Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Legal Studies
Pretrial Detention And The Value Of Liberty, Megan Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson
Pretrial Detention And The Value Of Liberty, Megan Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson
All Faculty Scholarship
How dangerous must a person be to justify the state in locking her up for the greater good? The bail reform movement, which aspires to limit pretrial detention to the truly dangerous—and which has looked to algorithmic risk assessments to quantify danger—has brought this question to the fore. Constitutional doctrine authorizes pretrial detention when the government’s interest in safety “outweighs” an individual’s interest in liberty, but it does not specify how to balance these goods. If detaining ten presumptively innocent people for three months is projected to prevent one robbery, is it worth it?
This Article confronts the question of …
Undemocratic Crimes, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan C. Wilt
Undemocratic Crimes, Paul H. Robinson, Jonathan C. Wilt
All Faculty Scholarship
One might assume that in a working democracy the criminal law rules would reflect the community’s shared judgments regarding justice and punishment. This is especially true because social science research shows that lay people generally think about criminal liability and punishment in consistent ways: in terms of desert, doing justice and avoiding injustice. Moreover, there are compelling arguments for demanding consistency between community views and criminal law rules based upon the importance of democratic values, effective crime-control, and the deontological value of justice itself.
It may then come as a surprise, and a disappointment, that a wide range of common …