Abstract Unreasonable makes a number of important contributions to discourses on race, crime and justice. First, a central claim of the book is that within policing, race discrimination is not an individual phenomenon or a problem of bad police officers. Rather, bias is seamlessly built in to policing practices, training, accountability policies, and judicial approaches to evaluating police...
Why Public Health Approaches to Policing Matter
Abstract What can public health frameworks tell us about the causes of police brutality and possible remedies? Devon W. Carbado’s book Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment offers compelling insight into how understanding law as a determinant of the poor health outcomes associated with policing might create new pathways for rethinking the ways that law authorizes...
The Morphing of the Fourth Amendment Into the Anti-Thirteenth Amendment
A Move Toward Abolitionist Horizons? A Review of Devon W. Carbado’s Unreasonable
Abstract Abolition captured national attention in 2020 following the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Despite this attention, stakeholders favoring traditional legal reforms remain skeptical about the abolitionist demand to gradually eliminate police and prisons. Abolitionists, in contrast, have sought to identify how the Constitution can be interpreted to create a society that...
Criminal Procedure in a Time of Abolition
Abstract As the ranks of prison industrial complex abolitionists grow, the question of whether, and if so how, they should engage with criminal procedure doctrine becomes ever more pressing. This Essay engages Devon W. Carbado’s Unreasonable: Black Lives, Police Power, and the Fourth Amendment’s interrogation of whether to “blame” Chief Justice Warren for the expansion of the carceral state...
The Sound of the Beast
Abstract In 1991, Rodney Glen King was beaten mercilessly by four Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officers after being stopped for driving while intoxicated, igniting national outrage. Despite the brutality being caught on film by a witness, the police officers were acquitted at trial. Three years later, O.J. Simpson led authorities on a nationally televised low-speed pursuit before his...
When Disciplines Disagree: The Admissibility of Computer-Generated Forensic Evidence in the Criminal Justice System
Abstract Criminal trials increasingly rely on computer programs to generate forensic evidence. But experts in the fields of computer science and forensic science often disagree over whether programs are sufficiently trustworthy to meet the legal admissibility standards for scientific evidence. When adjudicating between these disciplines, courts overwhelmingly side with forensic experts—even when...
More Than a “Mere Paper Guarantee”: Looking to the Bottom for an Expansive Thirteenth Amendment
Abstract This Comment analyzes the racist origins and consequences of contemporary reproductive justice schemes. Specifically, it situates contemporary debates surrounding reproductive justice within the context of the Thirteenth Amendment. It examines three specific features of the contemporary landscape for reproductive rights and justice, hoping to highlight their connections to a much longer...