As described in greater detail here, Professor Robert Weisberg of Stanford Law School will be delivering our annual Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law at 12:15 on Thursday. In anticipation of his visit, I’ve been reading a few of his recent law review articles. Here are my reflections on these works:
Weisberg on Dan Kahan (our 2008 Boden Lecturer)
Weisberg on restorative justice
Weisberg on proposed reforms for the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code
While awaiting trial on criminal charges in federal court, Michael Campbell wrote the following in a letter to the judge:
Your honor I am asking that John Taylor [Campbell’s court-appointed lawyer] be removed from my case. I am requesting that you appoint another lawyer to complete the process. If not I would like to proceed pro se.
As my Criminal Procedure students have heard me discuss at length, defendants do indeed have a Sixth Amendment right to represent themselves. Yet, Campbell’s request was not satisfied: Taylor continued to serve as his lawyer through the time of his trial and conviction. Campbell then raised the issue on appeal, but the Seventh Circuit nonetheless affirmed his conviction earlier this week (United States v. Campbell (No. 10-3002)). The court held, in effect, that Campbell should have renewed his request to go it alone, rather than sitting quietly throughout the trial as his lawyer continued to represent him.
I’m looking forward to Robert Weisberg’s talk here next week. He is delivering this year’s George and Margaret Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law. I think we can expect a pungent critique of retributive theories of punishment. Here is the description:
The theme of “American exceptionalism” has found perverse corroboration in the size of the prison population, according to Weisberg. At the same time, discourse about the “purposes of punishment” is thriving, with a recent revival of highly abstract theorizing about the nature and legitimacy of retribution, he says. In this lecture, Weisberg will describe the disconnection and recommend ways of overcoming it, stressing that the abstract theorizing must be more sensitive to what punishment means and what effects it has in modern America.
The lecture will be at 12:15 on October 6. For more information and to register, see the lecture website.