Download or read book The Changing Political Landscape for Elected Prosecutors written by David Alan Sklansky and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years the only serious question about district attorney elections was whether they were pernicious or merely a charade. One view was that running for reelection turned prosecutors into politicians, and that politics demanded that prosecutors appear tough, unforgiving, and staunchly pro-police. The rival view was that prosecutorial elections were meaningless, because incumbents hardly ever lost, and campaigns focused on personalities, not on policies. Recently, though, a surprising number of district attorneys have won office by promising some combination of less aggressive charging, more vigilance against wrongful convictions, and greater scrutiny of the police. This essay examines these results and draws three tentative lessons. First, claims about the inexorable logic of criminal justice politics should be greeted with skepticism. Second, there is room for guarded optimism about electoral democracy as a tool for reforming prosecutors' offices, but voters need better tools for evaluating how those offices are performing. Third, as reformers increase their focus on prosecutorial elections, there is a danger worth bearing in mind: the risk that prosecutorial decision-making will become inappropriately politicized, especially when elections focus on the handling or the outcome of particular cases.
Download or read book Charged written by Emily Bazelon and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A renowned journalist and legal commentator exposes the unchecked power of the prosecutor as a driving force in America’s mass incarceration crisis—and charts a way out. “An important, thoughtful, and thorough examination of criminal justice in America that speaks directly to how we reduce mass incarceration.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy “This harrowing, often enraging book is a hopeful one, as well, profiling innovative new approaches and the frontline advocates who champion them.”—Matthew Desmond, author of Evicted FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE • SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR • The New York Public Library • Library Journal • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews The American criminal justice system is supposed to be a contest between two equal adversaries, the prosecution and the defense, with judges ensuring a fair fight. That image of the law does not match the reality in the courtroom, however. Much of the time, it is prosecutors more than judges who control the outcome of a case, from choosing the charge to setting bail to determining the plea bargain. They often decide who goes free and who goes to prison, even who lives and who dies. In Charged, Emily Bazelon reveals how this kind of unchecked power is the underreported cause of enormous injustice—and the missing piece in the mass incarceration puzzle. Charged follows the story of two young people caught up in the criminal justice system: Kevin, a twenty-year-old in Brooklyn who picked up his friend’s gun as the cops burst in and was charged with a serious violent felony, and Noura, a teenage girl in Memphis indicted for the murder of her mother. Bazelon tracks both cases—from arrest and charging to trial and sentencing—and, with her trademark blend of deeply reported narrative, legal analysis, and investigative journalism, illustrates just how criminal prosecutions can go wrong and, more important, why they don’t have to. Bazelon also details the second chances they prosecutors can extend, if they choose, to Kevin and Noura and so many others. She follows a wave of reform-minded D.A.s who have been elected in some of our biggest cities, as well as in rural areas in every region of the country, put in office to do nothing less than reinvent how their job is done. If they succeed, they can point the country toward a different and profoundly better future.
Download or read book The Prosecutor in Transnational Perspective written by Erik Luna and published by . This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Erik Luna and Marianne Wade examine the considerable powers of the American prosecutor and look abroad in order to learn valuable lessons from a transnational examination of prosecutorial authority. They explore parallels and distinctions in the processes available to and decisions made by prosecutors in the United States and Europe. Through the varied topics covered by the contributors on both sides of the Atlantic, they demonstrate how the enhanced role of the prosecutor represents a crossroads for criminal justice with weighty legal and socio-economic consequences.
Download or read book Prosecutors and Democracy written by Máximo Langer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the relationship between prosecutors and democracy, this volume throws light on key questions about prosecutors and the role they should play in liberal self-government. Internationally distinguished scholars discuss how prosecutors can strengthen democracy, how they sometimes undermine it, and why it has proven so challenging to hold prosecutors accountable while insulating them from politics. The contributors explore the different ways legal systems have addressed that challenge in the United States, the United Kingdom, and continental Europe. Contrasting those strategies allows an assessment of their relative strengths - and a richer understanding of the contested connections between law and democratic politics. Chapters are in explicit conversation with each other, facilitating comparison and deepening the analysis. This is an important new resource for legal scholars and reformers, political philosophers, and social scientists.
Download or read book Arbitrary Justice written by Angela J. Davis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2007-04-12 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What happens when public prosecutors, the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system, seek convictions instead of justice? Why are cases involving well-to-do victims often prosecuted more vigorously than those involving poor victims? Why do wealthy defendants frequently enjoy more lenient plea bargains than the disadvantaged? In this eye-opening work, Angela J. Davis shines a much-needed light on the power of American prosecutors, revealing how the day-to-day practice of even the most well-intentioned prosecutors can result in unequal treatment of defendants and victims. Ranging from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases, to the increasing politicization of the office, Davis uses powerful stories of individuals caught in the system to demonstrate how the perfectly legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion can result in gross inequities in criminal justice. For the paperback edition, Davis provides a new Afterword which covers such recent incidents of prosecutorial abuse as the Jena Six case, the Duke lacrosse case, the Department of Justice firings, and more.
