Criminal Law Commons^™

Why Care About Mass Incarceration?, James Forman Jr.

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. Paul Butler’s Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hip Theory of Justice makes an important contribution to the debate about the crime policies that have produced this result. Butler began his career as a federal prosecutor who believed that the best way to serve Washington, D.C’s low-income African-American community was to punish its law-breakers. His experiences—including being prosecuted for a crime himself—eventually led him to conclude that America incarcerates far too many nonviolent offenders, especially drug offenders. Let’s Get Free offers a set of reforms for reducing …

A Defensible Defense?: Reexamining Castle Doctrine Statutes, Benjamin Levin

Publications

Recent years have seen a proliferation of so-called “castle doctrine” statutes – laws that provide home dwellers with more expansive self-defense protections if they resort to lethal force in confrontations with intruders. The passage of such laws and subsequent uses of the defense have captured the public imagination, prompting significant media attention, as well as skeptical and critical scholarship from the legal academic community.

Considering the current prevalence of castle laws and the often polarized nature of the debate concerning their application, this Article argues that it is important to excavate the doctrine from the culture wars rhetoric in which …

Case Summary: People V. Goetz

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Presentation On People V. White, Frederick K. Brewington, Esq.

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Race And The Doctrine Of Self Defense: The Role Of Race In Determining The Proper Use Of Force To Protect Oneself, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Case Information: People V. White

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Question And Answer Session

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Race And The Doctrine Of Self Defense: The Role Of Race In Determining The Proper Use Of Force To Protect Oneself, Richard Klein

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Performing Discretion Or Performing Discrimination: An Analysis Of Race And Ritual In Batson Decisions In Capital Jury Selection, Melynda J. Price

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Research shows the mere presence of Blacks on capital juries--on the rare occasions they are seated--can mean the difference between life and death. Peremptory challenges are the primary method to remove these pivotal participants. Batson v. Kentucky developed hearings as an immediate remedy for the unconstitutional removal of jurors through racially motivated peremptory challenges. These proceedings have become rituals that sanction continued bias in the jury selection process and ultimately affect the outcome of capital trials. This Article deconstructs the role of the Batson ritual in legitimating the removal of African American jurors. These perfunctory hearings fail to meaningfully interrogate …

Delinquent Or Distracted?: Attention Deficit Disorder And The Construction Of The Juvenile Offender, Rashmi Goel

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

William and Billy, 1 two boys, each 13 years old, appear in juvenile court. Neither has any criminal history. Both are doing poorly in school. Both have been cited for truancy in the past. Both are appearing on assault charges arising out of schoolyard fights. If we could peer into their brains, we would find that both have the same brain chemistry, characteristic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 2 In the end, the court finds one delinquent, and the other merely distracted. The court finds one in need of confinement, and the other in need of care. Two different …

Getting Real About Race And Prisoner Rights, Michael B. Mushlin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the nexus of two stories central to contemporary American jurisprudence and--for tens of millions of citizens--central to the American experience: the rise of the “carceral state” through steep increases in the incarceration of non-whites, and the decline, over the very same period, in legal protections for prisoners. The Article suggests that these two stories cannot be considered in isolation from one another. Nearly everything we know about race from the social sciences suggests that, in the highly pressured context of prison life, racial tensions will play a role in the decisions that guards and administrators make concerning …

The Violent Bear It Away: Emmett Till & The Modernization Of Law Enforcement In Mississippi, Anders Walker

All Faculty Scholarship

Few racially motivated crimes have left a more lasting imprint on American memory than the death of Emmett Till. Yet, even as Till's murder in Mississippi in 1955 has come to be remembered as a catalyst for the civil rights movement, it contributed to something else as well. Precisely because it came on the heels of the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, Till's death convinced Mississippi Governor James P. Coleman that certain aspects of the state's handling of racial matters had to change. Afraid that popular outrage over racial violence might encourage federal intervention in …

Henry Louis Gates And Racial Profiling: What's The Problem?, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

A string of recent studies has documented significant racial disparities in police stops, searches, and arrests across the country. The issue of racial profiling, however, did not receive national attention until the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., at his home in Cambridge. This raises three questions: First, did Sergeant Crowley engage in racial profiling when he arrested Professor Gates? Second, why does it take the wrongful arrest of a respected member of an elite community to focus the attention of the country? Third, why is racial profiling so pervasive in American policing?

The answers to these questions are …

“Whites Only Tree,” Hanging Nooses, No Crime?: Limiting The Prosecutorial Veto For Hate Crimes In Louisiana And Across America, Tamara F. Lawson

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Noose, Timothy Zick

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

An Uninvited Guest: The Federal Death Penalty And The Massachusetts Prosecution Of Nurse Kristen Gilbert, John P. Cunningham

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Efforts To Improve The Illinois Capital Punishment System: Worth The Cost?, Thomas P. Sullivan

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Reader's Companion To Against Prediction: A Reply To Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, And Yoav Sapir On Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, And Race, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

From parole prediction instruments and violent sexual predator scores to racial profiling on the highways, instruments to predict future dangerousness, drug-courier profiles, and IRS computer algorithms to detect tax evaders, the rise of actuarial methods in the field of crime and punishment presents a number of challenging issues at the intersection of economic theory, sociology, history, race studies, criminology, social theory, and law. The three review essays of "Against Prediction" by Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir, raise these challenges in their very best light. Ranging from the heights of poststructuralist and critical race theory to the intricate details …

Racial Fairness In The Criminal Justice System: The Role Of The Prosecutor, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

In this article, Davis analyzes discusses efforts to involve prosecutors in the elimination of racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Part II explains how prosecutors unintentionally contribute to disparities through the arbitrary, unsystematic exercise of discretion. Part III argues that the U.S. Supreme Court has failed to provide an effective legal remedy for victims of race-based selective prosecution. Finally, in Part IV, Davis endorses the use of racial impact studies and task forces and discusses a model reform effort spearheaded by the Vera Institute of Justice.

