Criminal Justice
Pass Senate Bill 355: How Proposed Minnesota Legislation Brings the U.S. into Compliance with International Norms
May 25, 2016
by Maria Warhol
As the 2016 presidential election approaches, the issue of voting rights in the United States is more salient than ever. While millions of people will take advantage of their right to vote in the election, nearly six million U.S. citizens are unable to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Of this disenfranchised population, only 25% are incarcerated. The remaining 75% are in the process of completing supervised release (probation or parole) or have served their sentence entirely. This concern only deepens when data reveals that disenfranchisement policy disparately impacts some communities more than others. These concerning figures impact almost every state in the United States.
Joint Publication: Racial Inequality in the Legal System Locally and Nationally
August 5, 2021
View/Download Issue PDF A note from JLI Vol. 39 Editor-in-Chief Navin Ramalingam: This special joint online issue, Racial Inequality in the Legal System Locally and Nationally, is a collaborative work among the six student-run legal academic journals across the three law schools in the state of Minnesota. The objective of the collaboration is to use our…
Continue ReadingState v. Khalil: How a Minnesota Supreme Court Ruling Led to the Amendment of a Minnesota Criminal Sexual Conduct Statute
February 6, 2023
In this blog post, staff member Remy Bell explores how the case of State v. Khalil impacted Minnesota’s criminal sexual conduct statute.
Continue ReadingStretched Thin: Parents Lacking Resources Who Are Accused of Negligent Child Abuse Need Solutions, Not Prisons
January 21, 2020
The purpose of punishment is not served when the criminal justice system prosecutes poor, and often undereducated, parents for the unintended deaths of their children. Punishment as retribution is excessive for an already grieving parent, and an act cannot be deterred, either specifically to the offender or generally to society, if it was unintended in the first place. Finally, incapacitating parents by way of imprisonment does not ultimately serve the social good because their imprisonment sets up their surviving children for increased risk factors. Punishing a parent who has already received the worst punishment of all—loss of a child—cannot be justified.
Continue ReadingMental Health & Criminal Justice: An Interview with Kelly Mitchell and Professor JaneAnne Murray
October 11, 2021
Interview by Sarah Coleman* October 3-9, 2021 was Mental Health Awareness Week. The United States’ prison and criminal justice systems are deeply interconnected with mental healthcare and mental illness. For many individuals, a mental illness diagnosis and subsequent treatment aren’t made available to them until after they come in contact with the criminal justice system.…
Continue ReadingExpungement of Marijuana Convictions: Lessons Learned from Minnesota Prohibition
February 7, 2023
Articles Editor Cedar Weyker looks back on Prohibition-era Minnesota to determine the best path forward for expungement as states across the country legalize marijuana.
Continue ReadingInmate Rights and the Prison/Jail System During COVID-19—Interview with Prof. Susanna Blumenthal
May 9, 2020
JLI staff members Abbie Hanson and Jen Davison recently interviewed Professor Susanna Blumenthal in a conversation about COVID-19’s effects on inmate rights and the prison/jail system. Professor Blumenthal co-directs the Program in Law and History at the University of Minnesota and she is an expert in criminal law. Professor Blumenthal’s research and writing focuses on the historical relationship between law and the human sciences. In this discussion, the group highlights the challenges of containing a virus in inherently constrained spaces, the damaging results on inmate rights, and how groups are working to ensure that incarcerated individuals receive adequate protection during a pandemic.
Continue ReadingThe Sex Offender Registry is a Life Sentence for Juveniles
December 2, 2021
by Layni Sprouse* In 1990, in the wake of her 11-year-old son Jacob’s kidnapping, which grabbed the attention of the entire county, Minnesota native Patty Wetterling believed it crucial to take action to protect children against sexually violent offenders. Due to her efforts and the tragic story of her son, the first sex offender registry…
Continue ReadingPolice Questioning of Juveniles
February 9, 2023
By Emma Kruger Police interrogation can be intimidating even for adults, but the experience of police questioning for a juvenile suspected of committing or witnessing a crime can be even more overwhelming. Police interrogation practices often do not differ for children, but children’s experience of them and their capacity to adequately make choices in the…
Continue ReadingAvoiding Atkins: How Tennessee is on the Verge of Unconstitutionally Executing an Individual with Intellectual Disabilities
November 18, 2020
If the state executes an intellectually disabled individual, but no one knows of the intellectual disability, has the state violated the constitution? It is our sincerest hope that Pervis Payne and others in a similar procedural labyrinth that could lead to what everyone agrees would be an unconstitutional execution are provided an opportunity to present the merits of their claims of intellectual disability. Justice, decency, and the Constitution demand it.
Continue ReadingThe Rise and Fall of Legalized Recreational Marijuana in South Dakota
January 12, 2022
by Lottie James* By the late evening of November 3, 2020, it had become abundantly clear that a majority of South Dakotans support the legalization of both medical and recreational marijuana use. Two separate initiatives related to the legalization of marijuana usage were on the same ballot, and both initiatives passed with a majority affirmative…
Continue ReadingFace It: Police Can’t Be Trusted with Facial Recognition Technology
March 7, 2023
As facial recognition technology becomes more common, governments must confront the more sinister aspects of this new field, including privacy concerns, threats to free speech, and government surveillance. This piece by JLI Online Editor Joseph Scanlon breaks down the issues with police’s use of facial recognition technology.
