New Grounds for Lenity: Text, "Context", and Giving Criminal Defendants the Benefit of the Doubt
Is an undersized red grouper a “tangible object” within the meaning of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act? Is a cigarette a “combination product” to deliver a drug (nicotine) to the body within […]
Treating the Social Cancer: Applying Abolition Constitutionalism to Qualified Immunity
Angel Sanchez, a formerly incarcerated criminal justice activist, asserts “the prison system is like a social cancer: we should fight to eradicate it but never stop treating those affected by […]
A Post-Disposition Advocacy Perspective: An Interview with Raymond Ngu, Legal Director of Open City Advocates
Open City Advocates, founded in 2005 by Whitney Louchheim and Penelope Spain, provides legal representation and mentoring services to children in the Washington D.C. juvenile system who have undergone sentencing […]
A Reform Perspective on Public Safety: An Interview With Tahir Duckett, Director of Georgetown’s Center for Innovation in Community Safety
Since its founding in 2020, the Center for Innovations in Community Safety (CICS) at the Georgetown University Law Center has made strides in advancing reform and reimagining public safety. One […]
The Mistaken Law of Mistakes of Law: Mistakes Negating Culpability Under the Model Penal Code
This Article examines the relationship between two core principles of American criminal law. On one hand, ignorance of the law is no excuse. On the other hand, criminal liability requires […]
Morrison’s Flawed “Focus” Test and the Transnational Application of the (Misinterpreted) Wire Fraud Statute
Federal prosecutors’ mantra is “when in doubt, charge wire fraud.” Section 1343 can be applied to any scheme to defraud—a capacious term that encompasses everything from computer scams to bribery […]
Defining “Victim” Through Harm: Crime Victim Status in the Crime Victims’ Rights Act and Other Victims’ Rights Enactments
Who qualifies as a “victim” is the foundational question for the Crime Victims’ Rights Act (“CVRA” or “Act”) and other crime victims’ rights laws. This article provides the first comprehensive […]
The Extravagance of Eighth Amendment Deference
We live in an era of extremely long prison sentences, visibly excruciating executions, and violence-plagued prisons. We also live in an era of penological judicial restraint, which manifests through the […]
Write Before You Watch: Policies for Police Body-Worn Cameras That Increase Accountability and Accuracy
In the wake of high-profile killings and abuse by police officers over the past few years, the public has come to expect that officers will be equipped with body-worn cameras […]
Ending Restitution’s Gilded Age: Bankruptcy, Criminal Law Exceptionalism, and Forgiveness
The criminal justice system bills defendants for the distribution of justice. Defendants are subject to legal financial obligations at all stages of their case that can metastasize into unpayable debts. […]
DPA Discounts
There is a longstanding debate over the propriety of corporate deferred and non-prosecution agreements, those semi-private settlements entered into between prosecutors and companies under criminal investigation. That debate is occurring […]
Anything But Compassion: The Conflict Between Exhaustion and Compassionate Release
Horacio Estrada-Elias was a ninety-year-old prisoner with less than eighteen months to live due to congestive heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and chronic kidney disease when he requested compassionate release. He […]
Why Attacks on Prosecutorial Discretion Are Attacks on Democracy
As communities across the United States have increasingly elected reform-minded prosecutors to lead their local district attorney’s offices, the broad discretion afforded to American prosecutors has faced unprecedented scrutiny. Opponents […]
Letter from the Editor
Whether directly or indirectly, the American criminal legal system affects every person living in the United States. How we choose to criminalize and punish behavior speaks to what we value […]
Preface: New Directions in Prosecutorial Reform
This Preface, which introduces the American Criminal Law Review’s Symposium Issue on Reform-Minded Prosecution, begins by describing the power that prosecutors hold in the criminal legal system, which has historically […]
Drug-Induced Homicide Laws and False Beliefs About Drug Distributors: Three Myths That Are Leaving Prosecutors Misinformed
An increasing number of criminal legal system actors, including some prosecutors, have acknowledged that the so-called “overdose crisis” is a public health problem. Despite this narrative shift, some prosecutors are […]
A Fiduciary Theory of Progressive Prosecution
Progressive prosecutors differ from their more traditional counterparts primarily in the way in which they make decisions. They tend to bind their discretionby announcing categorical policies rather than making fact-based […]
Prosecutorial Mutiny
Elected progressive prosecutors face resistance on many fronts to their reforms of the overly harsh and racist criminal legal system. One of these forms of resistance is particularly corrosive—internal dissension […]
Progressive Prosecution or Zealous Public Defense? The Choice for Law Students Concerned About Our Flawed Criminal Legal System
This Article addresses a question asked by many law students concerned about our flawed criminal legal system: should they become a prosecutor in an office run by a progressive prosecutor, […]
Progressive Prosecutors or Zealous Defenders, From Coast-to-Coast
This Article challenges the narrative that the progressive prosecutor movement can meaningfully transform the criminal legal system and argues that the myopic focus on prosecutors as the solution to all […]
Progressive Prosecutors: Winning the Hearts and Minds of Line Prosecutors
The progressive prosecutor movement offers many critical proposals to reform our criminal justice system. However, it has not been able to fully accomplish its goals in many jurisdictions because the […]