Law Commons^™

Spring 2024 Symposium: Stop Cop City And The Criminalization Of Social Movements, Cardozo Journal Of Equal Rights And Social Justice

Flyers 2023-2024

No abstract provided.

Sarah Chu, Director Of Policy And Reform At Pclj Joined Advocates Calling On Gov. Hochul To Sign The Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act, Sarah Chu

Cardozo News 2023

Sarah Chu, Director of Policy and Reform at Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law, joined advocates on Thursday, December 21, at Governor Kathy Hochul's NYC office, calling on the Governor to sign the Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act.

Clemency: A Tool For Extreme And Discriminatory Sentences, Kathryn Miller, Jonathan H. Oberman, Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic

Cardozo News 2023

This article appeared in the 2023 edition of Cardozo Life magazine.

For Joaquin Winfield, April 7, 2023, will forever be a day to remember. That is when he was granted clemency by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul after serving 26 years in prison for possession of 4.6 ounces of crack. The disparity in sentences given to people from different races for similar crimes has been widely written about in recent years. Winfield was sentenced under the now-repealed Rockefeller Drug Laws of the 1970s and 1980s. He was sentenced to 37.5 years to life, one of the longest prison sentences in …

A Conversation With Tom Dybdahl, Author Of “When Innocence Is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence And The Failed Promise Of The Brady Rule”, Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic

Event Invitations 2023

The Supreme Court’s Brady rule of 1963 requires prosecutors to share favorable evidence with defendants. Dybdahl’s book reveals how a series of legal decisions have made it ineffective. Hear what’s at stake when prosecutors conceal evidence, and what can be done about it.

When Innocence Is Not Enough: A Conversation With Tom Dybdahl, Author Of “When Innocence Is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence And The Failed Promise Of The Brady Rule”, Cardozo Criminal Defense Clinic

Flyers 2023-2024

No abstract provided.

Shielded Book Launch, Cardozo Center For Rights And Justice

Event Invitations 2023

Professor Alexander Reinert, Director of the Center for Rights and Justice, will moderate a discussion on Shielded: How the Police Became Untouchable. He will be joined by the author, Joanna Schwartz, Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. Schwartz is one of the country's leading scholars on policing.

In Shielded, Schwartz explores how the legal system protects the police from being held accountable, with insightful analyses about subjects ranging from qualified immunity to no-knock warrants. By weaving true stories of people seeking restitution for violated rights, cutting across race, gender, criminal history, tax bracket, and …

Guide To Bill Of Attainder Clauses In Article I, Sections 9 And 10, Matthew J. Steilen

Contributions to Books

These are commentaries on the Bill of Attainder Clauses in Article I, sections 9 and 10. Each is 2000 words long. They are forthcoming in the 3d edition of Heritage Guide to the Constitution. Topics covered include the history of English bills of attainder, the meaning of "bill," "notorious," "attainder," and other key terms, bills of attainder passed against loyalists during the American revolution, the Josiah Philips case, the legislative history of the clauses in the Philadelphia Convention, early Supreme Court decisions involving bills of attainder, and the modern doctrine. Inline citations and a short bibliography are included. The author …

The Fiscal Impact Of Marsy's Law: A Financial Analysis Of Victims' Rights Policy In Nevada, Elia Del Carmen Solano-Patricio

Undergraduate Research Symposium Lightning Talks

Since 2008, the "Marsy's Law" campaign has sought to embed in state constitutions a specific and lengthy set of victims' rights. In 2018, voters ratified "Question 1" in Nevada which broaded the definition of the term victim to any person directly and 'proximately' harmed by a criminal offense. As a result, Marsy's Law opens the door to the interpretation of the word "crime" and the word "victim."

Greening Criminal Legal Deserts In Rural Texas, Pamela R. Metzger, Claire Buetow, Kristin Meeks, Blane Skiles, Jiacheng Yu

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Texas’ rural communities urgently need more prosecutors and public defense providers. On average, Texas’ most urban areas have 28 lawyers for every 100 criminal cases, but rural areas only have five. Many rural prosecutor’s offices cannot recruit and retain enough staff. The Constitution’s promise of equal justice for all remains unfulfilled. Rural Texans charged with misdemeanors are four times less likely to have a lawyer than urban defendants. In 2021, only 403 rural Texas lawyers accepted an appointment to represent an adult criminal defendant. In 65 rural counties, no lawyer accepted an appointment. And the problem is getting worse. Since …

Innocence Project Clinic Information Session, Innocence Project, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Flyers 2022-2023

No abstract provided.

