Paul's Justice Blog

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Required Readings

Paul Leighton and Jeffrey Reiman, Criminal Justice Ethics

I am building a companion website to Criminal Justice Ethics, which can be a helpful resource in clarifying parts of the reading and/or exploring topics that interest you. 

More information on Plagiarism and citing internet sources

Student Conduct Code

Recommended Reading 

Henry & Hinkle, Careers in Criminal Justice (Sheffield) 1879215438

Tobocman, You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive (Soft Skull) 1887125352

Murakimi. Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche. (Vintage)  0375725806.

Randall Kennedy, Nigger (Pantheon Books) 0375421726

Jack Olsen. Last Man Standing: Tragedy and Triumph of Geronimo Pratt. Anchor (2001) 0385493681.

Date

Required Reading

Click here for syllabus (adobe.pdf) | Career & Job Info

• more information about moral reasoning and moral systems from the CJ Ethics website
• even as we pat ourselves on the back, as a society, for punishing NFL quarterback Michael Vick harshly for his involvement in dogfighting, we should also consider the extent to which we may be hypocritical in doing so. Colb asks how, if we judge and punish Vick harshly for torturing and killing animals, the overwhelming majority of us can still continue to eat meat and other animal products, and to wear leather goods, in light of the cruelty through which all of these are produced. (Findlaw.com column)
• The quote I read about Rawls: So put yourself in John Rawls’s original position and imagine that you could occupy any rank in the social hierarchy. Let me be more concrete: imagine that you could be born a black American male outcast shuffling between prison and the labor market on his way to an early death to the chorus of nigger or criminal or dummy. What social rules would we pick if we actually thought that they could be us?

• companion materials on the insanity defense;
• Criminal Justice Ethics page related to the social adversity defense
• Why Hurricane Katrina's So-Called Looters Were Not Lawless: They Are Entitled to the Well-Established Defense of Necessity (Findlaw.com column)

• Material on mens rea and attempts (including impossible attempts). 

IN CLASS QUIZ #1: The reading by Katz in the textbook discusses a number of cases involving impossible attempts. One of the cases discussed is State v Clarissa. Your quiz will ask: “(1)  What were the facts giving rise to the case? (2) Did the Supreme Court of Alabama uphold or reverse the conviction? Why?”  

Part 2, Feinberg p 87-88 (skip section 4) & 92 (Mill) - 108

Class will cover substantial material not in the text

• Harm Principle, Paternalism & Legal Moralism

• One could stroll down Alabama's southern streets selling semiautomatic rifles and dildos, and be arrested for the dildos. There's a more detailed news article from law.com and a thoughtful analysis of the right to sexual privacy in a Findlaw.com column. 
• Michigan sodomy law info
• Meiwes, a German citizen, has freely admitted to dismembering another German man and eating his flesh. Indeed, Meiwes carefully preserved the killing on videotape and still had pieces of the body in his freezer when he was arrested. During much of the process of dismemberment, the victim reportedly remained conscious. The obstacle to a murder charge is the fact that the evidence incontrovertibly shows that Meiwes's victim wanted to be eaten. Indeed, he had agreed to the arrangement over the Internet, answering an ad placed by Meiwes that specifically sought a person who wanted to be slaughtered and cannibalized. In the U.S., the victim's consent is no defense to murder, and it would be easy to prosecute an American counterpart to Meiwes. But in Germany, the victim's consent renders the crime a "killing on request" -- that is, an instance of illegal euthanasia. Unfortunately, this offense is punishable by a very modest sentence of from six months to five years of incarceration. [Is it Always Torture to Dismember and Eat a Conscious Human Being? Findlaw.com]

IN CLASS QUIZ #2: Read the article from Findlaw.com: The Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down the State's Fornication Law. For your quiz, know: (1) Lawrence concerned the validity of what law, and what was the general holding; (2) what were the substantive grounds for the holding, including the points emphasized by Stevens in the earlier case; and (3) what does the author see as the implications of this case for fornication statutes?

• Drug Legalization debate pages
• 9 drawings were done by an artist under the influence of LSD -- part of a test conducted by the US government during the late 1950's (be sure to go through all 9 drawings and commentary)
• Two articles deal with differences between the U.S. and Canada on a variety of issues involving paternalism and legal moralism - "Whoa! Canada!" and "A Tolerance for IV Drug Users"

• "the other drug legalization movement" pharmaceutical companies make drugs that have the same effect as illegal drugs; they make money, the rich get access to the effect legally, while the poor are criminalized for self-medicating.

• The Peace Drug: Rape-induced post-traumatic stress disorder had destroyed Donna Kilgore's life. Then experimental therapy with MDMA, a psychedelic drug better known as ecstasy, showed her a way out. Was it a fluke -- or the future? (Washington Post, 25 Nov 2007)

• More about Prostitution & Sex Work from the Criminal Justice Ethics site 
• Full text of In re P with a few helpful links
• check out the feminist stripper page
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Feminist Perspectives on Sex Markets
• "Dawson Miller," one of the women who appears nude on her "own" website does an interview: she did 10 shoots a day for a week because she needed the money, but her Christian background gave her regrets and she backed out of further involvement with her site (which is still posting "new" content because of all the shoots they did with her). (a few interesting comments if you have time to scroll them)

• Full text of Mitchell case, with some helpful links
• CJ Ethics: Hate Crimes
• StopViolence: Hate Crimes
• Without Sanctuary: Lynching Postcards and Photographs

IN CLASS QUIZ #3: Read the Findlaw.com column about the KKK and the NYPD. The quiz will ask you (1) what facts give rise to this case and what was at issue here, (2) what were the two theories used by the court to uphold the law, and (3) why does the author of the column critique the court?  

