Digital Commons Network^™

Is Executive Function The Universal Acid?, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay responds to Hirstein, Sifferd and Fagan’s book, Responsible Brains (MIT Press, 2018), which claims that executive function is the guiding mechanism that supports both responsible agency and the necessity for some excuses. In contrast, I suggest that executive function is not the universal acid and the neuroscience at present contributes almost nothing to the necessary psychological level of explanation and analysis. To the extent neuroscience can be useful, it is virtually entirely dependent on well-validated psychology to correlate with the neuroscientific variables under investigation. The essay considers what executive function is and what the neuroscience adds to our …

Announcement Of Legal History Workshop: Sara Mcdougall: "Judging Sex Crimes: Pregnancy And Punishment In Medieval France" (10/29/20)

Law School Lectures, Addresses, Conferences, and Workshops

No abstract provided.

Announcement Of Quattrone Center Panel Discussion: "Criminal Justice Reform And Forensics: The Importance Of Evidence" (10/1/20)

Law School Lectures, Addresses, Conferences, and Workshops

No abstract provided.

A Truce In Criminal Law's Distributive Principle Wars?, Paul H. Robinson

All Faculty Scholarship

Crime-control utilitarians and retributivist philosophers have long been at war over the appropriate distributive principle for criminal liability and punishment, with little apparent possibility of reconciliation between the two. In the utilitarians’ view, the imposition of punishment can be justified only by the practical benefit that it provides: avoiding future crime. In the retributivists’ view, doing justice for past wrongs is a value in itself that requires no further justification. The competing approaches simply use different currencies: fighting future crime versus doing justice for past wrongs.

It is argued here that the two are in fact reconcilable, in a fashion. …

Penn Law Journal: Penn Law's Pandemic Response

The Journal

No abstract provided.

The Pros And Cons Of Plea Bargaining, Stephanos Bibas, Gregory Brower, Carissa Byrne Hessick, Clark Neily

Articles

No abstract provided.

How Medicalization Of Civil Rights Could Disappoint, Allison K. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

This essay reflects on Craig Konnoth’s recent Article, Medicalization and the New Civil Rights, which is a carefully crafted and thought-provoking description of the refashioning of civil rights claims into medical rights frameworks. He compellingly threads together many intellectual traditions—from antidiscrimination law to disability law to health law—to illustrate the pervasiveness of the phenomenon that he describes and why it might be productive as a tool to advance civil rights.

This response, however, offers several reasons why medicalization may not cure all that ails civil rights litigation’s pains and elaborates on the potential risks of overinvesting in medical rights-seeking. …

Picking Prosecutors, Michael Morse, Carissa Byrne Hessick

Articles

The conventional academic wisdom is that prosecutor elections are little more than empty exercises. Using a new, national survey of local prosecutor elections––the first of its kind––this Article offers a more complete account of the legal and empirical landscape. It confirms that incumbents are rarely contested and almost always win. But it moves beyond extant work to consider the nature of local political conflict, including how often local prosecutors face any contestation or any degree of competition. It also demonstrates a significant difference in the degree of incumbent entrenchment based on time in office. Most importantly, it reveals a stark …

Faith, Law, And Love: Peg Brinig's Legacy, Stephanos Bibas

Articles

The central question in Peg Brinig’s work is how the law can help intimate associations to raise healthy kids. She pursues this theme through a variety of inquiries, ranging from parochial schools in big-city neighborhoods to covenant-marriage laws in Louisiana. Her answers depend on context, varying with how close each social actor or institution is to the process of raising children. But nearly all her recommendations seek to foster permanent, loving, involved social environments. Following Brinig’s lead, I’ll celebrate her work by highlighting some of the answers she offers in three different social contexts. In Part I, I’ll explore her …

Sobering Up After The Seventh Inning: Alcohol And Crime Around The Ballpark, Jonathan Klick, John M. Macdonald

All Faculty Scholarship

Objectives: This study examines the impact of alcohol consumption in a Major League Baseball (MLB) stadium on area level counts of crime. The modal practice at MLB stadiums is to stop selling alcoholic beverages after the seventh inning. Baseball is not a timed game, so the duration between end of the seventh inning (last call for alcohol) and the end of the game varies considerably, providing a unique natural experiment that allows us to estimate the relationship between alcohol consumption and crime near a stadium on game days to non-game days and to areas around sports bars that fans also …

Quattrone Center Spring Symposium: "Transparency In Criminal Justice: A 2020 Vision": Announcement (4/1-3/20)

Symposia

No abstract provided.

