Law Commons^™

Rational Criminal Justice, Andy Brunner-Brown

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Defending Those People, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Many practitioners and scholars have written perceptively about the motivations of criminal defenders. Some have written eloquently. I have my own body of work on this and related questions.

This essay is about why the author has devoted her professional career--her life--to defending people most of society would just as soon banish and forget. After nearly thirty years of criminal law practice, her reasons are such a part of her that they are nearly inarticulable. The author is a criminal defender in her soul. She also has been teaching and writing about criminal defense for almost as long as she …

What Use Are Legal Academics?, Roger Fairfax

Presentations

No abstract provided.

What's Best For Women: Examining The Impact Of Legal Approaches To Prostitution In Cross-National Perspective And Rhode Island, Malinda Bridges

Honors Projects

This research analyzes legal approaches to prostitution on a cross-national level in order to determine if legal methods that regulate prostitution have an effect on prostitution. In order to examine these concepts, legel approaches were first identifed in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Following this analysis, the effects of these legal approaches are reported. Instead of working from a strictly sociological standpoint, this project focused greatly on the legal aspects that affect prostitution.

Extralegal Punishment Factors: A Study Of Forgiveness, Hardship, Good Deeds, Apology, Remorse, And Other Such Discretionary Factors In Assessing Criminal Punishment, Paul H. Robinson, Sean E. Jackowitz, Daniel M. Bartels

Vanderbilt Law Review

The criminal law's formal criteria for assessing punishment are typically contained in criminal codes, the rules of which fix an offender's liability and the grade of the offense. Those rules classically look to an offender's blameworthiness, taking account of both the seriousness of the harm or the evil of the offense and an offender's culpability and mental capacity. Courts generally examine these desert-based factors as they exist at the time of the offense. To some extent, modern crime-control theory sometimes prompts code drafters to look at circumstances beyond the offense itself, such as prior criminal record, on the grounds that …

Remedying Wrongful Execution, Meghan J. Ryan

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The first legal determination of wrongful execution in the United States may very well be in the making in Texas. One of the state's district courts is in the midst of investigating whether Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004, was actually innocent. The court's investigation has been interrupted by objections from Texas prosecutors, but if the court proceeds, this may very well become a bona fide case of wrongful execution. Texas, just like other jurisdictions, is ill equipped to provide any relief for such an egregious wrong, however. This Article identifies the difficulties that the heirs, families, and …

Defense Counsel, Trial Judges, And Evidence Production Protocols, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This essay, a contribution to the 2012 Texas Tech Symposium on the Sixth Amendment, argues that constitutional criminal adjudication provisions are fruitfully viewed not primarily as defendant rights but as procedural components that, when employed, maximize the odds that adversarial adjudication will succeed in its various goals, notably accurate judgments. On this view, the state has an interest in how those procedural mechanisms, especially regarding fact investigation and evidence gathering, are invoked or implemented. Deficient attorney performance, on this view, can be understood as a problem of the state’s adversarial adjudication process, for which public officials—notably judges, whose judgments depend …

Prosecutors And Bargaining In Weak Cases: A Comparative View, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

One of the most controversial uses of prosecutorial discretion in plea bargaining concerns cases involving weak evidence of guilt. When a prosecutor bargains about the charges or even the facts in a case with weak evidence, at least three problems may arise. First, if the charge bargain is generous, it may coerce an innocent defendant to plead guilty. Second, such a bargain may let a guilty defendant off too easily, thus disserving the public and victim’s interests. Third, if the parties bargain about the facts, the result may distort the truth of the case.

In this book chapter, I examine …

Capital Punishment And Race: Racial Culture Of The South, Jerry Joubert

Undergraduate Review

There are currently 34 states with the death penalty and 16 states without the death penalty in the United States. According to the most recent report from the Death Penalty Information Center, there have been 1276 executions in the United States since 1976. In the year 2011 alone, there were 42 executions. This was 4 executions less than the previous year. Among the 1276 total executions in the United States since 1976, 1048 have taken place in the South. There are approximately 3,251 inmates on death row. African-Americans represent 42% of these inmates (Death Penalty Information Center, 2011). This statistic …

Juvenile Life Without Parole, Kallee Spooner

Undergraduate Review

The purpose of this paper is to analyze data, policy trends, and legal concerns on the issue of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without the possibility of parole (LWOP). Policy changes in the 1980s and 90s dramatically changed the sentencing outcomes for juvenile offenders. Significantly departing from the rehabilitative goals established by the juvenile court, states adopted harsher punishments, including LWOP. During this shift, the diminished culpability of youth became insignificant when compared to the nature of their crimes. The recent cases of Roper v. Simmons (2005) and Graham v. Florida (2010) reinstated the importance of recognizing that juveniles are …

Overcriminalization For Lack Of Better Options: A Celebration Of Bill Stuntz, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

The unity of Bill Stuntz's character – his profound integrity – makes it easy to move from a celebration of his friendship (which I’ve treasured since we first met back in 1985) to one of his scholarship, for creativity, wisdom, and humility are strengths not just of Bill himself but of his work. Even as his broad brush strokes have fundamentally advanced our understanding of the interplay between substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, and criminal justice institutions over time, Bill's work – like Bill himself – welcomes and endures sustained engagement. Humility is appropriate for me, too, as I offer …

Frye And Lafler: No Big Deal, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

The only surprise about the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Missouri v. Frye and Lafler v. Cooper is that there were four dissents. The decisions are straightforward recognitions that the defendants in those cases received unquestionably derelict representation, to their considerable prejudice. The decisions do not represent a novelty in the law, but rather continue the longstanding recognition by the courts that “plea bargaining” is an integral part of our criminal justice system – indeed, I have argued at length that it is our criminal justice system – and that minimal competence of defense lawyers in dealing with that process …

Are Prosecutors Born Or Made?, Abbe Smith

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In more than thirty years of criminal law practice--from public defender in Philadelphia to professor running a criminal law clinic in New York, Boston, and DC--the author has had countless encounters with prosecutors and countless conversations. Early in her career, the encounters and conversations were noteworthy--something to rail about back at the office, or to "dine out on" with friends. Soon enough they became commonplace, not even worthy of mention, just the way things were. But the author felt it important to pick a few examples and talk about them.

Keynote: The Crisis And Criminal Justice, Bernard Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

There has been a lot of recent debate over whether the economic crisis presents an opportunity to reduce prison populations and improve the state of criminal justice in this country. Some commentators suggest that the financial crisis has already triggered a move towards reducing the incarcerated population. Some claim that there is a new climate of bipartisanship on punishment. Kara Gotsch of the Sentencing Project, for example, suggests that we are now in a unique political climate embodied by the passage of the Second Chance Act under President George W. Bush – a climate that is substantially different than the …

Rotten Social Background And The Temper Of The Times, Angela P. Harris

Angela P Harris

This essay was submitted to the Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law review as part of a symposium on Richard Delgado's essay on "Rotten Social Background." Its publication has been delayed by the destruction caused by the Tuscaloosa/Birmingham tornado in the spring of 2011.