Law Commons^™

Worthless Checks? Clemency, Compassionate Release, And The Finality Of Life Without Parole, Daniel Pascoe

Northwestern University Law Review

Life without parole (LWOP) sentences are politically popular in the United States because, on their face, they claim to hold prisoners incarcerated until they die, with zero prospect of release via the regularized channel of parole. However, this view is procedurally shortsighted. After parole there is generally another remedial option for lessening or abrogating punishment: executive clemency via pardons and commutations. Increasingly, U.S. legal jurisdictions also provide for the possibility of compassionate release for lifers, usually granted by a parole board.

On paper, pardon, commutation, and compassionate release are thus direct challenges to the claim that an LWOP sentence will …

The Second Founding And Self-Incrimination, William M. Carter Jr.

Northwestern University Law Review

The privilege against self-incrimination is one of the most fundamental constitutional rights. Protection against coerced or involuntary self-incrimination safeguards individual dignity and autonomy, preserves the nature of our adversary system of justice, helps to deter abusive police practices, and enhances the likelihood that confessions will be truthful and reliable. Rooted in the common law, the privilege against self-incrimination is guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination and Due Process Clauses. Although the Supreme Court’s self-incrimination cases have examined the privilege’s historical roots in British and early American common law, the Court’s jurisprudence has overlooked an important source of historical evidence: the …

Sentence Served And No Place To Go: An Eighth Amendment Analysis Of "Dead Time" Incarceration, Christopher B. Scheren

Northwestern University Law Review

Although the state typically releases incarcerated people to reintegrate into society after completing their terms, indigent people convicted of sex offenses in Illinois and New York have been forced to remain behind bars for months, or even years, past their scheduled release dates. A wide range of residency restrictions limit the ability of people convicted of sex offenses to live near schools and other public areas. Few addresses are available for them, especially in high-density cities such as Chicago or New York City, where schools and other public locations are especially difficult to avoid. At the intersection of sex offenses …