Justice Stevens on The Collapse of Am Crim Justice

[Perham1]

A great article. Nice to see former justices offer their insight.

You're welcome.


NYRB

 

[huisache]

I've been reading the NYRB since 1969 and a lawyer since 1977 and that is the best legal article they have ever printed imo.

I recently started doing some federal criminal practice again after a hiatus of a couple of decades and his description is ample and exact.

This is a mess and getting messier. And the state of Texas has made marvelous strides in trying to deal with the crime problem post conviction but his points hold up for it as well.

And Texas is going backwards in terms of its methods of determining guilt and what it is making illegal.

The courthouses are grinding up some damned strange sausage these days.

 

[Perham1]

huisache, there was a transcript of a Judge Posner interview in the NYRB a couple of issues ago that was also pretty good. Did you see that?

 

[buckhorn]

Excellent.

 

[pasotex]

first rate review

 

[general35]

nice review, interesting theories. I have known many asistant DA's. The criminal justice system isnt about justice anymore, its about making space. High profile cases make careers but the system of repeat offenders and their rotation throughout the system is part of the problem. Some inner cities have completely disintigrated. He gave a nice overview of our ugly historical racial past but this has little to do with the current system in place. I do not believe his theory that a higher concentration of police on the streets will do any good. There is already a much higher concentration of police in inner cities and in the poor areas I have been in at night, you can't go a block or two without running into police.

If you want a cause/effect on the demise of the CJS and the rise in crime and the disproportionate amount of blacks in the system, you should focus on one thing, the Great Society.

 

[huisache]

Per: I recall it but not its gist. I just resubscribed and will take a look in the online archives for it.

I like this piece by the Justice better than anything Posner or Dworkin or the others have written there.

Stevens and Souter are both extraordinarily good thinkers and writers. Wish he would keep it up.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Great article. Thanks for posting.

 

[Alpine]

Like Stevens, I have reservations about the scope and priorities of the present CJ system. And police methodology is worthy of study and debate.

But he obviously believes that Blacks are perpetual victims who will not and cannot thrive without help from enlightened white men. In other words, they are inferior. Classic liberal douchebag theology,