They say justice is blind. However, after perusing the headlines in national media, it seems as if the blindfold might have slipped. With new criminal justice reforms coming down from the White House and individual states revising or overhauling their programs, the issue of “justice” remains a quagmire of questions.
Coming from their respective positions as a criminal justice reformer and working prosecutor in Denver, Clark Neily and Ashley Daly will discuss the current state of America’s criminal justice reform. They will devote particular attention to the issues of overcriminalization, mass incarceration, accountability and the costs and benefits of plea bargaining as the default mechanism for adjudicating criminal charges in the modern criminal justice system.
The discussion will then turn to possible reforms, including the elimination of cash bail, providing more effective representation for defendants, rethinking the role of the criminal jury and the impact of so-called “progressive prosecutors” on the overall system.