Criminal Law

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What's the Harm? The Future of the First Amendment
Defending Speech Crimes
Judith Miller

Tremendous thanks go out to my extraordinarily patient editors at the University of Chicago Legal Forum and to the other participants in the autumn false speech symposium, my devoted and insightful research assistant Elisabeth Mayer, and also to William Baude, Genevieve Lakier, David Owens, Erica Zunkel, Andrew Mackie-Mason, and Max Samels.

This article focuses on two procedural mechanisms for strengthening the First Amendment within the criminal legal system: robust grand jury/indictment and unanimity requirements. These requirements help vindicate the First Amendment by testing the facts of a case against the constitutionalized elements of the offense.

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The Body
Black Masculinity and the Government
Paul Butler
Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University Law Center

This essay was presented as a work in progress at the University of Arkansas School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, and Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. I thank the participants in those sessions. Special shout out to Chris Gordon and K-Sue Park. Chibunkem Ezenekwe, Aubrianna Mierow, and Torrell Mills provided exemplary research assistance. Much respect to Timothy Kowalczyk and Kristen Powell, the student editors of a law professor’s dreams.

Black male bodies have long been the subject of special attention from the state. This essay focuses on two government interventions in Black masculinity, dating from the 1960s, and their continuing consequences—including for the criminal justice system, and race and gender justice.

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The Body
Bringing Up the Bodies
Bennett Capers
John D. Feerick Research Professor of Law and Director of the Center on Race, Law, and Justice, Fordham School. B.A. Princeton University; J.D. Columbia Law School. E-mail: capers@law.fordham.edu.

Claudio Rezende provided invaluable research assistance.

Allow me to begin with a scene from one of my favorite novels of the last twenty years. The novel is Hilary Mantel's 'Bring Up the Bodies,' the second in her award-winning trilogy of historical novels about Thomas Cromwell and King Henry VIII.