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Brief Of Nat’L Assoc. Of Crim. Defense Attorney & Nat’L Assoc. Of Fed’L Defenders As Amicus Curiae, Pereida V. Barr, No. 19-438 (U.S.) (Feb. 2020)., Jenny Roberts

Amicus Briefs

Brief of Nat’l Assoc. of Crim. Defense Attorney & Nat’l Assoc. of Fed’l Defenders as Amicus Curiae, Pereida v. Barr, No. 19-438 (U.S.) (Feb. 2020).

The Innocence Movement And Misdemeanors, Jenny M. Roberts

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

In recent years, the Innocent Movement has begun to focus its attention on wrongful misdemeanor convictions as a systemic problem. This Article analyzes eighty-five documented misdemeanor exonerations and concludes that innocence has been demonstrated primarily in two ways: laboratory tests of alleged unlawful drugs that reveal “no controlled substance” despite the individual having pled guilty to misdemeanor drug possession; and police body camera or citizen videos that surface after a misdemeanor conviction to contradict the factual basis for that conviction. Strategic use of these relatively definitive methods of revealing wrongful misdemeanor convictions can call attention to the flaws in misdemeanor …

Crashing The Misdemeanor System, Jenny M. Roberts

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

With “minor crimes” making up more than 75% of state criminal caseloads, the United States faces a misdemeanor crisis. Although mass incarceration continues to plague the nation, the current criminal justice system is faltering under the weight of misdemeanor processing.

Operating under the “broken windows theory,” which claims that public order law enforcement prevents more serious crime, the police send many petty offenses to criminal court. This is so even though the original authors of the theory noted that “[o]rdinarily, no judge or jury ever sees the persons caught up in a dispute over the appropriate level of neighborhood order” …

Improving Police Discretion: Rationality In Handling Public Inebriates, David Aaronson

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

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