Continue Reading2020 Summit for Civil Rights – The State of Multi-Racial America and Black Power
November 16, 2020
In “The State Of Multi-Racial America And Black Power” panel, AG Ellison began his keynote speech by acknowledging the efforts of the common people protesting in the streets every day “bringing forth justice, freedom, [and] accountability in [the criminal justice] system.” Ellison remarked that in order to ensure that Black lives matter Black Power…
Continue ReadingHow a New Ohio Law and Other State Reforms Are Changing the Landscape of Mental Health and Criminal Justice
January 24, 2022
By Bailey Martin* In 2021, Ohio became the only active death penalty state with a law that allows for resentencing of people on death row who have serious mental health conditions. While this kind of law provides an important starting point for thinking about mental health and criminal justice, courts have much further to go to protect all persons with mental health conditions from disparate impacts in the justice system.
Continue ReadingHow Current Law Fails to Protect Defendants with Mental Illnesses from the Death Penalty
March 27, 2023
By Bailey Martin Eighteen men were executed in the United States in 2022[1], and so far, seven more men and women have been executed in 2023.[2] Despite numerous arguments that these individuals suffered from severe mental illnesses, last-minute appeals and clemency requests were unsuccessful.[3] Furthermore, upcoming scheduled executions continue this pattern of executing individuals…
Continue ReadingDoes the Minneapolis Police Department Traffic Stop Data Reveal Racial Bias?
November 24, 2020
This study analyzed Minneapolis Police Department traffic stop data from 2016 to 2020 to determine if racial bias influences MPD behavior. Results of the analysis showed that Black drivers are 10.8% percent more likely to be stopped during the day, when officers can observe the driver’s race for profiling, than when Black drivers’ race is not observable during darkness. The effect was highly statistically significant and demonstrated that Minneapolis Police Department traffic stops are racially biased.
Continue ReadingAre New York’s Bail and Discovery Reforms in Renewed Danger?
February 9, 2022
By Kenneth Cooper* Tracking the status of these New York procedural reforms in particular (one increasing discovery obligations and the other reducing the use of cash bail in pretrial services) can shed further insight into how other attempts at reform, perhaps more substantive in nature, may play out.
Continue ReadingFundamental, Not Absolute: Implications of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s Ruling in Schroeder v. Simon
March 29, 2023
In this blog, Staff Member John Leiner examines the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling in Schroeder v. Simon and how legislation could restore voting rights to Minnesotans with past felony convictions.
Continue ReadingCovid-19 in Prisons: Human Rights Violations and Inmate Exploitation
January 29, 2021
Heather Chang* The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020 required unprecedent changes. While business and individuals have adapted their policies and behaviors to reflect health and safety recommendations, the prison system remains rigid and dangerous. As of January 12, 2021, The Marshall Project reports that at least 343,008 prisoners tested positive…
Continue ReadingReview of Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System by Alec Karakatsanis
February 23, 2022
Andrew Biddison* Criminal law is a required course in law school. As a survey course, there is often a tight focus on black letter law. Unfortunately, this focus ensures that many students—and especially those who choose not to specialize in this area of law—will finish their legal education without an informed understanding of the state…
Continue ReadingRefunding the Community: What Defunding MPD Means and Why It Is Urgent and Realistic
March 18, 2021
We hope this scholarship will help Minnesotans better understand police brutality against Black Americans and people of color, and the need for urgent changes in the way Minneapolis is policed.
Continue ReadingAbove the Law: How Kim Potter’s Sentencing Serves as Another Example of Police Receiving Disproportionately Low Sentences
March 7, 2022
The recent sentencing of former Brooklyn Center Police Officer Kimberly Potter provides a reminder that police officers who kill people while on duty are granted leniency over and over again in the criminal justice system.
Continue ReadingDeadly Force: How George Floyd’s Killing Exposes Racial Inequities in Minnesota’s Felony-Murder Doctrine Among the Disenfranchised, the Powerful, and the Police
March 8, 2021
View/Download PDF Version Greg Egan[1] I. Equity in Peril: How Felony-Murder Charging Discretion and Widely Varying Punishments are Deployed Against White Defendants, Defendants of Color, and Peace Officers Minnesota’s second-degree felony-murder statute represents a unique and creative charging mechanism that affords wide discretion to prosecutors. This makes it ripe for inequitable application. It is the…
Continue ReadingBiden’s Private Prison Ban Must Include ICE Detention
March 16, 2022
By Katie McCoy* Our incarceration-focused immigration system needlessly locks up hundreds of thousands of noncitizens each year. The number of people incarcerated in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody was 15,000 when President Biden first took office, and it now hovers near 29,000. Sixty-nine percent of those detained have no criminal history. Many ICE detention…
Continue ReadingThe $2 Billion-Plus Price of Injustice: A Methodological Map for Police Reform in the George Floyd Era
March 22, 2021
View/Download PDF Version David Schultz† Introduction The death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer forced America again to confront the connection between racism and law enforcement. It also compelled the City of Minneapolis to act. Merely a few days later on June 7, 2020 a majority…
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