Digital Commons Network^™

Updates From The International And Internationalized Criminal Courts, Claire Grandison, Sofia Vivero, Andra Nicolescu, Danielle Dean, Benjamin Watson

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Professional Identity As Advocacy, Robert Rubinson

All Faculty Scholarship

The legal profession adheres to a story of a unified profession. Nevertheless, the profession has distinct professional sub-groups which repeatedly represent clients with interests adverse to those represented by attorneys who identify with other sub-groups. The idea of "professional identity as advocacy" describes how such professional sub-groups accuse opposing subgroups of greed, self-aggrandizement, or worse. This is most notable in two areas: personal injury litigation and criminal cases. This process has two seemingly contradictory consequences. First, it renders narrow areas extraordinarily visible, thus defining popular discourse and conceptions about lawyers and law. Second, it masks vast areas of litigation and …

A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts: Implications For The Success Of Transitional Justice Mechanisms, 45 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 405 (2012), Stuart K. Ford

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

There is a large body of literature arguing that positive perceived legitimacy is a critical factor in the success of international criminal courts, and that courts can be engineered in such a way that they will be positively perceived by adjusting factors such as their institutional structure and outreach efforts. But in many situations the perceived legitimacy of international criminal courts has almost nothing to do with these factors. This Article takes the latest research in social psychology and applies it to survey data about perceptions of international criminal courts in order to understand how affected populations form attitudes about …

Systemic Racial Bias And Rico's Application To Criminal Street And Prison Gangs, Jordan Blair Woods

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

This Article presents an empirical study of race and the application of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to criminal street and prison gangs. A strong majority (approximately 86%) of the prosecutions in the study involved gangs that were affiliated with one or more racial minority groups. All but one of the prosecuted White-affiliated gangs fell into three categories: international organized crime groups, outlaw motorcycle gangs, and White supremacist prison gangs. Some scholars and practitioners would explain these findings by contending that most criminal street gangs are comprised of racial minorities. This Article challenges and problematizes this …

Mission Creep In National Security Law, Fletcher N. Baldwin Jr., Daniel R. Koslosky

UF Law Faculty Publications

Many anti-terrorism measures are enacted with broad public support. There is often a general willingness on the part of the public to accept greater civil liberties deprivations in the face of a specific threat, or otherwise in times of general crisis, than would otherwise be the case. Sweeping anti-terrorism legislation is frequently crafted in reaction to the presence, or perceived presence, of immense, imminent danger. The medium and long-term consequences of the legislation may not fully be comprehended when political leaders and policymakers take swift action in the face strong public pressure in light of a recent terrorist attack or …

The Law And Economics Of Fluctuating Criminal Tendencies And Incapacitation, Murat C. Mungan

Faculty Scholarship

Economic analyses of criminal law are frequently and heavily criticized for being unable to explain many criminal law rules and doctrines that people find intuitively just. Existing economic models cannot properly explain, for instance, why criminal law distinguishes between (i) repeat offenders and first-time offenders, (ii) murder and voluntary manslaughter, and (iii) remorseful and non-remorseful offenders.

In this Article, I propose a new and richer economic theory of crime that captures the rationales behind these practices, and potentially behind many other important criminal law principles and doctrines. Unlike an overwhelming majority of previous economic analyses, my theory accounts not only …

Prosecution In 3-D, Kay L. Levine, Ronald F. Wright

Faculty Articles

Despite the multidimensional nature of the prosecutor’s work, legal scholars tend to offer a comparatively flat portrait of the profession, providing insight into two dimensions that shape the prosecutor’s performance. Accounts in the first dimension look outward toward external institutions that bear on prosecutors’ case-handling decisions, such as judicial review or the legislative codes that define crimes and punishments. Sketches in the second dimension encourage us to look inward, toward the prosecutor’s individual conscience.

In this Article we add depth to the existing portrait of prosecution by exploring a third dimension: the office structure and the professional identity it helps …

Beyond Procedural Justice: A Dialogic Approach To Legitimacy In Criminal Justice, Anthony Bottoms, Justice Tankebe

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Why Do Criminals Obey The Law? The Influence Of Legitimacy And Social Networks On Active Gun Offenders, Andrew V. Papachristos, Tracy L. Meares, Jeffrey Fagan

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Prosecutorial Decriminalization, Erik Luna

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

Prosecution In 3-D, Kay L. Levine, Ronald F. Wright

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

No abstract provided.

