Deviancy, Dependency, and Disability: The Forgotten History of Eugenics and Mass Incarceration

Three widely discussed explanations of the punitive carceral state are racism, harsh drug laws, and prosecutorial overreach. These three narratives, however, only partially explain how our correctional system expanded to its current overcrowded state. Neglected in our discussion of mass incarceration is our largely forgotten history of the long-term, wholesale institutionalization of the disabled. This form of mass detention, motivated by a continuing application of eugenics and persistent class-based discrimination, is an important part of our history of imprisonment, one that has shaped key contours of our current supersized correctional system. Only by fully exploring this forgotten narrative of long-term detention and isolation will policy makers be able to understand, diagnose, and solve the crisis of mass incarceration

Reports of Batson\u27s Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: How the Batson Doctrine Enforces a Normative Framework of Legal Ethics

In this article, I aim to explain how the Batson procedure enforces a normative framework of legal ethics, a theory which I hope will be of use to both criminal law professors and scholars of legal ethics. Despite many recent prudential attacks against the Batson procedure and the peremptory challenge, I contend that Batson has a largely unarticulated ethical component, one that invokes a lawyer’s professional responsibility. Accordingly, using legal ethics as a lens through which to interpret Batson sheds new light on the doctrine. Batson’s ethical imperative affects the norms of the legal profession itself. By fostering a non-discrimination norm as part of the norm of professionalization, Batson both improves the actions of lawyer and judges during jury selection while at the same time constructing and compelling an aspirational code of ethics. This article has several goals. First, I propose a legal ethics theory of Batson, as the Batson doctrine is a vehicle through which the legal system achieves a major aspiration of professionally responsible behavior. Second, I provide a measured look at the anxiety surrounding the Batson procedure and the peremptory challenge, starting with its most recent history, and explain how my theory of legal ethics can resolve many of the Batson grievances. Finally, I will examine why Batson is so important and look at some of the additional implications of my legal ethics approach. I conclude that Batson’s framework of legal ethics assists in the goal of furthering the moral integrity of the legal profession

The Plea Jury

This Article argues that it is time to reform the much-criticized plea-bargaining process by restoring the Sixth Amendment jury trial right back to criminal adjudication. My proposal would incorporate the local community into the guilty-plea procedure through the use of a plea jury, thus solving a multitude of problems within the criminal justice system. In a plea jury, a lay panel of citizens would listen to the defendant\u27s allocution and determine the acceptability of the plea and sentence, reinvigorating the community\u27s right to determine punishment for offenders. My goal is to return the Sixth Amendment community-jury right to its proper place by envisioning its integration into the guilty plea, based on recent Supreme Court decisions, punishment theory, criminal justice policy, and modern procedural concerns. In doing so, I will illustrate not only how a standard jury would be incorporated, but also why the critical norms embedded into jury participation will help improve the existing guilty-plea procedure

Subjective Evaluation of Teat Canal Anatomy

Since radiographic techniques have shown that streak canals with larger diameters tend to milk-out faster and are more susceptible to new intramammary infections, a practical visual test was sought to provide easier determination of cows with either extremely narrow (slow milking) or extra wide (susceptible to new infections) streak canals. A subjective teat classification scheme was developed to describe five different teat-end shapes in 159 Holstein and Brown Swiss cows in the University of Nebraska dairy herd. Approximately one-fourth of the cattle had pointed or round teat ends, one-half had fiat or near flat, and one-fourth were either disk or coneshaped at the distal end. The correlation coefficient of repeated observations varied between .67 and .84, generally increasing as the time span between observations shortened. About 40g of variation in future classification scores is unaccounted for by past classii~cation scores and may be the result of human error. I conclude, however, that this teat classification scheme has sufficient repeatability as an aid to selection, especially in springer heifers close to freshening