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Full-Text Articles in Law

Penal Modernism In Theory And Practice, Darryl K. Brown Jan 2014

Penal Modernism In Theory And Practice, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This comment on James Whitman's article, "The Case for Penal Modernism: Beyond Utility and Desert," suggests additional reasons why the era of penal modernism was eventually elipsed by retributivism in the U.S., and questions the degree to which penal modernism's fall also represents retributivism's triumph.


Public Welfare Offenses, Darryl K. Brown Jan 2014

Public Welfare Offenses, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This chapter provides an overview, historical account and critical analysis of Anglo-American public welfare offenses, meaning strict liability crimes generally employed for regulatory purposes. As an explanation for the greater prevalence of these strict liability regulatory crimes in England and the U.S. compared to other jurisdictions, the chapter points to, among other factors, the evolving scope of social duties in modernity and traditional Anglo-American limits on central state administrative capacity.


Defense Counsel, Trial Judges, And Evidence Production Protocols, Darryl K. Brown Jan 2012

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 …


Why Padilla Doesn't Matter (Much), Darryl K. Brown Jan 2011

Why Padilla Doesn't Matter (Much), Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Padilla v. Kentucky heralds a formal breakthrough in the representation provided to immigrants charged with crimes that trigger deportation, and the decision may signal as well the Court’s recognition of plea bargaining’s dominant role in criminal adjudication. There are good reasons to worry, however, that Padilla’s practical impact will be modest, and for many noncitizen criminal defendants, including probably Jose Padilla himself, nonexistent. The Padilla Court suggested that it expected attorneys to use their newly required awareness of law triggering deportation upon a criminal conviction to inform plea bargain negotiation and even change criminal …


Can Criminal Law Be Controlled?, Darryl K. Brown Jan 2010

Can Criminal Law Be Controlled?, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This review of Douglas Husak's 2008 book, Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law, summarizes and largely endorses Husak's normative argument about the indefensible expansiveness of much contemporary criminal liability. It then offers a skeptical (or pessimistic) argument about the possibilities for a normative theory such as Husak's to have much effect on criminal justice policy in light of the political barriers to reform.


Yick Wo And The Constitutional Regulation Of Criminal Law, Darryl K. Brown Jan 2008

Yick Wo And The Constitutional Regulation Of Criminal Law, Darryl K. Brown

Darryl K. Brown

This comment on Jack Chin's revisionist account of the U.S. Supreme Court's Yick Wo decision elaborates on the history of and reasons for the Court's longstanding refusal to develop constitutional doctrines that limit the substantive reach of criminal law.