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Articles 1 - 30 of 37
Full-Text Articles in Law
Human Trafficking And Pornography: Using The Trafficking Victims Protection Act To Prosecute Trafficking For The Production Of Internet Pornography, Allison J. Luzwick
Human Trafficking And Pornography: Using The Trafficking Victims Protection Act To Prosecute Trafficking For The Production Of Internet Pornography, Allison J. Luzwick
Northwestern University Law Review
The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) was passed to “combat trafficking in persons, a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children, to ensure just and effective punishment of traffickers, and to protect their victims.”1 Since the passing of the Act, federal courts have construed the statute broadly to achieve this stated purpose. One way in which the TVPA has been underutilized, however, is in prosecuting pornography cases. Pornography enjoys wide latitude under the law, protected by a vast net of First Amendment protections. While these protections may preserve freedom of speech, they do nothing …
Police In America: Ensuring Accountability And Mitigating Racial Bias Feat. Professor Destiny Peery
Police In America: Ensuring Accountability And Mitigating Racial Bias Feat. Professor Destiny Peery
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
No abstract provided.
Litigating Police Misconduct: Does The Litigation Process Matter? Does It Work?
Litigating Police Misconduct: Does The Litigation Process Matter? Does It Work?
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
No abstract provided.
Why Prosecutors Rule The Criminal Justice System—And What Can Be Done About It, Jed S. Rakoff
Why Prosecutors Rule The Criminal Justice System—And What Can Be Done About It, Jed S. Rakoff
Northwestern University Law Review
Most recognize that federal and state laws imposing high sentences and reducing judicial sentencing discretion have created America’s current plague of mass incarceration. Fewer realize that these draconian laws shift sentencing power to prosecutors: defendants fear the immense sentences they face if convicted at trial, and therefore actively engage in the plea-bargaining process. This allows prosecutors, rather than judges, to effectively determine the sentences imposed in most cases, which creates significant sentencing discrepancies that most often are unrecorded and cannot be measured. This Essay proposes a solution that would not require legislative change to be put into effect: to have …
Democratizing Criminal Law As An Abolitionist Project, Dorothy E. Roberts
Democratizing Criminal Law As An Abolitionist Project, Dorothy E. Roberts
Northwestern University Law Review
The criminal justice system currently functions to exclude black people from full political participation. Myriad institutions, laws, and definitions within the criminal justice system subordinate and criminalize black people, thereby excluding them from electoral politics, and depriving them of material resources, social networks, family relationships, and legitimacy necessary for full political citizenship. Making criminal law democratic requires more than reform efforts to improve currently existing procedures and systems. Rather, it requires an abolitionist approach that will dismantle the criminal law’s anti-democratic aspects entirely and reconstitute the criminal justice system without them.
White Paper Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld, Laura I. Appleman, Richard A. Bierschbach, Kenworthey Bilz, Josh Bowers, John Braithwaite, Robert P. Burns, R A Duff, Albert W. Dzur, Thomas F. Geraghty, Adriaan Lanni, Marah Stith Mcleod, Janice Nadler, Anthony O'Rourke, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan Simon, Jocelyn Simonson, Tom R. Tyler, Ekow N. Yankah
White Paper Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld, Laura I. Appleman, Richard A. Bierschbach, Kenworthey Bilz, Josh Bowers, John Braithwaite, Robert P. Burns, R A Duff, Albert W. Dzur, Thomas F. Geraghty, Adriaan Lanni, Marah Stith Mcleod, Janice Nadler, Anthony O'Rourke, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan Simon, Jocelyn Simonson, Tom R. Tyler, Ekow N. Yankah
Northwestern University Law Review
This white paper is the joint product of nineteen professors of criminal law and procedure who share a common conviction: that the path toward a more just, effective, and reasonable criminal system in the United States is to democratize American criminal justice. In the name of the movement to democratize criminal justice, we herein set forth thirty proposals for democratic criminal justice reform.
