Law Commons^™

Drug Treatment Courts And Emergent Experimentalist Government, Michael C. Dorf, Charles F. Sabel

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the continuing "war on drugs," the last decade has witnessed the creation and nationwide spread of a remarkable set of institutions, drug treatment courts. In drug treatment court, a criminal defendant pleads guilty or otherwise accepts responsibility for a charged offense and accepts placement in a court-mandated program of drug treatment. The judge and court personnel closely monitor the defendant's performance in the program and the program's capacity to serve the mandated client. The federal government and national associations in turn monitor the local drug treatment courts and disseminate successful practices. The ensemble of institutions, monitoring, and pooling exemplifies …

Bargaining About Future Jeopardy, Daniel Richman

Faculty Scholarship

The debate about how much protection criminal defendants should have against successive prosecutions has generally been conducted in the context of how to interpret the Double Jeopardy Clause. The doctrinal focus of this debate ignores the fact that for the huge majority of defendants – those who plead guilty instead of standing trial – the Double Jeopardy Clause simply sets a default rule, establishing a minimum level of protection when defendants choose not to bargain about the possibility of future charges. In this Article, Professor Richman examines the world that exists in the shadow of minimalist double jeopardy doctrine, exploring …

A Conceptual, Practical, And Political Guide To Rico Reform, Gerard E. Lynch

Faculty Scholarship

RICO is nearing its twentieth birthday, but it may not be a happy one. In fact, 'tis the season for critics of RICO to be, if not jolly, at least highly active. A House subcommittee and the Senate Judiciary Committee have held hearings on RICO reform, the popular and business press has published numerous debates and criticisms involving fairly arcane points of civil and criminal law, scholars and lawyers have filled law reviews and legal newspapers with articles often critical of the statute, and the pressure has been building for statutory changes.

As the pressure for change has intensified, and …

Criminal Law And Population Control, Kent Greenawalt

Faculty Scholarship

Several important questions can be asked about criminal law and the population problem. One is how greatly overpopulation, with its contribution to poverty and urban crowding, is a cause of crime, and, obversely, the extent to which population control would be a form of crime control. Another question is how much population growth increases the range of behavior that is and should be covered by criminal sanctions. Although these and other questions deserve attention, the purpose of this article is more modest – to consider possible changes in criminal law that could help ease the population problem.