CrimProf Blog

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Procedure eJournal

are here.  The usual disclaimers apply.

Rank	Paper	Downloads
1.	AI-Assisted Police Reports and the Challenge of Generative Suspicion Andrew Guthrie Ferguson American University Washington College of Law Date Posted: 20 Aug 2024 [5th last week]	435
2.	Loper Bright and the Great Writ: Will the New Constitutionalists End "Treason to the Constitution," Restore the Judicial Power, and Make the Law of the Land Supreme Again? [Forthcoming in Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 2024] James S. Liebman and Anthony Amsterdam Columbia University - Law School and New York University School of Law Date Posted: 11 Jul 2024 [4th last week]	311
3.	Prosecutor Transparency Project: Racial Disparities Study (Washtenaw County, Michigan) Grady Bridges and J.J. Prescott Independent and University of Michigan Law School Date Posted: 31 Dec 2023	307
4.	An Open Letter to Law Students on the Death Penalty Jesse Cheng and Helen Prejean DePaul University - College of Law and DePaul University Date Posted: 11 Jul 2024 [6th last week]	188
5.	Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus Steven Arrigg Koh Boston University School of Law Date Posted: 22 Jul 2024 [8th last week]	88
6.	Punishing Gender Erin Collins University of Richmond School of Law Date Posted: 23 May 2024 [9th last week]	76
7.	MODELING MEANING: CAUSAL INFERENCE UNDER THE CALIFORNIA RACIAL JUSTICE ACT W. David Ball Santa Clara School of Law Date Posted: 08 Aug 2024 [new to top ten]	71
8.	Urgent Issues and Prospects on Investigative Interviews with Children and Adolescents Victoria Talwar, Angela Crossman, Stephanie Block, Sonja Brubacher, Rachel Dianiska, Ana Karen Espinosa Becerra, Gail S. Goodman, Michael Lamb, Kamala London, David La Rooy, more... McGill University, City University of New York (CUNY) - John Jay College, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Griffith University, University of California, Irvine, University of Ottawa, University of California, Davis, University of Cambridge, University of Toledo, University of Otago Date Posted: 06 Aug 2024 [new to top ten]	57
9.	The Victims' Rights Mismatch Lee Kovarsky University of Texas at Austin, School of Law Date Posted: 12 Aug 2024 [new to top ten]	51
10.	A Lifeline During Custodial Interrogations? The Right to Counsel and Reflections on R. v. Dussault and R. v. Lafrance Amar Khoday University of Manitoba - Faculty of Law Date Posted: 03 Jul 2024 [new to top ten]	50

Pyle et al. on Parking Ticket Enforcement

Benjamin Pyle, James Reeves, and Elizabeth Luh (Boston University - School of Law, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and University of Houston - Department of Economics) have posted Agency Incentives and Disparate Revenue Collection: Evidence from Chicago Parking Tickets on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

We leverage a sharp 2012 parking fine increase for failing to purchase vehicle registration to examine disparate ticketing patterns across enforcement agencies in Chicago. Using an event-study framework, we find that Chicago police increased their enforcement of car registration non-compliance in Black relative to non-Black neighborhoods, with no observed disparate response for non-police enforcement agencies. This disparity is unexplained by differences in non-compliance and is instead driven by departmental revenue incentives and lower marginal search costs in Black neighborhoods. Disparate enforcement also exacerbated existing gaps in financial instability, including increased rates of ticket non-payment and bankruptcy filings in Black neighborhoods.

"US police use force on 300,000 people a year, with numbers rising since George Floyd: ‘relentless violence’"

From The Guardian, via NACDL's news update:

Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that tracks killings by US police, launched a new database, policedata.org, on Wednesday cataloging non-fatal incidents of police use of force, including stun guns, chemical sprays, K9 dog attacks, neck restraints, beanbags and baton strikes.

The database features incidents from 2017 through 2022, compiled from public records requests in every state. The findings, the group says, suggest that despite widespread protests against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, overall use of force has remained steady since then – and in many jurisdictions, has increased.

 

The data builds on past reports that found US police kill roughly 1,200 people each year, or three people a day, a death toll that has crept up every year and dramatically exceeds rates in comparable nations. The nonfatal force statistics and accompanying report illustrate how the killings are just a small fraction of broader police violence and injuries caused by law enforcement.

