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Criminal Justice

The administration of our criminal laws poses challenges to our nation’s fundamental belief in liberty and equality. Racial inequality permeates the system from arrest through sentencing. The United States’ imposition of the death penalty increasingly has set us apart from much of the world and has raised concerns about the execution of the innocent. Sentencing law and policy have led courts to impose lengthier sentences, resulting in the incarceration of an alarming percentage of our population. The recent invalidation of mandatory federal sentencing guidelines has left sentencing in flux. Failure to provide adequate resources for representation of accused individuals and investigation of their cases has weakened the criminal justice system. Restrictive rules governing collateral review of convictions have closed the courts to many. This Issue Group explores these and other issues affecting criminal justice.

The Issue Group's Co-Chairs are:


To get involved in the work of the Criminal Justice Issue Group, please fill out the Issue Group Sign-Up Form.

Also, please note that ACS ResearchLink features a number of topics related to the Criminal Justice Issue Group’s work on which law students are encouraged to focus their academic scholarship.
Recent Stories

The American Prosecutor: Power, Discretion and Accountability

Prosecutorial Conference Collage: (Left) Professor Michael Tigar; (Right) U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton

Prosecutorial Power Conference: (Left) Professor Michael Tigar; (Right) U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton

On October 26, 2007 the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy (ACS) and the Washington College of Law at American University held an exciting one-day conference on prosecutorial power. Chaired by Professor Angela J. Davis, the conference was entitled "The American Prosecutor: Power, Discretion and Accountability".

A discussion on the power of the prosecutor is both timely and necessary. Recent events in national news, including the proper role of U.S. Attorneys and the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct in the Duke alleged rape case, demonstrate the need to explore this important subject.

Reinventing the President's Pardon Power


Margaret Colgate Love

Mon, 10/01/2007

In Reinventing the President’s Pardon Power, Margaret Colgate Love, former United States Pardon Attorney, explores the pardon power, placing it in historical context and explaining why the power was included in the Constitution and granted exclusively to the president. Love then describes how the pardon power was used and administered until the 1980s to serve the overall goals of the republic, effectuate justice and grant mercy. She turns next to what she terms “the decline and fall of ordinary pardoning,” a period in the most recent few decades during which presidential pardoning went into a decline in terms of both the frequency and purposes of its use. The author advocates a return to the regular use of the pardon power as it may be used effectively by presidents to do justice, to communicate a vision of criminal justice, to advance law reform and to avoid infamy for making rare grants that the public perceives as favoritism. Noting that public confidence in pardons has been justifiably diminished, Love urges that “[O]ur next president ought to identify the values pardon serves, define a clear role for it in the criminal justice system, and establish a system for administering the power that will maximize its potential for correcting injustice and encouraging reform.”

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Presidential Pardons Issue Brief - October 2007.pdf311.53 KB

A New Era of DNA Collections: At What Cost to Civil Liberties?


Tania Simoncelli and Sheldon Krimsky

Sun, 09/09/2007

ACS is pleased to distribute an issue brief by Tania Simoncelli, Science Advisor in the Technology and Liberty Program at the American Civil Liberties Union, and Sheldon Krimsky, Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning, School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University, entitled “A New Era of DNA Collections: At What Cost to Civil Liberties?” In this issue brief, Simoncelli and Krimsky describe the increasing use by law enforcement of DNA databanks and express concern about the civil liberties ramifications of this expansion. DNA is not like fingerprints, they argue, noting that a person’s tissue must be mined to reveal individualized information about a person well beyond that necessary for identification. DNA databanks are growing, they are being searched for characteristics such as race and familial connections, among other things, and law enforcement officials are seeking new ways to obtain the DNA of individuals. The authors assert that uses of DNA in the law enforcement context are being driven by developments in technology, rather than as a result of an informed public policy debate. They question whether the law enforcement uses of DNA databanks of the presumed innocent or the actually innocent are justified given the enormous privacy and civil liberties concerns raised. Finally, Simoncelli and Krimsky provide a brief set of recommendations to contribute to achieving an appropriate balance between law enforcement and civil liberties.

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Microsoft Word - Simoncelli & Krimsky - DNA Collection & Civil Liberties - September 2007.pdf307.91 KB
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