Justice before the Law

Preface
Contents
List of Figures
Part I: Foundations for a Defense of Justice
	1: Introduction
		1.1	 The Problem of Legal Injustice
		1.2	 Injustice in the Legal System
		1.3	 The Primacy of Authority and the Primacy of Justice
		1.4	 A Brief Preview
		References
	2: Law and Morality
		2.1	 The Autonomy of Ethics
		2.2	 The Challenge of Natural Law
			2.2.1	 “Unjust Law Is Not Law”
			2.2.2	 Normative Reading
			2.2.3	 Weak Descriptive Readings
			2.2.4	 Semantic Disputes
		2.3	 The Challenge of Legal Relativism
		2.4	 In Defense of Moral Rights
			2.4.1	 Intuitive Support for Rights
			2.4.2	 The Trolley Objection
			2.4.3	 Against Consequentialism
			2.4.4	 Differences Between Trolley and Organ Harvesting
			2.4.5	 Accommodating Rights to the Trolley Exception
			2.4.6	 Why Speak of Rights?
		2.5	 Intuition and Moral Knowledge
			2.5.1	 The Concept of Ethical Intuition
			2.5.2	 Intuitionist Methodology
		2.6	 Moral Realism
		References
Part II: Legal Injustices
	3: Unjust Laws
		3.1	 The Presumption Against Law
			3.1.1	 An Argument that Laws Are Presumptively Unjust
			3.1.2	 The Right Against Harmful Coercion
			3.1.3	 In Defense of Prima Facie Rights
			3.1.4	 Laws Are Harmfully Coercive
		3.2	 Drug Prohibition
			3.2.1	 Prohibition Violates Prima Facie Rights
			3.2.2	 Harm to Users
			3.2.3	 Harm to Others
			3.2.4	 Other Problems of Prohibition
			3.2.5	 Why Drug Laws Exist
		3.3	 Immigration Restrictions
		3.4	 Other Unjust Laws
		3.5	 The Trolley Exception
		3.6	 Just Laws
		3.7	 Ideological Controversy
		References
	4: The Price of Justice
		4.1	 The Price of Legal Services
		4.2	 The State’s Responsibility for Legal Prices
			4.2.1	 Supply Factors: Licensing
			4.2.2	 Demand Factors: Complexity
			4.2.3	 Demand Factors: Overcriminalization
			4.2.4	 Demand Factors: The Threat of Legal Harm
		4.3	 From Causation to Culpability
			4.3.1	 When Costs Are Unjust
			4.3.2	 Licensing
			4.3.3	 Complexity
			4.3.4	 The Threat of Legal Harm
		4.4	 The Duty to Provide Justice
			4.4.1	 The Function of Government
			4.4.2	 Duties to Society Vs. Individuals
			4.4.3	 Prohibitive Pricing Violates the Duty to Provide Justice
			4.4.4	 Indigent Defense in the Status Quo
		4.5	 Facilitation of Injustice
		4.6	 Objections
			4.6.1	 Burdens to Taxpayers
			4.6.2	 The Problem of Frivolous Lawsuits
		4.7	 Reforms
		References
	5: Extorted Pleas
		5.1	 The Practice of Plea Bargaining
		5.2	 The Injustice of Plea Bargaining
			5.2.1	 Plea Bargaining as Coerced Confession
			5.2.2	 When the Innocent Plead Guilty
			5.2.3	 Disproportionate Punishment
		5.3	 Plea Bargaining Is Unconstitutional
		5.4	 Plea Bargaining Defeats Due Process Protections
		5.5	 Defenses of Plea Bargaining
			5.5.1	 “Plea Bargaining Is Not Coercive”
			5.5.2	 “Individuals Have the Right to Sell Their Rights”
			5.5.3	 “Trials Are Too Expensive”
		5.6	 Reforms
			5.6.1	 Limiting the Trial Penalty
			5.6.2	 The Right to Sue
			5.6.3	 Cost Reduction
		References
	6: Unjust Punishments
		6.1	 Principles of Just Punishment
			6.1.1	 Why We Punish
			6.1.2	 The Need for Retributive Justice
			6.1.3	 The Proportionality Principle
			6.1.4	 Unconscionable Punishments
		6.2	 Disproportionate Punishments
			6.2.1	 The Origins of Mass Incarceration
			6.2.2	 Excess Punishment
		6.3	 Unconscionable Punishment
			6.3.1	 The Problem of Prison Abuse
			6.3.2	 The Impermissibility of Imprisonment
			6.3.3	 The Duty to Prevent Crime
			6.3.4	 The Prospects for Reform
		6.4	 Reforms
			6.4.1	 Advantages of a Restitution-Based System
			6.4.2	 The Need for Incapacitation
		References
	7: Abuse of Power
		7.1	 The Problem of Abuse of Power
		7.2	 Police Abuse
			7.2.1	 The Problem of Police Violence
