Digital Commons Network^™

Write Before You Watch: Policies For Police Body-Worn Cameras That Advance Accountability And Accuracy, Hillary B. Farber

Faculty Publications

In the wake of high-profile killings and abuse by police officers over the past few years, the public has come to expect that officers will be equipped with body-worn cameras (BWCs). These cameras capture and preserve encounters between police and civilians, and the footage they record often becomes critical evidence in criminal, civil, or administrative proceedings. Reformers believe BWCs can improve police accountability, build public trust in police, and potentially reform police behavior.

Considering the reliance on BWCs, a key question has emerged: should officers be allowed to review BWC footage before preparing a report or giving a statement, or …

Fictional Pleas, Thea B. Johnson

Faculty Publications

A fictional plea is one in which the defendant pleads guilty to a crime he has not committed with the knowledge of the defense attorney, prosecutor and judge. With fictional pleas, the plea of conviction is totally detached from the original factual allegations against the defendant. As criminal justice actors become increasingly troubled by the impact of collateral consequences on defendants, the fictional plea serves as an appealing response to this concern. It allows the parties to achieve parallel aims: the prosecutor holds the defendant accountable in the criminal system, while the defendant avoids devastating non-criminal consequences. In this context, …

Restoring The Civil Jury In A World Without Trials, Dmitry Bam

Faculty Publications

Early in this nation’s history, the civil jury was the most important institutional check on biased and corrupt judges. Recently, concerns about judicial bias, especially in elected state judiciaries, have intensified as new studies demonstrate the extent of that bias. But the jury of Hamilton, Madison, and Jefferson is nowhere to be found. In fact, the civil jury is virtually dead. It is used in less than 1% of all civil cases, and even when it makes a rare appearance, the jury’s powers have been significantly curtailed.

This article argues that we must reimagine the civil jury to match the …

Capital Defenders As Outsider Lawyers, Kathryn A. Sabbeth

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Juries For Juveniles, Joseph E. Kennedy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Progressive Constitutionalism, Originalism, And The Significance Of Landmark Decisions In Evaluating Constitutional Theory, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Towards An Understanding Of Litigation As Expression: Lessons From Guantánamo, Kathryn A. Sabbeth

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Forward: Symposium On Broke And Broken: Can We Fix Our State Indigent Defense System?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

The Symposium presenters and commentators, most of whom had worked at some point in their career as a public defender, brought a wealth of experience to the discussion. While the presentations and comments made that day, together with the articles that follow in this Symposium issue, do not provide any quick fix or easy solution, they do offer some important lessons for lawmakers to consider as states struggle to improve the plight of indigent defenders and their clients.

Losing Hold Of The Guiding Hand: Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel In Juvenile Delinquency Representation, Barbara A. Fedders

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial Abdication And Equal Access To The Civil Justice System, Gene R. Nichol Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Jena Six, Mass Incarceration, And The Remoralization Of Civil Rights, Joseph E. Kennedy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Special Threat Of Informants To The Innocent Who Are Not Innocents: Producing "First Drafts," Recording Incentives, And Taking A Fresh Look At The Evidence, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Many Meanings Of "Politics" In Judicial Decision Making, Bradley W. Joondeph

Faculty Publications

This essay seeks to untangle the many possible meanings of "politics" in descriptions of judicial behavior. Part I sets out ten possible conceptions of the term, briefly discussing some examples and their empirical foundations. My goal is mostly descriptive (rather than normative), though it is apparent that some conceptions are more useful than others. In all events, claims about the political influences on judicial behavior must be specific about the phenomena they seek to describe. For given the many possible meanings of politics, accounts that lack such specificity are largely vacuous.

Part II builds on this discussion to make two …

Convicting The Innocent: Aberration Or Systemic Problem?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

In practice, the right to adequate defense counsel in the United States is disturbingly unequal. Only some American criminal defendants actually receive the effective assistance of counsel. Although some indigent defendants are afforded zealous, effective representation, many indigent defendants and almost all of the working poor are not. The quality of representation a defendant receives generally is a product of fortuity, of economic status, and of the jurisdiction in which he or she is charged. For many defendants, the assistance of counsel means little more than counsel's help in facilitating a guilty plea. With luck, money, and location primarily determining …

Shifting The Focus From The Myth Of "The Vanishing Trial" To Complex Conflict Management Systems, Or I Learned Almost Everything I Need To Know About Conflict Resolution From Marc Galanter, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

To say that The Vanishing Trial is a myth is not to suggest that the facts or analysis in Professor Marc Galanter's seminal report on the vanishing trial are fictional or inaccurate. Indeed, he marshals a massive amount of data to show that the number of trials and the trial rates have been declining for the past four decades, particularly in the federal courts. The report documents an apparent paradox: the proportion of cases going to trial has dropped sharply during the past forty years despite substantial increases in many other legal indicators including the number of lawyers, the number …

International Judicial Decisions, Domestic Courts, And The Foreign Affairs Power, A. Mark Weisburd

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Gender Based Violence As Judicial Anomaly: Between "The Truly National And The Truly Local", Deborah M. Weissman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Federalization: A Critical Overview, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Alternative Penal Sanctions, Paul Marcus

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Judicial Matters, Neal Devins

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.