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Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
Judges, Racism, And The Problem Of Actual Innocence, Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
Judges, Racism, And The Problem Of Actual Innocence, Stephen J. Fortunato Jr.
Maine Law Review
The facts and data are in and the conclusion they compel is bleak: the American criminal justice system and its showpiece, the criminal trial, harbor at their core a systemic racism. For decades, criminologists, law professors, sociologists, government statisticians, and others have been collecting and collating data on crime, punishment, and incarceration in the United States. These intrepid scholars have looked at crime, criminals, and the justice system from all angles—the race of defendants and victims; the relationship of poverty to criminality; severity of crime; severity of punishment; incarceration rates for different racial groups; sentencing and sentence disparities; and so …
Judicial Politics And Decisionmaking: A New Approach, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Judicial Politics And Decisionmaking: A New Approach, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich, Chris Guthrie
Vanderbilt Law Review
In twenty-five different experiments conducted on over 2,200 judges, we assessed whether judges' political ideology influences their resolution of hypothetical cases. Generally, we found that the political ideology of the judge matters, but only very little. Across a range of bankruptcy, criminal, and civil cases, we found that the aggregate effect of political ideology is either nonexistent or amounts to roughly one quarter of a standard deviation. Overall, the results of our experiments suggest that judges are not "politicians in robes."
Pretrial Detention And Bail, Megan Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson
Pretrial Detention And Bail, Megan Stevenson, Sandra G. Mayson
All Faculty Scholarship
Our current pretrial system imposes high costs on both the people who are detained pretrial and the taxpayers who foot the bill. These costs have prompted a surge of bail reform around the country. Reformers seek to reduce pretrial detention rates, as well as racial and socioeconomic disparities in the pretrial system, while simultaneously improving appearance rates and reducing pretrial crime. The current state of pretrial practice suggests that there is ample room for improvement. Bail hearings are often cursory, with no defense counsel present. Money-bail practices lead to high rates of detention even among misdemeanor defendants and those who …
Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives From Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics: Opening Remarks, November 6, 2015, Bridget M. Mccormack
Child Abuse Evidence: New Perspectives From Law, Medicine, Psychology & Statistics: Opening Remarks, November 6, 2015, Bridget M. Mccormack
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
Opening remarks by Justice Bridget McCormack, Michigan Supreme Court on November 6, 2015.