When Law Fails

Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. (Editor) Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. He is the author of All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education (WW Norton and Company, 2004) and Co-Author of From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America.Austin Sarat (Editor) Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He has written or edited dozens of books, including Lethal Injection and the False Promise of Humane Execution (Stanford 2022), Law's Infamy: Understanding the Canon of Bad Law (NYU 2021), and Cause Lawyering and the State in a Global Era (Oxford 2001), which won the 2004 Reginald Heber Smith Book Award.

The essays are interesting, informative and thought-provoking. (New York Law Journal) Ogletree and Sarat have assembled an outstanding group of contributors for these original essays. (Library Journal) Ogletree and Sarat include some of the best contemporary scholars within the field of law and society in this collection that highlights numerous historical examples of laws failure to bring justice. The detail of each contribution is nearly flawless, as is the analysis. This edited volume is a wonderful addition to the various fields within jurisprudence. . . . Highly recommended. (Choice) Bringing into view detailed stories of failures in American legal proceedings, When Law Fails also exposes the patterns of national self-interest, institutional failure, and professional prerogative that compound and bury the errors. - Martha Minow,co-author of Breaking the Cycles of Hatred: Memory, Law, and Repair When Law Fails provides a timely lesson in why we must remain diligent in our oversight of the legal system. This compelling collection of essays provides a stark reminder of the human cost of failure and provides a roadmap for addressing inequities in our legal system. - Congressman John Conyers The advent of DNA evidence has revealed serious flaws in the criminal justice system, resulting in the conviction of innocent people. Anyone concerned about correcting the unfairness and imbalance in the system should read this book. - Steve Bright,President, Southern Center for Human Rights When Law Fails is a thoughtful consideration of the criminal justice system and the embedded failures that lie within. The book illustrates both the drama and daily consequences of miscarriages of justice. (The Law and Politics Book Review)

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Lives on the Line: From Capital Punishment to Life without Parole Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin SaratPart I: Life without Parole in Context 1 Mandatory Life and the Death of Equitable Discretion Josh Bowers 2 Death-in-Prison Sentences: Overutilized and Underscrutinized Jessica S. Henry 3 Creating the Permanent Prisoner Sharon Dolovich 4 Life without Parole under Modern Theories of Punishment Paul H. RobinsonPart II: Prospects for Reform 5 Defending Life I. Bennett Capers 6 Life without Parole and the Hope for Real Sentencing Reform Rachel E. Barkow 7 No Way Out? Life Sentences and the Politics of Penal Reform Marie Gottschalk 8 Dignity and Risk: The Long Road from Graham v. Florida to Abolition of Life without Parole Jonathan Simon About the Contributors Index