Radley Balko explains, in a fascinating & depressing piece:<\/p>\n
\u2026Each term, the Supreme Court decides a dozen or so cases in which the justices attempt to balance the public\u2019s interest in keeping order (which manifests in the powers we give to police and prosecutors) with our\u00a0constitutional rights. Yet for the vast majority of Supreme Court justices now and in recent history, you could quite literally say that the\u00a0criminal justice system is merely academic. Some justices may have seen a criminal case or two while in the upper echelons of the Justice Department, or taken a pro bono post-conviction case\u00a0for an indigent client here or there. But real experience is almost nonexistent. And to the extent that a justice has had real hands-on experience, it\u2019s almost always for the prosecution. We haven\u2019t had a justice with significant criminal\u00a0defense experience since Thurgood Marshall retired in 1992. Given the intense politicization of the nominating process, and that we\u2019re increasingly seeing the practice of criminal defense used as a political cudgel<\/a>, it seems unlikely we\u2019ll see another example any time soon.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
more<\/a>\u2013lots of concrete examples of how this lack of street experience affects court decisions. And check out Balko\u2019s post about the complexities of reform in Missouri<\/a>, one year after Michael Brown\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Radley Balko explains, in a fascinating & depressing piece: \u2026Each term, the Supreme Court decides a dozen or so cases in which the justices attempt to balance the public\u2019s interest in keeping order (which manifests in the powers we give to police and prosecutors) with our\u00a0constitutional rights. Yet for the vast majority of Supreme Court […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1071,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[171,96,181,51],"class_list":["post-9963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abuse-of-power-comes-as-no-surprise","tag-costumed-vigilantes","tag-radley-balko","tag-so-far-from-god-so-close-to-the-united-states"],"yoast_head":"\n
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