The Machinery of Criminal Justice

Stephanos Bibas

Provides readers with a powerful critique of the criminal justice system and it's domination by insider lawyers.
Discusses a wide range of topics in criminal justice, including victim's rights, restorative justice, therapeutic justice, public morality and moral debate.

The Machinery of Criminal Justice

Stephanos Bibas

Description

Two centuries ago, American criminal justice was run primarily by laymen. Jury trials passed moral judgment on crimes, vindicated victims and innocent defendants, and denounced the guilty. But since then, lawyers have gradually taken over the process, silencing victims and defendants and, in many cases, substituting plea bargaining for the voice of the jury. The public sees little of how this assembly-line justice works, and victims and defendants have largely lost their day in court. As a result, victims rarely hear defendants express remorse and apologize, and defendants rarely receive forgiveness. This lawyerized machinery has purchased efficient, speedy processing of many cases at the price of sacrificing softer values, such as reforming defendants and healing wounded victims and relationships. In other words, the U.S. legal system has bought quantity at the price of quality, without recognizing either the trade-off or the great gulf separating lawyers' and laymen's incentives, values, and powers.

In The Machinery of Criminal Justice, author Stephanos Bibas surveys the developments over the last two centuries, considers what we have lost in our quest for efficient punishment, and suggests ways to include victims, defendants, and the public once again. Ideas range from requiring convicts to work or serve in the military, to moving power from prosecutors to restorative sentencing juries. Bibas argues that doing so might cost more, but it would better serve criminal procedure's interests in denouncing crime, vindicating victims, reforming wrongdoers, and healing the relationships torn by crime.

The Machinery of Criminal Justice

Stephanos Bibas

Author Biography
Acknowledgements
Introduction: The Divergence of Theory, Reality, and Morality
Overview of the Book
Themes of the Book
Chapter I: The Long Drift from Morality Play to Assembly Line
A. Criminal Justice in the Early American Colonies
1. Small-Town Morality
2. Lay Justice
3. Room for Mercy
4. Reintegrative Punishment
B. Criminal Justice Since the American Revolution
1. The Changing Aims of Criminal Justice
2. Professionalization
3. The Birth of Plea Bargaining
4. The Hiding of Punishment Behind Prison Walls
5. The Decline of Mercy
Chapter II: Opaque, Unresponsive Criminal Justice
A. The Players
1. Dominant Insiders, Savvy and Self-Interested
2. Excluded Outsiders, Yearning for Justice
B. The Play of the Game
1. Round One: Insiders' Procedural Discretion Shapes the Rules in Action
2. Round Two: Outsiders Try to Check Insiders
3. Round Three: Insiders' Procedural Discretion Undercuts Reforms
4. Round Four: Outsiders, Egged on by Politicians, Take Matters into Their Own Hands
5. Round Five: Insiders Circumvent Even "Mandatory " Reforms
C. Costs of the Game
1. Clouding the Criminal Law's Substantive Message and Effectiveness
2. Undermining Legitimacy and Trust
3. Hindering Public Monitoring and Preferences
D. Defense Lawyers and Defendants' Distrust
1. Insider Defense Counsel's Interests and Pressures
2. Defendants' Overoptimism and Risk-Taking
3. Miscommunication, Mistrust, and Timing
Chapter III: Denial, Remorse, Apology, and Forgiveness
A. Denial and Equivocation
1. The Use of Pleas by Defendants in Denial
2. The Danger of Convicting the Innocent
3. The Costs of False Denial and the Value of Confession
4. The Value of Trials as Morality Plays
B. Remorse, Apology, and Forgiveness
1. The Irrelevance of Remorse and Apology in Contemporary Criminal Justice
2. Crime as a Relational Concept
3. Lessons from Noncriminal Contexts: Civil Mediation
Chapter IV: Whose Voices Belong in Criminal Justice?
A. The State's Monopoly on Criminal Justice
B. Incomplete Alternatives to the State's Assembly Line
1. Victims' Rights
2. Restorative Justice
3. Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Problem-Solving Courts
Chapter V: Popular Moral Discourse Versus Assembly-Line Efficiency
A. Efficiency Instead of Moral Judgment
B. Why Not Address Substantive Moral Goals?
Chapter VI: Returning Power to the Public in a Lawyer-Driven System
A. Macro-Level Reforms
1. From Idle Imprisonment to Work, Accountability, and Reform
2. Collateral Consequences and Reentry
B. Mid-Level Reforms to Include the Public
1. Greater Transparency
2. Increasing Public Participation
C. Micro-Level Solutions
1. Victim Information and Consultation
2. Defendants' Information and Participation
3. Restorative Sentencing Juries

The Machinery of Criminal Justice

Stephanos Bibas

Author Information

Stephanos Bibas, Professor of Law and Criminology; Director, Supreme Court Clinic, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Stephanos Bibas is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he specializes in criminal procedure. As director of Penn's Supreme Court Clinic, he also litigates a wide array of cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. After graduating from Yale Law School and clerking at the Supreme Court, he worked as a federal prosecutor in New York City, where he prosecuted a wide array of criminal cases. He successfully investigated, prosecuted, and convicted the world's leading expert in Tiffany stained glass for hiring a grave robber to loot priceless Tiffany windows from tombs in cemeteries, winning an FBI award for outstanding performance. He has published widely on plea bargaining, sentencing, and how criminal procedure could better serve the substantive moral goals of the criminal law.

The Machinery of Criminal Justice

Stephanos Bibas

Reviews and Awards

"In The Machinery of Criminal Justice, author Stephanos Bibas presents a bold and inspiring vision of what criminal justice and the punishment imposed in its name can and should be about. Criminal justice is ideally the process, and punishment ideally the vehicle, through which wronged and wrongdoer restore the bond they once shared. Restoration, not retribution or deterrence, is the rock upon which Bibas builds." " - Stephen P. Garvey, Professor of Law, Cornell Law School

"The Machinery of Criminal Justice is an exceptional volume that gives us the big picture on a scholarly subject too often hobbled by technical focus and narrow thinking. Always accessible and always interesting, Bibas asks some hard questions and gives some creative answers. Common morality, lay justice, mercy, re-integrative punishment - these are the issues at the cutting edge of today's crime policy debates, but Bibas shows us that they are also the historical roots of American criminal justice." " - Paul H. Robinson, Colin S. Diver Professor of Law, University of Pennsylvania, author, with Michael Cahill, of Law Without Justice

"Th[e] embrace of populism as a counterweight to expertise sets Bibas apart. The academics and professionals who work in criminal justice routinely look for ways to insulate criminal punishment from popular passions; they hope to take advantage of specialized professional insights. Bibas offers a bracing challenge to this received expert wisdom." " - Ronald Wright, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Review

"Through a series of articles spanning more than a decade, Professor Stephanos Bibas has proven himself a bold and penetrating critic of America's system of criminal procedure. His theme has been the gap between the morality embodied in our substantive criminal law and the morality (or, perhaps more accurately, the lack thereof) embodied in our procedural rules and practices. This theme now gets its fullest exposition in his provocative new book, The Machinery of Criminal Justice." " - Michael M. O'Hear, University of Pennsylvania Law Review Online

"His vision is a powerful one, he defends it with clarity and grace, and every idea he expresses is capable of starting an important conversation." " - Andrew Taslitz, Jotwell