Category Archives: Criminology

Misunderstanding Miranda: A Miranda warning would not endanger the Boston prosecution

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—David A. Harris

[This article originally appeared in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Read it here.]

Just hours after the second Boston bomber was taken alive, the government announced that it would not give the man Miranda warnings before questioning him. Instead, the Department of Justice said, the attacker would be questioned without warnings under the public safety exception.

The Obama administration’s interpretation of the public safety exception is suspect; its announcement that no Miranda rights would be given was transparently political, aimed at avoiding criticism from conservative quarters. Worst of all, the administration seemed to be telling the public that Miranda warnings are just petty rules—another instance of hyper-technical laws that get in the way of real justice. This is dead wrong, and it shows grave disrespect for the rule of law and the Constitution—the very things that make our country great.

Let’s start with a clear understanding of the Miranda warnings. Failing to give Miranda warnings does not interfere with the power of the police to make an arrest. Not giving the warnings does not affect the ability of the prosecution to try a suspect. In fact, not reading a suspect his Miranda warnings does not even violate the person’s rights.

The Supreme Court ruling in the Miranda case is actually quite specific: Warnings are required only if the police question a suspect while he is in custody and the district attorney wants to use the answers to prove guilt. That’s all.

If the Boston bombing suspect gets Miranda warnings and decides he wants to remain silent, won’t that destroy the case?

The simple answer is no—he will be prosecuted anyway and will very likely be found guilty, statements or not. Think of 1) the countless photos and videos, many of which show him with his brother and some of which reportedly show him leaving his backpack at the site of the second explosion moments before it occurred; 2) his statement of guilt made to a civilian during a carjacking, 3) the many officers who could testify they saw him at the shootout from which he escaped; and 4) any evidence police have seized from his home. In short, the evidence will be overwhelming; prosecutors won’t need a confession to convict him.

The idea that giving suspects Miranda warnings stops investigations cold and allows guilty criminals to go free is a myth, and it vastly underestimates the abilities of modern police officers to work successfully under the Miranda rules.

When police officers administer Miranda warnings, 85 percent of suspects talk to them anyway. For suspects with no criminal record, like the Boston bombing suspect, the number is 90 percent. Given what the warnings tell suspects—”anything you say will be used against you”—many people are shocked by this outcome. But it is human nature to talk, to explain, to avoid blame, and good police interrogators know how to take advantage of this. Miranda does not prevent them from getting the evidence they need.

In fact, the evidence in the Boston case is so great and the bomber’s guilt so certain that the suspect may wish to make statements—whether he gets Miranda warnings or not—for the purpose of avoiding the death penalty. The Miranda warnings won’t affect this.

What would happen if the suspect is questioned in custody without Miranda warnings and he makes statements of guilt?

The prosecution could not use those statements to prove his guilt, but it could still proceed with all the other evidence. And prosecutors could use answers given without Miranda warnings for purposes other than proving guilt. For example, they could still be used for intelligence purposes—to find other bombs or other people involved in the Boston plot or others. The statements also could still be used to prove the guilt of others involved under a conspiracy charge.

The government’s assertion of the public-safety exception to the Miranda rule bends that exception almost to the breaking point. The Supreme Court has said that Miranda doesn’t apply to police questioning that takes place in order to alleviate immediate, ongoing danger. But the authorities have already made clear that the Boston bad guys have been caught or killed and the danger is over. Perhaps the government might question the suspect about the existence of other explosives or plans, or whether he and his brother had other co-conspirators. But beyond those issues, the public-safety exception does not apply.

When our political leaders say that constitutional rights won’t be applied in pursuit of some greater good, they make our founding document sound like a collection of legal loopholes. They put us on the path that Ben Franklin warned us against when he wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

At times like this, we need to stand strong with Boston—and with our own values. Anything less dishonors who we are.

David A. Harris is Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is the author of Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science (NYU Press, 2012).

Crime and (coerced) punishment in domestic violence cases

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—Leigh Goodmark

Worried that your complaining witness won’t follow through with her domestic violence complaint? New York police have a new weapon to use in such situations: running criminal checks on women who allege abuse in order to have “leverage” if they decide not to press charges.