Download or read book Prisoners of Politics written by Rachel Elise Barkow and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-04 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America’s criminal justice system reflects irrational fears stoked by politicians seeking to win election. Pointing to specific policies that are morally problematic and have failed to end the cycle of recidivism, Rachel Barkow argues that reform guided by evidence, not politics and emotions, will reduce crime and reverse mass incarceration.
Download or read book The Changing Role of the American Prosecutor written by John Worrall and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2014-03-14 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at how prosecution of offenders is evolving in the contemporary legal milieu.
Download or read book Progressive Prosecution written by Kim Taylor-Thompson and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2024-09-03 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides compelling and manageable solutions for how to reform the criminal justice system from the inside out A racial reckoning in the US criminal justice system was long overdue well before the highly publicized murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and many others in 2020. Progressive Prosecution argues that prosecutors, having helped build our failed system of mass incarceration, must now lead the charge to dismantle it. With contributions from practicing district attorneys as well as leading scholars in the fields of law and criminal justice, Taylor-Thompson and Thompson’s volume offers an unapologetically ambitious vision for reform. The contributors draw from empirical evidence and years of combined research experience to argue that change must happen at the local level, with prosecutors choosing to adopt race-conscious approaches. These prosecutors must do the hard work themselves, actively focusing on the ways that race misshapes perceptions of criminality, influences discretionary calls, affects how we select juries, and induces a reliance on punitive responses. Progressive Prosecution acts as both a call to action and a practical guide, instructing prosecutors on what they need to do to bring about lasting and meaningful change. Progressive Prosecution is an urgent work of scholarship, a must-read for anyone committed to racial equity and meaningful criminal justice reform.
Download or read book Prosecutors and Democracy written by Máximo Langer and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-26 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first sustained, scholarly examination of the relationship between prosecutors and democracy from a cross-national, cross-disciplinary perspective. Written by a team of internationally distingushed contributors, this is an ideal resource for legal scholars and reformers, political philosophers, and social scientists.
Download or read book The Machinery of Criminal Justice written by Stephanos Bibas and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two centuries ago, American criminal justice was run primarily by laymen. Jury trials passed moral judgment on crimes, vindicated victims and innocent defendants, and denounced the guilty. But since then, lawyers have gradually taken over the process, silencing victims and defendants and, in many cases, substituting plea bargaining for the voice of the jury. The public sees little of how this assembly-line justice works, and victims and defendants have largely lost their day in court. As a result, victims rarely hear defendants express remorse and apologize, and defendants rarely receive forgiveness. This lawyerized machinery has purchased efficient, speedy processing of many cases at the price of sacrificing softer values, such as reforming defendants and healing wounded victims and relationships. In other words, the U.S. legal system has bought quantity at the price of quality, without recognizing either the trade-off or the great gulf separating lawyers' and laymen's incentives, values, and powers. In The Machinery of Criminal Justice, author Stephanos Bibas surveys the developments over the last two centuries, considers what we have lost in our quest for efficient punishment, and suggests ways to include victims, defendants, and the public once again. Ideas range from requiring convicts to work or serve in the military, to moving power from prosecutors to restorative sentencing juries. Bibas argues that doing so might cost more, but it would better serve criminal procedure's interests in denouncing crime, vindicating victims, reforming wrongdoers, and healing the relationships torn by crime.
Download or read book Community Prosecution Strategies written by John S. Goldkamp and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Locking Up Our Own written by James Forman, Jr. and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR GENERAL NON-FICTON ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEWS' 10 BEST BOOKS LONG-LISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST, CURRENT INTEREST CATEGORY, LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZES "Locking Up Our Own is an engaging, insightful, and provocative reexamination of over-incarceration in the black community. James Forman Jr. carefully exposes the complexities of crime, criminal justice, and race. What he illuminates should not be ignored." —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative "A beautiful book, written so well, that gives us the origins and consequences of where we are . . . I can see why [the Pulitzer prize] was awarded." —Trevor Noah, The Daily Show Former public defender James Forman, Jr. is a leading critic of mass incarceration and its disproportionate impact on people of color. In Locking Up Our Own, he seeks to understand the war on crime that began in the 1970s and why it was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. Forman shows us that the first substantial cohort of black mayors, judges, and police chiefs took office amid a surge in crime and drug addiction. Many prominent black officials, including Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry and federal prosecutor Eric Holder, feared that the gains of the civil rights movement were being undermined by lawlessness—and thus embraced tough-on-crime measures, including longer sentences and aggressive police tactics. In the face of skyrocketing murder rates and the proliferation of open-air drug markets, they believed they had no choice. But the policies they adopted would have devastating consequences for residents of poor black neighborhoods. A former D.C. public defender, Forman tells riveting stories of politicians, community activists, police officers, defendants, and crime victims. He writes with compassion about individuals trapped in terrible dilemmas—from the men and women he represented in court to officials struggling to respond to a public safety emergency. Locking Up Our Own enriches our understanding of why our society became so punitive and offers important lessons to anyone concerned about the future of race and the criminal justice system in this country.