• More on Tobacco and Corporate Violence (inc summary of Reiman's argument)
• I recommended the article When Workers Die about the failings of OSHA.
• Link for the public health blog that describes the controversy over the microwave popcorn additive and the failure of numerous agencies

IN CLASS QUIZ #4: Read the Findlaw.com article, The U.K.'s "Corporate Manslaughter" Statute. For the quiz, know: (1) what does th elaw allow the British Government to do; (2) what are the penalties: and (3) how does the author claim this is different from the US model?

TEST 1 remember to be on time because no one will be admitted to take the final after the first person has left

link for bonus question (what is the article about and how does it relate to what we've been studying)

• More on Police Ethics
• Read a copy of the Appendix that has working links and some additional info

• Miranda v Arizona abstract, opinion & audio of oral argument
• Brewer v Williams ('Christian Burial' case): Good police work or unfair interrogation?

• The Tobias opinion with some working weblinks about entrapment
• "Sting Operations" (72p .pdf) NIJ/COPS series)

• More info on Legal Ethics and some lawyer jokes
• Read the true story about the behavior of a lawyer, taken from a book called The Moral Compass of the American Lawyer. 

• FourthAmendment.com
• Flex Your Rights: Civil Liberties and Police Encounters case law

• Read the Findlaw column A RIGHT OF JURY NULLIFICATION IN SOUTH DAKOTA?, esp the section “Why the legal status of jury nullification matters.” 

TEST 2 remember to be on time because no one will be admitted to take the final after the first person has left

link to bonus question

• The text for the first edition of Just and Painful is available online.

• Death Penalty links from Criminal Justice Ethics
• A study by the Texas Defender Service concludes that capital defendants in the state have more than a 1 in 3 chance of being executed without benefit of competent appellate attorneys.

• Background information from Cornell Law School about Roper v Simmons (the juvenile death penalty case), where the Supreme Court abolished executions for juveniles. 

IN CLASS QUIZ #6: Read this statement by the president of the ASA. Be prepared to answer the following questions: (1) in this context, who is the ASA, (2) which of the following actions is ethical for them to perform - selecting injection sites; starting intravenous lines as a port for a lethal injection device; prescribing, preparing, administering, or supervising injection drugs or their doses or types; inspecting, testing, or maintaining lethal injection devices; and consulting with or supervising lethal injection personnel, and (3) does the ASA President feel that having the execution chamber be more like an operating room is good or bad? Why?

If it is helpful, see the background brief written by Cornell Law School, but note that you do not need to read this and the paper should focus on concerns about the lethal injection protocols rather than general background. There are links to additional briefs and information through my blog entry on this case. 

Supreme Court upholds Kentucky's lethal injection - link to summary of opinion and full written opinions. 

We will be watching a talk given by Dr Ron Huff on wrongful conviction. This was part of a distinguished lecture series that is available on Youtube. We will be playing it in class or you can watch it on your own. The talk is broken down into seven segments. Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7. 

• As DNA testing frees increasing numbers of innocents from prison, Maryland and other states across the country are facing a politically sensitive and morally complex calculus: What is the value of a life unjustly spent behind bars? "What's a prison rape worth?" asked Ronald Kuby, a New York lawyer who has worked on compensation cases. "What's missing your child's first day of school worth? Not being with your parents as they lay dying? Having your parents go to their graves with you branded a convict?" ("Putting A Price on Innocents' Lost Years" Washington Post, 4 Oct 2004, p A1)

• The story I mentioned in class about the 17 year old who was convicted but recently freed from death at 34 is here: Vindicated by DNA, but a lost man on the outside. The New York Times has interviewed many people who were wrongfully convicted and put them together in a multimedia feature where you can list to their stories. 

• MSNBC had a good piece on 'child erotica' - nonnude but suggestive pictures of young teenage girls; there's also a link to the Knox case where a circuit court decides nudity is not a requirement for 'lewd and lascivious exhibition of the genitals' required for a child porn conviction. 

IN CLASS QUIZ #7: Read the column in Findlaw.com about the virtual child pornography case. The quiz will ask you about (1) what is 'virtual child porn', (2) what is the significance of the Ferber case, and (3) why doesn't the law prohibiting 'real' child porn also apply to 'virtual' child porn? [you need to be more specific that ‘it is not real’ – why, from the point of view of Ferber, does the reality make a difference?]

• Should employers be able to require workers to be implanted with chips? California law says no, but has many loopholes (Findlaw.com column)

• Televising executions ~ Televising McVeigh's execution was dealt with in Lappin v Entertainment Network. My research on televising McVeigh's execution - description of the work and 25 minute mp3 file

Final Exam  - 1:30 - 3

Review Sheet ~ link for bonus question (this column discusses laws about doing what? What changes does she recommend to make the laws more effective? 

remember to be on time because no one will be admitted to take the final after the first person has left

While it is not material for the final exam, if you are interested the Supreme Court upheld Kentucky's lethal injection - link to summary of opinion and full written opinions. 

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