Looking Deathworthy: Perceived Stereotypicality Of Black Defendants Predicts Capital-Sentencing Outcomes, Jennifer L. Eberhardt, P G. Davies, Valerie J. Purdie-Vaughns, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Researchers previously have investigated the role of race in capital sentencing, and in particular, whether the race of the defendant or victim influences the likelihood of a death sentence. In the present study, we examined whether the likelihood of being sentenced to death is influenced by the degree to which a Black defendant is perceived to have a stereotypically Black appearance. Controlling for a wide array of factors, we found that in cases involving a White victim, the more stereotypically Black a defendant is perceived to be, the more likely that person is to be sentenced to death.

Litigating Salvation: Race, Religion And Innocence In The Karla Faye Tucker And Gary Graham Cases, Melynda J. Price

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

The cases of Karla Faye Tucker and Gary Graham represent two examples of the renewed public debate about the death penalty in the State of Texas, and how religion and race affect that debate. This article explores how the Tucker and Graham cases represent opposing possibilities for understanding contemporary narratives of the death penalty. Though the juxtaposition of these two cases is not completely symmetrical, if viewed as a kaleidoscope—a complex set of factors filtered through the shifting identities of the person who is at the center of the immediate case—the hidden operations of race and religion can be examined. …

The Supreme Court’S Analysis Of Issues Raised By Death Penalty Litigants In The Court's 2004 Term, Richard Klein

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Black Protectionism As A Civil Rights Strategy, Katheryn Russell-Brown

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article has identified and outlined the parameters of Black protectionism, a practice used by African-Americans to protect prominent community members who have been charged with criminal or unethical activity. This practice took root during slavery-during a time when a false or minor charge against one African-American could result in death or great bodily harm to him and scores of other African-Americans. History has cultivated a culture of Black mistrust of Whites in particular and mainstream society in general. This suspicion is reinforced with the continued disparate treatment of African-Americans within the criminal justice system. History and contemporary conditions explain …

Against Prediction: Sentencing, Policing, And Punishing In An Actuarial Age, Bernard E. Harcourt

Faculty Scholarship

Actuarial methods – i.e., the use of statistical rather than clinical methods on large datasets of criminal offending rates to determine different levels of offending associated with one or more group traits, in order to (1) predict past, present or future criminal behavior and (2) administer a criminal justice outcome – now permeates the criminal law and its enforcement. With the single exception of racial profiling against African-Americans and Hispanics, most people view the turn to the actuarial as efficient, rational, and wealth-maximizing. The fact is, law enforcement agencies can detect more crime with the same resources if they investigate …

Discrimination In Sentencing On The Basis Of Afro-Centric Features, William T. Pizzi, Irene V. Blair, Charles M. Judd

ExpressO

For a long time, social scientists have worried about possible racial discrimination in sentencing in the United States. With a prison population that exceeds two million inmates of whom approximately 48% are African American, the worry over the fairness of the sentencing process is understandable. This article is not about discrimination between racial categories as such, but about a related form of discrimination, namely, discrimination on the basis of a person’s Afro-centric features. Section I of the article describes a line of social science research that shows that a person’s Afro-centric features have a strong biasing effect on judgment such …

Juror First Votes In Criminal Trials, Stephen P. Garvey, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Valerie P. Hans, Nicole L. Mott, G. Thomas Munsterman, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Our analysis of the voting behavior of over 3,000 jurors in felony cases tried in Los Angeles, Maricopa County, the District of Columbia, and the Bronx reveals that only in D.C. does a juror's race appear to relate to how he or she votes. African-American jurors in D.C. appear more apt to vote not guilty on the jury's first ballot in cases involving minority defendants charged with drug offenses. We find no evidence, however, that this effect survives into the jury's final verdict.

Justice By Geography And Race: The Administration Of The Death Penalty In Maryland, 1978-1999, Raymond Paternoster, Robert Brame, Sarah Bacon, Andrew Ditchfield

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

Race, Immigration, And The Department Of Homeland Security, Victor C. Romero

Faculty Scholarship

Despite the wisdom of separating the service and enforcement functions of our immigration bureau, the new tripartite system under the auspices of the Department of Homeland Security risks fueling the "immigrant Arab as terrorist" stereotype, rather than helping to re-establish the reality that noncitizen terrorists, like U.S. citizen ones, are a rare species.

Healing The Blind Goddess: Race And Criminal Justice, Mark D. Rosenbaum, Daniel P. Tokaji

Michigan Law Review

Once again, issues of race, ethnicity, and class within our criminal justice system have been thrust into the public spotlight. On both sides of the country, in our nation's two largest cities, police are being called to account for acts of violence directed toward poor people of color. In New York City, a West African immigrant named Amadou Diallo was killed by four white police officers, who fired forty-one bullets at the unarmed man as he stood in the vestibule of his apartment building in a poor section of the Bronx. Did race influence the officers' decisions to fire the …

Prosecution And Race: The Power And Privilege Of Discretion, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article examines prosecutorial discretion and argues it is a major cause of racial inequality in the criminal justice system. It asserts that prosecutorial discretion may instead be used to construct effective solutions to racial injustice. The article maintains that since prosecutors have more power than any other criminal justice officials, with practically no corresponding accountability to the public they serve, they have the responsibility to use their discretion to help eradicate the discriminatory treatment of African Americans in the criminal justice system.

Part I of the Article explains the importance and impact of the prosecution function. Part II discusses …