Law Commons^™

Less Prison Time Matters: A Roadmap To Reducing The Discriminatory Impact Of The Sentencing System Against African Americans And Indigenous Australians, Mirko Bagaric

Georgia State University Law Review

The criminal justice system discriminates against African Americans. There are a number of stages of the criminal justice process. Sentencing is the sharp end of the system because this is where the community acts in its most coercive manner by intentionally inflecting hardships on offenders. African Americans comprise approximately 40% of the incarcerated population yet only about 13% of the total population. The overrepresentation of African Americans in prisons is repugnant. Despite this, lawmakers for decades have been unable or unwilling to implement reforms which ameliorate the problem. This is no longer politically or socially tolerable in light of the …

Discretion And Disparity In Federal Detention, Stephanie Holmes Didwania

Northwestern University Law Review

The uniquely American phenomenon of mass incarceration plagues the pretrial space. People awaiting trial make up roughly 20% of those held in criminal custody in the United States. Largely overlooked by bail-reform advocates, pretrial detention in the federal criminal system presents a puzzle. The federal system detains defendants at a much higher rate than the states—more than 60% of U.S. citizen-defendants were detained pending trial by federal courts last year. But federal defendants virtually never fail to appear in court, and they are rarely arrested for new crimes while on pretrial release. And unlike state court systems, cash bail is …

The Just Prosecutor, Brandon Hasbrouck

Scholarly Articles

As the most powerful actors in our criminal legal system, prosecutors have been and remain one of the principal drivers of mass incarceration. This was and is by design. Prosecutorial power derives from our constitutional structure--prosecutors are given almost unfettered discretion to determine who to charge, what to charge, and, often, what the sentence will be. Within that structure, the prosecutor's duty is to ensure that justice is done. Yet, in exercising their outsized power, some prosecutors have fully embraced a secondary, adversarial role as a partisan advocate at the significant cost of seeking justice.

The necessary reforms of our …

Racial Bias Still Exists In Criminal Justice System? A Review Of Recent Empirical Research, Yu Du

Touro Law Review

The debate on whether racial bias is still embedded in the criminal justice (CJ) system today has reached its plateau. One recent article in the Washington Post has claimed an overwhelming evidence of racial bias in the CJ system. Whereas some scholars argue that racial disparity is an epitome of real crime rates, others indicate that implicit and/or explicit racial bias against Blacks held by law enforcement agents persists in the system. This review considers both supporting arguments and relevant counterarguments. After evaluating empirical and rigorous research during the past five years, the review maintains that racial bias still exists …

Reconstruction Sentencing: Reimagining Drug Sentencing In The Aftermath Of The War On Drugs, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

The year is 2020, and the world has been consumed by a viral pandemic, social unrest, increased political activism, and a history-changing presidential election. In this moment, anti-racism rhetoric has been adopted by many, with individuals and institutions pledging themselves to the work of dismantling systemic racism. If we are going to be true to that mission, then addressing the carnage of the failed War on Drugs has to be among the top priorities. The forty years of treating drug law offenders as enemies of society have left us with decimated communities and have perpetuated a biased view of …

George Floyd's Legacy: Reforming, Relating, And Rethinking Through Chauvin's Conviction And Appeal Under A Felony-Murder Doctrine Long-Weaponized Against People Of Color, Greg Egan

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.