Law Commons^™

Preventative Pretrial Detention And The Failure Of Interest-Balancing Approaches To Due Process, Albert W. Alschuler

Michigan Law Review

This article, echoing Highmore's treatise of 1783, maintains that neither a legitimate nor a very important governmental interest can justify preventive detention in the absence of significant proof of past wrongdoing or an inability to control one's behavior. Both the Supreme Court's neglect of this issue and Congress' similar neglect in the preventive detention provisions of the Federal Bail Reform Act of 1984 reveal the extent to which cost-benefit analysis has captured American law and threatened core concepts of individual dignity.

The article does not oppose all forms of preventive pretrial detention. To the contrary, it recognizes that the detention …

A Mandatory Right To Counsel For The Material Witness, Susan Kling

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Note argues that a uniform statute establishing a mandatory right to counsel should be adopted, at both the state and federal levels, to afford to the material witness protection that the Constitution fails to provide. Part I describes the general scope of the problem and concludes that neither the federal government, the individual states, nor the United States Constitution provides the material witness with a mandatory right to counsel. Part II argues that the material witness should have a statutorily mandated right to counsel. A mandatory right to counsel should be extended to the material witness both for the …