Punishing On A Curve, Adi Leibovitch
Punishing On A Curve, Adi Leibovitch
Northwestern University Law Review
Does the punishment of one defendant depend on how she fares in comparison to the other defendants on the judge’s docket? This Article demonstrates that the troubling answer is yes. Judges sentence a given offense more harshly when their caseloads contain relatively milder offenses and more leniently when their caseloads contain more serious crimes. I call this phenomenon “punishing on a curve.”
Consequently, this Article shows how such relative sentencing patterns put into question the prevailing practice of establishing specialized courts and courts of limited jurisdiction. Because judges punish on a curve, a court’s jurisdictional scope systematically shapes sentencing outcomes. …
Manifesto Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld
Manifesto Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld
Northwestern University Law Review
It is widely recognized that the American criminal system is in a state of crisis, but views about what has gone wrong and how it could be set right can seem chaotically divergent. This Essay argues that, within the welter of diverse views, one foundational, enormously important, and yet largely unrecognized line of disagreement can be seen. On one side are those who think the root of the present crisis is the outsized influence of a vengeful, poorly informed, or otherwise wrongheaded American public and the primary solution is to place control over the criminal system in the hands of …
Local Democracy, Community Adjudication, And Criminal Justice, Laura I. Appleman
Local Democracy, Community Adjudication, And Criminal Justice, Laura I. Appleman
Northwestern University Law Review
Many of our criminal justice woes can be traced to the loss of the community’s decisionmaking ability in adjudicating crime and punishment. American normative theories of democracy and democratic deliberation have always included the participation of the community as part of our system of criminal justice. This type of democratic localism is essential for the proper functioning of the criminal system because the criminal justice principles embodying substantive constitutional norms can only be defined through community interactions at the local level. Accordingly, returning the community to its proper role in deciding punishment for wrongdoers would both improve criminal process and …
A Criminal Law We Can Call Our Own?, R A Duff
A Criminal Law We Can Call Our Own?, R A Duff
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay sketches an ideal of criminal law—of the kind of criminal law that we can call our own as citizens of a democratic republic. The elements of that ideal include a republican theory of liberal democracy, as the kind of polity in which we can aspire to live; an account of the role of criminal law in such a polity, as defining a set of public wrongs and providing an appropriate formal, public response to the commission of such wrongs through the criminal process of trial and punishment; and a discussion of how the citizens of such a polity …
Fragmentation And Democracy In The Constitutional Law Of Punishment, Richard A. Bierschbach
Fragmentation And Democracy In The Constitutional Law Of Punishment, Richard A. Bierschbach
Northwestern University Law Review
Scholars have long studied the relationship of structural constitutional principles like checks and balances to democracy. But the relationship of such principles to democracy in criminal punishment has received less attention. This Essay examines that relationship and finds it fraught with both promise and peril for the project of democratic criminal justice. On the one hand, by blending a range of inputs into punishment determinations, the constitutional fragmentation of the punishment power can enhance different types of influence in an area in which perspective is of special concern. At the same time, the potentially positive aspects of fragmentation can backfire, …
Three Principles Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld
Three Principles Of Democratic Criminal Justice, Joshua Kleinfeld
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay links criminal theory to democratic political theory, arguing that the view of criminal law and procedure known as “reconstructivism” shares a common root with certain culturally oriented forms of democratic theory. The common root is the valorization of a community’s ethical life and the belief that law and government should reflect the ethical life of the community living under that law and government. This Essay then specifies three principles that are entailed by the union of democracy and reconstructivism and that should therefore characterize a democracy’s approach to criminal justice: the “moral culture principle of criminalization,” the “principle …
Criminal Justice That Revives Republican Democracy, John Braithwaite
Criminal Justice That Revives Republican Democracy, John Braithwaite
Northwestern University Law Review
Criminal justice seems an implausible vehicle for reviving democracy. Yet democracy is in trouble. It is embattled by money politics and populist tyrannies of majorities, of which penal populism is just one variant. These pathologies of democracy arise from democracy having become too remote from the people. A new democracy is needed that creates spaces for direct deliberative engagement and for spaces where children learn to become democratic. A major role for restorative justice is one way to revive the democratic spirit through creating such spaces.
