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Criminal Procedure

Selected Works

Criminal law

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Law and Society

Connecting The Disconnected: Communication Technologies For The Incarcerated, Neil Sobol Nov 2018

Connecting The Disconnected: Communication Technologies For The Incarcerated, Neil Sobol

Neil L Sobol

Incarceration is a family problem—more than 2.7 million children in the United States have a parent in jail or prison. It adversely impacts family relationships, financial stability, and the mental health and well-being of family members. Empirical research shows that communications between inmates and their families improve family stability and successful reintegration while also reducing the inmate’s incidence of behavioral issues and recidivism rates. However, systemic barriers significantly impact the ability of inmates and their families to communicate. Both traditional and newly developed technological communication tools have inherent advantages and disadvantages. In addition, private contracting of communication services too often …

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Lessons Learned From Ferguson: Ending Abusive Collection Of Criminal Justice Debt, Neil L. Sobol Jul 2018

Lessons Learned From Ferguson: Ending Abusive Collection Of Criminal Justice Debt, Neil L. Sobol

Neil L Sobol

On March 4, 2015, the Department of Justice released its scathing report of the Ferguson Police Department calling for “an entire reorientation of law enforcement in Ferguson” and demanding that Ferguson “replace revenue-driven policing with a system grounded in the principles of community policing and police legitimacy, in which people are equally protected and treated with compassion, regardless of race.” Unfortunately, abusive collection of criminal justice debt is not limited to Ferguson. This Article, prepared for a discussion group at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools conference in July 2015, identifies the key findings in the Department of Justice’s report …

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Written Testimony For Briefing On Targeted Fines And Fees Against Low-Income Minorities: Civil Rights And Constitutional Implications, Neil L. Sobol Mar 2017

Written Testimony For Briefing On Targeted Fines And Fees Against Low-Income Minorities: Civil Rights And Constitutional Implications, Neil L. Sobol

Neil L Sobol

My testimony today will focus on issues discussed in Fighting Fines & Fees: Borrowing from Consumer Law to Combat Criminal Justice Debt Abuses, forthcoming in the Colorado Law Review. In that article, I examine whether the framework used to address debt-collection abuses in the consumer context should apply to the abusive collection and assessment of criminal justice debt. I argue that the rationale that led to the enactment of the federal FDCPA and the creation of CFPB to combat consumer collection abuses parallels the reasons that a federal statute should be adopted to help the DOJ coordinate the attack against …

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"Immigrants Are Not Criminals": Respectability, Immigration Reform, And Hyperincarceration, Rebecca Sharpless Dec 2015

"Immigrants Are Not Criminals": Respectability, Immigration Reform, And Hyperincarceration, Rebecca Sharpless

Rebecca Sharpless

Scholars and law reformers advocate for better treatment of immigrants by invoking a contrast with people convicted of a crime. This Article details the harms and limitations of a conceptual framework that relies on a contrast with people—citizens and noncitizens—who have been convicted of a criminal offense and proposes an alternate approach that better aligns with the racial critique of our criminal justice system. Noncitizens with a criminal record are overwhelmingly low-income people of color. While some have been in the United States for a short period of time, many have resided in the United States for much longer. Many …

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Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon Dec 2013

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …

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Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon Dec 2013

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …

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Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon Dec 2013

Wrongful Convictions, Policing, And The 'Wars On Crime And Drugs', Hannah Laqueur, Stephen Rushin, Jonathan Simon

Jonathan S Simon

Wrongful conviction ought to be an aberration for any system of criminal punishment tied to legal adjudication; certainly in a system such as we have in the United States, premised on the constitutional bedrock of requiring a jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (Sandstrom v. Montana). We suggest, however, that during the so-called wars on crime and drugs, wrongful convictions are no longer mere aberrations, any more than is holding to the end of hostilities captured members of an enemy army. Specifically, we hypothesize that these two "fronts" in two parallel national "wars" have transformed police practices in …

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