This is a very plain blog with quotes from and links to articles I found interesting, thought-provoking, or relevant to the times. Linking is neither endorsement nor condemnation. Run by http://willslack.com
02 March, 2012
Where American criminal justice went wrong - Page 4 - Boston.com
Where American criminal justice went wrong - Page 4 - Boston.com: But as Stuntz saw it, the Warren Court’s reforms had another, far less obvious effect: They created new incentives that changed the way defense lawyers and prosecutors did their jobs. Stuntz described it as a chain reaction, set off by the fact that the court had focused all its efforts on procedure, and had failed to impose any substantive limits on what legislators could criminalize and the punishments they could impose. The result was that defense attorneys--especially overworked public defenders--realized they could score easy victories for their clients by getting charges dismissed on procedural grounds; legislators, in turn, reacted by criminalizing a much broader range of activities and imposing harsh minimum sentencing requirements, which prosecutors could use as leverage to win guilty pleas.