Harvard Law & Policy Review

Archives for July 2018

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Plea Bargaining: Lessons Learned, Issues Outstanding

By Milton Heumann*   The classic “you’ve come a long way baby” mantra from the world of tobacco advertising has an analogous application to plea bargaining. Fifty years or so ago, plea bargaining was just emerging from the shadows of the perception of our trial courts, but today it is recognized as occupying the central position in understanding the ways justice is allocated. The final acknowledgment of the “long way” plea bargaining has come came bluntly in the Supreme Court’s 2012 …

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Fighting to Restore Civil Rights and Felon Rehabilitation in Florida

By Eric Allen Kauk* This November Florida will vote on Amendment 4, a measure that would automatically restore the right to vote to 1,487,847 convicted felons who have successfully served their entire sentence and paid their debt to society. Florida lags far behind the rest of the country when it comes to restoring individuals’ civil rights. In 2016, more Floridians had lost their civil rights due to prior convictions than citizens in any other state.  Florida disenfranchises more people …

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Trump’s Flailing Ratchet: From “Bad Hombres” to “Zero Tolerance”

By Amien Kacou* The Trump administration has made fighting illegal immigration a top law enforcement priority. But, despite the President’s frequent displays of availability bias—if not vicious cynicism—on this issue, it is well-established that immigrants, regardless of legal status or origins, are on average less likely than citizens to commit most crimes. In fact, their presence usually translates to an overall reduction of crime rates in areas where they settle. Likewise, at the …

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