American Criminal Justice Excerpts

Excerpts from: William J. Stintz, "The Collapse of American Criminal Justice" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011)

p. 92 - "Felony courts 'often' docked 60 felony indictments in a day. Court business is conducted in a swirl of activity as judges seek to 'move' crowded calendars."

p. 105 - "[There] exist in some places a culture of resistance among prosecutors even to providing the discovery that is legally required." "As measured by DNA evidence from the crime scenes, approximately 25 percent of those the police initially believed to be the perpetrators were not guilty."

p. 117 - "Increasing punishment was driven by public moods of fear and then punitiveness..."

p. 120 - "Recommendations are to have many more cases go to juries and not be plea bargained; less bureaucracy; and more public funding for public defenders."

p. 141 - "And we could require probable cause as determined by an 'impartial magistrate' as a precondition for interrogation at all, conceding, in effect, that detectives will inevitably want to win the 'game' of interrogation of the 'competitive' enterprise of ferreting out crime." "Interrogations should be taped and there should be a prohibition on deceptiveness in the interrogation process, especially lying about the existence of physical evidence."

Excerpts from: Raymond Bonner, "Anatomy of Injustice" (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012)

p. 34 - In the mid-1960s: "Nearly half the individuals being executed were black (even though they made up some 13 percent of the population)."

p. 37 - "The Court's decision in Furman overturned the death penalty in the forty states where it could be applied and in the District of Columbia as well for the federal government."

p. 147 - "Innocence alone does not entitle a defendant to a new trial. In Herrera v. Collins, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said in the majority opinion that after a defendant has had a fair trial, 'the presumption of innocence disappears.' " "Justice Blackmun said that it was 'contrary to any standard of decency to execute someone who is actually innocent.' He said it 'comes perilously close to simple murder.' "

p. 268 - "In Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court, in a 6 to 3 decision, ruled that the execution of someone mentally retarded was proscribed by the Eighth Amendment."

ADDENDUMS:
*Of 192 questionnaires in the [Phil, music impresario] Specter case, 40% of the jurors believe a criminal defendant is obligated to prove his or her innocence. (Source: Richard Gabriel, "Acquitted" (New York: Berkley Books, 2014, p. 38).

*"American children spend an average of 900 hours per year in school; they spend 1,500 hours per year watching television." (Source: Gabriel, p.25).

*"And while almost 60 percent of Americans can name the Three Stooges, only 17 percent can name three justices on the Supreme Court."  (Source: Gabriel, p. 25).

*Just this year, up to mid-February, 46 bills had been introduced in 21 states to make it harder to vote. (Source: The Nation Reports, February 2017).