Böcker av Brandon L. Garrett

We all feel unfairness deeply when treated in rash ways. We expect and the law requires that government officials take fairness seriously, giving notice and an opportunity to be heard before taking our rights away. That is why the U.S. Constitution commands, twice, that no one shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Yet in overheated debates, people argue that others do not deserve any presumption of innocence. In courtrooms and colleges, police stations and jails, restaurants and libraries, print and online, the democratic value of due process is up for grabs. Why is process under so much pressure? Brandon Garrett exposes widening fault lines. One division lies within our own attitudes, and he explores why we are tempted to put desired outcomes before fair process. Another lies in government, as judges adopt toothless due process rules. People are trapped in debt for unpaid traffic fines; sheriffs seize and forfeit belongings; algorithms suspend teachers' employment; officials use flawed data to cancel healthcare; and magistrates order arrestees jailed because they cannot pay cash bail. Meanwhile, the rise of AI threatens what remains of due process with black box technology. To fight against such unfairness, lawyers try to challenge unjust systems, researchers demonstrate why such processes are so counterproductive, and lawmakers try to enact new protections. Common ground matters now more than ever to mend political polarization, cool simmering distrust of government, prevent counterproductive errors, and safeguard constitutional rights. A revival of due process is long overdue.

American courts routinely hand down harsh sentences to individuals, but a very different standard of justice applies to corporations. Too Big to Jail> takes readers into a complex, compromised world of backroom deals, for an unprecedented look at what happens when criminal charges are brought against a major company in the United States.

The death penalty is contested across modern social, political, academic, and legal institutions, and this interdisciplinary text helps readers analyse that debate. The text explores the legal rules and moral reasoning behind the principle of the death penalty, as well as the uncomfortable realities of American capital punishment.

Today, death sentences in the U.S. are as rare as lightning strikes. Brandon Garrett shows us the reasons why, and explains what the failed death penalty experiment teaches about the effect of inept lawyering, overzealous prosecution, race discrimination, wrongful convictions, and excessive punishments throughout the criminal justice system.

DNA exonerations have shattered confidence in the criminal justice system by exposing how often we have convicted the innocent and let the guilty walk free. In this unsettling analysis, Garrett examines what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 people exonerated by DNA testing, and proposes systemic reforms.