Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons^™

Innocence Protection Act: Death Penalty Reform On The Horizon, Ronald Weich

All Faculty Scholarship

The criminal justice pendulum may be swinging back in the direction of fairness. The Innocence Protection Act of 2001, introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives earlier this year, promises meaningful reforms in the administration of capital punishment in the United States.

Unlike previous slabs at reform, the Innocence Protection Act (lPA) has a real chance to become law because it commands unusually broad bipartisan support. The Senate bill (S. 486) is sponsored by Democrat Pat Leahy of Vermont and Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon. The House bill (H.R. 912) is sponsored by Democrat Bill Delahunt of …

As Freedom Advances: The Paradox Of Severity In American Criminal Justice, David Cole

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

According to the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu, "as freedom advances, the severity of the penal law decreases."' Montesquieu's notion is in the United States Constitution's Eighth Amendment, a provision that reflects a Montesquieuan faith that punishments acceptable today will become cruel and unusual tomorrow. Yet the United States in the year 2000 presents a serious challenge to Montesquieu's notion of the progress of freedom. The United States is simultaneously a leader of the "free world" and of the incarcerated world. We celebrate and export our commitment to free markets, civil rights, and civil liberties, yet we are also a world leader …

Rule Of Law And The Limits Of Sovereignty: The Private Prison In Jurisprudential Perspective, Ahmed A. White

Publications

No abstract provided.

Street Stops And Broken Windows: Terry, Race And Disorder In New York City, Jeffery Fagan, Garth Davies

Faculty Scholarship

Patterns of "stop and frisk" activity by police across New York City neighborhoods reflect competing theories of aggressive policing. "Broken Windows" theory suggest that neighborhoods with greater concentration of physical and social disorder should evidence higher stop and frisk activity, especially for "quality of life" crimes. However, although disorder theory informs quality of life policing strategies, patterns of stop and frisk activity suggest that neighborhood characteristics such as racial composition, poverty levels, and extent of social disorganization are stronger predictors of race- and crime-specific stops. Accordingly, neighborhood "street stop" activity reflects competing assumptions and meanings of policing strategy. Furthermore, looking …

Be Careful What You Wish For: An Examination Of Arrest And Prosecution Patterns Of Domestic Violence Cases In Two Cities In Michigan, Andrea D. Lyon

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

This Article will examine six months of data on arrests for domestic violence in the cities of Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. In order to be able to interpret what the data means Lyon did some other research. The results were surprising- for example, although women tend to be injured most severely by domestic violence, they use violence in intimate relationships a little more often than men. Part I of this Article traces a brief history of domestic violence and discusses the issue of who commits domestic violence, Part II discusses the "must arrest" and "should arrest" policies and their history, …

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 …

Race, Cops, And Traffic Stops, Angela J. Davis

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

This article discusses the Supreme Court's failure to provide a clear and effective remedy for discriminatory pretextual traffic stops. The first part explores the discretionary nature of pretextual stops and their discriminatory effect on African-Americans and Latinos. Then, the article examines Whren v. United States, a Supreme Court case in which the petitioners claimed that these “pretextual stops” violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution and are racially discriminatory. The Supreme Court rejected the claim, upholding the constitutionality of pretextual stops based on probable cause and noting that claims of racial discrimination must be challenged under the Equal Protection Clause. …

Benign Neglect* Of Racism In The Criminal Justice System, Angela J. Davis

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Michael Tonry, Malign Neglect: Race, Crime, and Punishment in America

The Politics Of Predicting Criminal Violence, Sheri Lynn Johnson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Prediction of Criminal Violence by Fernand N. Dutile and Cleon H. Foust

Dangerousness And Criminal Justice, Franklin E. Zimring, Gordon Hawkins

Michigan Law Review

The first section of this paper surveys some recent writings on the topic of dangerousness for major inconsistencies, which we regard as illuminating the special problem of dangerousness in the jurisprudence of criminal sentencing.

The second section describes the "special problem of dangerousness," for, we believe, the first time. The special problem is the fear that any admission of calculations of dangerousness into sentencing decisions will lead to an overuse of dangerousness, which may be worse than the inefficiencies and hypocrisies we confront when denying that future dangerousness is relevant to decisions about prisons.

The third section attempts to reorganize …

An Examination Of Whether Incarcerated Juveniles Are Entitled By The Constitution To Rehabilitative Treatment, Andrew D. Roth

Michigan Law Review

This Note attempts to resolve the arguments presented in the literature and the case law and determine whether the federal Constitution mandates a right to treatment for involuntarily incarcerated juveniles. Part I examines the varied situations that have given rise to right to treatment claims. Part II elucidates the three principal theories on which right to treatment claims have been based: (1) that because the purpose of incarcerating juveniles is to promote their welfare, rehabilitation is mandated by the due process requirement that the nature of the commitment "bear some reasonable relation to the purpose for which the individual is …

Abscam And The Constitution, Louis Michael Seidman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of ABSCAM Ethics: Moral Issues and Deception in Law Enforcement by Gerald M. Caplan

Ethics, Public Policy And Criminal Justice, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Ethics, Public Policy and Criminal Justice by Frederick Elliston and Norman Bowie

