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Full-Text Articles in Law
Local Judges And Local Government, Ethan J. Leib
Local Judges And Local Government, Ethan J. Leib
Faculty Scholarship
This interview-based empirical study explores how local judges view themselves and their crosscutting roles in local and state government. In particular, it considers local judges’ relationships with the public that elects them, the executive and legislative branches of their localities, and the larger statewide judicial bureaucracy of which they are a very large but somewhat disconnected part. The Article reports on the results of interviews with local judges at the county, town, and village levels — and suggests some broader lessons for scholars, officials, and policymakers interested and active in local government law and politics. Those who study local government …
Federal Sentencing In The States: Some Thoughts On Federal Grants And State Imprisonment, John F. Pfaff
Federal Sentencing In The States: Some Thoughts On Federal Grants And State Imprisonment, John F. Pfaff
Faculty Scholarship
As the movement to reduce the outsized scale of US incarceration rates gains momentum, there has been increased attention on what federal sentencing reform can accomplish. Since nearly 90% of prisoners are held in state, not federal, institutions, an important aspect of federal reform should be trying to alter how the states behave. Criminal justice, however, is a distinctly state and local job over which the federal government has next to no direct control. In this paper, I examine one way in which the federal government may be driving up state incarceration rates, and thus one way it can try …