Author : Jack D. Marietta
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 380 pages
File Size : 27,40 MB
Release : 2006-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9780812239553
Troubled Experiment exposes the difference between glowing reputation and grim reality of crime in early Pennsylvania. The plight of lawmakers and magistrates, and the sufferings of victims, women, children, and minorities take their places in this tragedy. The authors conclude that through this lens, we see the troubled future of America.
Author : Erica Rhodes Hayden
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 255 pages
File Size : 39,57 MB
Release : 2019-02-08
Category : History
ISBN : 0271084243
This book traces the lived experiences of women lawbreakers in the state of Pennsylvania from 1820 to 1860 through the records of more than six thousand criminal court cases. By following these women from the perpetration of their crimes through the state’s efforts to punish and reform them, Erica Rhodes Hayden places them at the center of their own stories. Women constituted a small percentage of those tried in courtrooms and sentenced to prison terms during the nineteenth century, yet their experiences offer valuable insight into the era’s criminal justice system. Hayden illuminates how criminal punishment and reform intersected with larger social issues of the time, including questions of race, class, and gender, and reveals how women prisoners actively influenced their situation despite class disparities. Hayden’s focus on recovering the individual experiences of women in the criminal justice system across the state of Pennsylvania marks a significant shift from studies that focus on the structure and leadership of penal institutions and reform organizations in urban centers. Troublesome Women advances our understanding of female crime and punishment in the antebellum period and challenges preconceived notions of nineteenth-century womanhood. Scholars of women’s history and the history of crime and punishment, as well as those interested in Pennsylvania history, will benefit greatly from Hayden’s thorough and fascinating research.
Author : Stephanos Bibas
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 28,8 MB
Release : 2012-02-28
Category : Law
ISBN : 0190236760
Two centuries ago, American criminal justice was run primarily by laymen. Jury trials passed moral judgment on crimes, vindicated victims and innocent defendants, and denounced the guilty. But since then, lawyers have gradually taken over the process, silencing victims and defendants and, in many cases, substituting plea bargaining for the voice of the jury. The public sees little of how this assembly-line justice works, and victims and defendants have largely lost their day in court. As a result, victims rarely hear defendants express remorse and apologize, and defendants rarely receive forgiveness. This lawyerized machinery has purchased efficient, speedy processing of many cases at the price of sacrificing softer values, such as reforming defendants and healing wounded victims and relationships. In other words, the U.S. legal system has bought quantity at the price of quality, without recognizing either the trade-off or the great gulf separating lawyers' and laymen's incentives, values, and powers. In The Machinery of Criminal Justice, author Stephanos Bibas surveys the developments over the last two centuries, considers what we have lost in our quest for efficient punishment, and suggests ways to include victims, defendants, and the public once again. Ideas range from requiring convicts to work or serve in the military, to moving power from prosecutors to restorative sentencing juries. Bibas argues that doing so might cost more, but it would better serve criminal procedure's interests in denouncing crime, vindicating victims, reforming wrongdoers, and healing the relationships torn by crime.
Author : John J. Hare
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 457 pages
File Size : 18,3 MB
Release : 2018-01-25
Category : Law
ISBN : 0271081996
Established in 1684, over a century before the Commonwealth, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court is the oldest appellate court in North America. This balanced, comprehensive history of the Court examines over three centuries of legal proceedings and cases before the body, the controversies and conflicts with which it dealt, and the impact of its decisions and of the case law its justices created Introduced by constitutional scholar Ken Gormley, this volume describes the Supreme Court’s structure and powers and focuses at length on the Court’s work in deciding notable cases of constitutional law, civil rights, torts, criminal law, labor law, and administrative law. Through three sections, “The Structure and Powers of the Supreme Court,” “Decisional Law of the Supreme Court,” and “Reporting Supreme Court Decisions,” the contributors address the many ways in which the Court and its justices have shaped life and law in Pennsylvania and beyond. They consider how it has adjudicated new and complex issues arising from some of the most notable events and tragedies in American history, including the struggle for religious liberty in colonial Pennsylvania, the Revolutionary War, slavery, the Johnstown Flood, the Homestead Steel Strike and other labor conflicts, both World Wars, and, more recently, the dramatic rise of criminal procedural rights and the expansion of tort law. Featuring an afterword by Chief Justice Saylor and essays by leading jurists, deans, law and history professors, and practicing attorneys, this fair-minded assessment of the Court is destined to become a criterion volume for lawmakers, scholars, and anyone interested in legal history in the Keystone State and the United States.