The Policy Dilemma: Federal Crime Policy And The Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, Michigan Law Review

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Policy Dilemma: Federal Crime Policy and the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration by Malcolm M. Feeley and Austin D. Sarat

Sentencing, The Dilemma Of Discretion, Jerold H. Israel

Book Chapters

[The following excerpts are taken from Professor Jerold Israel's revision of the late Hazel B. Kerper's Introduction to the Criminal Justice System ( West Publishing Co. 1979), with permission of the author and publisher. Footnotes have been omitted.] As we have seen, judges usually have substantial discretion in sentencing. Most states give them considerable leeway in choosing between probation and imprisonment, in setting the term of imprisonment under either an indeterminate or determinate sentencing structure, in deciding whether a young offender will be given the special benefits of a youthful offender statute, and in determining whether to impose consecutive or …

Denial Of Justice, Joel M. Flaum

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Denial of Justice by Lloyd L. Weinreb

The Decline Of The Rehabilitative Ideal In American Criminal Justice, Francis A. Allen

Cleveland State Law Review

At this point I am going to advance a proposition. It is an analytic proposition, not an empirical statement, and relates to what characteristics a society must possess in order to maintain a flourishing rehabilitative ideal. Then I shall try to test that proposition by looking at two very different societies in which the rehabilitative ideal flourished. Finally, I shall ask whether those conditions are satisfied in modem America. My proposition is in two parts. First, you cannot have a flourishing rehabilitative ideal unless the society as a whole has a strong faith in the malleability of human behavior and …

The Repressed Issues Of Sentencing: Accountability, Predictability, And Equality In The Era Of The Sentencing Commission, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

The existence of disparities in the sentences imposed on equally culpable offenders has long been a subject of jurisprudential concern. The author provides a critique of recent efforts to objectify the sentencing process that rely on a matrix table prescribing guideline sentence lengths on the basis of offense severity and predictions of recidivism. With particular emphasis on the Sentencing Commission authorized by pending federal legislation, he urges the need for political accountability in the body that inevitably makes value judgments in the preparation and administration of such a guideline system. Finally, the author discusses the normative issues that surround the …

Judicial Examination Of The Accused--A Remedy For The Third Degree, Paul G. Kauper

Michigan Law Review

Reprint from 30 Michigan Law Review 1224.

In its report on "Lawlessness in Law Enforcement" the Wickersham Commission concludes that in the police systems of a number of American municipalities the "third degree" is very generally practiced as a means of extorting from accused persons under arrest confessions, incriminating statements, and other information of value to the police. The conclusion of the Commission confirms the results of private investigation made in the same field. It is true that the methods of inquiry pursued by the Commission leave doubt as to the accuracy of some of the facts reported. But the …

Legal Rights In A Juvenile Correctional Institution, Matthew L. Myers

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This article focuses on the effect on juvenile correctional institutions of the erosion of the "hands-off" doctrine and the introduction of procedural safeguards in the juvenile justice system. In so doing, the article examines the difficulties inherent in any attempt to reform institutional practices and procedures to accommodate the goals of the juvenile correctional model. In the juvenile context, the extent to which fundamental rights need or may be abrogated to allow the institution freedom to rehabilitate and treat its inmates is crucial. Therefore, this article examines three areas involving fundamental constitutional rights: imposition of punitive segregation, freedom of communication, …

Rule-Making And The Police, Carl Mcgowan

Michigan Law Review

That remarkable man, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, in whose name and by whose providence we are met on this occasion, had many profound perceptions about the nature of law-making. Except for the violence of the Civil War in his youth, his life was largely lived at a time and in a society which seem simple and benevolent by comparison with our own. Some of his generalizations, nevertheless, continue to define accurately the limitations under which we confront the complexities presently assailing us on every side. This is notably true of the administration of criminal justice.

Theory And Application Of Roscoe Pound's Sociological Jurisprudence: Crime Prevention Or Control?, Louis H. Masotti, Michael A. Weinstein

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The current interest in reforming the administration of justice has been triggered by a number of factors including the 1967 report of the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice and the treatment afforded arrestees during the civil disorders of the past few years. The nation is alarmed at the reported annual increases in crime, and this alarm was manifested in the 1968 presidential election when "law and order" became a major issue. Superficially the answer may seem clear: more effective enforcement of the law and, when necessary, more stringent laws. The critical issue, however, is a …

Short-Term Rehabilitation And Crim Prevention, Jon C. Mackay

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Any program designed to reduce the rate of recidivism in the United States must be viewed as a valuable tool of crime prevention. It can be safely said that at least two-thirds of the crimes committed every year are committed by recidivists, for over the past decade approximately fifty to sixty per cent of all offenders have become repeaters. Thus the elimination of the recidivist in our society would result in a minimum reduction of thirty-three per cent in the number of crimes committed over a given period of time. The task of eliminating recidivism has been left to the …

The Prisoner's Dilemma And Mutual Trust: Comment, Robert L. Birmingam

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

The Moral Quality Of The Criminal Law, Paul D. Carrington

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Revision Of Criminal Law -- Objectives And Methods, Jerome Hall

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.