American Criminal Justice and Its Discontents

In this course students will participate in direct dialogs with major national experts and institutional leaders from a variety of perspectives on the country's criminal law system. We will hear from experts and leaders from law enforcement, prosecution, public defense, the judiciary, and corrections, and policy experts (including from the academic world). The thematic coverage of the course will be broad, covering empirical assessments of the state of criminal justice in the US, efforts to bring the country out of the phase of mass incarceration while maintaining record-low crime rates, reforms in our sentencing laws (including the death penalty), assessing what is meant by the rubric "progressive prospection," the workload challenges of public defenders, addressing the problem of wrongful convictions, and racial discrimination in both investigation and adjudication of crime. Each week there will be a Zoom interview with a guest. The instructors will interview the guests, and students will then participate in a Q and A phase. The interview sessions will generally run 90 minutes. For each guest there will be preassigned material to be read before the interview. Within 2 days after each interview, students will turn in 3-page reflection papers derived from the interview and reading. The final product will be a 10-page essay on a topic that has emerged from the course. This 10 page paper need not me a scholarly or research endeavor. It can be, in effect, a more extended reflection essay. We anticipate that for most weeks we will have one guest, either Monday or Wednesday, and the other day will be reserved for more elaborate discussions of the most previous guest's presentation or of reading for the next guest. There may be one or 2 weeks where we have 2 guests. While we are just now settling the guest list and anticipate some very exciting additions, for sure it will include Barry Scheck, founder of the famed Innocence Project. Professor Rachel Barkow of NYU. Leading authority on criminal justice administration. Earlonne Woods, former California life prisoner and co-creator and now co-producer and writer for of the Ear Hustle podcast. George Gascon, former Police Chief and former District Attorney of San Francisco and now candidate for Los Angeles County District Attorney. Professor John Donohue of Stanford, widely regarded as the nation's leading empirical researcher of crime and sentencing. Professor Sherri Lynn Johnson of Cornell, expert on the death penalty, who successfully argued the dramatic Flowers v. Mississippi case in SCOTUS last year (overturning a death verdict because of racial discrimination in jury selection.). Enrollment: Limited to 25 students; slots are guaranteed for students who had been enrolled in the Three Strikes Project course or Advanced Criminal Law for Spring term. Schedule. There may be a few sessions at a different time to accommodate our guests' schedules and constraints. The attendance rule for students is that they must ensure live attendance at least 8 of the sessions. For any missed session, the student must view the recorded video of the session within 24 hours and submit the reflection paper on schedule. Elements used in grading: Attendance, Class Participation, Written Assignments, Final Paper. CONSENT APPLICATION: To apply for this course, students must complete and submit a Consent Application Form available on the SLS website (Click Courses at the bottom of the homepage and then click Consent of Instructor Forms). See Consent Application Form for instructions and submission deadline.