Law Commons^™

Algorithmic Risk Assessments And The Double-Edged Sword Of Youth, Megan T. Stevenson, Christopher Slobogin

Christopher Slobogin

Risk assessment algorithms—statistical formulas that predict the likelihood a person will commit crime in the future—are used across the country to help make life-altering decisions in the criminal process, including setting bail, determining sentences, selecting probation conditions, and deciding parole. Yet many of these instruments are “black-box” tools. The algorithms they use are secret, both to the sentencing authorities who rely on them and to the offender whose life is affected. The opaque nature of these tools raises numerous legal and ethical concerns. In this paper we argue that risk assessment algorithms obfuscate how certain factors, usually considered mitigating by …

Drag Racing, Assumption Of Risk, And Homicide, Roni M. Rosenberg

Roni M Rosenberg

U.S. courts are divided with regard to the question of whether it is appropriate to convict a participant in a drag race of homicide for the death of another participant. The context is not one in which decedent is killed as a result of colliding with the defendant; rather the death is cause by a collision with a third party or a guard rail. The controversy revolves around on central question: whether there is a causal connection between defendant's participation in the race and the death of decedent. Courts that convict of manslaughter hold that such a causal connection exists, …

"Toiling In The Danger And In The Morals Of Despair": Risk, Security, Danger, The Constitution, And The Clinician's Dilemma, Michael L. Perlin, Alison Julia Lynch

Michael L Perlin

Abstract: Persons institutionalized in psychiatric hospitals and “state schools” for those with intellectual disabilities have always been hidden from view. Such facilities were often constructed far from major urban centers, availability of transportation to such institutions was often limited, and those who were locked up were, to the public, faceless and often seen as less than human.

Although there has been regular litigation in the area of psychiatric (and intellectual disability) institutional rights for 40 years, much of this case law entirely ignores forensic patients – mostly those awaiting incompetency-to-stand trial determinations, those found permanently incompetent to stand trial, those …