Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Publication Year
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 29 of 29
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Rethinking The Reasonable Response: Safeguarding The Promise Of Kingsley For Conditions Of Confinement, Hanna Rutkowski
Rethinking The Reasonable Response: Safeguarding The Promise Of Kingsley For Conditions Of Confinement, Hanna Rutkowski
Michigan Law Review
Nearly five million individuals are admitted to America’s jails each year, and at any given time, two-thirds of those held in jail have not been convicted of a crime. Under current Supreme Court doctrine, these pretrial detainees are functionally protected by the same standard as convicted prisoners, despite the fact that they are formally protected by different constitutional amendments. A 2015 decision, Kingsley v. Hendrickson, declared that a different standard would apply to pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners in the context of use of force: consistent with the Constitution’s mandate that they not be punished at all, pretrial detainees …
Eighteen Is Not A Magic Number: Why The Eighth Amendment Requires Protection For Youth Aged Eighteen To Twenty-Five, Tirza A. Mullin
Eighteen Is Not A Magic Number: Why The Eighth Amendment Requires Protection For Youth Aged Eighteen To Twenty-Five, Tirza A. Mullin
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The Eighth Amendment protects a criminal defendant’s right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. This Note argues that any punishment of eighteen- to twenty-five-year-olds is cruel and unusual without considering their youthfulness at every stage of the criminal process, and that it is unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment for these youths to be automatically treated as fully-developed adults. This Note will explore in depth how juveniles differ from adults, both socially and scientifically, and how the criminal justice system fails every youth aged eighteen- to twenty-five by subjecting them to criminal, rather than juvenile, court without considering their …
Ensuring That Punishment Does, In Fact, Fit The Crime, Meredith D. Mcphail
Ensuring That Punishment Does, In Fact, Fit The Crime, Meredith D. Mcphail
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
The United States imprisons a greater proportion of its own population than any other country in the world. A legal framework provides protections for those individuals who are incarcerated, but that framework is flawed. The jurisprudence distinguishes pretrial detainees (who have not been convicted) from convicted persons (who are serving a sentence). Based on that distinction, different standards apply to conditions of confinement and use of force cases brought by pretrial detainees and those brought by convicted persons. That distinction–and the resulting disparate application of legal standards–does not comport with the reality of incarceration, the concept of punishment, or the …
Wrong Turn On The Ex Post Facto Clause, Paul D. Reingold, Kimberly Thomas
Wrong Turn On The Ex Post Facto Clause, Paul D. Reingold, Kimberly Thomas
Articles
The Ex Post Facto Clause bars any increase in punishment after the commission of a crime. But deciding what constitutes an increase in punishment can be tricky. At the front end of a criminal case, where new or amended criminal laws might lengthen prisoners’ sentences if applied retroactively, courts have routinely struck down such changes under the Ex Post Facto Clause. At the back end, however, where new or amended parole laws or policies might lengthen prisoners’ sentences in exactly the same way if applied retroactively, courts have used a different standard and upheld the changes under the Ex Post …
All Bathwater, No Baby: Expressive Theories Of Punishment And The Death Penalty, Susan A. Bandes
All Bathwater, No Baby: Expressive Theories Of Punishment And The Death Penalty, Susan A. Bandes
Michigan Law Review
A review of Carol S. Steiker and Jordan M. Steiker, Courting Death: The Supreme Court and Capital Punishment.
