Criminal Law

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Essay
Volume 89.2
Barbed Wire Fences: The Structural Violence of Education Law
LaToya Baldwin Clark
Assistant Professor, University of California, Los Angeles, School of Law.

I thank Guy-Uriel Charles, Hiba Hafiz, Osamudia James, Etienne Toussaint, the participants of this Symposium and the Culp Colloquia, as well as the excellent editors of the University of Chicago Law Review. To William, Ahmir, Amina, and Ahmad: thank you for giving me the time, space, and motivation to write about issues that matter to me. All mistakes are mine.

In this Essay, I argue that, in urban metros like Chicago, poor Black children are victims of not just gun violence but also the structural violence of systemic educational stratification.

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Essay
Volume 89.2
An Abolitionist Critique of Violence
Allegra McLeod
Professor, Georgetown University Law Center.

I wish to thank Sherally Munshi, Erum Kidwai, Saba Rewald, and participants at the University of Chicago Law School’s Symposium on violence for their engagement with this project. I am also most grateful to the abolitionist organizers, writers, and thinkers whose work to confront violence expands our collective imagination and contributes much to the realization of a more peaceful and just world.

This article proceeds by engaging the critical reflections, writing, organizing, and imaginative visions of contemporary abolitionists who are confronting the sources of violence by building solidaristic and equitable economic alternatives, proliferating peaceful and constructive approaches to violence that do not rely on militarized criminal law enforcement, working to reallocate resources from militarism toward human flourishing, and to commence a just transition to more environmentally sustainable forms of organizing human life on earth.

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Article
Textual Rules in Criminal Statutes
Joshua Kleinfeld
Professor of Law and (by courtesy) Philosophy, Northwestern University.

Twenty years ago, Professor William Stuntz wrote an arti-cle, The Pathological Politics of Criminal Law, that has become a classic of the field. His thesis was that criminal law is beset by political problems (mostly collusive incentives) that cause it to steadily expand, with ever more statutes criminalizing ever more conduct, and punishing more harshly as well.

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Article
v88.6
Asymmetric Subsidies and the Bail Crisis
John F. Duffy
Samuel H. McCoy II Professor of Law and Paul G. Mahoney Research Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law.
Richard M. Hynes
John Allan Love Professor of Law and Nicholas E. Chimicles Research Professor of Business Law and Regulation, University of Virginia School of Law.

We thank Josh Bowers, Kellen Funk, Sandra Mayson, John Monahan, Megan Stevenson, Stephen Ware and workshop participants at the University of Virginia and at the Scalia Law School of George Mason University for valuable comments. We thank Christian Fitzgerald, Ariel Hayes, Caitlyn Koch, Molly Mueller, and Louis Tiemann for valuable research assistance. We also thank Paul Prestia for responding to our inquiry on a factual matter. All errors remain our own.

The last several years have seen “a truly astounding” and “unprecedented” outpouring of scholarship and commentary decrying the large number of individuals held in pretrial detention, measuring the negative social consequences of such detention, and debating what to do about it.

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v88.4
Vindicating the Right to Be Heard: Due Process Safeguards Against Government Interference in the Clemency Process
Jay Clayton
B.A. 2016, Swarthmore College; J.D. Candidate 2022, The University of Chicago Law School

Many thanks to The University of Chicago Law Review editors and Professor John Rappaport for their help and advice.

In 2020, the U.S. federal government carried out ten exe-cutions, more than in any year since 1896. In a single week in January 2021, it carried out three more.

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Article
v88.3
Qualified Immunity's Boldest Lie
Joanna C. Schwartz
Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law.

For helpful comments on earlier drafts, thanks to Karen Blum, Roger Clark, Barry Friedman, Christopher Kemmitt, James Pfander, Richard Re, Alexander Reinert, Lou Reiter, Jack Ryan, Seth Stoughton, and Stephen Yeazell. For help constructing the dataset of Ninth Circuit cases, many thanks to John Wrench and Anya Bidwell. For excellent research assistance, thanks to Bryanna Taylor and Hannah Pollack. Thanks also to the editors at The University of Chicago Law Review for excellent editorial assistance.

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87.7
California’s Proposition 47 and Effectuating State Laws in Federal Sentencing
Brenna Ledvora
BS 2015, Northwestern University; JD Candidate 2021, The University of Chicago Law School.

Vickie Sanders was convicted in a California state court of felony drug possession, sixteen years before California voters would pass Proposition 47. Proposition 47, which was passed in 2014, reduces most possessory drug offenses from felonies to misdemeanors, and allows California courts to retroactively redesignate individuals’ felonies as misdemeanors.

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Article
87.3
Some Doubts About “Democratizing” Criminal Justice
John Rappaport
Assistant Professor of Law and Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, University of Chicago Law School.

I am indebted to Monica Bell, Merav Bennett, Stephanos Bibas, Andrew Crespo, Justin Driver, Roger Fairfax, Trevor Gardner, Bernard Harcourt, Emma Kaufman, Brian Leiter, Richard McAdams, Tracey Meares, Martha Nussbaum, Dan Richman, Jocelyn Simonson, Roseanna Sommers, and Fred Smith for terrific comments on drafts. Thanks as well to Will Baude, Genevieve Lakier, Lauren Ouziel, and participants at the Criminal Justice Roundtable, the Junior Criminal Justice Roundtable, the University of Chicago Works-in-Progress Workshop, and the University of Virginia Faculty Workshop for generative conversations. For research assistance, thanks to Merav Bennett, Dylan Demello, Morgan Gehrls, Alli Hugi, Kevin Kennedy, and especially Alex Song. The Darelyn A. and Richard C. Reed Memorial Fund furnished financial support.

For the uninitiated, a brief rehearsal of the facts of the matter: The United States presently incarcerates over two million individuals, with another four million under other forms of correctional supervision.