Law Commons^™

Happiness And Punishment, Christopher J. Buccafusco, John Bronsteen, Jonathan S. Masur

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This article continues our project to apply groundbreaking new literature on the behavioral psychology of human happiness to some of the most deeply analyzed questions in law. Here we explain that the new psychological understandings of happiness interact in startling ways with the leading theories of criminal punishment. Punishment theorists, both retributivist and utilitarian, have failed to account for human beings' ability to adapt to changed circumstances, including fines and (surprisingly) imprisonment. At the same time, these theorists have largely ignored the severe hedonic losses brought about by the post-prison social and economic deprivations (unemployment, divorce, and disease) caused by …

Death And Harmless Error: A Rhetorical Response To Judging Innocence, Colin Starger

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Professor Garrett’s impressive empirical analysis of the first 200 post conviction DNA exonerations in the United States (“Garrett Study”) has the potential to affect contemporary debates surrounding our nation’s criminal justice system. This Response explores this potential by harnessing the Study’s data in support of arguments for and against a contested doctrinal proposition — that guilt-based harmless error rules should never apply in death penalty appeals. My analysis starts with the premise that the Study’s real world impact will necessarily depend on how jurists, politicians, and scholars extrapolate the explanatory power of the data beyond the 200 cases themselves. While …

Depoliticizing Individual Criminal Responsibility, Bartram Brown

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No abstract provided.

Life And Death Decisions: Prosecutorial Discretion And Capital Punishment In Missouri, Katherine Y. Barnes, David L. Sloss, Stephen C. Thaman

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This article presents the results of an empirical study of intentional homicide cases in Missouri. The authors created a database of 1046 cases; it includes substantially all of the homicide cases prosecuted in Missouri over a five year period that were initially charged as murder or voluntary manslaughter and that yielded criminal convictions. The authors selected 247 cases from the larger database for more detailed analysis. We analyzed geographic and racial disparities in the rates at which: prosecutors charge first-degree murder versus lesser charges; prosecutors seek the death penalty, not lesser punishments; defendants are convicted of first-degree murder versus lesser …

Jury Trial And Adversary Procedure In Russia: Reform Of Soviet Inquisitorial Procedure Or Democratic Window-Dressing?, Stephen C. Thaman

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A new adversary system of jury trial was introduced in 1993-1994, and the rights to jury trial, adversary procedure, the presumption of innocence, and the mandatory exclusion of illegally gathered evidence were incorporated into the new Constitution of the Russian Federation in December of 1993. The new Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, passed in December 2001, led to the extension of jury trial to the entire country with the exception of the Republic of Chechnia in 2003-2004.

This chapter explores the extent to which the Russian jury system and adversary procedure have humanized criminal procedure, and concludes that …

'The Devil Is In The Details': A Continued Dissection Of The Constitutionality Of Faith-Based Prison Units, Lynn S. Branham

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Faith-based prison units can afford prisoners who choose to be housed in them the concentrated and sustained spiritual nourishment that they believe they need to grow spiritually or in other ways. But critics claim that these units abridge the Establishment Clause. This Article debunks two of the arguments most frequently asserted against the constitutionality of faith-based units. The first is that prisoners cannot exercise a "true private choice" in the "inherently coercive" environment of a prison to live in such a unit. But court decisions confirm that confinement does not abnegate the voluntariness of other decisions made by prisoners, such …

Brennan Lecture Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety Through State Sentencing Reform, Michael A. Wolff

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In this speech delivered for the annual Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Lecture on State Courts and Social Justice, the Honorable Michael Wolff offers a new way of thinking about sentencing. Instead of attempting to limit judicial discretion and increase incarceration, states should aim to reduce recidivism in order to make our communities safer. Judge Wolff uses the example of Missouri's sentencing reforms to argue that states should adopt evidence-based sentencing, in which the effectiveness of different sentences and treatment programs are regularly evaluated. In pre-sentencing investigative reports, probation officers should attempt to quantify - based on historical data - …