ipl-logo

Summary Of Upside Down Mississippi Problem

1554 Words7 Pages

Summary:
This law review addresses the problem the author, Jordan Gross, refers to as the “Upside Down Mississippi Problem.” Officially, it is referred to as the “Mississippi Problem”, and defined as “the failure of state courts, particularly in the South, to fully protect the rights of economically and racially marginalized defendants, most often poor African Americans” (10). Essentially, due to federalization, standardization and nationalization in the past, there has been a gap created between federal criminal law and state criminal law. This particularly occurs in cases where there is concurrent jurisdiction or, in other words, both the state and federal governments are able to prosecute the criminal case. Many times, the federal prosecution …show more content…

Gross points out that federalization, in and of itself, threaten to disturb the balance between the federal and state governments. This threat of disturbance also impacts the disparity gap in sentencing and could quite possibly be oppressing creativity.
Thankfully, in more recent times, there has been a move to reverse the disparity and restore the balance between federal and state governments. Federalization, standardization and nationalization were not by design; they evolved from the politics and concerns of the time. These concerns included the state being able to effectively regulate conduct in every economic standing, in addition to the federal concern that multiple states were not willing or able to protect the constitutional rights of all …show more content…

The Supreme Court has done most of their part, and it is now time for Congress to step up and make a much larger effort to close this gap permanently. Gross’s proposal for closing this gap completely is making an amendment to the Rules Enabling Act that requires the federal courts comply with the state criminal procedures and sentencing practices when prosecuting in a concurrent jurisdiction. “To address this inverted Mississippi Problem, this article proposes federal legislation requiring federal courts to apply state procedure in concurrent jurisdiction prosecutions where their application of state procedure will have substantive impacts in the prosecution”

Show More
Related
493 Words | 2 Pages

According to the article The Devil in Devolution, the “devolution revolution” is seen as, “The shift in government’s center of gravity away from Washington and toward the states…” which translate to the return of power from the federal government to the state government. In recent years, the author of the article (Donahue) believes that the states have been given too much power, and the power of the federal government has been declining. The “tragedy of the commons” principle is when an individual abuses a shared resource to the point in which the supply is overwhelmed, and some people are unable to receive the resource. This applies to federalism because the states seem to be usurping all of the “power” from the federal government, so there

Read More
800 Words | 4 Pages

Have you ever wondered where our laws In Mississippi come from? It might seem like a law fairy is making them pop up, but unfortunately, that is not exactly what happens. It seems that way to us because state laws are something citizens do not have a large role in. However, someone who does have a large role in deciding these state laws is the State Legislature. With that being the case, there is a whole lawmaking process and inside that process are many important people and steps.

Read More
410 Words | 2 Pages

Since the governments “creation” in 1776 when the united states separated from Brittan’s monarchial government, there has been substantial change in the powers of state and national government. From 1788-1937 power was divided strictly between state and national government, also known as Dual-Federalism. Under this, the power of the state government is greater than the power of the national government. Sometimes referred to as layer cake federalism, because the powers lay on top of each other but don’t intermingle. This was not favorable because there was a fear of northern dominance.

Read More
262 Words | 2 Pages

Second major issues were nullification. This is a concept which states if the federal government rules are unconditional then state has the right to ignore and nullify. In 1832, a state convention in South Carolina declared a high protective tariff null and void. (According to the Haggard, Thomas R (2007)

Read More
914 Words | 4 Pages

In McClesky v. Kemp the Supreme Court held that a study showing the death penalty in Georgia was imposed on black defendants disproportionately to white defendants failed to establish that any of the decision makers involved in the process acted with a discriminatory purpose. McClesky is a notable case in several respects. First, it highlighted the integrated nature of the criminal justice system and how each component functions to reach a certain result. Second, it emphasized the debate on which actors in the justice system have the most power and what role that power plays in reaching the result. Third, the case also underscored the importance on prosecutors keeping records of their decisions at varying stages of the criminal justice process.