On March 5, NYPD Chief of Detectives Phil Pulaski ordered officers to perform criminal background checks on complaining witnesses as well as alleged perpetrators in domestic violence cases. A police source told the New York Post that reminding women of their open warrants “force[s] them to remain cooperative.” Don’t want to prosecute your partner? You can go to jail instead. Advocates for women subjected to abuse are predictably outraged by the policy, arguing that it will prevent women from seeking assistance from the police. I’m outraged, too, but not surprised—this kind of policy is just another manifestation of the legal system prioritizing its needs and goals over those of women subjected to abuse.

For years, advocates for women subjected to abuse have sought to increase police involvement in domestic violence cases.  Reacting to police directives to essentially ignore domestic violence, advocates fought for mandatory arrest policies, which required police to make arrests in domestic violence cases whenever they had probable cause to do so.

New York City’s new background check policy is the logical outgrowth of such measures. If police are required to intervene, they want those interventions to be “meaningful” in the way that meaning is measured in police practice—that is, through arrest and prosecution.  When women subjected to abuse decline to press charges, they keep police from fulfilling the function that they’ve been asked to play for the last thirty years.

It’s not surprising that police would look for ways to ensure that their efforts come to fruition in some way. And in a system that routinely marginalizes women subjected to abuse by refusing to allow them to decide whether (and how) they want the state to intervene in their lives, it’s not surprising that a policy such as this one emerges.

Leigh Goodmark is Professor of Law, Director of Clinical Education, and Co-Director of the Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is the author of A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System (NYU Press, 2011).

Another “troubled marriage”: Domestic violence and the failures of legal response

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—Leigh Goodmark

Melissa Davis could have prevented her husband, Daren Ruffin, from stabbing her to death last week. At least that’s the story the Baltimore Sun would have you believe. On January 24, the Baltimore Sun reported, Davis refused to testify against her husband during his January 8 trial for assaulting her, and now she’s dead. It’s that simple.

Except that it’s not that simple at all. Daren Ruffin had been repeatedly arrested and charged with abusing his wife, but those arrests had not deterred him from continuing his violence. Ruffin had just been arrested and released on his own recognizance when he returned to the apartment that the couple shared and killed his wife. A conviction might not have stopped him either; in fact, it’s possible that a conviction would have made him increase his violence against Davis. To suggest, however, that Davis could somehow have prevented her own death by simply testifying against her husband both ignores the ineffectiveness of the legal response to domestic violence and inappropriately places the blame for her death on Melissa Davis’ shoulders.

Ruffin’s actions reflect what some advocates for women subjected to abuse have known for some time—that while the legal system can help some women, the intervention of the criminal justice system means little to an abuser determined to hurt or kill his partner. Despite the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars into the criminal justice system since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, rates of domestic violence decreased only as much as the overall crime rate between 1994 and 2000, and less than the decrease in the overall crime rate from 2001 to 2010. Strict arrest and prosecution policies have increased the number of people arrested for domestic violence in some jurisdictions, but have not increased the conviction rate or the length of sentences served for domestic violence crimes.

There are numerous stories about the women who do everything “right”: who get protective orders, who call police, who participate in prosecution, and who still end up dead. Alison Kirby was one of those women. In March 2006, Kirby was granted a protective order after her boyfriend, Christopher McCann threatened her with violence.  On May 1, 2006, McCann followed Kirby to a Wal-Mart and stabbed her twelve times in the head, face, and arms.

Lilia Blandin was another. On October 30, 2011, Lilia Blandin pressed charges against her husband, Avery, after he punched her in the mouth and stomach. In December 2011, Avery Blandin stabbed his wife to death. Even incarceration isn’t an absolute guarantee of safety. In October 2008, Robert Ridley left the halfway house to which he had been sent to await his sentencing for setting fire to the couch in the apartment of his girlfriend, Tiffany Gates, went to Gates’ apartment, and stabbed her to death while US Marshals were waiting outside for backup before going in to help.

The legal system simply cannot guarantee safety for every woman subjected to abuse, and it does a disservice to all women subjected to abuse when we pretend that if she had just cooperated with police or prosecutors, gotten a protective order, or otherwise invoked the law, she would have been just fine.

If Melissa Davis had testified in the trial against her husband, there is no guarantee that he would have been convicted; if convicted, he would likely have been sentenced to probation. If he had received jail time, it would have been minimal at best. He might have been sentenced to batterer intervention counseling, the results of which, despite the efforts of highly trained and dedicated counselors, have been decidedly mixed, according to a roundtable convened by the Family Violence Prevention Fund and the National Institute of Justice. For some women, batterer intervention programs only exacerbate an already bad situation, making their partners angrier and more vindictive.