Announcement Of Penn Latinx Law Student Association Conference (3/20-21/20)

Law School Lectures, Addresses, Conferences, and Workshops

No abstract provided.

Selected Bibliography For Penn Latinx Law Student Association Conference (3/20-21/20)

Law School Lectures, Addresses, Conferences, and Workshops

No abstract provided.

The Saga Of Pennsylvania’S “Willie Horton” And The Commutation Of Life Sentences In The Commonwealth, Regina Austin

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1994, Reginald McFadden’s sentence of life without the possibility of parole was commuted by the governor of Pennsylvania, and he was shipped to New York to be supervised by a bunch of amateurs. Within roughly 90 days, he murdered two people, raped and kidnapped a third, and possibly murdered a fourth. McFadden proved to be Lieutenant Governor Mark Singel’s “Willie Horton.” Singel, who had voted for McFadden’s release as a member of the Board of Pardons, lost the gubernatorial election to his Republican opponent who ran on a “life-means-life” platform. Compounding the tragedy of McFadden’s actions, the Pennsylvania Constitution …

The Expansive Reach Of Pretrial Detention, Paul Heaton

All Faculty Scholarship

Today we know much more about the effects of pretrial detention than we did even five years ago. Multiple empirical studies have emerged that shed new light on the far-reaching impacts of bail decisions made at the earliest stages of the criminal adjudication process. The takeaway from this new generation of studies is that pretrial detention has substantial downstream effects on both the operation of the criminal justice system and on defendants themselves, causally increasing the likelihood of a conviction, the severity of the sentence, and, in some jurisdictions, defendants’ likelihood of future contact with the criminal justice system. Detention …

Liberalism's Identity Politics: A Response To Professor Fukuyama, Athena D. Mutua

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

Blurred Lines: An Analysis Of Whether Prosecutorial Discretion Extends To Lessening A Sentence Ex-Post In Light Of The Separation Of Powers Doctrine, Mikaela Meyer

JCL Online

No abstract provided.

Congressional Administration During The Crack Wars: A Study Of The Sentencing Commission, Smita Ghosh

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

The Frailty Of Disability Rights, Jasmine E. Harris

University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

Judicial Historical Revisionism In The Philippines: Judicial Review And The Rehabilitation Of Ferdinand Marcos, Dante Gatmaytan

University of Pennsylvania Asian Law Review

No abstract provided.

#Whoami: Harm And Remedy For Youth Of The #Metoo Era, Charisa Smith

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

Doctrinal Innovation In International Criminal Law: Harms, Victims, And The Evolution Of The Law, Patrick J. Keenan

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

The State Of Murder In Japan And The United States: A Story Of Socioeconomic Integration And Police Geography, David U. Socol De La Osa

University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Somewhere Between Death Row And Death Watch: The Procedural Trap Capital Defendants Face In Raising Execution-Related Claims, Melanie Kalmanson

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Public Affairs

No abstract provided.

Mass Seizure And Mass Search, Gregory Brazeal

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law

No abstract provided.

The Truth Limps After: Sentence Enhancements And The Punishment Paradigm, Wally Hilke

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

Habeas Class Actions: Current Opportunities And Challenges In Immigration Law, Ellyn Jameson

Prize Winning Papers

Winner of the Law School's 2020 Dolores K. Sloviter Prize for the best student paper or research project in the field of judicial administration.

Of Death And Delusion: What Survives Kahler V. Kansas?, Fredrick E. Vors

University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

No abstract provided.

A Functional Approach To Municipal Policymaker Determinations In Section 1983, Karen Lott

University of Pennsylvania Journal of Law and Social Change

No abstract provided.

Fiduciary Blind Spot: The Failure Of Institutional Investors To Prevent The Illegitimate Use Of Working Americans' Savings For Corporate Political Spending, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

For decades, American workers have been subjected to increasing pressure to become forced capitalists, in the sense that to provide for retirement for themselves, and to pay for college for their children, they must turn part of their income every month over to mutual funds who participate in 401(k) and 529 programs. These “Worker Investors” save for the long term, often hold portfolios that are a proxy for the entire economy, and depend on the economy’s ability to generate good jobs and sustainable growth in order for them to be able to have economic security. In recent years, there has …