Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

The Minimalist Alternative To Abolitionism: Focusing On The Non-Dangerous Many, Christopher Slobogin Professor Of Law

Vanderbilt Law Review

In "The Dangerous Few: Taking Seriously Prison Abolition and Its Skeptics," published in the Harvard Law Review, Thomas Frampton proffers four reasons why those who want to abolish prisons should not budge from their position even for offenders who are considered dangerous. This Essay demonstrates why a criminal law minimalist approach to prisons and police is preferable to abolition, not just when dealing with the dangerous few but also as a means of protecting the non-dangerous many. A minimalist regime can radically reduce reliance on both prisons and police, without the loss in crime prevention capacity and legitimacy that is …

Historicizing The War(S) On Drugs Across National (And Disciplanary) Borders, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Notwithstanding the title, The War on Drugs: A History, this illuminating book is not "a" history of "the" War on Drugs but an edited collection with a sampling of new research into the intertwined histories of drug regulation and criminalization, deregulation and decriminalization, both in the United States and around the world. To use the parlance of Jotwell, I like this book a lot.

But I am also writing this Jot because I worry that the title may mislead legal scholars into thinking that this is only a book for historians of criminal law or scholars of the "carceral state." …

Preventive Justice: How Algorithms Parole Boards, And Limiting Retributivism Could End Mass Incarceration, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

A number of states use statistically derived algorithms to provide estimates of the risk of reoffending. In theory, these risk assessment instruments could bring significant benefits. Fewer people of all ethnicities would be put in jail prior to trial and in prison after conviction, the duration of sentences would be reduced for low-risk offenders, and treatment resources would be more efficiently allocated. As a result, the capital outlays for prisons and jails would be substantially reduced. The public would continue to be protected from the most dangerous individuals, while lower-risk individuals would be less subject to the criminogenic effects of …

How And Why Is The American Punishment System "Exceptional"?, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Anyone interested in American criminal justice has to wonder why we have so many more people in prison—in absolute as well as relative terms—than the western half of the European continent, the part of the world most readily comparable to us. This book, consisting of eleven chapters by eminent criminal law scholars, criminologists and political scientists, provides both a detailed look at how U.S. punishment is different and an insightful analysis of why that might be so. While many chapters in the book describe previously declared positions of the authors, there is also much that is new in the book, …

Proportionality Skepticism In A Red State, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

As someone who lives in a red state and has practiced capital defense in Georgia and Alabama, my view for some time has been that the death penalty is not going anywhere any time soon. And while the dominant message from legal experts and commentators in recent years has been that the death penalty is on the decline,' the results of this past election might suggest otherwise. The three referenda regarding capital punishment on the 2016 ballot - in California, Nebraska, and Oklahoma - were all resolved in favor of the death penalty. These votes could be taken to signal …

An Empirical Assessment Of Georgia's Beyond A Reasonable Doubt, Lauren Sudeall

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court held that execution of people with intellectual disabilities violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. In doing so, the Court explicitly left to the states the question of which procedures would be used to identify such defendants as exempt from the death penalty. More than a decade before Atkins, Georgia was the first state to bar execution of people with intellectual disability. Yet, of the states that continue to impose the death penalty as a punishment for capital murder, Georgia is the only state that requires capital defendants to prove …

Against Proportional Punishment, Adam J. Kolber

Vanderbilt Law Review

Many criminal defendants are held in detention while they await trial. Though conditions in pretrial detention are much like those in prison, detention is technically not punishment. Since detainees are merely accused of crimes, they are presumed innocent.' Their detention is not intended to punish them, and so, the Supreme Court has said, it is not punishment at all. Rather, detention is a means of promoting public safety, reducing witness intimidation, and preventing people accused of crimes from fleeing before trial. Nevertheless, defendants who are convicted generally receive credit at sentencing for time served in pretrial detention. An offender who …

The Origins Of Back-End Sentencing In California: A Dispatch From The Archives, Sara Mayeux

