2016 Symposium on Democratizing Criminal Law

Read the articles from the symposium.

On November 18 & 19, 2016, Professor Joshua Kleinfeld of Northwestern Law School and Professor Richard Bierschbach of Cardozo Law School, with the Northwestern University Law Review, held a symposium centered around defining and defending a shared vision of democratic criminal justice. This symposium aimed to identify and critically examine the core ideas of the democratization movement, to project the democratization movement’s ideas into the national conversation, and to act publicly and collectively on matters of democratic criminal justice reform. 

PANELS

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016

Opening Remarks – Manifesto of the Democratization Movement

• Professor Joshua Kleinfeld

Panel – Constitutional Foundations and Community Voice

• Professor Laura Appleman
• Professor Richard Bierschbach
• Professor Josh Bowers
• Moderator: Professor Bob Burns

Panel – Empirical Foundations: Shared Norms, Lay Intuitions, Legitimacy, and Compliance

• Professor Janice Nadler
• Professor Paul Robinson
• Professor Tom Tyler
• Moderator: Professor Kenworthey Bilz

Lunch – Why Prosecutors Rule the Criminal Justice System—and What Can Be Done About It

• Judge Jed Rakoff, U.S. District Court, SDNY

Panel – Community and Racial Justice

• Professor Paul Butler
• Professor Dorothy Roberts
• Professor Jonathan Simon
• Moderator: Professor Jocelyn Simonson

Panel – De-Bureaucratization: Police and Prosecutors

• Professor Stephanos Bibas
• Professor Tracey Meares
• Professor Charles Ramsey
• Moderator: Professor Tom Geraghty

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2016

Panel – Philosophical Foundations: Criminal Law’s Democratic Nature

• Professor John Braithwaite
• Professor Joshua Kleinfeld
• Professor Alice Ristroph
• Moderator: Professor Ekow Yankah

Roundtable – Policy Proposals

• Moderator: Professor Richard Bierschbach

Roundtable – Toward a White Paper

• Moderator: Professor Joshua Kleinfeld

Closing Remarks

• Professor Richard Bierschbach