Policing And Procedural Justice: Shaping Citizens' Identities To Increase Democratic Participation, Tracey Meares
Policing And Procedural Justice: Shaping Citizens' Identities To Increase Democratic Participation, Tracey Meares
Northwestern University Law Review
Like the education system, the criminal justice system offers both formal, overt curricula—found in the Bill of Rights, and informal or “hidden” curricula—embodied in how people are treated in interactions with legal authorities in courtrooms and on the streets. The overt policing curriculum identifies police officers as “peace officers” tasked with public safety and concern for individual rights, but the hidden curriculum, fraught with racially targeted stop and frisks and unconstitutional exercises of force, teaches many that they are members of a special, dangerous, and undesirable class. The social psychology of how people understand the fairness of legal authorities—procedural justice—is …
From Harm Reduction To Community Engagement: Redefining The Goals Of American Policing In The Twenty-First Century, Tom R. Tyler
From Harm Reduction To Community Engagement: Redefining The Goals Of American Policing In The Twenty-First Century, Tom R. Tyler
Northwestern University Law Review
Society would gain if the police moved away from the goal of harm reduction via crime reduction and toward promoting the economic, social, and political vitality of American communities. Research suggests that the police can contribute to this goal if they design and implement their policies and practices in ways that promote public trust. Such trust develops when the police exercise their authority in ways that people evaluate as being procedurally just.
Democratizing Criminal Law: Feasibility, Utility, And The Challenge Of Social Change, Paul H. Robinson
Democratizing Criminal Law: Feasibility, Utility, And The Challenge Of Social Change, Paul H. Robinson
Northwestern University Law Review
There are good reasons to be initially hesitant about shaping criminal law rules to track the justice judgments of ordinary people. People seem to disagree about many criminal law issues. Their judgments, at least as reflected in many aspects of current law such as three strikes and high penalties for drug offenses, seem harsh to many. Effective crime control would seem to require the expertise of trained experts and scholars who understand the complexities of general deterrence and the identification and incapacitation of the dangerous.
But this brief Essay, which reviews some previous studies and analyses, argues that distributing criminal …
Democratizing Criminal Justice Through Contestation And Resistance, Jocelyn Simonson
Democratizing Criminal Justice Through Contestation And Resistance, Jocelyn Simonson
Northwestern University Law Review
Collective forms of participation in criminal justice from members of marginalized groups—for example, when people gather together to engage in participatory defense, organized copwatching, community bail funds, or prison labor strikes—have a profound effect on everyday criminal justice. In this Essay I argue that these bottom-up forms of participation are not only powerful and important, but also crucial for democratic criminal justice. Collective mechanisms of resistance and contestation build agency, remedy power imbalances, bring aggregate structural harms into view, and shift deeply entrenched legal and constitutional meanings. Many of these forms of contestation display a faith in local democracy as …
Racing Abnormality, Normalizing Race: The Origins Of America's Peculiar Carceral State And Its Prospects For Democratic Transformation Today, Jonathan Simon
Racing Abnormality, Normalizing Race: The Origins Of America's Peculiar Carceral State And Its Prospects For Democratic Transformation Today, Jonathan Simon
Northwestern University Law Review
For those struggling with criminal justice reform today, the long history of failed efforts to close the gap between the promise of legal equality and the practice of our police forces and prison systems can seem mysterious and frustrating. Progress has been made in establishing stronger rights for individuals in the investigatory and sanctioning stages of the criminal process; yet, the patterns of over-incarceration and police violence, which are especially concentrated on people of color, have actually gotten worse during the same period. Seen in terms of its deeper history however, the carceral state is no longer puzzling: it has …