Segate on Biology and Criminal Law

Riccardo Vecellio Segate (University of Groningen - Faculty of Economics and Business) has posted Exposing, Reversing, and Inheriting Crimes as Traumas from the Neurosciences to Epigenetics: Why Criminal Law Cannot Yet Afford A(nother) Biology-induced Overhaul

Criminal Justice Ethics on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

In criminal proceedings, offenders are sentenced based on doctrines of culpability and punishment that theorize why they are guilty and why they should be punished. Throughout human history, these doctrines have largely been grounded in legal-policy constructions around retribution, safety, deterrence, and closure, mostly derived from folk psychology, natural philosophy, sociocultural expectations, public-order narratives, and common sense. On these premises, justice systems have long been designed to account for crimes and their underlying intent, with experience and probabilistic assumptions shaping theoretical discourses on the nature of crimes and offenders’ punishability. As scientific discoveries, inventions, and methodologies progressively developed to refine such doctrines and displace long-held assumptions, criminal courtrooms have increasingly witnessed counsels and judges relying on scientific evidence to submit, dispute, or validate claims. For instance, over the last century, criminal courtrooms have selectively admitted neuroscientific models, exams, and insights claiming to revolutionize our understanding of who is culpable and deserving of punishment. Most recently, advancements in epigenetics have promised even more profound challenges to long-standing criminal law doctrines. This article examines the reasons reversibility and inheritability of epigenetic markers might warrant revising culpability and punishment and concludes that epigenetic findings are not yet robust enough to justify such revisions.

"5 Things to Know About How Survivors Get Incarcerated for Their Abusers’ Crimes"

From The Marshall Project, via NACDL's news update:

Every state in the U.S. has a version of “accomplice liability” — laws that allow someone to be punished for assisting or supporting another person who commits a crime, in some cases, even if that participation is under the threat of violence.

A recent Marshall Project investigation found survivors of domestic and sexualized violence are particularly vulnerable to prosecution under these laws because of the control their abusers hold over them.

Snowden et al. on Race and Public Safety Discourse

William C Snowden, Verónica Caridad Rabelo, Oscar Jerome Stewart, and Sarah Fathallah (Loyola University New Orleans College of Law, San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco and Pratt Institute) have posted When Safety for You Means Danger for Me: The Racial Politics of Carceral Public Safety Discourse on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Safety is a human right and universal need, and yet we as researchers and practitioners often take for granted the conditions that help people feel safe. In this conceptual review, we focus on factors that contribute to people’s sense of safety in service of understanding how, when, and where people feel safe. Moreover, we consider how race, power, and privilege shape people’s sense of safety and danger. In doing so, we highlight how public safety is not an objective or static reality but rather a political project that reflects dominant ideologies and serves state interests. We begin this conceptual review with a discussion of how public safety is a social construct whose meaning varies across time, space, and place. Next, we discuss three dominant ideologies that are embedded within collective public safety discourse: permanent bad guy syndrome, the victimization-fear paradox, and the politics of ideal victimhood.

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Nelson on Article III Standing and "Victimless" Crimes

Ryan H. Nelson (South Texas College of Law Houston) has posted Article III Standing in Federal Prosecutions of "Victimless Crimes" (92 Fordham L. Rev. Online ___ (forthcoming 2024)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Plaintiffs in federal court bear the burden of proving their standing since Article III permits inferior federal courts to exercise jurisdiction over "Cases" and "Controversies" alone. From these constitutional terms of art--"Cases" and "Controversies"--we derive the familiar case-or-controversy requirements of standing, including injury. Yet, these terms of art authorize inferior federal courts' jurisdiction over civil and criminal actions alike, but federal prosecutors have never been similarly burdened with proving the standing of the United States, including that the United States has suffered injury. This article examines that lapse and contends that Article III compels federal prosecutors to shoulder the burden of proving that the United States has been injured-a burden easily carried in all but federal prosecutions of so-called "victimless crimes" where the United States has not been, and never will be, harmed.

Wright & Levine on Legislatures and Localized Resentencing

Ronald F. Wright and Kay L. Levine (Wake Forest University - School of Law and Emory University School of Law) have posted Legislatures and Localized Resentencing on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Recent legislation, exemplified in statutes from California and Washington, creates new methods for resentencing defendants in old cases. These laws place controlling authority for resentencing in the hands of local officials, especially local prosecutors, and invite variation at the county level. 

