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Full-Text Articles in Law

American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii Jan 2007

American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This essay is an invited response to Professor Ronald Wright's impressive study of the fact that the acquittal rate in federal criminal trials is declining even faster than the rate of trials themselves, Trial Distortion and the End of Innocence in Federal Criminal Justice, 154 U. PA. L. REV. 79 (2005). The essay concurs with Professor Wright's conclusion that one significant factor driving down both federal trial and acquittal rates is the government's use of the markedly increased bargaining leverage afforded to prosecutors by the post-1987 federal sentencing system consisting of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines interacting with various statutory mandatory …


A Reader's Companion To Against Prediction: A Reply To Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, And Yoav Sapir On Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, And Race, Bernard E. Harcourt Jan 2007

A Reader's Companion To Against Prediction: A Reply To Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, And Yoav Sapir On Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, And Race, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

From parole prediction instruments and violent sexual predator scores to racial profiling on the highways, instruments to predict future dangerousness, drug-courier profiles, and IRS computer algorithms to detect tax evaders, the rise of actuarial methods in the field of crime and punishment presents a number of challenging issues at the intersection of economic theory, sociology, history, race studies, criminology, social theory, and law. The three review essays of "Against Prediction" by Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir, raise these challenges in their very best light. Ranging from the heights of poststructuralist and critical race theory to the intricate details …


Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas Jan 2007

Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

THE COURT: I don't think I have time to listen .... I am not going to reexamine your guilt or innocence here. That is not the purpose of a sentence.. THE DEFENDANT: I did not have the chance to tell you .... THE DEFENDANT: But, your Honor, listen to me-1 Should the court hear this defendant? Is the story of innocence relevant at allocution-the defendant's opportunity to speak on his or her own behalf at the sentencing hearing prior to the imposition of sentence? Or, is the purpose of allocution something different, as the judge suggests? The answers depend on …