The Constitutional Law Of Incarceration, Reconfigured, Margo Schlanger
The Constitutional Law Of Incarceration, Reconfigured, Margo Schlanger
Articles
On any given day, about 2.2 million people are confined in U.S. jails and prisons—nearly 0.9% of American men are in prison, and another 0.4% are in jail. This year, 9 or 10 million people will spend time in our prisons and jails; about 5000 of them will die there. A decade into a frustratingly gradual decline in incarceration numbers, the statistics have grown familiar: We have 4.4% of the world’s population but over 20% of its prisoners. Our incarceration rate is 57% higher than Russia’s (our closest major country rival in imprisonment), nearly four times the rate in England, …
Random If Not "Rare"? The Eighth Amendment Weaknesses Of Post-Miller Legislation, Kimberly Thomas
Random If Not "Rare"? The Eighth Amendment Weaknesses Of Post-Miller Legislation, Kimberly Thomas
Articles
First, this Article surveys the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to analogize life without parole for juveniles to the death penalty for adults, and discusses the Eighth Amendment law regarding the parameters around death penalty statutory schemes. Second, this Article examines the state legislative response to Miller, and scrutinizes it with the Court's Eighth Amendment death penalty law-and the states' responses to this case law-in mind. This Article highlights the failure of juvenile homicide sentencing provisions to: 1) narrow offenses that are eligible for life without parole sentences; 2) further limit, once a guilty finding is made, the categories of …
How The Ada Regulates And Restricts Solitary Confinement For People With Mental Disabilities, Margo Schlanger
How The Ada Regulates And Restricts Solitary Confinement For People With Mental Disabilities, Margo Schlanger
Other Publications
In a landmark decision two decades ago, United States District Judge Thelton Henderson emphasized the toxic effects of solitary confinement for inmates with mental illness. In Madrid v. Gomez, a case about California’s Pelican Bay prison, Judge Henderson wrote that isolated conditions in the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, while not amounting to cruel and unusual punishment for all prisoners, were unconstitutional for those “at a particularly high risk for suffering very serious or severe injury to their mental health . . . .” Vulnerable prisoners included those with pre-existing mental illness, intellectual disabilities, and brain damage. Henderson concluded that …
Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders
Making The Right Call For Confrontation At Felony Sentencing, Shaakirrah R. Sanders
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Felony sentencing courts have discretion to increase punishment based on un-cross-examined testimonial statements about several categories of uncharged, dismissed, or otherwise unproven criminal conduct. Denying defendants an opportunity to cross-examine these categories of sentencing evidence undermines a core principle of natural law as adopted in the Sixth Amendment: those accused of felony crimes have the right to confront adversarial witnesses. This Article contributes to the scholarship surrounding confrontation rights at felony sentencing by cautioning against continued adherence to the most historic Supreme Court case on this issue, Williams v. New York. This Article does so for reasons beyond the unacknowledged …
Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, And Recdivism, Shira E. Gordon
Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, And Recdivism, Shira E. Gordon
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
As of 2005, about 80,000 prisoners were housed in solitary confinement in jails and in state and federal prisons in the United States. Prisoners in solitary confinement are generally housed in a cell for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day with little human contact or interaction. The number of prisoners held in solitary confinement increased 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, in comparison to the growth in the total prison population of 28 percent. Concurrently, the duration of time that prisoners spend in solitary confinement also increased: nationally, most prisoners in solitary confinement spend more than five years there. The …
Constitutionally Tailoring Punishment, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas
Constitutionally Tailoring Punishment, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas
Michigan Law Review
Since the turn of the century, the Supreme Court has regulated noncapital sentencing under the Sixth Amendment in the Apprendi line of cases (requiring jury findings of fact to justify sentence enhancements) as well as under the Eighth Amendment in the Miller and Graham line of cases (forbidding mandatory life imprisonment for juvenile defendants). Although both lines of authority sound in individual rights, in fact they are fundamentally about the structures of criminal justice. These two seemingly disparate doctrines respond to structural imbalances in noncapital sentencing by promoting morally appropriate punishment judgments that are based on individualized input and that …
Transforming Juvenile Justice: Making Doctrine Out Of Dicta In Graham V. Florida, Jason Zolle
Transforming Juvenile Justice: Making Doctrine Out Of Dicta In Graham V. Florida, Jason Zolle
Michigan Law Review First Impressions
In the late 1980s and 1990s, many state legislatures radically altered the way that their laws treated children accused of crimes. Responding to what was perceived of as an epidemic of juvenile violence, academics and policymakers began to think of child criminals as a "new breed" of incorrigible "superpredators." States responded by making it easier for prosecutors to try and sentence juveniles as adults, even making it mandatory in some circumstances. Yet in the past decade, the Supreme Court handed down four opinions that limit the states' ability to treat children as adults in the justice system. Roper v. Simmons …
Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks
Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type …
Furman'S Mythical Mandate, Scott W. Howe
Furman'S Mythical Mandate, Scott W. Howe
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
