William C. Heffernan – författare

The economically deprived come into contact with the criminal court system in disproportionate numbers. This collection of original, interactive essays, written from a variety of ideological perspectives, explores some of the more troubling questions and ethical dilemmas inherent in this situation. The contributors, including well-known legal and political philosophers Philip Pettit, George Fletcher, and Jeremy Waldron, examine issues such as heightened vulnerability, indigent representation, and rotten social background defences.

The various essays in this volume explore the development of ideas of corruption, employing a range of disciplinary approaches. Although we are accustomed to think of corruption as the misuse of public office for private gain, corruption has its deeper roots in the idea of a standard that has been eroded. That standard, however, need not be construed idealistically: much of what is asserted to be corruption takes the form of a departure from conventional standards. In inveighing against corruption, therefore, it is necessary first to examine the presumptions that underlie its imputation. As well as exploring the ethical issues that must be confronted in identifying corruption, the authors also address some of the ethical issues that challenge attempts to root out corruption.

Criminal justice is centrally concerned with what people deserve—with the rights a defendant can properly claim when charged with a crime, with the punishment a judge should impose for wrongdoing, and with the scope of discretion officials may exercise when enforcing the law. Dimensions of Justice: Ethical Issues in the Administration of Criminal Law is the only textbook of its kind that addresses these questions of justice from an institutional perspective. Thought-provoking features, including Thought Experiments boxes that present imagined scenarios to illustrate the principles under discussion and Justice in Context boxes that consider the real-life applications of concepts, along with clearly presented learning objectives, create a strong foundation in key concepts, pertinent vocabulary, and critical-thinking and reasoning skills. Readers are introduced to moral reasoning and the underpinnings of philosophical approaches to justice, including readings from critical philosophers such as Aristotle, Augustine, Locke, Kant, and Rawls. Accessible but rigorous, Dimensions of Justice: Ethical Issues in the Administration of Criminal Law provides a unique and innovative approach that challenges students to develop a new analytical framework for thinking about the criminal justice system.

This book seeks to explain why the concept of justice is critical to the study of criminal justice.

This book seeks to explain why the concept of justice is critical to the study of criminal justice.

This book builds on Heffernan's last book Rights and Wrongs: Rethinking the Foundations of Criminal Justice by examining the class and racial disparities at the heart of current law — disparities that, according to many, generate a system of criminal injustice.

This book builds on Heffernan's last book Rights and Wrongs: Rethinking the Foundations of Criminal Justice by examining the class and racial disparities at the heart of current law — disparities that, according to many, generate a system of criminal injustice. It argues that these disparities run throughout the legal system; they’re present in policing, corrections, and sentencing. It discusses the relationship between the two kinds of justice — social justice and criminal justice and how to ensure fairness in state-imposed punishment. It theorises the extent to which criminal law must address considerations of social justice to ensure a fair system. It proposes a framework for analyzing disparities, provides an overview of contemporary research concerning them, and offers reform proposals for addressing them. Written in an accessible way, it introduces readers to philosophical theory and doctrines in constitutional law and thus it speaks to a wide audience concerned about racial and class disparities in the criminal justice system. It responds to a half-century’s worth of public concern about the legitimacy of the state’s exercise of its penal power while explaining the pertinence of social justice principles to the criminal justice system.

This book explains a paradox in American constitutional law: how a right not discussed during the ratification debates at Philadelphia and not mentioned in the text has become a core component of modern freedom. Rather, privacy is a constitutional afterthought that has gained force through modern interpretations of an old text. Heffernan defends privacy rights against originalist objections to its inclusion in modern constitutional doctrine, analyzes the structure of privacy claims, and provides a blueprint for protecting privacy against government incursion. The book will appeal to a wide audience of students and researchers of criminal procedure, constitutional history, law-and-society, and sociology of law. Lawyers will find this book extremely valuable in addressing the statutory issues associated with modern privacy law.At last, a book about constitutional interpretation that speaks plain English and makes sense.  It’s the best work I know on the subject, yet that subject is not the one it’s mostly about.  The book mostly tells the story of the constitutional right to privacy and how it emerged from provisions that at the outset were not much about privacy at all.  On that subject, the book is definitive.  It’s also fascinating, probing, engaging, insightful, and wonderfully presented.  Privacy and the American Constitution is a stellar contribution to knowledge.Albert W. Alschuler, Julius Kreeger of Law and Criminology, Emeritus, University of ChicagoA powerful and innovate contribution to constitutional law.  Not only does Heffernan offer us a fascinating and persuasive account of how modern constitutional rights grew out of the personal space offered to us in an earlier era, he also explains why privacy rights deserve the newfound importance they have in our modern jurisprudence, based upon the same Madisonian approach to constitutional interpretation that justifies other central parts of modern constitutional law.Marc Jonathan Blitz, Alan Joseph Bennett Professor of Law, Oklahoma City University School of Law