Restoring Democratic Moral Judgment Within Bureaucratic Criminal Justice, Stephanos Bibas
Restoring Democratic Moral Judgment Within Bureaucratic Criminal Justice, Stephanos Bibas
Northwestern University Law Review
While America's criminal justice system is deeply rooted in the ideal of a popular morality play, it has long since drifted into becoming a bureaucratic plea bargaining machine. We cannot (and would not want to) return to the Colonial Era. Even so, there is much more we can do to reclaim our heritage and incorporate popular participation within our lawyer-run system. That requires pushing back against the relentless pressures toward efficiency and maximizing quantity, to ensure that criminal justice treats each criminal with justice, as a human and not just a number. The criminal justice system must narrow its ambitions …
Pro-Prosecution Doctrinal Drift In Criminal Sentencing, Margaret Truesdale
Pro-Prosecution Doctrinal Drift In Criminal Sentencing, Margaret Truesdale
Northwestern University Law Review
Federal criminal sentencing doctrine is growing increasingly favorable to the prosecution. This Note identifies two factors that contribute to this “doctrinal drift.” First, district courts rarely issue written opinions in the sentencing context. Second, prosecutors, unlike defense attorneys, can strategically forego appeal in an individual case to avoid the risk that the lower court’s pro-defense reasoning will be affirmed and become binding precedent. In fact, 99% of all appeals of sentencing decisions are defense appeals. When defendants appeal pro-prosecution lower court decisions, the appellate court usually affirms, in part due to deference. The result is a one-sided body of case …
Stripping Agency From Top To Bottom: The Need For A Sentencing Guideline Safety Valve For Bottoms Prosecuted Under The Federal Sex Trafficking Statutes, Sarah Crocker
Northwestern University Law Review
In domestic sex trafficking, the trafficker often promotes a victim to the coveted position of “lead prostitute,” or “bottom.” Once in this position, the victim engages in acts for which she can be prosecuted under federal sex trafficking statutes that carry ten- and fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentences. To recognize bottoms’ victimization and resulting lack of genuine agency, this Note proposes a Sentencing Guideline safety valve provision. Creating a safety valve would provide sentencing judges with necessary discretion to impose sentences below statutory floors in appropriate cases.
Raped Abroad: Extraterritorial Application Of Title Ix For American University Students Sexually Assaulted While Studying Abroad, Brittany K. Bull
Raped Abroad: Extraterritorial Application Of Title Ix For American University Students Sexually Assaulted While Studying Abroad, Brittany K. Bull
Northwestern University Law Review
Female college students who study abroad are five times more likely to be raped than their counterparts who remain on their domestic campuses. Students raped or sexually assaulted on or around campuses in the United States can seek a remedy under Title IX, which provides administrative and judicial remedies. Very few federal cases have ever addressed whether Title IX applies extraterritorially to allegations of sex discrimination occurring abroad, and courts have reached different results in these cases. Moreover, no federal circuit has ever addressed the issue. This Note explores whether Title IX applies extraterritorially to students raped while studying abroad. …
Riley And Abandonment: Expanding Fourth Amendment Protection Of Cell Phones, Abigail Hoverman
Riley And Abandonment: Expanding Fourth Amendment Protection Of Cell Phones, Abigail Hoverman
Northwestern University Law Review
In light of the privacy concerns inherent to personal technological devices, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision in 2014 recognizing the need for categorical heightened protection of cell phones during searches incident to arrest in Riley v. California. This Note argues for expansion of heightened protections for cell phones in the context of abandoned evidence because the same privacy concerns apply. This argument matters because state and federal courts have not provided the needed protection to abandoned cell phones pre- or post-Riley.
