Welcome to our interactive criminal procedure class!
All parts of our class aim to help you develop your own "criminal procedure imagination" (CPI) By this I refer to your ideal blaming and punishing regime. We spend our Wednesday afternoons together interrogating the central promise of US criminal justice: to balance the power of government to protect the safety and security of all persons against those who want to do them harm, while at the same time protecting their right to come and go as they please without government interference, and guaranteeing all persons that the government will enforce the law on the street, at the police station, in the courts, and punishing criminal wrongdoing. This promise is also the criminal and punishing regime's greatest problem: How close to to social reality is the promise of equal rights and justice. This promise and this problem have fascinated my students at lease once a year since 1971. It stimulates them to think for themselves, discuss them during our class discussions and with their friends and family outside class.
A final word: You'll probably learn some actual criminal procedure law in our interactive journey through the criminal process. Good for you. But, remember our goal is above all to work on developing your CPI