Confronting Failures of Justice: Getting Away with Murder and Rape: Paul H. Robinson: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Description

Most murderers and rapists escape justice, a horrifying fact that has gone largely unexamined until now. This groundbreaking book tours nearly the entire criminal justice system, examining the rules and practices that regularly produce failures of justice in serious criminal cases. Each chapter outlines the nature and extent of justice failures in present practice, describing the interests at stake, and providing real-world examples. Finally, each chapter reviews proposed and implemented reforms that could balance the competing interests in a less justice-frustrating manner and recommends one—sometimes completely original—reform to improve the system.
A systematic study of justice failures is long overdue. As this book discusses, regular failures of justice in serious criminal cases undermine deterrence and the criminal justice system’s credibility with the community as a moral authority. The damage caused by unpunished crime is immense and, even worse, falls primarily on vulnerable minority communities. Now for the first time, students, researchers, policymakers, and citizens have a resource that explains why justice failures occur and what can be done about them.
Confronting Failures of Justice is accessible for use by college freshman through graduate students and law students and is designed to be main text for a course on justice failures, but it could be used in conjunction with other texts in a broad range of courses touching on criminal justice. It presents arguments in a highly-organized fashion and provides dozens of case studies, many with photographs, to gain student interest and to bring the academic discussions to life.

Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Getting Away with Murder and Rape
A. Introduction: Failures of Justice
B. The Causes of Justice Failures
C. The Frequency and Seriousness of Justice Failures
D. Case Examples and the Public Reaction to Them
E. The Costs of Justice Failures
F. Systemic Indifference to Justice Failures
G. A New Look at the Competing Interests and Imagining Reforms
Part I: Criminal Liability Rules
Chapter 2: Legal Bars to Prosecution
A. Statutes of Limitation
B. Double Jeopardy
C. Diplomatic Immunity
D. The Legality Principle and the Rule of Strict Construction
Chapter 3: Anti-Justice Distributive Principles
A. Deontological Desert as a Distributive Principle
B. Doing Justice as the Most Effective Means of Controlling Crime: Maximizing the Criminal Law’s Moral Credibility with the Community
C. The Problems with General Deterrence and Incapacitation of the Dangerous as Distributive Principles
D. Public Complaints Regarding Anti-Justice Distributive Principles
E. Reforms
F. Recommendation: Adopt the MPC Revision that Sets Desert as the Inviolate Distributive Principle
Part II: Limitations on Criminal Investigation
Chapter 4: Investigative Errors
A. Case Example: O. J. Simpson
B. Case Example: Kenneth “Exxon” Davis
C. Competing Interests
D. The Nature and Extent of the Problem
E. Public Complaints About Investigative Failures
F. Reforms
G. Recommendation: Create a National Center for Crime Investigation Effectiveness (CCIE) to Establish Best Practices and Assist Departments in Meeting Them
Chapter 5: Inadequate Financing
A. Introduction
B. Competing Interests
C. The Nature and Extent of the Problem
D. Public Complaints
E. Past Reform Efforts
F. Reform Possibilities
G. Recommendation: Create a National Center for Crime Investigation Effectiveness (CCIE) to Assist Departments in Obtaining Funding to Meet Practices
Chapter 6: Legal Limitations on Police Investigation
A. Search and Seizure Rules
B. Custodial Interrogation Rule
Chapter 7: Restraints on Use of Technology
A. Competing Interests
B. Public Views on Investigative Use of Technology
C. Restraints on the Use of Biometrics and Forensics (Such as DNA)
D. Restraints on the Use of Surveillance Technologies (Including CCTV)
E. Restraints on the Use of Data Analytics (Including Facial Recognition Software)
Part III: Criminal Justice Adjudication Procedures
Chapter 8: Excluding Reliable and Probative Evidence
A. Excluding Reliable Evidence to Restrain Police and Prosecutors (the Exclusionary Rule)
B. Excluding Reliable Probative Evidence to Avoid “Prejudice”
Chapter 9: Pretrial Procedures
A. Pretrial Release
B. Speedy Trial Rules
Chapter 10: Plea Bargaining
A. Introduction
B. Competing Interests
C. The Nature and Extent of the Problem
D. Public Complaints
E. Reforms
F. Recommendation: Use Consolidated Offense Drafting with Particularized Offense Grades to Reduce the Justice-Frustrating Costs of Plea Bargains
Chapter 11: Unchecked Judicial Sentencing Discretion
A. Introduction
B. Competing Interests
C. The Nature and Extent of the Problem
D. When Judicial Sentencing Discretion Damages the Criminal Law’s Moral Credibility: The Example of Rape
E. Public Complaints About Unchecked Judicial Sentencing Discretion
F. Reforms
G. Recommendation: Adopt Comprehensive Presumptive Sentencing Guidelines (as in the Federal System)
Chapter 12: Early Release on Parole and Compassionate Release
A. Early Release on Parole
B. Compassionate Release
Chapter 13: Executive Clemency and Pardon
A. Introduction
B. Competing Interests
C. The Nature and Extent of the Problem
D. Public Complaints
E. Reforms
F. Recommendation: Adopt Model Pardon Board to Reduce Clemency Abuse and Promote Transparency
Part IV: Social and Political Influences
Chapter 14: Citizen Non-Cooperation
A. Introduction
B. Witness Intimidation
C. The Stop Snitching Movement
D. Cynicism About Criminal Justice Effectiveness
E. Community Upset over Police Use of Force: The False Narrative Problem
F. Recommendation: Create a Police-Community Oversight Commission that Will Help Police Earn Credibility with the Community and Promote Community Cooperation with Police
Chapter 15: Police Non-Intervention
A. Competing Interests
B. Anti-Police Rhetoric and Attacks on Police
C. Depolicing: Defunding Police and Police Exclusion Zones
D. Police Demoralization: Early Retirements and Hiring Difficulties
E. Voluntary Police Non-Intervention: The Ferguson Effect
F. Reforms to Reduce Police Non-Intervention
G. Recommendation: Create a Police-Community Oversight Commission that Will Earn Credibility with the Police
Chapter 16: Anti-Justice Ideological Movements
A. Decarceration, Decriminalization, and Prison Abolition Movements
B. Ideologically Motivated Nonenforcement Policies
Chapter 17: Insights, Patterns & Reform Priorities
A. Why We Should Care About Justice Failures and Why Some Don’t
B. Balancing Competing Interests
C. Reform Priorities
Appendix: Discussion Issues
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
About the Authors