Download or read book Prisoners of Politics written by Rachel Elise Barkow and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-04 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A history of philosophy in twelve thinkers...The whole performance combines polyglot philological rigor with supple intellectual sympathy, and it is all presented...in a spirit of fun.” —Times Literary Supplement “If one of philosophy’s crucial tasks is to snap us out of complacency and re-frame the parameters of debate, then there is always scope for a roll call of practitioners who have particularly enjoyed inspiring the ‘moment when the gears shift.’...Geuss, who wears his expansive learning lightly, has interesting things to say about them all.” —Catholic Herald “Exceptionally engaging...Geuss has a remarkable knack for putting even familiar thinkers in a new light.” —Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Raymond Geuss explores the ideas of twelve philosophers who broke dramatically with prevailing wisdom, from Socrates and Plato in the ancient world to Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Adorno. The result is a striking account of some of the most innovative thinkers in Western history and an indirect manifesto for how to pursue philosophy today. Geuss cautions that philosophers’ attempts to break from convention do not necessarily make the world a better place. Montaigne’s ideas may have been benign, but the fate of those of Hobbes, Hegel, and Nietzsche has been more varied. Yet in the act of provoking people to think differently, philosophers remind us that we are not fated to live within the systems of thought we inherit.
Download or read book Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice written by Kai Ambos and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-16 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comparative and collaborative study of the foundational principles and concepts that underpin different domestic systems of criminal law.
Download or read book Election Interference written by Jens David Ohlin and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-07-16 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election produced the biggest political scandal in a generation, marking the beginning of an ongoing attack on democracy. In the run-up to the 2020 election, Russia was found to have engaged in more “information operations,” a practice that has been increasingly adopted by other countries. In Election Interference, Jens David Ohlin makes the case that these operations violate international law, not as a cyberwar or a violation of sovereignty, but as a profound assault on democratic values protected by the international legal order under the rubric of self-determination. He argues that, in order to confront this new threat to democracy, countries must prohibit outsiders from participating in elections, enhance transparency on social media platforms, and punish domestic actors who solicit foreign interference. This important book should be read by anyone interested in protecting election integrity in our age of social media disinformation.
Download or read book Governing States and Localities written by Kevin B. Smith and published by CQ Press. This book was released on 2019-01-03 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "An easy-to-navigate, comparative book on state and local government. Very student-friendly and well-organized." —Jane Bryant, John A. Logan College The trusted and proven Governing States and Localities guides students through the contentious environment of state and local politics and focuses on the role that economic and budget pressures play in issues facing state and local governments. With their engaging journalistic writing and crisp storytelling, Kevin B. Smith and Alan Greenblatt employ a comparative approach to explain how and why states and localities are both similar and different. The Seventh Edition is thoroughly updated to account for such major developments as state versus federal conflicts over immigration reform, school shootings, and gun control; the impact of the Donald Trump presidency on intergovernmental relations and issues of central interest to states and localities; and the lingering effects of the Great Recession. A Complete Teaching and Learning Package SAGE coursepacks FREE! Easily import our quality instructor and student resource content into your school’s learning management system (LMS) and save time. Learn more. SAGE edge FREE online resources for students that make learning easier. See how your students benefit.
Download or read book Public Opinion and Criminal Justice written by Jane Wood and published by Willan. This book was released on 2013-05-13 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public opinion is vital to the functioning of the criminal justice system but it is not at all clear how best to establish what this is, and what views people have on different aspects of criminal justice and the criminal justice system. Politicians and the media often assume that the public wants harsher, tougher and longer sentences, and policies may be shaped accordingly. Detailed research and more specific polling often tells a different story. This book is concerned to shed further light on the nature of public views on criminal justice, paying particular attention to public opinion towards specific types of offenders, such as sex offenders and mentally disordered offenders. In doing so it challenges many enduring assumptions regarding people's views on justice, and confronts the myths that infect our understanding of what people think about the criminal justice system.
