The Global Commission on Drug Policy has declared the international war on drugs a failure and urges a new approach. The commission said the practice of criminalizing drugs and incarcerating users has had “devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” Instead, the panel recommended replacing incarceration of non-violent drug users with health treatment services. It also recommended governments to consider legalizing marijuana and other illicit drugs “to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens. The panel consisted of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, businessman Richard Branson, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, and 16 other members.

Braun & Berger on Market Impacts of Drug Policy

Norman Braun and Roger Berger (University Munich – Department of Sociology and University of Leipzig – Department of Sociology) have posted Effects of Suppression Policy in a Market for Heroin: A Natural Quasi-Experiment on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This paper focuses on the observable market effects of a more severe suppression of hard drug supply by the police. After surveying 624 regular heroin users in the Swiss cities of Bern and Zurich in a standardized way, the suppression policy had been intensified in Bern. To study the consequences of the policy change, the survey was repeated in both cities which resulted in another 419 standardized interviews. The results of this natural quasi experiment suggest that a more repressive practice of law enforcement agencies does not necessarily have the intended effects for central variables (e.g., price and quality of drugs, number of drug dealers) at the retail level of the illicit market.

Opinion in exigent circumstances case

The case is Kentucky v. King. Here is the syllabus:

Police officers in Lexington, Kentucky, followed a suspected drug dealer to an apartment complex. They smelled marijuana outside an apartment door, knocked loudly, and announced their presence. As soon as the officers began knocking, they heard noises coming from the apartment; the officers believed that these noises were consistent with the destruction of evidence. The officers announced their intent to enter the apartment, kicked in the door, and found respondent and others. They saw drugs in plain view during a protective sweep of the apartment and found additional evidence during a subsequent search. The Circuit Court denied respondent’s motion to suppress the evidence, holding that exigent circumstances—the need to prevent destruction of evidence—justified the warrantless entry. Respondent entered a conditional guilty plea, reserving his right to appeal the suppression ruling, and the Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court of Kentucky reversed. The court assumed that exigent circumstances existed, but it nonetheless invalidated the search. The exigent circumstances rule did not apply, the court held, because the police should have foreseen that their conduct would prompt the occupants to attempt to destroy evidence.

Read more here:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/09-1272.ZS.html

ALITO, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined. GINSBURG, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

Baker on Immigration Reform and Crime

Scott Baker (Stanford University – Department of Economics) has posted Effects of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act on Crime on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

In the late 1970’s, rates of illegal immigration into the United States increased dramatically. This increase led to pressure on the federal government to find some way of dealing with the immigrants, culminating in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This paper seeks to examine the effects that the 1986 IRCA, which legalized over 2.5 million illegal aliens, had on the commission of crime in the United States. I find evidence that IRCA applicants are associated with higher crime rates prior to legalization and that, subsequent to legalization, this association disappears. I find drops in crime of approximately 1%-4% associated with one percent of the population being legalized, primarily due to a drop in property crimes. This fall in crime is equivalent to 80,000-320,000 fewer crimes committed each year due to legalization. Finally, I calibrate a labor market model of crime using empirical wage and employment data and find that much of the drop in crime can be attributed to greater job market opportunities among those legalized by the IRCA.

May 14, 2011 | Permalink

Findley on Defining Innocence

Keith A. Findley (University of Wisconsin Law School) has posted Defining Innocence (Albany Law Review, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The DNA exonerations of the past 20 years have heightened awareness of the problem of wrongful convictions. As the number of exonerations expands, and increasingly includes exonerations in cases with no DNA evidence, just what counts as an “exoneration,” and who can legitimately claim to be “innocent,” becomes increasingly important and controversial. The definitions are important for research and policy reasons, for they define the pool of cases that can be studied to learn about the causes of error and to generate reform proposals. They are also important at the individual case level, both for defining who is entitled to relief from a conviction, and the extent to which such individuals are entitled to reclaim their good names in full.

But innocence, it turns out, is a complex concept. The purity and simplicity of the story of the clear DNA exoneration continues to have power, but that story alone cannot sustain the Innocence Movement. It is too narrow. It fails to accommodate the vast majority of innocent people in our justice system. It fails to embrace innocence in its full complexity.

This article explores what “exoneration” and “innocence” mean in the criminal justice system today. It concludes that there are many standards of innocence, dependent on whether innocence is being identified for research or litigation purposes, and depending on the jurisdiction and nature of the proceedings. But it argues that, in the end, for virtually all purposes, innocence must be understood under the objective rules that have long governed the criminal justice system. In the end, under those rules, the presumption of innocence fully defines innocence, absent proof of guilt established beyond a reasonable doubt in court. This article thus argues for a fuller embrace of the constitutional values embedded in the presumption of innocence.

May 4, 2011 | Permalink

Bradley on Confrontation and Bryant

Craig Bradley (Indiana University Maurer School of Law) has posted Further Confusion Over Confrontation (Trial Magazine, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This article analyzes the recent Supreme Court decision in Michigan v. Bryant. It concludes that the dissent is correct in concluding that the victim’s statement in this case was primarily for the purpose of developing a case against the defendant, not to defuse an emergency, and consequently was “testimonial” and shouldn’t have been admitted into evidence. More importantly, it argues that the Supreme Court’s “testimonial/non-testimonial” misses the point of the Sixth Amendment and should be abandoned, in favor of an approach that focuses on the defendant’s need to cross-examine.

May 4, 2011 | Permalink

Richard C. Boldt (University of Maryland – School of Law) has postedDrug Policy in Context: Rhetoric and Practice in the United States and the United Kingdom (South Carolina Law Review, Vol. 62, p. 261, 2011) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The history of narcotics use and drug control in the U.S. before passage of the Harrison Act in 1914 is similar in important respects to that in the U.K. during the same period. Although the two countries’ paths diverged significantly over the ensuing decades, there has been a convergence of sorts in recent years. In the United States, the trend lines have moved from an active “war on drugs” in which criminal enforcement and punishment have been the primary rhetorical and practical instruments of policy to an evolving approach, at least at the federal level, characterized by a somewhat more pragmatic tone and a more balanced set of interventions that mix enforcement, treatment and prevention. From the British side, the movement has been in the opposite direction, from a longstanding public health approach to an intensifying focus on criminal offending as the primary social risk posed by the misuse of drugs. Thus, just as the criminal justice system long has been the principle front in the U.S. assault on drug abuse, the shift in British drug policy has now made the criminal system in the U.K. a central focus in its efforts to combat the problem of drugs and drug addiction.