This Article argues for the rescue and reform of Supreme Court doctrine regulating capital sentencing trials under the Eighth Amendment. Many legal commentators, both liberal and conservative, including several members of the Supreme Court, have concluded that the Court's regulation of capital sentencing trials is a disaster. The repeated criticisms rest on a commonly accepted view about a principal goal of capital sentencing regulation. The prevailing account, fueled by the rhetoric of the Justices, stems from the notion that Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 208 (1972), revealed a mandate of consistency in the use of the death penalty that …
The Pathological Politics Of Criminal Law, William J. Stuntz
The Pathological Politics Of Criminal Law, William J. Stuntz
Michigan Law Review
Substantive criminal law defines the conduct that the state punishes. Or does it? If the answer is yes, it should be possible, by reading criminal codes (perhaps with a few case annotations thrown in), to tell what conduct will land you in prison. Most discussions of criminal law, whether in law reviews, law school classrooms, or the popular press, proceed on the premise that the answer is yes. Law reform movements regularly seek to broaden or narrow the scope of some set of criminal liability rules, always on the assumption that by doing so they will broaden or narrow the …
Beyond The Hero Judge: Institutional Reform Litigation As Litigation, Margo Schlanger
Beyond The Hero Judge: Institutional Reform Litigation As Litigation, Margo Schlanger
Reviews
In 1955, in its second decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court suggested that federal courts might be called upon to engage in long-term oversight of once-segregated schools. Through the 1960s, southern resistance pushed federal district and appellate judges to turn that possibility into a reality. The impact of this saga on litigation practice extended beyond school desegregation, and even beyond the struggle for African-American equality; through implementation of Brown, the nation’s litigants, lawyers, and judges grew accustomed both to issuance of permanent injunctions against state and local public institutions, and to extended court oversight of compliance. …
The Limits Of Legal Language: Decisionmaking In Capital Cases, Jordan M. Steiker
The Limits Of Legal Language: Decisionmaking In Capital Cases, Jordan M. Steiker
Michigan Law Review
To make the case for the proposed changes, I will first describe briefly in Parts I and II the structure of pre- and post-Furman capital decisiorurtaking and the weaknesses of those approaches. I then will set forth in Part III the specific rationales for each proposed reform.
The scheme I propose raises a significant constitutional question. Can the death penalty be retained as a punishment if we abandon the pretense of providing meaningful guidance through detailed sentencing instructions? Would the reestablishment of relatively unstructured penalty phase deliberations similar to, but also importantly different from, those characteristic of pre-Furman …
The 'Right To Die': A Catchy But Confusing Slogan, Yale Kamisar
The 'Right To Die': A Catchy But Confusing Slogan, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Some 30 years ago an eminent constitutional law scholar Charles L. Black, Jr., spoke of "toiling uphill against that heaviest of all argumental weights-the weight of a slogan. I am reminded of that observation when I confront the slogan the "right to die." Few rallying cries or slogans are more appealing and seductive than the "right to die." But few are more fuzzy, more misleading, and more misunderstood.
Legitimating Death, Louis D. Bilionis
Legitimating Death, Louis D. Bilionis
Michigan Law Review
This article arrives at the surprising conclusion that a meaningful Eighth Amendment death penalty jurisprudence lives on, that it is a quite intelligible jurisprudence, and that it is driven by a coherent methodology with firm roots in the traditions of constitutional adjudication.
To reach that conclusion, it is helpful first to have some sense of what the Supreme Court has been doing in the death penalty area lately. Part I thus presents a topical review of the Court's recent work, identifying the themes that now dominate, pointing out the concerns those themes raise, and asking whether any sense can be …
Justifiably Punishing The Justified, Heidi M. Hurd
Justifiably Punishing The Justified, Heidi M. Hurd
Michigan Law Review
Contemporary moral philosophy, political theory, and jurisprudence have converged to create a quite baffling dilemma. This dilemma is generated by the apparent incompatibility of three principles, each of which grounds features of our system of law and government, and each of which carries substantial normative weight. The first I shall call the punishment principle - a moral principle, doctrinally entrenched in American criminal and civil law, which holds that individuals who are morally justified in their actions ought not to be blamed or punished for those actions. The second is the principle of the rule of law - a complex …
Capital Punishment And The American Agenda, John Pierce Stimson
Capital Punishment And The American Agenda, John Pierce Stimson
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Capital Punishment and the American Agenda by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins
Just And Painful: A Case For The Corporal Punishment Of Criminals, Michigan Law Review
Just And Painful: A Case For The Corporal Punishment Of Criminals, Michigan Law Review
Michigan Law Review
A Review of Just and Painful: A Case for the Corporal Punishment of Criminals by Graeme Newman
Salvaging Proportionate Prison Sentencing: A Reply To Rummel V. Estelle, Thomas F. Cavalier
Salvaging Proportionate Prison Sentencing: A Reply To Rummel V. Estelle, Thomas F. Cavalier
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Part I of this Note provides a capsule of the Court's holding in Rummel. Part II argues, contrary to Rummel, that precedential support can be mustered to support eighth amendment review of sentence length. Finally, part 11,1 discusses the continued viability of the proportionality test as a vehicle for assessing challenges to the length of imprisonment, and discounts the concerns voiced in Rummel regarding the difficulty of judicial review of legislative sentencing decisions.