Cardozo Launches The Perlmutter Center For Legal Justice, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Event Invitations 2022

The Perlmutter Center for Legal Justice at Cardozo Law will be comprised of two components:

The Perlmutter Forensic Science Educational Program, an ambitious legal education program in scientific evidence for practicing attorneys.

The Perlmutter Freedom Clinic, seeking justice for the unjustly incarcerated, will fight wrongful convictions based on the misuse of scientific evidence and work to obtain clemency for individuals that have been unjustly incarcerated.

The Center will be led by prominent civil rights attorney and criminal justice reform advocate Josh Dubin, who will serve as Executive Director. The Deputy Director will be Derrick Hamilton, a formerly incarcerated individual who …

Getting Gideon Right, Andrew L.B. Davies, Blane Skiles, Pamela R. Metzger, Janelle Gursoy, Alex Romo

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

In Gideon v. Wainwright, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the government must provide a criminal defense lawyer for any accused person who cannot afford one. But for too many people, Gideon's promise remains unfulfilled. In Texas, there are no statewide guidelines about who is entitled to a court-appointed lawyer. Instead, counties create their own rules that create serious gaps in constitutional protection. Getting Gideon Right investigates the financial standards that determine an accused person's eligibility for appointed counsel in Texas county courts. The report reveals a patchwork of county court policies that are both complex and severe.

Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is A Bad Deal, Jacob Burns Center For Ethics In The Practice Of Law

Event Invitations 2021

When Americans think of the criminal justice system, they picture a trial. The right to a trial by jury is supposed to undergird our entire justice system – but that bedrock constitutional right has all but disappeared thanks to plea bargaining. In 2018, more than 97 percent of defendants pleaded guilty.

In Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining Is A Bad Deal, Carissa Byrne Hessick makes the case against plea bargaining and illustrates why we need to fix it if we ever hope to achieve lasting criminal justice reform.

Join the Jacob Burns Center for Ethics in the Practice …

Fewer, Not Fairer, Victoria Smiegocki, Pamela R. Metzger, Andrew L.B. Davies

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

In 2019, police across Dallas County asked the District Attorney to prosecute fewer marijuana cases than the year before. This report examines whether the racial disparity in those cases improved at the same time. Fewer, Not Fairer shows that while the number of referrals declined, police were still more likely to refer a Black person for marijuana prosecution than a non-Black person. However, some cities achieved more fairness when their police departments almost entirely stopped requesting marijuana prosecutions altogether.

Grand Juries Should Not Hear Police Misconduct Cases: Grand Juries Will Indict Anything, But A Police Officer, Kaeleigh Wiliams

SLU Law Journal Online

Grand juries will indict everyone but police officers. In this article, Kaeleigh Williams argues that the time has come for a new mechanism to be used in police officer misconduct cases.

Spring 2022 Clinical Program, Benjamin N. Cardozo School Of Law

Flyers 2021-2022

No abstract provided.

Ending Injustice: Solving The Initial Appearance Crisis, Pamela R. Metzger, Janet C. Hoeffel, Kristin Meeks, Sandra Sidi

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Most Americans expect that if they are arrested, they will quickly appear before a judge, learn about the charges, and have an attorney assigned to defend them. The reality is vastly different. After arrest, a person can wait in jail for days, weeks, or even months before seeing a judge or meeting an attorney. This report chronicles the resulting initial appearance crisis and highlights its devastating consequences. More importantly, it provides policymakers and advocates with actionable recommendations.

Budding Change, Pamela R. Metzger, Victoria Smiegocki, Kristin Meeks

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Budding Change explores what happened when Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot (DA Creuzot) radically changed his office’s policies about the prosecution of first-time misdemeanor marijuana cases. The report concludes that DA Creuzot’s 2019 policies were associated with significant reductions in police enforcement of marijuana misdemeanor laws. As a result, marijuana screening caseloads within the District Attorney’s Office declined substantially. Budding Change shows that prosecutorial policies can have a profound impact on policing behaviors.

The Abcs Of Racial Disparity, Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, Victoria Smiegocki, Kenitra Brown

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Data show that Black and White people use marijuana at roughly equal rates. Yet in 2018, in six of Dallas County's biggest cities, Black people were vastly overrepresented in the enforcement of low-level drug crimes. With a look at enforcement trends before the election of District Attorney John Creuzot, this study launches a series of reports about how his reforms have impacted Dallas County.