The reality is that cooperating with police and prosecutors is not a guarantee of safety for women subjected to abuse. To suggest that the legal system would have saved Melissa Davis if only she had cooperated with prosecutors is unfair and wrong. We don’t have foolproof responses to domestic violence, and we have been shortsighted in assuming that the legal system will safeguard women subjected to abuse. We need to both improve the legal response and to look beyond it to find ways to help women subjected to abuse achieve safety. Until we have engaged in these efforts, women like Melissa Davis will continue to be killed through no fault of their own.

Leigh Goodmark is Associate Professor of Law, Director of Clinical Education, and Co-Director of the Center on Applied Feminism at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She is the author of A Troubled Marriage: Domestic Violence and the Legal System (NYU Press, 2011).

Announcing our Spring 2013 Catalog…

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NYU Press Spring 2013 Catalog is now online, featuring an exciting range of new books in history, media studies, law, and more!

Highlights include:
TWO PRESIDENTS ARE BETTER THAN ONE: Making the case for a two-party, two-person presidency, this “pipe dream of a book” presents a “novel and provocative thesis worth hearing out” (Kirkus Reviews).

A DEATH AT CROOKED CREEK: Marion Wesson, author of best-selling and prize-winning legal novels including Render up the Body, combines drama and intrigue  with cutting-edge forensic investigation techniques and legal theory in this superbly imagined historical novel.

CAPITAL OF THE WORLD: Charlene Mires tells the dramatic, surprising, and at times comic story of hometown promoters in an extraordinary race to host the U.N. headquarters at a pivotal moment in history.

(You can also click here to access this catalog via our website, or find our catalogs available on Edelweiss.)

Following the science of eyewitness identification

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—David A. Harris

A decision by Oregon’s Supreme Court on eyewitness identification procedures has re-set the way that juries and courts in that state will think about eyewitness identification.

According to the New York Times editorial on the case, the ruling shifts the burden of proof to prosecutors to prove that eyewitness identifications are reliable before they can be admitted in court. Before last week’s decision, the rule had been that identifications were generally admitted; it was up to the defense in individual cases to prove that an identification was not reliable.

But at least as important as the new rule itself was the reason that the Oregon court abandoned its old precedent: the court had concluded that the old rule was based on assumptions about eyewitness testimony no longer supported by the science. Thus the new case represents a textbook case of a court forcing law enforcement away from the failed evidence of discredited methods, and toward methods that accord with what science teaches us now.

Under the old rule, Oregon judges looked at five factors when evaluating an eyewitness identification: opportunity to view the alleged perpetrator, attention to identifying features, timing and completeness of description given after the event, certainty of description and identification by witness, and lapse of time between original observation and the subsequent identification. Looking at these factors from the vantage point of the present day, the Oregon court found them “incomplete and, at times, inconsistent with modern scientific findings.” Given the science on eyewitness identification that is by now well established, the court prescribed a new approach, including the change in the burden of proof.

That’s what the Oregon Supreme Court did, but here is why they did it:

…[W]e believe that it is imperative that law enforcement, the bench, and the bar be informed of the existence of current scientific research and literature regarding the reliability of eyewitness identification because, as an evidentiary matter, the reliability of eyewitness identification is central to a criminal justice system dedicated to the dual principles of accountability and fairness.

It’s hard to imagine a better summing up of the ideas behind Failed Evidence, and why the fight to overcome law enforcement’s general resistance to science is so important.

This article originally appeared on the author’s blog—read it here.

David A. Harris is Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing and Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work.

Why would anyone confess to something they didn’t do?

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—David A. Harris

For years, I, like most people, did not believe that a person would ever confess to a serious crime he or she didn’t commit. It just seemed implausible: admitting to a crime meant you were subjecting yourself to punishment—maybe decades in prison or even death. There’s no way you’d do that unless it were true (or you were forced into it).

Of course, with DNA on the scene for more than 20 years, we know better: people do confess to crimes they did not commit, usually because of the huge pressures brought to bear on them in the interrogation room. According to the Innocence Project, about a quarter of the post-conviction DNA-based exonerations on record featured a false confession, or a false statement of guilt of some kind.