Product details

Published	Aug 15 2024
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	588
ISBN	9781538191767
Imprint	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Illustrations	53 BW Photos, 3 Tables, 1 Textbox
Dimensions	10 x 7 inches
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

Relying on a truly astounding number of case studies, criminological reports, reviews of federal and state laws, and opinion surveys, Confronting Failures of Justice is a mammoth yet incisive documentation of the myriad ways our legal system undermines the goal of ensuring people who commit crimes receive the punishment they deserve. This book’s thoughtful compendium of how to rectify these injustices provides policymakers with a recipe for reform that is both eminently feasible and theoretically robust.

Christopher Slobogin, Milton Underwood Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University; author of Rehabilitating Criminal Justice: Policing, Adjudication and Sentencing
Confronting Failures of Justice is quite simply a tour de force. The writing is compelling, and the subject is urgent. It offers a model of clear thinking about the justice system, carefully assesses where and why justice fails, and presents an important argument about the urgency of doing justice. It is sure to become a classic.

Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
This is the most original and fascinating book on criminal law I have read in years. I learned something important on every page. Liberals and conservatives alike should be receptive to these novel ideas about how serious crime might be reduced.

Douglas N. Husak, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Law, Rutgers University; author of The Philosophy of Criminal Law
When a person shouldn’t be punished, or is punished too much, the injustice done is easy to see. Harder to see is the injustice at work when those who should be punished are never found, their crimes never solved. Robinson, Seaman and Sarahne do a great service bringing this invisible injustice to light, identifying its many causes, and offering commonsense proposals for reform. Highly recommended.

Stephen P. Garvey, A. Robert Noll Professor of Law, Cornell Law School
Criminal-law icon Paul Robinson and his esteemed colleagues have produced a text that flips the threadbare contemporary-academic discussion on its head—asking whether a modern-liberal society that seeks to improve the life and circumstances of all its members must take as seriously its moral obligation of imposing just punishment on wrongdoers as it does avoiding unjust punishment on the innocent. So often modern-intellectual discourse is an echo chamber of rut digging commentary that ignores multitudes of alternative paths. Confronting Failures of Justice systematically explores those other avenues. Kudos for producing such a thoughtful analysis.

Robert Steinbuch, law professor, University of Arkansas at Little Rock
This comprehensive, exhaustively researched book by Paul Robinson, Jeffrey Seaman, and Muhammad Sarahne probes the issues facing criminal justice today, primarily in the English-speaking world. Highly recommended for everyone committed to a just society.

George P. Fletcher, Cardozo Professor of Jurisprudence, Columbia University School of Law