Aviram on the Financial Sense Behind Prison Reform

Hadar Aviram has published an op-ed in the San Francisco Bay Guardian (June 2) in which she argues that the financial crisis provides California with an opportunity to engage in a fresh and frank cost-benefit analysis of its penal system. Here's the link: http://www.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=8633

Little on Ruling Out Evidence Causing Wrongful Convictions

Rory Little has published an essay titled "Addressing the Evidentiary Sources of Wrongful Convictions: Categorical Exclusion of Evidence in Capital Statutes," 37 Southwestern Univ. L. Rev. 965 (2008), in which he proposes a model statute that would ban any capital prosecution based primarily on the types of evidence known to cause the conviction of innocent persons. The four types are (1) eyewitness (stranger) identification testimony; (2) confession; (3) criminal informant; and (4) unvalidated forensic evidence.