Here’s a story that makes a good example of how and why this can happen. In this case, a man named Richard Lapointe falsely confessed to a rape and murder, serving 23 years in prison as a result. Now, a court has ruled that he must receive a new trial. The flaws of Lapointe’s interrogation puts many of the major causes of false confessions on display. For example:

  • The interrogation was not recorded. Recording of interrogations can reduce false confessions and supply an indisputable record of what was said in the interrogation room.
  • The police lied to Lapointe about falsified scientific evidence. Police are allowed to lie in interrogations, but lies about scientific and forensic testing make prison seem inescapable, forcing the suspect to tell the police what they want to hear in order to stop the pressure.
  • The interrogation continued for about nine hours, far longer than average. This increases the chances of a false confession.
  • Lapointe was brain damaged, and the police knew it. Mental disabilities make false confessions more likely.

Lapointe’s case is an object lesson in what can go wrong—and what we should be doing to make sure this doesn’t happen. We should record all interrogations, front to back; prohibit lying to suspects about test results; and limit the interrogation time to two hours, with extensions—perhaps to four hours—only with a supervisor’s permission. These simple steps can keep us from hearing more stories like Lapointe’s in the future.

David A. Harris is Distinguished Faculty Scholar and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of Good Cops: The Case for Preventive Policing and Profiles in Injustice: Why Racial Profiling Cannot Work and Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science (NYU Press, 2012).

This article first appeared on the author’s blog. Read more here.

Five ways to avoid conviction for a crime you didn’t do

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David A. Harris’s (newly released!) book, Failed Evidence, looks at the flaws of the current justice system and explains why a still-reticent law enforcement needs to fully embrace the scientific present to make the justice process more accurate.

Harris, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh—and a nationally known expert on police profiling—sat down with us recently to talk about his work, and, along the way, debunked the notion that only criminal activity will get you involved in the prosecution system. “Every story that’s in Failed Evidence tells me, ‘Guess again,’” he says. “It can happen to anyone.” Here, he offers five tips for protecting yourself against wrongful conviction. Number one? Always invoke your right to an attorney…

Six NYU Press titles named AAUP Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries

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We are thrilled to announce that six NYU Press books have been named 2012 AAUP  University Press Books for Public and Secondary School Libraries!

Reviewed and selected by members of the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and a committee of Public Library Reviewers (PLR), the books in this annual collection have been recommended for use in both school and public libraries. Browse the entire 2012 listing here.

  1. The Maid’s Daughter: Living Inside and Outside the American Dream
    Mary Romero
    “Sociologist Mary Romero documents the story of ‘Olivia,’ the daughter of a live-in maid who grew up in the wealthy Los Angeles home where her mother Carmen worked. Romero traces Olivia’s life from her childhood beginnings in Mexico, through her conflicted adolescence, and into adulthood where she forges her own identity. The challenges faced by Olivia and her mother as they negotiate dual cultures and economies make for compelling reading.”—Virginia L. Stone (AASL)
  2. Black in Latin America
    Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
    “Well-written and truly eye-opening account of the experience of African slaves and their descendants in the New World outside of the United States. Of about 11 million Africans brought as slaves to the Western Hemisphere, less than 500 thousand came to the U.S. The rest were taken to the Caribbean and Latin America. A companion volume to the PBS series.”—Steve Norman (PLR)
  3. Best of Times, Worst of Times: Contemporary American Short Stories from the New Gilded Age
    Wendy Martin and Cecelia Tichi (Editors)
  4. The Tender Cut: Inside the Hidden World of Self-Injury
    Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler
  5. Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys
    Victor M. Rios
  6. Highway under the Hudson: A History of the Holland Tunnel
    Robert W. Jackson

Additionally, The Maid’s Daughter and Black in Latin America have also been selected as Outstanding titles. According to the AAUP, titles with this rating “are considered exceptional by the reviewer.” For more information, visit the University Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools Libraries online.

Faulty forensics: More law enforcement resisting science

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—David A. Harris, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

[Note: This post originally appeared on the Failed Evidence blog. You can read the full article here.]

