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Henry F. Fradella** & Christine S. Scott-Hayward*** Full Article. I. Introduction In its 2017 “State of Pretrial Justice in America” report, the Pretrial Justice Institute (“PJI”) praised Arizona’s pretrial justice reform efforts.[1] Arizona was one of nine states awarded a “B” grade (only one state—New Jersey—received an “A” grade).[2] Arizona was also named a “state to watch.”[3] Other commentators and news outlets have highlighted Arizona’s efforts and argue that it is one of the jurisdictions at the forefront of bail reform.[4] Although we agree that Arizona has taken some key steps toward creating a just and effective bail system,[5] more needs to be done before the state becomes a true leader in pretrial justice. Arizona remains a state with high numbers of unconvicted people in its jails.[6] Of the approximately…

Michele Deitch* Full Article. Introduction Over the last decade or so, Arizona’s prisons have become synonymous with mismanagement, lack of safety, unconstitutional health care, and abysmal conditions for people in custody. The problems that have marred the corrections agency’s reputation have been documented in countless news stories and show the agency’s seeming inability to address even the most fundamental flaws in its operations that lead to violence and deaths in custody.[1] A litany of scandals, including broken locks on cell doors, abuses of incarcerated people, riots, escapes, horrific care of pregnant women, and water shortages have also dominated news headlines.[2] Moreover, a federal class-action lawsuit about Arizona’s disastrous privatized prison health care delivery system has spanned many years; it led to a detailed settlement and also to a civil contempt…

Jenny E. Carroll* Full Article. Introduction Concepts of safety and prevention of danger pervade the criminal law canon.[1] Arizona is no exception.[2] The state’s criminal systems[3] pivot around central and entwined goals of protecting public safety and preventing danger. The state constitution permits pretrial detention both for the most serious offenses and when no other condition of release will adequately protect the community from the danger the accused’s freedom might pose.[4] The rules of criminal procedure and the criminal code designate some offenses and actors “dangerous”[5] and urge judges to weigh not only the accused’s risk of flight, but also his future dangerousness in making decisions to release or detain pretrial.[6] On the other end of the criminal law continuum, post-conviction considerations follow suit. Arizona’s sentencing guidelines permit enhancements of…

Douglas A. Berman* and Alex Kreit** Full Article. Introduction In less than a decade, marijuana legalization has gone from unthinkable to seemingly unstoppable. The idea was viewed as so far outside the mainstream in 2009 that President Barack Obama’s first drug czar Gil Kerlikowske dismissively told a reporter that “[l]egalization [was] not in the President’s vocabulary.”[1] When California voters rejected the first major state-wide marijuana legalization ballot initiative in November 2010, the Obama administration celebrated the result.[2] Fast forward just six years, and voters in eight states had approved full adult-use legalization laws and Obama was telling Rolling Stone that he thought marijuana should be treated “as a public-health issue, the same way we do with cigarettes or alcohol.”[3] Today, marijuana legalization enjoys broad bipartisan support. Sixty-seven percent of Americans…

Valena E. Beety* Full Article. Introduction Arizona is nationally recognized as a leader in forensic science. Our state court judges serve on the Legal Resource Committee for the National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST) and provide guidance to NIST’s Organization of Scientific Area Committees for Forensic Science.[1] Our Phoenix lab analysts and lab directors have national reputations.[2] And Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law has been home to many leading academics in the field of forensics and the law, among them Michael Saks, David Kaye, and Jay Koehler.[3] We have a robust forensic science community in Arizona and in Phoenix in particular. Thus, this Article identifies the strengths of the current system in Arizona and proposes innovative reforms appropriate for labs that are already leaders in…

Michael Serota* Full Article. All government decisions matter. But few matter more—or are more consequential for society—than those involving the criminal justice system.[1] That’s because we depend upon the criminal justice system to perform two of the government’s most critical functions: securing justice and promoting public safety. To achieve these goals, we afford those who operate the criminal justice system great authority: the power to investigate and monitor, to arrest and detain, to convict and punish. But with this delegation of power comes great vulnerability: we must trust that the government officials who make criminal justice decisions will exercise their authority responsibly, in a manner that respects individual rights, preserves communities, avoids undue delay, and conserves limited societal resources. Today, there is an emerging societal consensus that the U.S. criminal…