Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Institution
- Publication Year
Articles 1 - 10 of 10
Full-Text Articles in Law
Offenders And Sorn Laws, Amanda Agan, J.J. Prescott
Offenders And Sorn Laws, Amanda Agan, J.J. Prescott
Book Chapters
Chapter 7 describes what we know about the effects of SORN laws on criminal behavior. A coherent story emerges from this review: there is virtually no evidence that SORN laws reduce recidivism or otherwise increase public safety. The chapter first delineates the various ways registration and notification alter the legal environment not only for registrants but also for nonregistrants, the public, and law enforcement. There are many channels through which SORN laws might impact the frequency of sex offenses, including some that would produce an increase in overall offending. The chapter assesses these possibilities in light of a large body …
The Elusive Object Of Punishment, Gabriel S. Mendlow
The Elusive Object Of Punishment, Gabriel S. Mendlow
Articles
All observers of our legal system recognize that criminal statutes can be complex and obscure. But statutory obscurity often takes a particular form that most observers have overlooked: uncertainty about the identity of the wrong a statute aims to punish. It is not uncommon for parties to disagree about the identity of the underlying wrong even as they agree on the statute’s elements. Hidden in plain sight, these unexamined disagreements underlie or exacerbate an assortment of familiar disputes—about venue, vagueness, and mens rea; about DUI and statutory rape; about hate crimes, child pornography, and counterterrorism laws; about proportionality in punishment; …
Wrong Turn On The Ex Post Facto Clause, Paul D. Reingold, Kimberly Thomas
Wrong Turn On The Ex Post Facto Clause, Paul D. Reingold, Kimberly Thomas
Articles
The Ex Post Facto Clause bars any increase in punishment after the commission of a crime. But deciding what constitutes an increase in punishment can be tricky. At the front end of a criminal case, where new or amended criminal laws might lengthen prisoners’ sentences if applied retroactively, courts have routinely struck down such changes under the Ex Post Facto Clause. At the back end, however, where new or amended parole laws or policies might lengthen prisoners’ sentences in exactly the same way if applied retroactively, courts have used a different standard and upheld the changes under the Ex Post …
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
This brief essay summarizes the virtues of the modern American codification movement of the 1960s and 70s, putting it in a larger global context, then describes how these once-enviable codes have been systematically degraded with thoughtless amendments, a process of degradation that is accelerating each year. After exploring the political dynamics that promote such degradation, the essay suggests the principles and procedures for fixing the current codes and, more importantly, structural changes to the process that could avoid the restart of degradation in the future.
Private Liability For Reckless Consumer Lending, John A. E. Pottow
Private Liability For Reckless Consumer Lending, John A. E. Pottow
Articles
Congress recently enacted amendments to the Bankruptcy Code that possess the overarching theme of cracking down on debtors due to the increasing rate at which individuals have been filing for bankruptcy. Taking into account the correlation between the overall rise in consumer credit card debt and the rate of individual bankruptcy filings, the author nevertheless hypothesizes that not all credit card debt is troubling. Instead, the author proposes that the catalyst driving individual bankruptcy rates higher than ever is the level of "bad credit"-or credit extended to individuals even though there is a reasonable likelihood that the individual will be …
Breaking Bodies Into Pieces: Time, Torture And Bio-Power, Cary H. Federman, Dave Holmes
Breaking Bodies Into Pieces: Time, Torture And Bio-Power, Cary H. Federman, Dave Holmes
Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works
This article is an attempt to comprehend the bureaucratic phenomenon of the deathwatch, the last 24 hours of a prisoner’s life, stressing the theoretical applications scholars can make to the study of docile bodies on death row. Because years of work are necessary to obtain obedience from condemned inmates, health care professionals lend more than an aura of legitimacy to the capital punishment process. As an integral part of the prison and capital punishment, they provide stability, reliability, and the means to achieve the goals of peaceful executions. The ultimate objective of utilizing health care professionals is the sanitization of …
Weak Legs: Misbehavior Before The Enemy, William I. Miller
Weak Legs: Misbehavior Before The Enemy, William I. Miller
Articles
Making cowardice a capital offense strikes us as a kind of barbaric survival from a rougher age, a time, that is, when few doubted that courage ranked higher than pity or prudence in the scale of virtues. And if many of us today believe that capital punishment cannot be justified even for the sadistic torturer, what a shock to discover that, as an official matter at least, Congress reserves it for the person who cannot kill at all.
Co-Opting Compassion: The Federal Victim's Rights Amendment, Lynne Henderson
Co-Opting Compassion: The Federal Victim's Rights Amendment, Lynne Henderson
Scholarly Works
No abstract provided.
The Youth Correction Authority Act: Progress Or Menace?, Jerome Hall
The Youth Correction Authority Act: Progress Or Menace?, Jerome Hall
Articles by Maurer Faculty
No abstract provided.
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
August 3, 1907, Judge Landis, in the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Illinois, sentenced the Standard Oil Co. to pay the largest fine ever inflicted upon any offender.1 The suit was an indictment on 1,903 counts for violations of the Elkins Rebate Law in receiving concessions on the movement of 1,903 cars of oil from Whiting, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois, and from Chappell, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri, during the eighteen months between September I, 1903, and March 1, 1905. Four hundred and forty-one counts were withdrawn as not necessarily involved in this case. …