Read More
490 Words | 2 Pages

Ch.1 R1 ¶1 – Settlers who came to the American colonies hoped to have a brighter future (;to own a farm, to start a small business, to live among equals.) ¶2 – The settlers wanted to make their own economic and political decisions based on their own needs. ¶3 – American colonists had to make important decisions about their government. ¶4 – The constitution creates the basic framework of the whole US government. R2 ¶1 – The government is divided into 3 branches in order to keep it from having too much power.

Read More
1652 Words | 7 Pages

They also recognized that the States would need the authority to restrain a power-hungry federal

Read More
983 Words | 4 Pages

Mass Incarceration: Transforming an Unconstitutional System. Guild Notes, 40(4), 12. Brad Broussard in his article, Mass

Read More
1343 Words | 6 Pages

Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.

Read More
2258 Words | 10 Pages

Since its beginning, the United States of America has gradually and steadily expanded the oversight and power of its own federal government. This expansion has resulted in a plethora of effects on the relationship between local state government and the federal government, both negative and positive. However, the increased impingement from the federal government onto the constitutional rights of local and state governments has created an imbalance. A major part of this imbalance has stemmed from the advent and imposition of unfunded federal mandates. This increasing implementation of unfunded federal mandates over the years has begun to stir up trouble between the states and the federal government.

Read More
159 Words | 1 Pages

In some cases the spheres of government may actually be quite disparate and not overlap at all. During the Great Recession national Keynesian policies of counter-cyclical spending kicked in to help stimulate the national economy. However, states either by law or constitution, must balance their budgets even in times of fiscal austerity. Similar in the effects of federal mandates, this may also lead to the erosion of state sovereignty through an overreliance on federal funding. Additionally, there are potentially desultory effects on the national government’s intended fiscal policy outcomes.

Read More
328 Words | 2 Pages

Federalism was ultimately to blame for the slow government response to Katrina. Federalism refers to the division of political authority between a central government and state or provincial governments; a method of government that allows two or more entities to share control over the same geographic region. While Federalism ensures that state governments function independently, it also prevents the creation of a national policy and leads to a lack of accountability, which proved to be the case with Katrina, the most destructive storm in United States history. Governments have a lot of power to affect people’s lives.

Read More
625 Words | 3 Pages

The national laws are not generally right, in light of the fact that better places have diverse circumstances. It is expressed that the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution presents critical energy to state governments, but accommodation with the government is a piece of what makes the United States a vote based system. The U.S. Constitution states that government law is the rule that everyone must follow. The idea of "states' rights" has generally been utilized to legitimize state support for indecent practices, for example, subjection and isolation. States governments and addition as National government have been fighting over power for many years.

Read More
1623 Words | 7 Pages

After careful review of the assigned material The Untouchables: America’s Misbehaving Prosecutors, And The System That Protects Them, an article by Radley Balko published in the Huffington Post August 2013 argues Brady violations which are the failure to disclose, as a matter of law, exculpatory evidence, as required under Federal case law. Balko addresses prosecutor misconduct and lists the tens of thousands of prosecutorial misconduct cases that have been studied by ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, USA Today, the Innocence Project , and Yale Law. Senate Bill s. 353 was introduced in Senate on 3 February 2015 titled Justice Safety Valve Act of 2015. This bill authorizes a federal court to impose a sentence in a criminal proceeding

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

James Madison wrote Federalist 51 over 200 years ago, yet its words still impact today’s government in 2016. When writing Federalist 51, Madison had two main objectives in mind; he wanted a government with a separation of powers, and he also wanted minorities to be protected. Both of his objectives have been accomplished and continue to be present in today’s American government with the latter objective being more present in today’s government even more so than in the past. To begin with, power is separated in today’s government, preventing a single person or group from having absolute power since, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,” according to John Dalberg-Acton. The American government is composed of three branches which power is separated amongst.

Read More

More about Summary Of Upside Down Mississippi Problem

Related Topics

Open Document