American Bar Association:Criminal Justice Section

Featured Resources

Mediation in Criminal Matters (video): A project sponsored by the American Bar Association Enterprise Fund, with Timothy Hedeen and Karen Gopee

Internal Exile: Collateral Consequences of Conviction in Federal Laws and Regulations

The origins of this project can be traced to the ABA’s promulgation in 2003 of a new chapter of its Criminal Justice Standards that called on each U.S. jurisdiction to collect and analyze the collateral consequences in its laws and regulations. See Standard 19-2.1 of the ABA Standards on Collateral Sanctions and Discretionary Disqualification of Convicted Persons (2003). The ABA Standards identified two types of collateral consequences: “collateral sanctions,” defined as penalties imposed automatically upon conviction, and “discretionary disqualifications,” defined as penalties that are authorized but not required to be imposed. This distinction between automatic and discretionary collateral consequences was carried forward into a uniform law presently under consideration by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and more recently into Section 510 of the Court Security Act, both of which also call for a comprehensive inventory and study of collateral consequences.

Leapholes by James Grippando

Leapholes is time travel with a legal twist, where law books and important legal precedents come to life. Though a work of fiction, all of the cases woven into the Leapholes storyline are actual and important cases from American legal history, including the the U.S. Supreme Court decision that slaves are property, not people, appears at Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857).

Listen to an interview with James Grippando. Listen to other author interviews.

Leapholes Video

The Criminal Justice Section fiction publication Leapholes is a fascinating story of Ryan Coolidge, a boy who hates middle school and who is in trouble with the law. The text is excellent reading for middle school students, and to encourage greater and better utilization of the book, lesson plans have been developed to enhance the learning experience. A lesson supplement being utilized by the New Hampshire Bar Association recently was placed on Youtube. You can view the report on the book and the lawyer involvement in the lesson here [video].

Leapholes Lesson Plan: True or False Confessions

The Criminal Justice Section working in cooperation with the ABA Public Education Division has developed a lesson plan that law students, teachers and attorneys can to teach about false confessions -- one of the core themes of the book. The lesson plan investigates the major causes of wrongful convictions within the criminal justice system. Law students and lawyers can provide insights and understanding on the book through participation in the lesson that can be downloaded here [lesson plan].

Download a Study Guide for use with students.

Criminal Justice System Improvements (Recommendation for the Transition)

The ABA offers recommendations to improve the criminal justice system. Such recommendations include: alternatives to incarceration; repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing; eliminating sentencing disparities; and enacting prison reform legislation.

DOJ Rule on DNA Sample Collection and Biological Evidence Preservation in the Federal Jurisdiction