The title of this post is the title of this new report by Dan Greenberg with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Here is its executive summary: Law enforcement officers
in the United States seize billions of dollars in cash and other personal property from members of the public every year. Most of this seized property is eventually [...]
From C.J. CIARAMELLA at Reason, via NACDL's news-of-interest: President Joe Biden's White House has started sending out clemency applications to thousands of federal drug offenders
currently on home confinement due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Politico reported on Monday, but criminal... [...]
Lisa Steele has posted Investigating and Presenting an Alibi Defense on SSRN. Here is the abstact: The New Jersey Supreme Court has said that “few defenses have greater potential
for creating reasonable doubt as to a defendant's guilt in the... [...]
A couple of month ago, I flagged here the notable new article by Daniel Epps and William Ortman titled "The Informed Jury." I was pleased to see that this week Epps and Ortman
brought their work to the pages of the Washington Post via this notable commentary under the headline "Jurors don’t know what the penalties for a guilty verdict [...]
As reported in this post, the Supreme Court last week stayed the execution of John Ramirez and granted certiorari to consider Ramirez’s request that his pastor be allowed
to physically touch him and audibly pray in the execution chamber while Ramirez is put to death by the state of Texas. In this follow-up post, titled "A short de [...]
Marc Levin has this notable new commentary on plea practices and the trial penalty over at The Crime Report under the headline "‘Planning for Losing’: A Lesson on Justice
Reform from Afghanistan." I recommend the piece in full, and here is a taste: Akin to a peace deal in the American justice system, plea agreements enable defendants [...]
The title of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Christopher Belshaw that I just saw in the new Journal of Controversial Ideas. Here is its abstract:
Suppose we accept that punishment can be legitimate. What form should it take? Many of us believe that it can be acceptable to fine or imprison someone, but that [...]
I just noticed that the US Sentencing Commission this week published here its latest quarterly data report which is described as a "3rd Quarter Release, Preliminary Fiscal
Year 2021 Data, Through June 30, 2021." These new data provide another official accounting of how COVID challenges continued to reduce the usual total number of [...]
From the Chicago Sun-Times, via NACDL's news-of-interest: Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s new plan to seize the assets of gang members looks like a disturbing indication that her
administration is in over its head when it comes to solving Chicago’s violent crime... [...]
Jenny E. Carroll (University of Alabama - School of Law) has posted COVID-19 Relief and the Ordinary Inmate (Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 18, No. 2, 2021) on SSRN.
Here is the abstract: As scholars and advocates have... [...]
