Incarceration and Collateral Damage: Prof. Traci Burch to Speak at Marquette on Nov. 29

We live in an era of unprecedented mass incarceration.  Since the mid-1970’s, America’s imprisonment rate has quintupled, reaching heights otherwise unknown in the western world.  We embarked on this incarceration binge with little understanding of what impact it would have on families and communities.  The past fifteen years, however, have witnessed a great outpouring of research and writing on the collateral effects of imprisonment.  Those who work in the criminal-justice system should be — and I think increasingly are — knowledgeable about the real impact that their work has on the lives of the many human beings who are connected to each incarcerated person.

Practitioners (and students) who would like to learn more about this important issue will have a wonderful opportunity to do so in two weeks, when Professor Traci Burch of Northwestern University comes to Marquette Law School to speak on the “The Collateral Consequences of Incarceration.”  Here is the description:

Dr. Burch will discuss the effects of mass incarceration on families and communities on Thursday, November 29th. This talk is based in part on her forthcoming book, Punishment and Participation: How Criminal Convictions Threaten American Democracy (University of Chicago Press). Dr. Burch will discuss how criminal justice policies shape disease, crime, domestic partner relationships, children and voting participation in low-income communities.

This event is co-sponsored by Marquette’s Department of Political Science, Law School, Klinger College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Vice Provost for Research, Department of Social and Cultural Sciences, and Institute for Urban Life.

The talk will begin at 5:15, with an informal reception and light refreshments to follow.  Additional information and a link to register for the talk are here.

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Religious Objections to Autopsies—A Virtual Solution?

“[I]n this world,” wrote Benjamin Franklin famously, “nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Were we to add a third certainty to the list, it might be that law will have something to say about the other two. To be sure, the law has quite a bit to say about death, including a mandate, under certain circumstances, to determine the cause of one’s demise.

Often such determinations entail autopsies or postmortem examinations, but sometimes these examinations are offensive to the decedent’s religious beliefs or to those of surviving family members. In such situations, it has frequently been the case that the religious beliefs have had to yield to the interests of the government or the public.

A few years ago, Kelly McAndrews (MU Law 2010) and I gave a presentation on religious objections to autopsies at a conference of the Wisconsin Coroners and Medical Examiners Association. (At the time, Kelly was the Medical Examiner for Washington County, Wisconsin.) We noted that, among other groups in Wisconsin, the Hmong and Orthodox Jews would likely have strong objections to autopsies, while that the Old Order Amish, Hindus, and some Muslims, American Indians, and Christian Scientists may have objections ranging from minor to moderate in their intensity.

Potential bases for objection, varying by religion, include: concerns about delay in the preparation and burial of the body as prescribed by religious law or tradition; concerns about the mutilation, desecration, or disturbance of the body (e.g., the body belongs to God and should not be altered, the body is needed intact for successful passage to the afterlife, or the body is needed intact in the afterlife itself); and concerns about spiritual harm to the surviving relatives for failing to take care of the decedent in a religiously proper manner.

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Seventh Circuit Affirms Life Sentence Notwithstanding Supreme Court’s Recent Eighth Amendment Decisions

From the time of its decision in Harmelin v. Michigan (1991), affirming a mandatory sentence of life without parole for a drug trafficking offense, through its decision in Ewing v. California (2003), affirming a de facto life sentence for shoplifting, the Supreme Court showed little interest in using the Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause as a basis to limit the length of prison sentences.  More recently, however, the Court has begun to extend the principles it developed to regulate capital sentencing into the noncapital realm.  First, in Graham v. Florida (2010), the Court banned life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide.  Then, in Miller v. Alabama (2012), the Court banned the use of mandatory “LWOP” sentences for all juveniles — even those convicted of homicide.

The Court’s trajectory seems to threaten Harmelin.  Even if the logic of Graham permits LWOP for drug trafficking, the logic of Miller arguably requires a consideration of mitigating circumstances before the sentence can be imposed — prohibits, in other words, LWOP as a statutory minimum for a drug offense.

While the Supreme Court might eventually reach this destination, the Seventh Circuit has decided not to try to get there first.  

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