Law Commons^™

Can Judges Help Ease Mass Incarceration?, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

A scholar considers how judges have contributed to historically high incarceration rates -- and how they can help reverse the trend.

Criminal Justice Reform And The Centrality Of Intent, Cynthia V. Ward

Faculty Publications

The nationwide movement for criminal justice reform has produced numerous proposals to amend procedural and sentencing practices in the American criminal justice system. These include plans to abolish mandatory minimum schemes in criminal sentencing; address discrimination in charging, convicting, and sentencing; reform drug policy; rectify discriminatory policies and practices in policing; assist incarcerated individuals in re-entering society when released from prison; and reorganize our system of juvenile justice. But less attention has been given to reforming the substantive content of the criminal law—specifically, to addressing flaws in how the law defines the elements of criminal culpability and deploys them in …

A World Without Prosecutors, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

Bennett Capers’ article Against Prosecutors challenges us to imagine a world where we “turn away from prosecution as we know it,” and shift “power from prosecutors to the people they purport to represent.”

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Capers joins a long line of authors seeking to attack mass incarceration by reducing the role of prosecutors. I agree with these authors that we should dramatically shrink the footprint of American criminal law and ending the war on drugs is a good place to start. But while Capers styles his proposal as a “[r]adical change,” I find the focus on prosecutors in this context decidedly …

Fundamental Criminal Procedure (2022 Edition), Fredric I. Lederer

Faculty Publications

Fundamental Criminal Procedure explores American criminal procedure in a format ultimately destined for electronic publication. Because many students devote a great deal of their class time to taking notes, often at the expense of creative analysis, the text is intended to supply all of the necessary “black letter law” needed for mastery of the subject. The materials are, however, far more than a “study aid.” They emphasize where appropriate the crucial philosophical and policy questions and issues inherent in the subject. Periodic “Review Questions” require understanding application of academic material in a pragmatic context. “Legal Briefs” require the student to …

Joining The Legal Significance Of Adolescent Development Capacities With The Legal Rights Provided By In Re Gault, Hilary B. Farber, Donna M. Bishop

Faculty Publications

Our discussion is presented in seven parts. In Part I, we briefly sketch historical conceptions of adolescence and its relationship to foundational principles of the juvenile court, and juvenile court practice from its inception in the late nineteenth century through the mid-1960s. In order to more fully appreciate both the strengths and weaknesses of the Gault decision, we pay special attention to the larger social and legal context in which the case was decided. Part II is devoted to a discussion of Gault. We argue that although Gault represents a valiant attempt to impose the rule of law on …