While some new procedural channels for reducing the sentences of people convicted of past crimes are mandatory, in that they entitle certain defendants to resentencing if they were convicted of certain crimes or were subject to certain penalty enhancements that are no longer valid, other statutes create discretionary resentencing channels. In the discretionary channels, the chief local prosecutor has the authority both to decide whether to participate in the program and to select individual cases for review. Through original interviews and review of publicly available data, we highlight how this practice is working in California and Washington State. We observe that when local prosecutors exercise their discretion under the new statute, they necessarily produce uneven results around the state, as some counties embrace resentencing practices, some use their power sparingly, and others leave it untouched.

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Bland on Decriminalizing Disease

Sean E. Bland (Santa Clara University School of Law) has posted Decriminalizing Disease: A Health Justice Approach to Infectious Diseases and Criminal Law (Arkansas Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

For more than a century, the United States has used criminal law to respond to infectious diseases. From the start, this response was not grounded in evidence. Not only is criminalization ineffective at preventing transmission, it often is counter-productive to public health interventions and is selectively enforced against marginalized groups. The story of the criminalization of HIV provides a powerful indictment of this response. This criminalization emerged in a climate of fear and moral panic and in the absence of effective treatment, and yet it continues today. Without a full reckoning with the harms caused by the criminalization of public health problems, we risk perpetuating them.

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Ferguson on AI-Assisted Police Reports

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson (American University Washington College of Law) has posted AI-Assisted Police Reports and the Challenge of Generative Suspicion on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Police reports play a central role in the criminal justice system. Many times, police reports exist as the only official memorialization of what happened during an incident, shaping probable cause determinations, pretrial detention decisions, motions to suppress, plea bargains, and trial strategy. For over a century, human police officers wrote the factual narratives that shaped the trajectory of individual cases and organized the entire legal system.

All that is about to change with the creation of AI-assisted police reports. Today, with the click of a button, generative AI Large Language Models (LLMS) using predictive text capabilities can turn the audio feed of a police-worn body camera into a pre-written draft police report. Police officers then fill-in-the blanks of inserts and details like a “Mad Libs” of suspicion and submit the edited version as the official narrative of an incident.

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"Dashed Hopes and Big Breaks: What It’s Like to Work on Cold Cases"

From The New York Times:

In a span of eight days this month, law enforcement announced key breakthroughs in at least four homicides after decades without arrests. In California, the police charged a 75-year-old man in the 1973 murder of Nina Fischer. In Texas, the police named suspects in two separate murders — of Susan Leigh Wolfe and Terri McAdams — from the 1980s. And in Montana, Mr. Elfmont believes he found who killed Danielle Houchins in 1996.

This series of discoveries may seem like an encouraging turn of events in the world of cold cases. But in reality, even with advances in forensic technology, such breakthroughs are rare. Many American law enforcement agencies have no teams dedicated to such cases, and there remain hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides across the country.

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Law eJournal

are here.  The usual disclaimers apply.

Rank	Paper	Downloads
1.	Stopping Scams Against Consumers: Roadmap for a National Strategy Nick Bourke Independent Date Posted: 24 Jul 2024	202
2.	An Open Letter to Law Students on the Death Penalty Jesse Cheng and Helen Prejean DePaul University - College of Law and DePaul University Date Posted: 11 Jul 2024	181
3.	Abolish Conspiracy Evan D. Bernick Northern Illinois University - College of Law Date Posted: 07 Aug 2024 [4th last week]	143
4.	Rights, Reasons, and Culpability in Tort Law and Criminal Law Gregory Antill Columbia Law School Date Posted: 27 Jun 2024 [3rd last week]	131
5.	Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus Steven Arrigg Koh Boston University School of Law Date Posted: 22 Jul 2024 [6th last week]	83
6.	Punishing Gender Erin Collins University of Richmond School of Law Date Posted: 23 May 2024 [7th last week]	76
7.	Double Counting in Capital Sentencing Statutes Sunayna Nair Columbia University - Columbia Human Rights Law Review Date Posted: 26 Jun 2024 [8th last week]	70
8.	Rethinking the Role of Intentional Wrongdoing in Criminal Law Gregory Antill Columbia Law School Date Posted: 31 Jul 2024 [new to top ten]	67
9.	A Specious Form of Judicial Restraint Nelson Lund George Mason University - Antonin Scalia Law School Date Posted: 02 Jul 2024 [new to top ten]	64
10.	From Visibility to Shadows: The Impact of Police Discretion on Prostitution in Response to Legal Changes Yutian An, Yingjie Fan, Xuancheng Qian and Leo Yang Yang Harvard University - Harvard Law School, Princeton University, Princeton University and Stanford University - Centre on China’s Economy and Institutions Date Posted: 28 Jun 2024	64

Top-Ten Recent SSRN Downloads in Criminal Procedure eJournal

are here.  The usual disclaimers apply.

