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Stanford Law School Criminal Defense Clinic
The Stanford Law School Three Strikes Project is one of the eleven Mills Legal Clinics at Stanford Law School. Founded in 2006, it provides legal representation to convicts serving life sentences under California's three strikes law for committing minor, non-violent felonies. Under the supervision of clinic instructors, students represent clients in both federal and state court. The Project is directed by attorney and lecturer Michael Romano. In order to secure the release of its clients, the Project pursues resentencing hearings or constitutional challenges to the sentences imposed, either by direct appeal or post-conviction habeas petitions. Typical claims include ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment, cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and habeas petitions with newly discovered evidence under ''People v. Superior Court (Romero)'', 13 Cal.4th 497 (1996), and ''People v. Williams'', 17 Cal.4th 148 (1998). Clinic students work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legal Clinic
A legal clinic (also law clinic or law school clinic) is a legal aid or law school program providing services to various clients and often hands-on-legal experience to law school students. Clinics are usually directed by clinical professors. Legal clinics typically do ''pro bono'' work in a particular area, providing free legal services to clients. Legal clinics originated as a method of practical teaching of law school students, but today they encompass also free legal aid with no academic links. There are practice-based law clinics with no academic link which provide hands-on skills to lawyers, judges and non-lawyers on practical ethical dimensions of the law at the same time offer free public defence legal services. Need and importance According to Avani Bansal, in cases where parties cannot afford a lawyer and are provided legal services by the state, the quality of that legal representation is often questionable. Therefore the need for clinical legal education, or establis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cruel And Unusual Punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase in common law describing punishment that is considered unacceptable due to the suffering, pain, or humiliation it inflicts on the person subjected to the sanction. The precise definition varies by jurisdiction, but typically includes punishments that are arbitrary, unnecessary, overly severe compared to the crime, or not generally accepted in society. History The words cruel and unusual punishment were first used in the English Bill of Rights 1689. They were later also adopted in the United States by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1791) and in the British Leeward Islands (1798). Very similar words, "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", appear in Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948. The right under a different formulation is also found in Article 3 of the Euro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Recidivism
Recidivism (; from ''recidive'' and ''ism'', from Latin ''recidīvus'' "recurring", from ''re-'' "back" and ''cadō'' "I fall") is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have experienced negative consequences of that behavior. It is also used to refer to the percentage of former prisoners who are rearrested for a similar offense.Henslin, James. ''Social Problems: A Down-To-Earth Approach'', 2008. The term is frequently used in conjunction with criminal behavior and substance abuse. Recidivism is a synonym for "relapse", which is more commonly used in medicine and in the disease model of addiction. Norway has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%. Prisons in Norway and the Norwegian criminal justice system focus on restorative justice and rehabilitating prisoners rather than punishment. United States According to an April 2011 report by the Pew Center on the States, the average national recidivism rate for released prisoner ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three Strikes Law
In the United States, habitual offender laws (commonly referred to as three-strikes laws) have been implemented since at least 1952, and are part of the United States Justice Department's Anti-Violence Strategy. These laws require a person who is convicted of an offense and who has one or two other previous serious convictions to serve a mandatory life sentence in prison, with or without parole depending on the jurisdiction. The purpose of the laws is to drastically increase the punishment of those who continue to commit offenses after being convicted of one or two serious crimes. Twenty-eight states have some form of a "three-strikes" law. A person accused under such laws is referred to in a few states (notably Connecticut and Kansas) as a "persistent offender", while Missouri uses the unique term "prior and persistent offender". In most jurisdictions, only crimes at the felony level qualify as serious offenses. And it may turn on which felonies are defined as being serious, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
