Criminal Justice News And Events
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Work by Mike Newton and VLS Practice Lab students to support Iraqi judges profiled in Tennessean article
"How this Vanderbilt law professor and his student are helping Iraqis handle thousands of ISIS cases," an article by Mariah Timms, appeared in the Dec. 13, 2021, edition of The Tennessean. Timms' article profiles Newton's work helping Iraqi judges rebuild their nation's court system and prosecute a backlog of ISIS cases, some involving genocide charges. Read MoreDec. 14, 2021
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Free Justice, a book by Sara Mayeux chronicling the debate about public defense, discussed in New York Review of Books essay by Sarah Seo
Mayeux's book is one of three books addressing public defenders and how public defense has evolved since its inception in the Progressive Era. Seo writes that Mayeux's book "leaves readers with a provocative thought: If we moved beyond adversarialism, what kind of legal representation could defendants receive?" Free Justice, published by the University of North Carolina Press, received the 2020 David J. Langum Prize in American Legal History. Read MoreDec. 3, 2021
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Chris Slobogin’s new book suggests using algorithms may reduce prison sentences and increase use of evidence-based rehabilitative programs
In "Just Algorithms: Using Science to Reduce Incarceration and Inform a Jurisprudence of Risk," released by Cambridge University Press, Slobogin supports his thesis that using risk-prediction algorithms to make sentencing decisions could help reduce unnecessary pre-trial detention, mitigate excessively punitive bail and prison sentences, and divert more eligible candidates to appropriate rehabilitative programs. Read MoreJul. 28, 2021
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Research by Erin Meyers JD/PhD’21 shows arrests have high economic costs even when no conviction results
Meyers found that more than half of Black men had been arrested by the time they were young adults but that Black men were much less likely to be convicted than white men. Her dissertation, The Criminal Justice System and Social Mobility in the United States, documents the negative impacts of over-arrest on the employment and educational opportunities of Black men. Read MoreJul. 12, 2021