Author : R Davis Younts
Publisher :
Page : 122 pages
File Size : 26,4 MB
Release : 2020-06
Category :
ISBN : 9781734849448
Facing criminal charges? Your future is at stake. When you are accused of a crime, you go from being treated like a good citizen, neighbor, mother, father, co-worker, and friend to an accused criminal. Any interaction with the criminal justice system can you leave you feeling hopeless and helpless. Rather than understanding the facts and circumstances of each case and treating each individual with dignity and respect, our system has evolved to favor one-size-fits-all solutions and mass incarceration. When you are charged with a crime in Pennsylvania the case is given a title-Commonwealth v. [insert the name of the Defendant here]. The very name of the case emphasizes the reality of the challenge. Anyone facing criminal charges is fighting to defend their freedom and future against the full weight and power of the government of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. If you are in that situation it really does feel like it is the Commonwealth v. You. Based on almost two decades of criminal litigation experience and participation in hundreds of criminal investigations and trials, a former active duty military officer, prosecutor, and trial attorney, provides an inside look at Pennsylvania's criminal justice system. The Commonwealth v. You is a practical guide for anyone who is under investigation or facing criminal charges. About the Author R. Davis Younts is an attorney, author, and founder of a law firm focused on military law and criminal defense. Younts served on active duty in the United States Air Force Judge Advocate General's Corps for over a decade. A former prosecutor and experienced trial attorney, Younts represents military clients throughout the United States and around the world. Learn more about the services he offers at www.yountslaw.com.
Author : Brandon L. Garrett
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 23,89 MB
Release : 2021-03-23
Category : Law
ISBN : 0520976630
This book exposes the dangerously imperfect forensic evidence that we rely on for criminal convictions. "That's not my fingerprint, your honor," said the defendant, after FBI experts reported a "100-percent identification." The FBI was wrong. It is shocking how often they are. Autopsy of a Crime Lab is the first book to catalog the sources of error and the faulty science behind a range of well-known forensic evidence, from fingerprints and firearms to forensic algorithms. In this devastating forensic takedown, noted legal expert Brandon L. Garrett poses the questions that should be asked in courtrooms every day: Where are the studies that validate the basic premises of widely accepted techniques such as fingerprinting? How can experts testify with 100-percent certainty about a fingerprint, when there is no such thing as a 100 percent match? Where is the quality control at the crime scenes and in the laboratories? Should we so readily adopt powerful new technologies like facial recognition software and rapid DNA machines? And why have judges been so reluctant to consider the weaknesses of so many long-accepted methods? Taking us into the lives of the wrongfully convicted or nearly convicted, into crime labs rocked by scandal, and onto the front lines of promising reform efforts driven by professionals and researchers alike, Autopsy of a Crime Lab illustrates the persistence and perniciousness of shaky science and its well-meaning practitioners.
Author : William L. Myers
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 43,4 MB
Release : 2017
Category : FICTION
ISBN : 9781503943421
Losing the trial of his life could mean losing everything. When a young reporter is found dead and a prominent Philadelphia businessman is accused of her murder, Mick McFarland finds himself involved in the case of his life. The defendant, David Hanson, was Mick's close friend in law school, and the victim, a TV news reporter, had reached out to Mick for legal help only hours before her death. Mick's played both sides of Philadelphia's courtrooms. As a top-shelf defense attorney and former prosecutor, he knows all the tricks of the trade. And he'll need every one of them to win. But as the trial progresses, he's disturbed by developments that confirm his deepest fears. This trial, one that already hits too close to home, may jeopardize his firm, his family--everything. Now Mick's only way out is to mastermind the most brilliant defense he's ever spun, one that will cross every legal and moral boundary.
Author : American Bar Association. House of Delegates
Publisher : American Bar Association
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 42,92 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781590318737
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Author : Ashley T. Rubin
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 413 pages
File Size : 26,69 MB
Release : 2021-02-04
Category : History
ISBN : 1108484948
A compelling examination of the highly criticized use of long-term solitary confinement in Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary during the nineteenth century.
Author : Jonathon A. Cooper
Publisher :
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 32,57 MB
Release : 2019
Category : Criminal justice, Administration of
ISBN : 9781536157826
This is a collection of daring chapters on the state of the discipline. Each chapter considers a specific criminal justice or criminological problem ... new or persistent ... with fresh eyes. The contributors pull no punches: their insights are novel, salient, and sometimes controversial. A Closer Look at Criminal Justice is thematically divided into three parts. Part 1: Criminal Justice and Criminology in Education, discusses how we teach our undergraduate students about race, the way we treat our graduate students, and inmate education. We wanted to highlight criminal justice education at the university level in the first part of the book in large part because this book is best suited in the classroom, but especially because as educators, we live and breathe the importance of education. The book progresses in Part 2, Theory and Praxis, with a discussion of applicable criminological theory and research methodology in criminal justice where the goal is to highlight the importance of using theory and research as the foundation for policy positions, support, and understanding. The remaining part of the book, Persistent Issues in Criminal Justice, provides fresh insights on "old" subjects and problems in the administration of justice, such as community policing, the aging prison population, and marijuana use in the United States of America. This book is best suited in senior seminars, capstone, or contemporary issues courses; master's level classes on the criminal justice system; and is also important for faculty members and doctoral students with a vested interest in the current tempo of criminal justice practice, research, education, and thought. Reading this book, students and scholars should have a better idea of the current issues facing our discipline, particularly those issues that do not get as much exposure as others.
