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Full-Text Articles in Law
Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin
Guns And Drugs, Benjamin Levin
Fordham Law Review
This Article argues that the increasingly prevalent critiques of the War on Drugs apply to other areas of criminal law. To highlight the broader relevance of these critiques, this Article uses as its test case the criminal regulation of gun possession. This Article identifies and distills three lines of drug war criticism and argues that they apply to possessory gun crimes in much the same way that they apply to drug crimes. Specifically, this Article focuses on: (1) race- and class-based critiques; (2) concerns about police and prosecutorial power; and (3) worries about the social and economic costs of mass …
When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber
When Theory Met Practice: Distributional Analysis In Critical Criminal Law Theorizing, Aya Gruber
Fordham Law Review
Focusing on criminal law and procedure in particular, this Article seeks to expose various tensions in critical race theorizing and progressive theorizing more broadly, offer some suggestions for a unifying methodology of critical criminal law analysis, and discuss where empirical study might fit into this new program. Progressive (critical race and feminist) theorizing on criminal law is not only subject to the competing frames of critique and formalism, it also exists within an overarching American criminal law culture that can eclipse both concerns over rights violations and structural injustice. The U.S. penal system has become a “peculiar institution” and a …
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Lethal Injection Chaos Post-Baze, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
In 2008, with Baze v. Rees, the Supreme Court broke decades of silence regarding state execution methods to declare Kentucky’s lethal injection protocol constitutional, yet the opinion itself did not offer much guidance. In the six years after Baze, legal challenges to lethal injection soared as states scrambled to quell litigation by modifying their lethal injection protocols. My unprecedented study of over 300 cases citing Baze reveals that such modifications have occurred with alarming frequency. Moreover, even as states purportedly rely on the Baze opinion, they have changed their lethal injection protocols in inconsistent ways that bear little …
Databases, Doctrine, And Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Erin Murphy
Databases, Doctrine, And Constitutional Criminal Procedure, Erin Murphy
Fordham Urban Law Journal
Over the past twenty years there has been an explosion in the creation, availability, and use of criminal justice databases. Large scale database systems now routinely influence law enforcement decisions ranging from formal determinations to arrest or convict an individual to informal judgments to subject a person to secondary pre-flight screening or investigate possible gang membership. Evidence gathered from database-related sources is now commonly introduced, and can play a pivotal proof role, in criminal trials. Although much has been written about the failure of constitutional law to adequately respond to the threat to privacy rights posed by databases, less attention …
Punishing Family Status , Jennifer M. Collins, Ethan J. Leib, Dan Markel
Punishing Family Status , Jennifer M. Collins, Ethan J. Leib, Dan Markel
Faculty Scholarship
This Article focuses upon two basic but under-explored questions: when does, and when should, the state use the criminal justice apparatus to burden individuals on account of their familial status? We address the first question in Part I by revealing a variety of laws permeating the criminal justice system that together form a string of family ties burdens, laws that impose punishment upon individuals on account of their familial status. The seven burdens we train our attention upon are omissions liability for failure to rescue, parental responsibility laws, incest, bigamy, adultery, nonpayment of child support, and nonpayment of parental support. …
Criminal Justice And The Challenge Of Family Ties, Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib
Criminal Justice And The Challenge Of Family Ties, Dan Markel, Ethan J. Leib
Faculty Scholarship
This Article asks two basic questions: When does, and when should, the state use the criminal justice apparatus to accommodate family ties, responsibilities, and interests? We address these questions by first revealing a variety of laws that together form a string of family ties subsidies and benefits pervading the criminal justice system. Notwithstanding our recognition of the important role family plays in securing the conditions for human flourishing, we then explain the basis for erecting a Spartan presumption against these family ties subsidies and benefits within the criminal justice system. We delineate the scope and rationale for the presumption and …
The Adjudication Of Minor Offenses In New York City, Ian Weinstein
The Adjudication Of Minor Offenses In New York City, Ian Weinstein
Fordham Urban Law Journal
American criminal justice is founded on overcriminalization and discretion. Our legislatures have long criminalized much more conduct than can be effectively sanctioned. American police and prosecutors have been granted virtually unreviewable authority (discretion) to allocate investigative and prosecutorial resources. Minor crimes absorb the bulk of our ordinary, local enforcement efforts and there is an endless supply of minor crime, which may be pursued. With minor offenses, discretion is critical at all phases. This article argues that criminal courts, where ninety percent of all cases are heard, could benefit from reform. The author argues for the development of the record so …
Undertaking The Task Of Reforming The American Character Evidence Prohibition: The Importance Of Getting The Experiment Off On The Right Foot, Edward J. Imwinkelried
Undertaking The Task Of Reforming The American Character Evidence Prohibition: The Importance Of Getting The Experiment Off On The Right Foot, Edward J. Imwinkelried
Fordham Urban Law Journal
The United States Congress and the State Legislatures of Indiana and Missouri have chosen illogical starting points in their experiments to reform the prohibition against introducing character evidence in criminal cases. Rather than start by allowing the introduction of past crimes with high recidivism rates such as burglary, these legislatures have chosen crimes with minimal probative value as predictors of the accused's conduct. By allowing the the introduction of criminal history in regard to criminal sexual conduct and child molestation, these legislatures increase the risk of wrongful conviction due to the disdain with which the average citizen views these types …
Federal Rules Of Evidence And The Political Process, David P. Leonard
Federal Rules Of Evidence And The Political Process, David P. Leonard
Fordham Urban Law Journal
An important tenet of American evidence law is the strict regulation on the introduction of character evidence. This principal has begun to be chipped away at through the adoption of amendments that allow character evidence to be introduced in certain types of cases. The Federal Rules of Evidence were subject to very little amendment during their first 20 years of use, and have always represented a blend of conservatism about evidence law and political compromise. This tension has been kept in check until the proposal of Rules 413-415, which represents a concession to the politicization of the rules. Before imposing …
Are Executions In New York Inevitable?, Ronald J. Tabak
Are Executions In New York Inevitable?, Ronald J. Tabak
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This article is an edited trascription of a program considering whether executions in New York State are inevitable. Shortly after the program a law was enacted to this effect, however, Mr. Tabak argues that the law is so badly flawed that it may not survive judicial scrutiny. Present on the panel were Barbara Paul Robinson, John Cardinal O'Connor, Dean John Feerick, Archibald Murray, Thomas McDermott, Lee Grant, Cessie Alfonso and George Kendall.
Pre-Sentence Reports: Utility Or Futility? A Report Of The New York City Board Of Correction, New York City Board Of Correction
Pre-Sentence Reports: Utility Or Futility? A Report Of The New York City Board Of Correction, New York City Board Of Correction
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This article evaluates New York Criminal Procedure Law increasing the number of cases requiring pre-sentence investigations and reports by analyzing the consequences and benefits of pre-sentencing reports. The article focuses on the delays in the criminal justice system and urges the New York State government to undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system to determine whether plea bargaining is both the most effective and efficient method of achieving the system's goals. The article then suggests interim measures to be taken to alleviate delays produced by pre-sentence investigations.