The Rural Texas Sheriff, Andrew L.B. Davies, Valeria Liu, Elisa Torossian

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

The Rural Texas Sheriff reports on a focus group conducted in conjunction with the Deason Center's 2019 Rural Criminal Justice Summit. The report places rural Texas sheriffs and their agencies in a national context. It also offers insight into the focus group's perceptions of rural law enforcement and jail management. With first-hand accounts of these sheriffs’ experiences, the report offers a compelling look at the personal and professional lives of Texas’ rural sheriffs.

Series Preview: Screening And Charging Practices Of Three Mid-Sized Jurisdictions, Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Understanding how prosecutors make their screening and charging decisions is essential to criminal legal reform. This preview report is the first in a series of publications that explores the screening and charging practices of prosecutors in three mid-sized jurisdictions. Through an innovative mixed-methods empirical study, the series provides a holistic account of prosecutors’ charging practices.

Greening The Desert, Pamela R. Metzger, Kristin Meeks, Jessica Pishko

Deason Criminal Justice Reform Center

Greening the Desert brings a criminal justice lens to the phenomenon of legal deserts in small, tribal, and rural (STAR) communities—vast areas with few, if any, practicing attorneys. The report explores STAR criminal justice communities and describes strategies and initiatives to green these criminal law deserts. Using case studies, the report offers concrete examples of successful innovations. It also includes cautionary notes about risks that may arise with the implementation of strategies to recruit, train, and retain STAR practitioners.

Law In The Time Of Covid-19, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Books

The COVID-19 crisis has ended and upended lives around the globe. In addition to killing over 160,000 people, more than 35,000 in the United States alone, its secondary effects have been as devastating. These secondary effects pose fundamental challenges to the rules that govern our social, political, and economic lives. These rules are the domain of lawyers. Law in the Time of COVID-19 is the product of a joint effort by members of the faculty of Columbia Law School and several law professors from other schools.

This volume offers guidance for thinking about some the most pressing legal issues the …

Show Me Criminal Procedure, Ben L. Trachtenberg, Anne M. Alexander

Open Educational Resources

Show Me Criminal Procedure is an open educational resources casebook available for free to students. This is the 2d ed. published in Spring 2019.

The American Police System (Ghc), Sherry Green, Randy Green, J. Sean Callahan

Criminal Justice and Law Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for The American Police System was created under a Round Eleven ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Cook's Field Guide To Prosecution In Georgia, Alan A. Cook

Books

In this practical guidebook former district attorney and director of the University of Georgia's School of Law Prosecutorial Justice Program Alan Cook shares his personal wisdom and advice gathered from his decades of experience into a single volume. The handbook includes introductions to each chapter topic, plus both quick and detailed reference sections on all aspects of criminal law and procedure. It also includes useful appendices with step-by-step practice guides for how to perform specific prosecutorial tasks (such as how to take a guilty plea). Law student testimonies from now seasoned attorneys at the start of the book indicate the …

Criminology (Gsu, Clayton), Scott Jacques, Andrea Allen

Criminal Justice and Law Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Criminology was created under a Round Nine ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers - Accession 1049, Dorothy Moser Medlin

Manuscript Collection

(The Dorothy Moser Medlin Papers are currently in processing.)

This collection contains most of the records of Dorothy Medlin’s work and correspondence and also includes reference materials, notes, microfilm, photographic negatives related both to her professional and personal life. Additions include a FLES Handbook, co-authored by Dorothy Medlin and a decorative mirror belonging to Dorothy Medlin.

Major series in this collection include: some original 18th century writings and ephemera and primary source material of André Morellet, extensive collection of secondary material on André Morellet's writings and translations, Winthrop related files, literary manuscripts and notes by Dorothy Medlin (1966-2011), copies …

Criminal Justice Research Methods, Andrea Allen, Scott Jacques

Criminal Justice and Law Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Criminal Justice Research Methods was created under a Round Four ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report

Introduction To Criminal Justice, Jason Davis, Andrea Allen, Scott Jacques

Criminal Justice and Law Grants Collections

This Grants Collection for Introduction to Criminal Justice was created under a Round Five ALG Textbook Transformation Grant.

Affordable Learning Georgia Grants Collections are intended to provide faculty with the frameworks to quickly implement or revise the same materials as a Textbook Transformation Grants team, along with the aims and lessons learned from project teams during the implementation process.

Documents are in .pdf format, with a separate .docx (Word) version available for download. Each collection contains the following materials:

• Linked Syllabus
• Initial Proposal
• Final Report