BACKGROUND In recent years, jurisdictions have recognized the strain placed on limited existing resources by criminal offenders with mental illness who frequently cycle through local jail facilities. In response, many locales have developed and implemented specialized programs to more effectively and efficiently manage these offenders, particularly the process of assigning defense attorneys to ...

Common wisdom seems to suggest that racial bias, defined as disparate treatment of minority defendants, exists in jury decision-making, with Black defendants being treated more harshly by jurors than White defendants. The empirical research, however, is inconsistent--some studies show racial bias while others do not. Two previous meta-analyses have found conflicting results regarding the existe...

This paper examines the ways personal use of illicit substances and alcohol are constructed as either mitigating or aggravating factors to explain offending. We consider differential constructions these for people who appear in supreme district courts northern Queensland, Australia, offences involving substance use, drug-related offences, violence. Qualitative analysis courtroom observations is...

Unless the plaintiff has a personal stake in the outcome, Article III of the United States Constitution requires federal courts to dismiss a plaintiff's claim for lack of standing. That much is clearly established by decades of precedent. Less understood, however, is the degree to which Article III also requires defendants to possess a personal stake. The significance of defendant standing ofte...

The juvenile court was founded on a rehabilitation model in which competence of the juvenile defendant to undergo criminal process was not an issue. A few juveniles charged with serious crimes such as murder were waived to adult court, but maturity was generally taken into consideration in the waiver decision, and so severely mentally ill, mentally retarded, or very young defendants tended to r...

To date, there is little evidence on the characteristics of defendants with intellectual disability when presenting to criminal court system. This study was developed recognise and examine related gender, ethnicity, mental health index offences compare these without within Court Liaison & Diversion Services in London, England. a retrospective data analysis routine administrative collected by se...

This dissertation uses data on a large sample of felony defendants processed in a nationally representative sample of large urban counties, in conjunction with data on the characteristics of the jurisdictions in which their cases were adjudicated, to examine the influence of community characteristics on sentencing decisions. Drawing on prior theoretical and empirical research, hierarchical line...