Daily Briefs (Nov 3)

ABA urges Supreme Court to consider effects of overcrowding and alternatives to incarceration
The American Bar Association is urging the Supreme Court of the United States, when considering a California prison population reduction order, to consider the deleterious effects of prison overcrowding on the medical and mental health of those who are incarcerated. The association also offers some cost-effective ways to reduce prison populations without unduly jeopardizing public safety or the operation of a jurisdiction’s criminal justice system. 

In its amicus brief in Plata v. Schwarzenegger and Coleman v. Schwarzenegger, filed Monday, the association discusses alternatives to incarceration, as well as parole, probation and reentry policies aimed at reducing recidivism.

In doing so, the association cites the ABA Standards for Criminal Justice and the reports of the ABA Kennedy Commission and the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions. 

In the present case, the ABA asks that the lower court’s prison population order be affirmed because the order appropriately left to California and its prison administrators the discretion to determine the methods to be used, while mandating that those methods result in constitutionally required conditions for prison inmates and be consistent with public safety.   

To access the brief, go to www.abanet.org/media/nosearch/plata_coleman_110110.pdf .

UDM Law Federalist Society to hold debate on immigration law
The University of Detroit Mercy School of Law will hold an upcoming Federalist Society event on Thursday, Nov. 4.

“On the Border: A Debate on the Arizona Law and the Future of Immigration Reform” will be held from noon to 2 p.m. in the Atrium of the School of Law located at 651 East Jefferson Avenue in downtown Detroit.

Arguments will be presented by Dr. James Carafano, director of the Center for Foreign Policy Studies and deputy director of the Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation, and UDM Law’s Andrew Moore, professor of Human Rights, Immigration and International Law.

The debate will focus on the political and legal effects of the recent Arizona immigration legislation (SB 1070) and the future of immigration reform.

Both sides will present their arguments, and they will each be given a period for rebuttal.

A Q&A session will follow the presentation. There is no charge for this event, and it is open to the public.

The UDM Law Federalist Society is a student organization founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.

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