Promoting Criminal Justice Reform through Legal Scholarship: Toward a Taxonomy

Abstract

It is a pleasure and an honor to commemorate the life and career of Professor Caleb Foote, preeminent criminal justice scholar and reformer, by reflecting on what his life and work might teach us about how the next generation of criminal justice scholars can contribute to the reform of our institutions of criminal justice. My own experiences-working within the criminal justice system as a public defender, studying it as a scholar, and litigating and otherwise advocating for its reform as a law professor have persuaded me that our administration of criminal justice strays far from the ideals inscribed above many courthouse entrances. Instead of "Equal Justice Under Law" as the Supreme Court's marble inscription promises, perhaps it might be fairer to declare, as one New Yorker cartoon lampoons, "Truth • Justice • Equality • Public Relations,"1 or on occasion even "Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here," as Dante described the inscription on the entrance to hell. While I can easily identify many pathologies in our administration of criminal justice, over the years my gimlet-eyed students have identified many others, though not necessarily the same ones, of course. As these students study their casebooks, write their own research papers, participate in clinical opportunities offered by the law school, and work at summer jobs on issues