On July 10, the Washington Post reported that the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI will, at long last, review “thousands” of criminal cases in which they used discredited hair and fiber analysis to “match” defendants to crimes.  The move comes months after the Post published an article exposing the wrongful convictions of two men based on widely-used forensic testing of hair.  According to the newspaper:

Justice Department officials had known for years that flawed forensic work might have led to the convictions of potentially innocent people but had not performed a thorough review of the cases. In addition, prosecutors did not notify defendants or their attorneys even in many cases they knew were troubled.

(Since the article’s publication, the conviction of one of the men, Santae Tribble, has been vacated, and prosecutors have moved to have the other man, Kirk Odom, declared innocent of the crime.)

DNA evidence has now been in wide use in criminal cases for more than twenty years, and many of the nearly 300 convictions reversed in those years have come in cases in which bogus hair and fiber evidence, or other kinds of faulty forensics, convicted the defendants.  The weakness of this type of evidence was one of the central points of the 2009 National Academy of Sciences report, “Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States.” Nevertheless, the reaction of law enforcement in D.C. was not to adopt better procedures. According to National Public Radio, even though some law enforcement agencies around the country have made changes for the better based on science, “legislation in the City Council to reform those practices has been opposed by prosecutors and police.”

It’s an all-too-familiar pattern: science and experience show that evidence and methods we have used is not science at all, and that glaring weaknesses must be fixed.  Instead of taking action to improve what it does, law enforcement resists what science can tell us about how to improve, often at a low cost.  As a result, innocent people suffer needless injustice, and victims do not get the justice they deserve.

David A. Harris is author of Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science, forthcoming from NYU Press in September.

»» Further reading: Check out the author’s blog (http://failedevidence.wordpress.com/) and Washington Post‘s interactive feature on the reliability of forensic analysis methods (including DNA, hair samples, fingerprints, polygraphs, and more).

Why prostitution should be legal

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by Ronald Weitzer – Special to CNN

[Note: This post originally appeared on CNN's Global Public Square blog. Read it here.]

Prostitution is in the news because it is legal in Colombia, where U.S. Secret Service and military personnel have been implicated in a sex-for-pay scandal. And just a few weeks ago, a Canadian court threw out two of Canada’s three prostitution laws – laws that criminalize brothel owners and individuals who “live off the avails” of someone else’s prostitution (see my earlier piece in GPS on this ruling). The court ruled these laws unconstitutional, thus raising the possibility that Canada might legalize prostitution in the future.

What many people do not know is that prostitution is legal in many nations. According to ProCon.org’s review of laws in 100 countries, 61% have legalized at least some kind of prostitution. Since 1971, it has been legal in rural counties in Nevada, where about 300 women work in brothels regulated by local ordinances.

My new book, Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business, examines several societies where prostitution has been decriminalized and is now subject to regulation. The notion of “legal prostitution” is by no means monolithic, however. It varies considerably from place to place.

First, nations differ in the kinds of prostitution that they permit. Some allow brothels only, others restrict it to escort services, while others allow only independent operators (i.e., those who self-employed and have no connections to a third-party manager or business establishment). A few, such as New Zealand, permit all types of consensual, adult prostitution, but most places continue to criminalize street prostitution because it is considered more risky and more of a public nuisance than indoor prostitution.

At least some types of individuals remain illegal, however, in places where the trade has been decriminalized. I know of no place that allows minors to work legally, and some societies prohibit migrants or persons infected with HIV from working legally.

Similarly outlawed virtually everywhere are situations where individuals are coerced or deceived into selling sex, exploited and abused by pimps or traffickers, and where they lack the right to refuse certain customers or to perform certain sex acts. In each of these cases, the key principle of consent would be lacking, and governments that allow prostitution typically put a premium on it being consensual and confined to adults.

Second, nations differ in the kinds of regulations imposed on legal actors. Some restrict it to designated parts of the city, while others allow it to be more dispersed. Some mandate regular health examinations to check for STDs. Some require condom use, while others simply encourage it. Some require sex workers to be registered with the authorities, though is widely opposed by the workers, who fear that this information may become publicly available. Most require business owners (of brothels, escort agencies, saunas) to be licensed, and the authorities conduct periodic site visits to ensure that the regulations are being complied with. Where such licensing exists, officials often screen applicants to make sure that they have no criminal record or connections to organized crime.

What kinds of regulations are most sensible? Which ones are most likely to gain public support, to reduce harms, and to preserve public order? There is much room for debate here, and each nation that has legalized prostitution has had to grapple with these difficult questions.