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In recent years, policy analysts have generated a small body of literature about the practice of "back-end sentencing," observing that California uses parole revocation in lieu of criminal prosecution for a surprisingly high number of cases, including many that would otherwise be considered serious crimes. Some of these offenders may be getting away with far shorter sentences than if their conduct were prosecuted criminally. Surely others are being railroaded into serving time for charges of which they could never be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt. And many are being cycled in and out of prison on fairly minor violations for …

The Death Penalty In Florida, Christopher Slobogin

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article summarizes the findings and recommendations of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project's Florida Assessment Team, which I chaired. Relying on an analysis of caselaw, studies, news reports, and interviews, the article describes significant flaws in Florida's death penalty law and practice in nine areas: the police investigative process; the analysis of scientific evidence; the conduct of prosecutors; the qualifications, reimbursement and competence of defense attorneys; the decision-making process of judges; the structure and decision-making process of capital sentencing juries; clemency; the system's reaction to the race of the victim; and the treatment of people with mental disability. …

The Sheinbein Case And The Israeli-American Extradition Experience: A Need For Compromise, Abraham Abramovsky, Jonathan I. Edelstein

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Article will examine the political ramifications of the extradition process and the need for compromise to prevent domestic politics from undermining the ends of law enforcement. This Article will also suggest possible measures to ease the complications that extradition poses to international law enforcement cooperation. Part II of this Article will examine the facts of the most recent and dramatic example of the politics of extradition as played out in the Sheinbein case. Part III will analyze other issues which have placed obstacles in the path of practical law enforcement and international relations, and the way that the United …

The Need For An International Criminal Court In The New International World Order, M. Cherif Bassiouni, Christopher L. Blakesley

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In this Article, Professors Bassiouni and Blakesley argue that the institution of an international criminal court would provide an effective means of dealing with international problems that are created by or unaddressed in a unilateral or bilateral international system. Rather than deflecting domestic concentration on law enforcement, the proposed tribunal will be a complementary and incremental effort, which will enhance criminal justice enforcement. The authors address several questions concerning the implementation of the tribunal, including questions related to sovereignty and bases for jurisdiction, which crimes will be within the court's jurisdiction, which law will apply to the cases, and practical …

Rico Reform: How Much Is Needed?, William J. Hughes Congressman

Vanderbilt Law Review

RICO reform has been one of the most time-consuming and difficult issues in the 101st Congress. The House Subcommittee on Crime has held three full-day hearings on RICO reform, listening to testimony from a vast array of witnesses on both sides of the reform issue, and several in the middle. From a personal perspective, hardly a day has passed in the last nine months that I have not had a meeting, a discussion with a House colleague, or a staff session on the subject of RICO reform.At the outset I should mention that I do not have a magic "silver …

Meaningful Access For Indigents On Death Row: Giarratano V. Murray And The Right To Counsel In Post-Conviction Proceedings, William H. Brooks

Vanderbilt Law Review

In 1932 the United States Supreme Court held that the states must provide free legal counsel to indigent defendants in capital cases.' Since then the Court has continued to define the scope of an indigent death row defendant's right to counsel at various critical stages of the defendant's trial and appeal. Following a direct appeal to the state court of appeals and state supreme court, an inmate on death row may seek a writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court. A prisoner is not entitled to state appointed counsel for that action.

Next, the defendant may seek post-conviction …

The Ker-Frisbie Doctrine: A Jurisdictional Weapon In The War On Drugs, Andrew B. Campbell

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

This Note addresses the ongoing use of extra legal apprehension, as applied under "Ker v. Illinois" and "Frisbie v. Collins," as a viable alternative to extradition in obtaining custody over those accused of exporting drugs to the United States. The author outlines the cultural and political reasons for the production of illicit drugs, examines the purposes and structures of formal extradition treaties and their effectiveness in bringing drug traffickers to trial, and considers the alternatives to formal extradition. The author concludes that extralegal apprehension, in both of its two forms--abduction and irregular rendition--should remain an alternative means of securing custody …

