Digital Commons Network^™

Social Change Initiatives For African-American Males In Los Angeles, Ca., Kay Ramsey

Kay Ramsey

Legal Deserts: A Multi-State Perspective On Rural Access To Justice, Lisa R. Pruitt , Amanda L. Kool, Lauren Sudeall Lucas, Michele Statz, Danielle M. Conway, Hannah Haksgaard

Lisa R Pruitt

Not For The Truth Of The Matter: Defendant's Hearsay And The Necessity Of Limiting Instructions In Psychological Defenses, Brian A. Ford

Brian A Ford

This paper presents a thorough discussion of the use of a defendant's hearsay statements to a psychological expert as the basis of the expert's opinion at trial, under California Law.

Can California Save Its Death Sentences? Will Californians Save The Expense?, Scott W. Howe

Scott W. Howe

Imposing a death sentence in California has become symbolism with a staggering price. From 1973 through 2009, California sentenced 927 persons to death but executed only thirteen. No executions have occurred since 2006. There are presently 714 persons on death row. Average delays between death sentences and executions are among the worst in the nation and in some cases will reach 30 years. One recent study estimated that taxpayers have spent more than $4,000,000,000 on the California death penalty since 1978 and more than $184,000,000 in 2009 alone.

This Article addresses two major questions about the future of California’s death …

Reforming Adult Felony Probation To Ease Prison Overcrowding: An Overview Of California S.B. 678, Jessica K. Feinstein

Jessica Feinstein

This article provides a holistic examination of California’s groundbreaking Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act, S.B. 678, passed in 2009 in response to California’s prison crisis. S.B. 678 seeks to create stable funding for county probation departments to implement evidence-based practices by shifting resources from the state prison budget to county probation. Probation is the most frequently imposed form of criminal sentence in California—nor is it limited to the least serious offenders. Estimates of the state’s adult probation population range from roughly 325,000 to 350,000. The article illuminates the goals and mechanisms of S.B. 678 and the challenges facing its implementation. …

Our Culpable Sickness: California's Sexually Violent Predator's Act, Valerie A. Kraml

Valerie A Kraml

California’s Sexually Violent Predator Act (SVPA) incorporates punitive and rehabilitative elements which split control over Sexually Violent Predators between medial and judicial institutions. These institutions struggle to control and define the rehabilitation of individual offenders. As a result, the implementation of the SVPA is fundamentally flawed. This paper argues: 1) sex offenders are treated as both culpable and sick, which impairs their rehabilitation; 2) the SVPA incorporates both determinative and indeterminate incarceration, which runs contrary to the basic foundation of the American legal system; 3) the struggle between medical and judicial elements has played out in the public forum, which …

Remapping A Nation Without States: Personalized Full Representation For California’S 21st Century, Mark Paul, Micah Weinberg

Mark Paul

California is a state of many distinct regions. To give citizens a voice on regional issues and to reinvigorate California’s Legislature, the state’s central institution of self-government, we propose Personalized Full Representation for the 21st Century (PFR21), a system of representation by means of regionally based legislative elections that will allow the state’s citizens to set the agenda for their regions and for the state as a whole. By reshaping the stage on which legisla- tive politics is played out, California can make state govern- ment more attentive to regional issues and give its citizens a means of holding elected …