Law Commons^™

Transforming Juvenile Justice: Making Doctrine Out Of Dicta In Graham V. Florida, Jason Zolle

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In the late 1980s and 1990s, many state legislatures radically altered the way that their laws treated children accused of crimes. Responding to what was perceived of as an epidemic of juvenile violence, academics and policymakers began to think of child criminals as a "new breed" of incorrigible "superpredators." States responded by making it easier for prosecutors to try and sentence juveniles as adults, even making it mandatory in some circumstances. Yet in the past decade, the Supreme Court handed down four opinions that limit the states' ability to treat children as adults in the justice system. Roper v. Simmons …

Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type …

"Off With His __": Analyzing The Sex Disparity In Chemical Castration Sentences, Zachary Edmonds Oswald

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Societies around the world have performed castration, in its various forms, on their male and female members for thousands of years, for numerous reasons. Even within the United States, prisoners have been sentenced to castration (as a form of punishment or crime prevention) since the early twentieth century. In recent years, legislatures have perpetuated this practice but with a modern twist. Now, states use chemical injections to castrate their inmates. It turns out, however, that systemic problems plague the chemical castration sentencing regime. These problems arise from the nature of the crimes eligible for chemical castration sentences, the manner of …

Plata V. Brown And Realignment: Jails, Prisons, Courts, And Politics, Margo Schlanger

Articles

The year 2011 marked an important milestone in American institutional reform litigation. That year, a bare majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion in Brown v. Plata by Justice Anthony Kennedy, affirmed a district court order requiring California to remedy its longstanding constitutional deficits in prison medical and mental health care by reducing prison crowding. Not since 1978 had the Court ratified a lower court's crowding-related order in a jail or prison case, and the order before the Court in 2011 was fairly aggressive; theoretically, it could have (although this was never a real prospect) induced the release …

Evaluating Punishment In Purgatory: The Need To Separate Pretrial Detainees' Conditions-Of-Confinement Claims From Inadequate Eighth Amendment Analysis, David C. Gorlin

Michigan Law Review

The Due Process Clause prohibits all "punishment" of pretrial detainees- individuals that are held by the Government, but not adjudged guilty of any crime. The Eighth Amendment only prohibits the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments" upon convicted individuals. Despite the Supreme Court's insistence that the Due Process Clause, and not the Eighth Amendment, protects pretrial detainees from deplorable and harmful conditions of confinement, most federal circuits now assess pretrial detainees' claims under Eighth Amendment standards. Under the Eighth Amendment framework, pretrial detainees must establish that conditions subjected them to a substantial risk of serious harm, and that jailers were …

Secondhand Smoke Signals From Prison, Scott C. Wilcox

Michigan Law Review

This Note argues that courts should acknowledge current societal and medical perspectives on second hand smoke (SHS) and afford real protection to prisoners against SHS through injunctive relief. Part I examines evidence that conclusively demonstrates the serious risk of harm posed by SHS to the health of inmates. It reports that inmates' long-term exposure to SHS increases their risk of contracting lung cancer, heart disease, and other potentially life threatening conditions. Part II argues that, as required by the Helling standard, contemporary society does not tolerate involuntary, long-term exposure to SHS and that prison officials exhibit deliberate indifference by allowing …

Reform And Regret: The Story Of Federal Judicial Involvement In The Alabama Prison System, Steven M. Farina

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Reform and Regret: The Story of Federal Judicial Involvement in the Alabama Prison System by Larry W. Yackle

The Reincarnation Of The Death Penalty: Is It Possible?, Yale Kamisar

Articles

Fifty years ago Clarence Darrow, probably the greatest criminal defense lawyer in American history and a leading opponent of capital punishment, observed: The question of capital punishment has been the subject of endless discussion and will probably never be settled so long as men believe in punishment. Some states have abolished and then reinstated it; some have enjoyed capital punishment for long periods of time and finally prohibited the use of it. The reasons why it cannot be settled are plain. There is first of all no agreement as to the objects of punishment. Next there is no way to …

Constitutional Law - Citizenship - Power Of Congress To Effect Involuntary Expatriation, Robert J. Hoerner S.Ed.

Michigan Law Review

In four recent cases the United States Supreme Court has dealt with the power of Congress to effect the denationalization of native-born citizens without their consent. Three cases, Perez v. Brownell, Trop v. Dulles, and Mendoza-Martinez v. Mackey dealt with the constitutionality of sections 401(e), 401(g) and 401(j), respectively, of the Nationality Act of 1940. The fourth case, Nishikawa v. Dulles dealt only with the burden of proof when duress is alleged under section 401(c), but contained one opinion of constitutional significance. The purpose of this comment is to analyze and evaluate these decisions.

Ho Ah Kow V. Matthew Nuan, Thomas M. Cooley

Articles

"An ordinance of San Francisco, that every male person imprisoned in the county jail, under any judgment of the any court having jurisdiction in criminal cases in the city and county, should immediately upon his arrival at the jail, have the hair of his head 'cut or clipped to an uniform length of one inch from the scalp thereof,' and made it the duty of the sheriff to have this provision enforced, is invalid, being in excess of the authority of the municipal body....

The ordinance being directed against the Chinese only, imposing on them a degrading and cruel punishment, …