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Full-Text Articles in Criminal Law
The Meaning Of A Misdemeanor In A Post-Ferguson World: Evaluating The Reliability Of Prior Conviction Evidence, John D. King
The Meaning Of A Misdemeanor In A Post-Ferguson World: Evaluating The Reliability Of Prior Conviction Evidence, John D. King
Scholarly Articles
Despite evidence that America’s low-level courts are overburdened, unreliable, and structurally biased, sentencing judges continue to uncritically consider a defendant’s criminal history in fashioning an appropriate punishment. Misdemeanor courts lack many of the procedural safeguards that are thought to ensure accuracy and reliability. As with other stages of the criminal justice system, people of color and poor people are disproportionately burdened with the inaccuracies of the misdemeanor system.
This Article examines instances in which sentencing courts have looked behind the mere fact of a prior conviction and assessed whether that prior conviction offered any meaningful insight for the subsequent sentence. …
Abolishing Racist Policing With The Thirteenth Amendment, Brandon Hasbrouck
Abolishing Racist Policing With The Thirteenth Amendment, Brandon Hasbrouck
Scholarly Articles
This Essay was also published online at 67 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. 200 (2020).
Policing in America has always been about controlling the Black body. Indeed, modern policing was birthed and nurtured by white supremacy; its roots are found in slavery. Policing today continues to protect and serve the racial hierarchy blessed by the Constitution itself. But a string of U.S. Supreme Court rulings involving the Thirteenth Amendment offers Congress a tool with which to target institutions that have preserved social, political, and official norms associated with slavery. In those cases, the Supreme Court held that Congress has broad enforcement …