The Law And Economics Of Fluctuating Criminal Tendencies And Incapacitation, Murat C. Mungan

Scholarly Publications

Economic analyses of criminal law are frequently and heavily criticized for being unable to explain many criminal law rules and doctrines people find intuitively just. Existing economic models cannot properly explain, for instance, why criminal law distinguishes between (1) repeat offenders and first-time offenders, (2) murder and voluntary manslaughter, and (3) remorseful and non-remorseful offenders.

This Article proposes a richer economic theory of crime that captures the rationales behind these practices and potentially behind many other important criminal law principles and doctrines. Unlike an overwhelming majority of previous economic analyses, my theory accounts not only for the deterrent effect of …

Human Trafficking Victim Identification: Should Consent Matter, 45 Ind. L. Rev. 483 (2012), Samuel Vincent Jones

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

It is widely accepted that human trafficking is a global phenomenon that poses a significant problem within the United States. Despite its wealth and sophisticated law enforcement paradigms, the United States is the third largest destination country for human trafficking victims. In fact, human trafficking in the United States is increasing. Scholars have advanced a myriad of reasons to explain this problem. For example, some have pronounced the conscious neglect of men and boys in the investigation, reporting, and publicity of human trafficking a serious impediment to progress in combating trafficking. The ease with which corporations avoid prosecution under the …

Duncan Kennedy's Third Globalization, Criminal Law, And The Spectacle, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Is Color Blind Justice Also Culturally Blind? The Cultural Blindness In Justice, Shiv Narayan Persaud

Journal Publications

As diverse ethnic groups continue to experience numeric growth and societal grounding in America, their advocacies for culturally competent representation within the legal system cannot be ignored or underplayed. Undoubtedly, some professions such as mental and physical health, and their related sectors, have developed and continue to integrate cultural competencies into their respective practices. Others such as the legal profession seem to lag in their advocacies and promotion of culturally competent practices.

In the criminal justice system, where discretionary legal decision-making authority is commonplace and may grossly affect the civil liberties of the citizenry, a paucity of standards requiring cultural …

Recidivism Rates Of Youth Discharged From Supervision 2006 - 2009, Becky Noréus, Jillian Foley Mppm

Justice Policy

The Maine Department of Corrections (MDOC) Division of Juvenile Services (DJS) collaborates with the Muskie School of Public Service in a state‐university partnership to analyze juvenile recidivism rates. DJS measures juvenile justice outcomes to guide policy and program development geared toward recidivism reduction. Reduction of youth recidivism in Maine increases public safety.

Recidivism in this report is defined as a re‐adjudication (juvenile system) or conviction (adult system) for a new offense committed by a youth in Maine within three years after release from DJS supervision. This report measures DJS impact on youth who have been released from DJS supervision by …

Growing Up Policed In The Age Of Aggressive Policing Policies, Brett G. Stoudt, Michelle Fine, Madeline Fox

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Judging Children As Children: Reclaiming New York’S Progressive Tradition, Michael A. Corriero

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Travels Of The Criminal Question: Cultural Embeddedness And Diffusion [Book Review], Mark Findlay

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

The Law And Economics Of Fluctuating Criminal Tendencies And Incapacitation, Murat C. Mungan

Maryland Law Review

No abstract provided.

Blue-Collar Crime: Conspiracy, Organized Labor, And The Anti-Union Civil Rico Claim, Benjamin Levin

Scholarship@WashULaw

This Article provides an historically-rooted analysis of a recent spate of civil RICO complaints arising from labor union organizing campaigns. The Article historicizes contemporary civil RICO suits against labor unions by analogizing to nineteenth century conspiracy prosecutions of unions. In tracing this history of organized labor’s social standing, the Article addresses the cultural framing of the union and its place in political and cultural discourse over the past century. The civil RICO complaints have received limited scholarly attention mainly focusing on issues of federal preemption; this Article argues for a broad reading of the cases as a way to understand …

Overdetermined Atrocities, James G. Stewart

All Faculty Publications

An event is overdetermined if there are multiple sufficient causes for its occurrence. A firing squad is a classic illustration. If eight soldiers are convened to execute a prisoner, they can all walk away afterwards in the moral comfort that “I didn’t really make a difference; it would have happened without me.” The difficulty is, if we are only responsible for making a difference to harm occurring in the world, none of the soldiers is responsible for the death — none made, either directly or through others, an essential contribution to its occurrence. In many respects, this dilemma is the …

Gladue: Beyond Myth And Towards Implementation In Manitoba, Debra Parkes, David Milward