Rank	Paper	Downloads
1.	Against Privacy Essentialism Daniel J. Solove George Washington University Law School Date Posted: 14 May 2024	745
2.	A Large-Scale Study of the Police Retention Crisis Ben Grunwald Duke University School of Law Date Posted: 26 Jun 2024	400
3.	Prosecutor Transparency Project: Racial Disparities Study (Washtenaw County, Michigan) Grady Bridges and J.J. Prescott Independent and University of Michigan Law School Date Posted: 31 Dec 2023	307
4.	Loper Bright and the Great Writ: Will the New Constitutionalists End "Treason to the Constitution," Restore the Judicial Power, and Make the Law of the Land Supreme Again? [Forthcoming in Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 2024] James S. Liebman and Anthony Amsterdam Columbia University - Law School and New York University School of Law Date Posted: 11 Jul 2024	300
5.	AI-Assisted Police Reports and the Challenge of Generative Suspicion Andrew Guthrie Ferguson American University Washington College of Law Date Posted: 20 Aug 2024 [new to top ten]	294
6.	An Open Letter to Law Students on the Death Penalty Jesse Cheng and Helen Prejean DePaul University - College of Law and DePaul University Date Posted: 11 Jul 2024 [5th last week]	181
7.	What Fischer v. United States Gets Wrong About Prosecutorial Discretion Cindy J. Cho Indiana University Maurer School of Law Date Posted: 26 Jun 2024 [8th last week]	106
8.	Criminal Law's Hidden Consensus Steven Arrigg Koh Boston University School of Law Date Posted: 22 Jul 2024 [9th last week]	83
9.	Punishing Gender Erin Collins University of Richmond School of Law Date Posted: 23 May 2024 [10th last week]	76
10.	Double Counting in Capital Sentencing Statutes Sunayna Nair Columbia University - Columbia Human Rights Law Review Date Posted: 26 Jun 2024 [new to top ten]	70

Slomanson on Presidential Immunity

William R. Slomanson (Thomas Jefferson School of Law) has posted Presidential Immunity: Precedential Impunity? (37 California Litigation Reporter (forthcoming Nov. 2024)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

At term’s end, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump v. U.S. immunity opinion spawned a multiple-issue remand. But it also created new presidential immunity law, while taking a number of prosecutorial options off the table. This essay summarizes the Supreme Court’s newly established precedents and its handful of remanded issues. Some prominent examples follow:

• Core official acts are now characterized as absolutely immune from criminal prosecution, when the president “acts within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his [or her] official responsibility.” But what if a bribe motivates a pardon, senior official removal, or veto of congressional legislation?

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McGlynn on Intimate Intrusions

Professor Clare McGlynn (Durham Law School, Durham University) has posted Towards a New Criminal Offence of Intimate Intrusions (Feminist Legal Studies | 2024) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

This article suggests a new approach to tackling women’s experiences of harm and abuse, particularly online, namely a criminal law of ‘intimate intrusions’. It seeks to reinvigorate Betsy Stanko’s (1985) concept of intimate intrusions, developing it particularly in the context of the ever-increasing prevalence of online abuse against women and girls, as well as establishing how this conceptualisation might manifest in law reform. Intimate intrusions, it is argued, provides a valuable umbrella concept that may better encompass both the range and nature of existing harms, as well as, crucially, the yet-to-be-imagined modes of abuse. Further, in suggesting a new criminal offence of intimate intrusions, this article challenges the common process of piecemeal criminal law reform, with each new manifestation of abuse resulting in a specific offence tackling that specific behaviour. While such an approach provides new redress options, it remains limited. Following an examination of recent reforms in Northern Ireland, where three distinct new criminal offences were adopted covering downblousing, upskirting and cyberflashing, this article suggests that the concept of ‘intimate intrusions’ provides a better foundation for a new criminal offence and outlines its potential nature and scope.