In my book, I advocate about 30 “best practices” that I think should be taken into account by any nation considering legalizing prostitution. The first step, I write, is that “consensual adult prostitution be officially recognized as work and that participants be accorded the rights and protections available to those involved in other occupations.”

The book also evaluates existing legal systems. While no system is problem-free, I find that several have registered a good measure of success. New Zealand scores well, as does Queensland, Australia, where a government assessment concluded: “There is no doubt that licensed brothels provide the safest working environment for sex workers in Queensland.” The legal brothels “provide a sustainable model for a healthy, crime-free, and safe legal licensed brothel industry” and are a “state of the art model for the sex industry in Australia.” While positive outcomes are by no means automatic or guaranteed, I find that legal, well-regulated prostitution can be superior to blanket criminalization.

Ronald Weitzer is Professor of Sociology at George Washington University and author of Legalizing Prostitution: From Illicit Vice to Lawful Business. 

 

The NRA stands its ground, (re)defines justifiable homicide

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Trayvon Martin’s death is a tragedy.

Much has been and will be written on Trayvon Martin’s homicide, race and racism, law enforcement, and what constitutes justifiable homicide. At the center of the legal controversy is Florida’s 2005 “Stand Your Ground” law. The law, versions of which were enacted in over two dozen states since 2005, extended “Castle Doctrine” self-defense rights beyond homes and vehicles. Law enforcement organizations and district attorneys’ groups opposed the laws because it broadened the definition of imminent threat so as to render nearly obsolete the legal threshold of what a “reasonable” person would do in any particular situation. They accurately predicted an increase in lethal force and now justifiable homicides.

The National Rifle Association was the key player behind the successful push for Stand Your Ground laws. Why?

Yes, the NRA is the flagship organization in the gun rights movement, and Stand Your Ground laws expand gun rights. And no, the NRA is not afraid of receiving some negative press, which was inevitable given the way the law was written. Superficially, these reasons help explain why the NRA is not going to retreat from their support of these laws. When the NRA promotes and defends Stand Your Ground laws and other gun rights legislation, though, it is actually defending a set of conservative values that are centered upon individual rights and freedoms. The NRA defends not the freedom of religion, but the religion of freedom.  As former NRA President Charlton Heston said, “The gun itself is just a symbol. It’s individual freedom we’re fighting for.”

The NRA believes that more guns equals less crime and an armed society will be a polite society, but more importantly they argue that their Second Amendment rights protect your First Amendment rights. Gun rights, they assert, protect and ensure all others. What lies behind this view is a distrust and fear of government. Or as the NRA and conservatives prefer to call it: the “Nanny State.” Framing the government as an overbearing nanny hell-bent on taking away individual rights and freedoms is incredibly effective in a country that so emphasizes individualism, independence, and self-reliance.

The Nanny State coddles criminals. The NRA fights for the rights of law-abiding citizens. The Nanny State wants you to give up your guns and rely on the government for protection. The NRA wants to protect and extend your gun rights, and your right to defend yourself and your family. Bleeding-heart liberals want to give criminals second and third and fourth chances.

The NRA wants to grant you the right to use lethal force if you feel threatened. Gun control groups call the laws “Shoot First” (and ask questions later). There are no shades of gray between gun control and gun rights groups on this issue. Until gun control groups can find a way to generate religious-like fervor for their cause, the NRA and the gun rights movement will continue to dominate, and Castle Doctrine and Stand Your Ground laws will expand. The only shades of gray will be the lack of evidence prosecutors have to challenge a claim of self defense when lethal force is used. Untrained gun owners will know that the law is on their side when they feel threatened, even by someone unarmed. Trayvon Martin was not the first victim of this mentality, and sadly he won’t be the last.

Scott Melzer is the author of Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture Wars (forthcoming in paperback this fall).

After the Crime wins the 2012 ACJS Outstanding Book Award

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The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences has chosen After the Crime: The Power of Restorative Justice Dialogues between Victims and Violent Offenders, by Susan L. Miller as the winner of their 2012 Outstanding Book Award. The award is given “in recognition of the best book published in the area of criminal justice.” (!!!) Congrats to the author, her editor, Ilene Kalish, and all the folks involved in making the book possible!

The award will be presented in March at the annual ACJS meeting in New York City.