IDRA hosts montly meetings to discuss issues of importance to the community. In Summer, 2020, these meetings will take the form of three presentations by researchers in our field about their latest work. To join any of these discussions, please reach out to albdavies@smu.edu and we will let you know how!
July 10, 2PM ET: Neel Sukhatme & Jay Jenkins. Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel.
Prof. Sukhatme and Mr. Jenkins’ will discuss their research recently highlighted by Adam Liptak in the New York Times (Campaign Funds for Judges Warp Criminal Justice, Study Finds). Their recent Duke Law Journal article, "Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel" examines the relationship between attorney contributions to judicial campaigns and indigent defense appointments and income of those attorneys. It has a number of challenging findings and suggests “campaign finance distorts criminal trial court decision-making.”
August 7 Noon ET: Jim Greiner & April Faith-Slaker. Social Workers in Criminal Defense.
Proponents of holistic criminal defense, ordinarily understood to encompass the incorporation of civil legal and social worker services into the defense team, contend that the model improves case outcomes and has other benefits. Opponents argue that dedicating resources that could otherwise be used for strictly criminal legal advocacy to civil legal and social worker services decreases the effectiveness of criminal defense. There is little credible quantitative evidence either way. This study, still underway, deploys a randomized field experiment to analyze part of the holistic criminal defense model, namely, the incorporation of social workers into the public defense team.
September 11 1PM ET: Jessica Henry. Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened
Prof. Henry, a former public defender turned professor, will discuss her new book Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened. Her book describes ‘no-crime wrongful convictions.’ As she explains: ‘A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur.’
July 10, 2PM ET: Neel Sukhatme & Jay Jenkins. Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel.
Prof. Sukhatme and Mr. Jenkins’ will discuss their research recently highlighted by Adam Liptak in the New York Times (Campaign Funds for Judges Warp Criminal Justice, Study Finds). Their recent Duke Law Journal article, "Pay to Play? Campaign Finance and the Incentive Gap in the Sixth Amendment's Right to Counsel" examines the relationship between attorney contributions to judicial campaigns and indigent defense appointments and income of those attorneys. It has a number of challenging findings and suggests “campaign finance distorts criminal trial court decision-making.”
August 7 Noon ET: Jim Greiner & April Faith-Slaker. Social Workers in Criminal Defense.
Proponents of holistic criminal defense, ordinarily understood to encompass the incorporation of civil legal and social worker services into the defense team, contend that the model improves case outcomes and has other benefits. Opponents argue that dedicating resources that could otherwise be used for strictly criminal legal advocacy to civil legal and social worker services decreases the effectiveness of criminal defense. There is little credible quantitative evidence either way. This study, still underway, deploys a randomized field experiment to analyze part of the holistic criminal defense model, namely, the incorporation of social workers into the public defense team.
September 11 1PM ET: Jessica Henry. Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened
Prof. Henry, a former public defender turned professor, will discuss her new book Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened. Her book describes ‘no-crime wrongful convictions.’ As she explains: ‘A suicide is mislabeled a homicide. An accidental fire is mislabeled an arson. Corrupt police plant drugs on an innocent suspect. A false allegation of assault is invented to resolve a custody dispute. With this book, former New York City public defender Jessica S. Henry sheds essential light on a deeply flawed criminal justice system that allows—even encourages—these convictions to regularly occur.’