 (2010)
Reforming the Law on Show-Up Identifications, 100 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 381 (2010) (coauthored)

Judicial and Prosecutorial Misconduct

A Lawless Judiciary: The Gilded Age and Today, 3 Georgia Crim. L. Rev. 165 (2025)
Constraining Strickland, 7 Texas A&M L. Rev. 351 (2020)
Combating Judicial Misconduct: A Stoic Approach, 67 Buffalo L. Rev. 1259 (2019)
Combating Prosecutorial Misconduct in Closing Arguments, 70 Oklahoma L. Rev. 887 (2018)
Prosecutorial Misconduct at Trial: A New Perspective Rooted in Confrontation Clause Jurisprudence, 37 Seton Hall L. Rev. 335 (2007)

Confrontation Clause

Dead Again: The Latest Demise of the Confrontation Clause, 80 Fordham L. Rev. 1301 (2011)
Judicial (In)Discretion: How Courts Circumvent the Confrontation Clause under Crawford and Davis, 75 Tennessee L. Rev. 753 (2008) (SSRN)
Confrontation after Crawford v. Washington: Defining “Testimonial”, 10 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 531 (2006) (coauthored)

Daubert and Expert Witnesses

Closing the Door on Daubert (under submission)
Daubert Strategies for the Criminal Defense Bar, 2021 U. Illinois L. Rev. Online 97 (2021)
The Daubert Double Standard, 2021 Michigan St. L. Rev. 705 (2021) (SSRN)

Other Trial Evidence

Justified: Reasonable Beliefs, True Beliefs, and Self-Defense, 109 Marquette L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming, 2026) (SSRN)
A Clean Record as Character Evidence, 90 Mississippi L.J. 315 (2021)
Convictions Based on Character: An Empirical Test of Other-Acts Evidence, 70 Florida L. Rev. 347 (2018) (coauthored)
An Alternative to the Wrong-Person Defense, 24 George Mason U. C.R.L.J. 1 (2013)

Burden of Proof – Truth / Doubt Language

Spin Doctors: Prosecutor Sophistry and the Burden of Proof, 87 U. Cincinnati L. Rev. 489 (2018)
Educating Judges and Lawyers in Behavioral Research: A Case Study, 53 Gonzaga L. Rev. 159 (2017-18) (coauthored) (SSRN)
The Battle over the Burden of Proof: A Report from the Trenches, 79 U. Pittsburgh L. Rev. 61 (2017)
Testing the Impact of Criminal Jury Instructions on Verdicts: A Conceptual Replication, 117 Columbia L. Rev. Online 22 (2017) (coauthored)
Truth or Doubt? An Empirical Test of Criminal Jury Instructions, 50 U. Richmond L. Rev. 1139 (2016) (coauthored)

Defining Reasonable Doubt

Reasonable Doubt and Relativity, 76 Washington & Lee L. Rev. 1443 (2019)
Is Reasonable Doubt Self-Defining?, 64 Villanova L. Rev. 1 (2019) (coauthored)
Instructing Jurors on Reasonable Doubt: It’s All Relative, 8 California L. Rev. Online 72 (2017)

Criminal Law – Other

Criminal Procedure’s Asymmetry Myth, 43 Georgia St. U. L. Rev. ___ (forthcoming, 2027) (SSRN)
The Devil’s Dictionary of Criminal Procedure, 102 Denver L. Rev. Forum 1 (2025)
The Myth of Fundamental Decisions, 112 Kentucky L.J. 261 (2023-24)
Disorderly Conduct: An Investigation into Police and Prosecutor Practices, 9 LMU L. Rev. 50 (2021)
Criminal Jury Instructions: A Case Study, 84 Albany L. Rev. 579 (2020-21)
The Collapsing Constitution, 42 Hofstra L. Rev. 731 (2014)

Non-Criminal Law Topics

Law Review Publishing: Thoughts on Mass Submissions, Expedited Review, and Potential Reform, 16 U. New Hampshire L. Rev. 147 (2017)
Three Rules for Educating Tomorrow’s Lawyers, 34 Mississippi College L. Rev. 1 (2015)
On the Absurdity of Model Rule 1.9, 40 Vermont L. Rev. 69 (2015)