Principled Prosecution

This course will focus on principled prosecution in this era of renewed criminal justice reform, primarily from a federal perspective.  It will ground students in the empirical evidence of racial disparity in federal charging and sentencing practices and deal candidly with over-incarceration in our criminal system.  The class will examine the role of a prosecutor in our society and criminal justice system, the demands of prosecutorial ethics, and the role of prosecutorial discretion in charging, litigating, and sentencing defendants.  The course will study actual cases to home in on issues relating to discovery violations, prosecutorial misconduct, and the use of cooperators and confidential informants.  The course will also examine how prosecutors and law enforcement agencies can tackle problems relating to corporate crime, violent crimes, hate crimes, and police violence.  While the class will view these issues with a federal lens, it will also investigate local prosecution reforms (i.e., the “progressive prosecutor” movement) and consider whether those reforms can and should apply at the federal level.