The Three Faces Of Double Jeopardy: Reflections On Government Appeals Of Criminal Sentences, Peter K. Westen
The Three Faces Of Double Jeopardy: Reflections On Government Appeals Of Criminal Sentences, Peter K. Westen
Michigan Law Review
Every now and then a case ·comes along that tests the fundamental premises of a body of law. United States v. DiFrancesco presents such a test to the law of double jeopardy, raising the question whether the government may unilaterally appeal a defendant's criminal sentence for the purpose of increasing the sentence. The question cannot be answered by facile reference to the text of the fifth amendment, because the terms of the double jeopardy clause are not self-defining. Nor can it be settled by reference to history, because the issue has not arisen with any frequency until now.
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar
Articles
Fifty years ago Clarence Darrow, probably the greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history and a leading opponent of capital punishment, observed: The question of capital punishment has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment. Some states have abolished and then reinstated it; some have enjoyed capital punishment for long periods of time and finally prohibited the use of it. The reasons why it cannot be settled are plain. There is first of all no agreement as to the objects of punishment. Next there is no way to …
Constitutional Law-Expatriation-Criminal Due Process As Prerequisite To Expatriation When Imposed As Punishment, John W. Erickson
Constitutional Law-Expatriation-Criminal Due Process As Prerequisite To Expatriation When Imposed As Punishment, John W. Erickson
Michigan Law Review
Respondents, native-born Americans, in two separate cases sought declaratory judgments confirming their status as United States citizens. One wanted to return to this country, and the other sought to avoid deportation as an alien. The Government claimed that respondents had lost their citizenship by operation of section 401(j) of the Nationality Act of 1940 and its successor, section 349(a)(10) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which automatically divest an American of his citizenship for "departing from or remaining outside the jurisdiction of the United States in time of war or . . . national emergency for the purpose …
Constitutional Law-Executive Powers-Right To Remove Executive Employees Without Judicial Trial, William E. Beringer
Constitutional Law-Executive Powers-Right To Remove Executive Employees Without Judicial Trial, William E. Beringer
Michigan Law Review
Plaintiff was reinstated in the classified civil service of the federal government on the condition that removal might be ordered if, "on all the evidence, reasonable grounds exist for belief that the [plaintiff] is disloyal to the Government of the United States." Such evidence having allegedly been uncovered, dismissal followed, with a ban against federal employment for three years. The specific grounds for suspicion were never revealed to plaintiff, and no opportunity was ever afforded to confront, cross-examine, or learn the identity of those who had informed against her. Plaintiff sought an order of reinstatement in the federal district court, …
Constitutional Law-Removal Of Executive Employees By Act Of Congress-Bill Of Attainder, John A. Huston S.Ed.
Constitutional Law-Removal Of Executive Employees By Act Of Congress-Bill Of Attainder, John A. Huston S.Ed.
Michigan Law Review
Respondents, three employees of the federal government, were, among other federal officeholders, accused by Congressman Martin Dies of having engaged in subversive activities and were investigated by a special subcommittee of the House of Representatives on that charge. Upon a report of this committee that the respondents were guilty of such activities, the House attached a rider, in section 304, to the Urgent Deficiencies Appropriation Act, 1943, which prohibited, after November 15, 1943, the application of any appropriation to the payment of respondents' compensation, except as jurors or members of the armed forces, unless prior to November 15 they should …
Due Process And Punishment, Clarence E. Laylin, Alonzo H. Tuttle
Due Process And Punishment, Clarence E. Laylin, Alonzo H. Tuttle
Michigan Law Review
To threaten such a man with punishment," wrote Sir James .LFitzjames Stephen,' "is like threatening to punish a man for not lifting a weight which he cannot move."