Execution Without Trial: Police Homicide And The Constitution, Lawrence W. Sherman

Vanderbilt Law Review

This analysis of police homicide and the Constitution leads to the conclusion that the present state laws are unconstitutional, not just in the common-law states, but in the Model Penal Code and"forcible felony" states as well.' The present laws of every state in the union deny police homicide victims fifth and fourteenth amendment rights to due process, allow the punishment of death to be imposed in a cruel and unusual fashion, and appear to deny equal protection to blacks. The only constitutional alternative apparent is to remove police homicide from the realm of punishment and confine justification for it to …

Law And Disorder In Nineteenth-Century Kentucky, Robert M. Ireland

Vanderbilt Law Review

Nineteenth-century Kentuckians responded paradoxically to their criminal justice system. Although they complained constantly about the inadequacies of their constabulary, they refused to appropriate funds necessary to establish more efficient police forces. And while they carped continually about the ineffectiveness and ineptitude of prosecutors, the slowness and timidity of judges, the permissiveness of juries, and the leniency of governors, they also expressed equal concern about the rights of the accused and the convicted. By their ambivalence, nineteenth-century Kentuckians reflected an internal conflict that historically has characterized the response of Americans to the problem of crime. A free and dynamic society inevitably …

Recent Cases, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

Criminal Law--Habeas Corpus-State Prison Regulation Prohibiting Prisoner from Preparing Petition for Fellow Inmates Held Invalid in Absence of Alternative Means of Assistance

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Securities Regulation--Corporation as a Director for the Purposes of Section 16(b) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act

The Beginning Of Juvenile Justice, Police Practices, And The Juvenile Offender, Elyce Z. Ferster, Thomas F. Courtless

Vanderbilt Law Review

The public is being asked to make many important decisions which will affect the structure, jurisdiction and function of the juvenile justice system. Before making these decisions, it should have more facts about the present system and the proposed changes. The aim of this study, is to provide some of the needed information. This article, the first publication of the study, concerns the juvenile offender's initial contacts with the juvenile system, his relations with the police and the consequences of these relations. Thus far, this stage of the juvenile justice system has received far less attention than any other aspect …

Bail Reform In The State And Federal Systems, Law Review Staff

Vanderbilt Law Review

The origin of the institution of bail is not entirely known, but it is believed to have originated in medieval England as a device to free untried prisoners. The definitive structure of the process seems to have been first codified in 1275 in the Statute of Westminster. The institution developed gradually and eventually became so well established that the English Bill of Rights of 1688 provided that "excessive bail ought not to be required."' The factors contributing to the development of the institution of bail were primarily matters of practical importance. Disease-ridden jails, delayed trials by traveling justices, and insecure …

Federal Habeas Corpus And The State Court Criminal Defendant, Frank W. Wilson

Vanderbilt Law Review

Federal habeas corpus for state prisoners is one of the most controversial and emotion-ridden subjects in the entire field of criminal law. Considering the period over which this controversy has continued, it is surely one of the oldest unresolved disputes between the state and federal courts. The removal of an action from a state to a federal court may sometimes cause ruffled feelings, but few judges remain long offended at being relieved of trying a lawsuit. On the other hand, when a federal judge reverses a state judge who has been affirmed by the state appellate courts, forcing him to …

Criminal Law Administration Prior To Trial: Recent Constitutional Developments, Paul H. Sanders

Vanderbilt Law Review

Probably the most pervasive dilemma in human experience is that which poses the choice with respect to the use of normally-condemned means in order to attain what are considered to be desirable ends. The field of criminal law administration offers a particularly apt illustration of the dilemma in modern society. The actual, day-to-day methods of operation of our law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and other officials concerned with the investigation, trial and punishment of those charged with crime,--all reflect the choice that has been made in fact by our society. We can each judge, within the limits of our experience, …