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Law and Race

University of Michigan Law School

Michigan Law Review

Public defenders

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Free-Ing Criminal Justice, Bennett Capers Apr 2022

Free-Ing Criminal Justice, Bennett Capers

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Free Justice: A History of the Public Defender in Twentieth-Century America. By Sara Mayeux


Bail Nullification, Jocelyn Simonson Mar 2017

Bail Nullification, Jocelyn Simonson

Michigan Law Review

This Article explores the possibility of community nullification beyond the jury by analyzing the growing and unstudied phenomenon of community bail funds, which post bail for strangers based on broader beliefs regarding the overuse of pretrial detention. When a community bail fund posts bail, it can serve the function of nullifying a judge’s determination that a certain amount of the defendant’s personal or family money was necessary to ensure public safety and prevent flight. This growing practice—what this Article calls “bail nullification”—is powerful because it exposes publicly what many within the system already know to be true: that although bail …