			7.2.2	 The System’s Response
			7.2.3	 The Role of Race
		7.3	 Prosecutorial Abuse
			7.3.1	 Prosecuting the Innocent
			7.3.2	 Skewed Trials
			7.3.3	 Civil Immunity
		7.4	 Executive Abuse
			7.4.1	 Richard Nixon
			7.4.2	 George W. Bush
			7.4.3	 Barack Obama
			7.4.4	 Necessity Versus Imminence
			7.4.5	 Divisiveness
		7.5	 Diagnosing Abuse
			7.5.1	 Ambition
			7.5.2	 Confirmation Bias
			7.5.3	 Love of Power
			7.5.4	 Ingroup Bias
			7.5.5	 Deference to Power
		7.6	 Reforms
		References
Part III: In Defense of Justice
	8: The Primacy of Justice
		8.1	 Questions of Individual Ethics
		8.2	 The Meaning of the Primacy of Justice
			8.2.1	 The Ethical Juror
			8.2.2	 The Ethical Lawyer
			8.2.3	 The Ethical Judge
		8.3	 The Role of Law in a System of Justice
			8.3.1	 Law Affects Justice
			8.3.2	 Resolving Unclear Cases
		8.4	 The Common Sense Case for Justice
			8.4.1	 The General Duty of Justice
			8.4.2	 The Argument from Instrumental Rationality
		References
	9: The Authority of Law
		9.1	 The Need for a Theory of Authority
		9.2	 The Social Contract Theory
		9.3	 The Hypothetical Contract Theory
		9.4	 The Democratic Theory
		9.5	 The Utilitarian Theory
		9.6	 Conclusion
		References
	10: Role Playing
		10.1	 Role Playing
		10.2	 The Knowledge Argument
			10.2.1	 Ignorance of Justice
			10.2.2	 Certainty Is Not Required
			10.2.3	 Uncertainty of Law
			10.2.4	 Extreme Skepticism Is Unreasonable
			10.2.5	 The Streetlamp Fallacy
		10.3	 The Problem of Subjectivism
			10.3.1	 The Subjective Belief Objection
			10.3.2	 The Subjective Belief Objection Entails Absurdity
			10.3.3	 Pursuing Real Versus Apparent Justice
		10.4	 Faith in Democracy
			10.4.1	 The Problem of Undemocratic Decisions
			10.4.2	 The Reliability of Democracy
			10.4.3	 The Reliability of Juries and Judges
		10.5	 Promises and Role Obligations
			10.5.1	 The Obligation to Fill a Role
			10.5.2	 Implicit Contracts
			10.5.3	 The Juror’s Oath
		10.6	 Faith in the System
			10.6.1	 The Appeal to the System
			10.6.2	 Increasing the Odds of Unjust Outcomes
			10.6.3	 Prosecutors Versus Defense Attorneys
			10.6.4	 Judge and Jury
			10.6.5	 Universalization
		10.7	 What Is the Role of a Jury?
			10.7.1	 Determining the Jury’s Role
			10.7.2	 Framers’ Intent
			10.7.3	 Case Law
			10.7.4	 Moral and Practical Considerations
		References
	11: The Rule of Law
		11.1	 The Appeal to the Rule of Law
		11.2	 Anarchic Precedents
			11.2.1	 Warnings of Anarchy
			11.2.2	 Existing Precedents
			11.2.3	 The Influence of Juries
			11.2.4	 Lawyers’ Duties
			11.2.5	 The Importance of Justice
		11.3	 The Value of Uniformity
			11.3.1	 Advantages of Uniformity: Fairness, Planning, and Deterrence
			11.3.2	 Factual and Moral Innocence
			11.3.3	 Negative Versus Positive Rule of Law
			11.3.4	 Sources of Uncertainty
		11.4	 The Virtue of Social Deference
			11.4.1	 The Problem of Normative Disagreement
			11.4.2	 The Process-Based Solution
			11.4.3	 Deference to the Law
			11.4.4	 The Limits of Social Deference
			11.4.5	 The Abuse of Democracy
			11.4.6	 Jury Nullification as Part of the Process
		11.5	 The Virtue of Defiance
			11.5.1	 The Difficulty of Defiance
			11.5.2	 The Harm of Obedience
		References
	12: Conclusion
		12.1	 Flaws in the U.S. Legal System
			12.1.1	 Unjust Laws
			12.1.2	 Unjust Prices
			12.1.3	 Plea Bargaining
			12.1.4	 Unjust Punishments
			12.1.5	 Abuse of Power
		12.2	 Toward a Justice-Oriented Legal Philosophy
			12.2.1	 Placing Justice Before the Law
			12.2.2	 Against Authority
			12.2.3	 Role Obligations
			12.2.4	 The Need for Uniformity
			12.2.5	 Social Deference
		12.3	 An Error Theory: The Cognitive Handicap of Jurisprudence
		12.4	 Virtues of American Justice
		References
Index