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah M. Litman, Shakeer Rahman
What Lurks Below Beckles, Leah M. Litman, Shakeer Rahman
Northwestern University Law Review
This Essay argues that if the Supreme Court grants habeas relief in Beckles v. United States, then it should spell out certain details about where a Beckles claim comes from and who such a claim benefits. Those details are not essential to the main question raised in the case, but the federal habeas statute takes away the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction to hear just about any case that would raise those questions. For that reason, this Essay concludes that failing to address those questions now could arbitrarily condemn hundreds of prisoners to illegal sentences and lead to a situation where the …
The Case For Trauma-Informed, Gender-Specific Prevention/Early Intervention Programming In Reducing Female Juvenile Delinquency In Florida, Joan Flocks, Emily Calvin, Simone Chriss, Marina Prado-Steiman
The Case For Trauma-Informed, Gender-Specific Prevention/Early Intervention Programming In Reducing Female Juvenile Delinquency In Florida, Joan Flocks, Emily Calvin, Simone Chriss, Marina Prado-Steiman
Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy
This article describes the statutory recognition of the need for prevention/early intervention juvenile services in Florida that are both trauma-informed and gender-specific. It examines how childhood trauma can impact at-risk children and the gendered aspects of such trauma. The article then describes the PACE Center for Girls, a Florida-based school, currently undergoing a comprehensive evaluation, which attempts to incorporate elements that fulfill statutory recommendations into its programming.
A Means To An Element: The Supreme Court's Modified Categorical Approach After Mathis V. United States, Michael Mcgivney
A Means To An Element: The Supreme Court's Modified Categorical Approach After Mathis V. United States, Michael Mcgivney
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
No abstract provided.
Congress Blewett By Not Explicitly Making The Fair Sentencing Act Of 2010 Retroactive, Andrew Cockroft
Congress Blewett By Not Explicitly Making The Fair Sentencing Act Of 2010 Retroactive, Andrew Cockroft
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
In 2013, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals was the first Circuit Court to retroactively apply the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. The Fair Sentencing Act sought to end the discriminatory effects of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 and its treatment of one gram of crack cocaine as the equivalent to one hundred grams of powder cocaine. The Fair Sentencing Act was meant to remedy the injustices brought about by the infamous 100:1 ratio in crack-cocaine and powder cocaine minimum sentencing. Despite this purpose, the Fair Sentencing Act does not contain language that explicitly and unequivocally requires that the …
Let Them Frye: Frye Hearings For Determination Of "Mental Disorders" In The Sexually Violent Persons Act, Hannah Henkel
Let Them Frye: Frye Hearings For Determination Of "Mental Disorders" In The Sexually Violent Persons Act, Hannah Henkel
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Specific laws aimed at the confinement of mentally disabled sexually violent persons have existed for years. Originally, these laws aimed to rehabilitate a person within a mental hospital and help him with his disorders, aiming to help him enter back into society. However, throughout the years, the laws morphed into ways to keep convicted criminals from society after their prison sentence ended for fear of potential future crimes. In Illinois, the courts find a man falls within the sexually violent persons law when he remains too dangerous to be released after his criminal confinement. A person must have a “mental …
The Law Of Abolition, Kevin M. Barry
The Law Of Abolition, Kevin M. Barry
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
Three themes have characterized death penalty abolition throughout the Western world: a sustained period of de facto abolition; an understanding of those in government that the death penalty implicates human rights; and a willingness of those in government to defy popular support for the death penalty. The first two themes are present in the U.S.; what remains is for the U.S. Supreme Court to manifest a willingness to act against the weight of public opinion and to live up to history’s demands.
When the Supreme Court abolishes the death penalty, it will be traveling a well-worn road. This Essay gathers, …
Race And Death Sentencing For Oklahoma Homicides Committed Between 1990 And 2012, Glenn L. Pierce, Michael L. Radelet, Susan Sharp
Race And Death Sentencing For Oklahoma Homicides Committed Between 1990 And 2012, Glenn L. Pierce, Michael L. Radelet, Susan Sharp
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
This Article examines 4,668 Oklahoma homicide cases with an identified suspect that occurred during a twenty-three year period between January 1, 1990, and December 31, 2012. Among these, we identified 153 cases that ended with a death sentence. Overall we found that while the defendant’s race did not correlate with a death sentence, there was a strong correlation with the race of the victim, with cases with white victims significantly more likely to end with a death sentence than cases with non-white victims. Homicides with female victims were also more likely to result in a death sentence than other cases. …