Leasure on Housing and Conviction

Peter Leasure (Ohio State University (OSU) - Michael E. Moritz College of Law) has posted Commentary on Ohio's New Certificate of Qualification for Housing on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Ohio’s Certificate of Qualification for Housing (CQH) is set to become effective in September 2024. The current paper details key differences between the CQH and the previously enacted Certificate of Qualification for Employment. Recommendations to improve the availability and efficiency of the CQH are also discussed. 

Braman et al. on Racial Disparities, Public Safety, and Pretextual Stops

Donald Braman et al. (George Washington University - Law School) have posted Prosecutors in the Passing Lane: Racial Disparities, Public Safety, and Prosecutorial Declinations of Pretextual Stops on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In response to a growing set of empirical studies demonstrating their widespread discriminatory effects, pre textual stops have been subjected to decades of criticism from scholars, the public, and jurists. However, pre textual stops have been defended by some as a necessary public safety measure, particularly in the fight against violent gun crimes. Following a series of highly publicized police shootings of unarmed Black drivers during pre textual stops, and in the absence of substantial judicial or legislative guidance, a growing number of prosecutors have developed policies deprecating the prosecution of pre textual stops absent a clear public safety benefit. Without empirical evaluations of pre textual stops, however, it has been difficult for practitioners or justice advocates to rebut complaints that these new policies remove an important deterrent to crime and the circulation of illegal firearms. 

This Article reports the results of the first empirical evaluation of the impact of pre textual stops on crime and gun seizures, made possible by the Ramsey County Attorney’s decision to both decline prosecution of non-public-safety stops and to share data about those stops.

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Thao Nguyen P. on AI in Criminal Investigations and Trials

Thao Nguyen P. (Ho Chi Minh City University of Law) has posted The Use of Artificial Intelligence in Criminal Investigation and Trials in Europe and Some Countries: Experience For Vietnam (Vietnamese Journal of Legal Sciences, Vol. 08, No. 01, 2023, pp. 55-77) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Applying artificial intelligence (AI) is a modern and effective way to solve criminal case. However, this is a relatively new issue and has not been researched and applied thoroughly. Therefore, being fully aware of the nature of artificial intelligence, ensuring the basic principles, and using them in criminal justice will create the basis for the effects applied by law enforcement in practice. This article presents an overview of artificial intelligence and its relationship with criminal justice; the ability to apply artificial intelligence in solving criminal cases; Vietnam's policies and challenges on research, development, and application of artificial intelligence. From there, the author proposes some recommendations to enhance the efficiency of criminal cases resolution based on ensuring the basic rights of the accused.

Husak on Taking Retributive Value Seriously

Douglas Husak (Rutgers University, New Brunswick) has posted Taking Retributive Value Seriously on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

I present the following challenge to retributivists (including myself).  I stipulate that retributivism is the claim that inflictions of deserved punishment produce intrinsic value.  If this definition is accepted, it is curious that the academic writing of few if any retributivists express enthusiasm for punishing greater numbers of persons who commit serious crimes.  A great deal of intrinsic value could be added by increasing the clearance rates for serious offenses.  In this paper I briefly explore five reasons that might explain and/or justify this reticence. Perhaps any value that is created by these punishments is too small to give rise to much concern. Or it is outweighed by competing disvalues. Or maybe efforts to increase existing rates of punishment would be too uncertain or difficult to implement. Or many of those we might seek to punish have viable excuses and are not blameworthy. Or perhaps the personal and political costs of broadening the net of penal liability are too great to incur among those committed to racial justice. Retributivists who are not eager to increase the number of deserving persons who are punished must choose from these five (or perhaps from other) options.

Lafrance on Life Imprisonment

Sébastien Lafrance (Tashkent State University of Law) has posted Life Imprisonment in Canada: Is The "Hope" Lost? (Vietnamese Journal of Legal Sciences, Vol. 08, No. 01, 2023, pp. 78-98 ) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

 

Life imprisonment has divergent meanings in various countries. With a focus on the issues related to life imprisonment in Canada, more specifically regarding the issue of the 'hope to be released' for the individuals serving a life sentence, the author assesses the legislation and some relevant, positive and negative, jurisprudential developments pertaining to life imprisonment in that context from a few countries, including Vietnam. The positive evolution that the Canadian jurisprudence witnessed in 2022 with respect to the eligibility for release of detainees serving a lifelong sentence could make Canada an interesting case study for Vietnam. This paper mainly relies on legal doctrinal research and comparative law by way of referring to the legislation and caselaw of a few different national jurisdictions for its analysis.