All Faculty Publications

In the mid-1990s, section 718.2(e) of the Criminal Code of Canada was enacted in response to the alarming over-representation of Aboriginal people in Canada’s prisons and jails. Its admonition to consider “all available sanctions other than imprisonment that are reasonable in the circumstances… with particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal offenders” requires, according to the Supreme Court in the leading case of R v Gladue, that justice system participants do things differently in sentencing Aboriginal people. However, in the ensuing years the level of over-representation has got worse, rather than better. There are a number of different explanations that …

A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts, Stuart Ford

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

There is a large body of literature arguing that positive perceived legitimacy is a critical factor in the success of international criminal courts, and that courts can be engineered in such a way that they will be positively perceived by adjusting factors such as their institutional structure and outreach efforts. But in many situations the perceived legitimacy of international criminal courts has almost nothing to do with these factors. This Article takes the latest research in social psychology and applies it to survey data about perceptions of international criminal courts in order to understand how affected populations form attitudes about …

Reimagining Criminal Prosecution: Toward A Color-Conscious Professional Ethic For Prosecutors, Justin Murray

Articles & Chapters

Prosecutors, like mostAmericans, view the criminal-justice system asfundamentally race neutral. They are aware that blacks are stopped, searched, arrested, and locked up in numbers that are vastly out of proportion to their fraction of the overall population. Yet, they generally assume that this outcome is justified because it reflects the sad reality that blacks commit a disproportionate share of crime in America. They are unable to detect the ways in which their own discretionary choices-and those of other actors in the criminal-justice system, such as legislators, police officers, and jurors-contribute to the staggering and disproportionate incarceration of black Americans. In …

The Texas Deterrence Muddle, Jeffrey A. Fagan, Amanda Geller, Franklin E. Zimring

Faculty Scholarship

The ongoing debate about capital punishment in the United States juggles several contentious questions. Innocence, cost, racial fairness, proportionality, retributivist calculus, and deterrence concerns thread a literature whose richness testifies to the endurance of capital punishment in American legal and political culture. For proponents of capital punishment, the connection between the moral and utilitarian or consequentialist positions trumps all other concerns: They suggest that if the death penalty can prevent – through the incapacitation of the offender and general deterrence of would-be killers – the loss of even one innocent life from murder, then execution is a morally justified or …

Overcriminalization For Lack Of Better Options: A Celebration Of Bill Stuntz, Daniel C. Richman

Faculty Scholarship

The unity of Bill Stuntz's character – his profound integrity – makes it easy to move from a celebration of his friendship (which I’ve treasured since we first met back in 1985) to one of his scholarship, for creativity, wisdom, and humility are strengths not just of Bill himself but of his work. Even as his broad brush strokes have fundamentally advanced our understanding of the interplay between substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, and criminal justice institutions over time, Bill's work – like Bill himself – welcomes and endures sustained engagement. Humility is appropriate for me, too, as I offer …

Why Do Criminals Obey The Law? The Influence Of Legitimacy And Social Networks On Active Gun Offenders, Andrew V. Papachristos, Tracey L. Meares, Jeffery Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Research on procedural justice and legitimacy suggests that compliance with the law is best secured not by mere threat offorce, but by fostering beliefs in the fairness of the legal systems and in the legitimacy of legal actors. To date, however, this research has been based on general population surveys and more banal types of law-violating behavior (such as unpaid parking tickets, excessive noise, etc.). Thus, while we know why the average citizen obeys the law, we do not have similar knowledge about populations most likely to commit serious violent crimes. This study fills that void by using a unique …

Keynote: The Crisis And Criminal Justice, Bernard Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

There has been a lot of recent debate over whether the economic crisis presents an opportunity to reduce prison populations and improve the state of criminal justice in this country. Some commentators suggest that the financial crisis has already triggered a move towards reducing the incarcerated population. Some claim that there is a new climate of bipartisanship on punishment. Kara Gotsch of the Sentencing Project, for example, suggests that we are now in a unique political climate embodied by the passage of the Second Chance Act under President George W. Bush – a climate that is substantially different than the …

Could Specialized Criminal Courts Help Contain The Crises Of Overcriminalization And Overincarceration?, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In contrast to the existing scholarly commentary on specialized criminal courts, which is largely trapped in the mode of advocacy—alternately celebratory or disparaging, and insufficiently attentive to the remarkable variation between different specialized criminal courts—this article introduces an analytic framework and critical theoretical account of four contending criminal law reformist models at work in specialized criminal courts. These four criminal law reformist models include:

(1) a therapeutic jurisprudence model,

(2) a judicial monitoring model,

(3) an order maintenance model, and

(4) a decarceration model.

Based on a multi-method approach consisting of site visits, and an analysis of archived interviews, the …