Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in Law
Class Matters, Erica J. Hashimoto
Class Matters, Erica J. Hashimoto
Scholarly Works
Poor people constitute one of the most overrepresented categories of people in the criminal justice system. Why is that so? Unfortunately, we simply do not know, in large part because we have virtually no information that could provide an answer. As a result of that informational vacuum, policymakers either have ignored issues related to socioeconomic class, instead focusing on issues like drug addiction and mental illness as to which there are more data, or have developed fragmented policy that touches on socioeconomic class issues only tangentially. The bottom line is that without better data on the profile of poor defendants, …
Resurrecting Autonomy: The Criminal Defendant's Right To Control The Case, Erica J. Hashimoto
Resurrecting Autonomy: The Criminal Defendant's Right To Control The Case, Erica J. Hashimoto
Scholarly Works
In Faretta v. California, the Supreme Court exalted the value of autonomy – the criminal defendant’s interest in presenting and controlling the defense. Over the course of the past thirty-five years, however, the Court’s enthusiasm has dissipated, and commentators have criticized courts that have given defendants any measure of control over their cases. As a result, lower courts increasingly have shifted control from defendants to their lawyers. In light of that retrenchment, this Article reevaluates the autonomy interest on its merits. This reexamination confirms that Faretta got it right, and the Supreme Court should revitalize the constitutional interest of criminal …
Toward Ethical Plea Bargaining, Erica J. Hashimoto
Toward Ethical Plea Bargaining, Erica J. Hashimoto
Scholarly Works
Defendants in criminal cases are overwhelmingly more likely to plead guilty than to go to trial. Presumably, at least a part of the reason that most of them do so is that it is in their interest to plead guilty, i.e., they will receive a more favorable outcome if they plead guilty than if they go to trial. The extent to which pleas reflect fair or rational compromises in practice, however, depends upon a variety of factors, including the amount of information each of the parties has about the case. Some level of informational symmetry therefore is critical to the …