One Day University

In England and colonial America, criminal justice was run by laymen, not lawyers. Ordinary citizens passed judgment as jurors, and everyone gossiped about trials and saw convicts punished in the town square. Over the next two centuries, prosecutors and defense lawyers took over from victims and defendants, and as trials grew more complicated and full of legalese, the lawyers found ways around them by using plea bargaining, which today resolves 19 out of every 20 criminal cases. These plea bargains, struck in back rooms or conference calls, hide criminal justice from the public’s eyes. And as we moved from capital and corporal punishment to imprisonment, punishment likewise retreated behind prison walls. As a result, punishment has moved from a matter of democratic moral judgment to a speedy, amoral assembly line run by experts. In this lecture, students will come away with an understanding of the democratic, populist roots of our system of justice, enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and how lawyers and increasing caseloads have subverted it.