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Full-Text Articles in Law
Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman
Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman
Michigan Law Review
Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard of proof in all criminal cases. Experimental studies as well as real world examples indicate, however, that fact finders often adjust the evidentiary threshold for conviction in accordance with the severity of the applicable sanction. All things being equal, the higher the sanction, the higher the standard of proof that fact finders will apply in order to convict. Building on this insight, this Article introduces a new paradigm for criminal punishments-a paradigm that focuses on designing penalties that will reduce the risk of unsubstantiated …
Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?, J. J. Prescott
Do Sex Offender Registries Make Us Less Safe?, J. J. Prescott
Articles
State legislatures enacted sex offender registration and notification (SORN) laws with the explicit and exclusive aim of reducing sex offender recidivism. The general idea that we ought to “regulate” released offenders — of any type — to reduce the likelihood of their returning to crime is an attractive one, at least in theory. Criminal recidivism generates significant social harm. Nevertheless, despite their now-widespread use, SORN laws became the norm without any systematic study of their consequences. Admittedly, the logic underlying these laws seems at first difficult to gainsay: if a known sex offender poses even a small risk to a …