Criminal Justice
Avoiding 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 ReadingExpungement: The Missing Federal Piece
May 10, 2023
While states have created their own expungement laws, nothing similar exists under federal law. In this blog post, staff member Diana Kawka explores federal expungement law and offers solutions to solve this gap.
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 ReadingInequality as the Vertical partiality of Public Administration: Empirical Evidence from the Judiciary
June 1, 2023
By Paolo D’Anselmi† 1. Introduction One of the tenets of democratic – and perhaps totalitarian – governance is the impartiality of public administration. Public managers in fact are supposed to take decisions without discriminating between one citizen and the next citizen nor between one politician and the next politician. This is the quality of public…
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 ReadingRight to Spiritual Advisors During Executions: Missouri’s Latest Refusal and the Supreme Court’s Evolving Jurisprudence
June 12, 2023
In Inequality Inquiry’s latest blog post, Britane Hubbard discusses how the Missouri Department of Corrections denied Leonard “Raheem” Taylor’s request for a spiritual advisor leading up to his execution.
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…
Continue ReadingA Healthy Start: Minnesota Is Pioneering an Alternative to Prison Nurseries, and Other States Should Follow Its Lead
March 28, 2022
by Rachel Pokrzywinski* In May 2021, Governor Tim Walz signed Minnesota’s Healthy Start Act (HSA) into law. The first of its kind in the United States, the HSA authorizes placement of pregnant and postpartum inmates into alternative housing—such as halfway houses and residential treatment facilities—with their newborns for up to one year after birth.…
Continue ReadingPunished Twice: Opioid Users Increasingly Handed Harsh Sentences for Friends’ Deaths
December 1, 2023
By: Bethany Jewison* A new phase of the opioid crisis. Jarret MacCasland and his fiancé Flavia Cardenas shared heroin on her 19th birthday.[1] Flavia tragically passed away and Jarret, who was only a few years older, was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for the “murder” of Flavia.[2] Similarly, a 17-year-old…
Continue Reading“How Are We Supposed to Move Forward with THIS Police Force After This?”: The Stalled Reform Movement in Minneapolis
March 26, 2021
Gabrielle Maginn* On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. The horrifying incident, in which Floyd calls out for his mother and tells Chauvin and the other officers present that he can’t breathe, was caught on camera and broadcast widely. In the days and weeks that followed, residents of…
Continue ReadingA Constitutional Necessity, Not a Luxury: States Must Provide Public Defender Offices With More Resources to Provide Indigent Defendants With Effective Counsel
March 30, 2022
By Haashir Lakhani* The phrase “you have the right to an attorney” is so ingrained in our social conscience that we perhaps do not even give it a second thought. The task of upholding this right for indigent defendants falls largely on public defenders, with some cases being assigned to other court-appointed attorneys. However, underfunded…
Continue ReadingThe Bystander Standard: Do Survivors of Mass Shootings Qualify for U Visas?
February 23, 2024
By: Elizabeth Mansfield The aftermath of a mass shooting is never easy. This is especially true for those survivors who have to deal with the trauma of what they’ve just experienced as well as the trauma of the American immigration system. Undocumented survivors of mass shootings may have concerns about going to the police with…
Continue ReadingHow We Got Here: Race, Police Use of Force, and the Road to George Floyd
April 1, 2021
Long before the killing of George Floyd, the United States has struggled to mitigate racially arbitrary use of force by the police. This article seeks to explain how we got to the killing of George Floyd. This article contends that that the law—especially the decisions of the Supreme Court and political choices made by politicians—has helped to enable the relatively unchecked use of force against people of color.
Continue Reading