James R Acker
Biographic Data
| ID | 91736 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James R Acker |
| GIVEN NAMES | James R |
| FAMILY NAME | Acker |
| SIGNATURE | ACKER J R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University at Albany, State University of New York |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened
The criminal costs of wrongful convictions: Can we reduce crime by protecting the innocent
Research Summary In this article, we examine criminal offending by true perpetrators after innocent people are arrested and convicted for their crimes. After investigating a set of cases in which DNA was used to exonerate the innocent and to identify the guilty party, we identified 109 true perpetrators, 102 of whom committed additional crimes. We found a total of 337 additional offenses committed by the true perpetrators, including 43 homicide‐r…
Why Children Follow Rules: Legal Socialization and the Development of Legitimacy
Parents, teachers, and police officers and justice systems officials browsing the aisles of their local bookstore will be forgiven if they come upon the optimistically entitled Why Children Follow Rules and respond with a measure of skepticism. As we all know, children frequently do not follow the announced rules which are designed to govern in households, schools, and the world beyond. Yet, to be fair, breaches of these codes of conduct needed f…
Living on death row: The psychology of waiting to die.
Prisoners on death row now spend 22 or more hours a day alone in cramped, barren cells. They have little to do except wait to die--without knowing if it will happen in days or decades. This extreme isolation combined with the omnipresent fear of death takes a severe psychological toll that is unnecessary, inhumane, and--in the eyes of many--unconstitutional. In this book, Hans Toch, James R. Acker, and Vincent Martin Bonaventre present wide-rangi…
Questioning Capital Punishment: Law, Policy, and Practice
The death penalty has inspired controversy for centuries. Raising questions regarding capital punishment rather than answering them, Questioning Capital Punishment offers the footing needed to allow for more informed consideration and analysis of these controversies. Acker edits judicial decisions that have addressed constitutional challenges to capital punishment and its administration in the United States and uses complementary materials to off…
Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial
Book Review| July 01 2012 Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial. By James A. Miller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. xii + 280 pp. Photos, notes, index, and bibliography. $55 (cloth); $27.95 (paper). James R. Acker James R. Acker Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2012) 31 (4): 83–85. https://doi.o…
Impose an Immediate Moratorium on Executions
Capital punishment, the moratorium movement, and empirical questions: Looking beyond innocence, race, and bad lawyering in death penalty cases
This article briefly explores the underpinnings of the contemporary capital punish-ment moratorium movement and examines executive and legislative responses to calls for a halt to executions, including suggestions for studying the death penalty process. Although most investigations focus on select issues like innocence, inef-fective counsel, and race bias, this article suggests that a wide-ranging constellation of issues should be investigated in…
Building a Better Youth Court
Youth courts are an innovative quasi‐legal forum in which adolescents pass judgment on their peers in cases involving relatively minor offenses. These courts hold much promise to benefit offending youth, the youthful volunteers who participate in the adjudicative process, the traditional juvenile court system, victims, and surrounding communities. Based on a survey completed of the forty‐two youth courts operating in New York State, this article …
America's Experiment with Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction
A Different Agenda: The Supreme Court, Empirical Research Evidence, and Capital Punishment Decisions, 1986-1989
This article examines the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence in 28 capital punishment cases decided between 1986 and 1989. The study describes the frequency and major correlates of the justices' citation of social science authorities in the 1986-89 sequence of cases. Social science evidence figured significantly in several death penalty cases, although a majority of the justices were more eager to discredit and discount resea…
Finding the law: A criminal justice guide to basic legal research techniques
Either by choice or by necessity, criminal justice students, educators, researchers, administrators, and practitioners frequently seek information or engage in conduct that somehow concerns the law. There are numerous reasons why persons interested in criminal justice theory and practice may want or need legal knowledge, but a lack of familiarity with the basic techniques for conducting legal research may inhibit access to this knowledge. This ar…
Thirty Years of Social Science in Supreme Court Criminal Cases
The Supreme Court early took note of extralegal, “social science” materials in Muller v. Oregon (1908), and a half‐century later made specific reference to social science authorities in the famous footnote 11 of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since Brown, much has been written about the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence, but there has been little systematic study of that use. Those writing on the subject commonly focus …
Capital Punishment and the American Agenda
A Different Agenda: The Supreme Court, Empirical Research Evidence, and Capital Punishment Decisions, 1986-1989
This article examines the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence in 28 capital punishment cases decided between 1986 and 1989. The study describes the frequency and major correlates of the justices' citation of social science authorities in the 1986-89 sequence of cases. Social science evidence figured significantly in several death penalty cases, although a majority of the justices were more eager to discredit and discount resea…
Thirty Years of Social Science in Supreme Court Criminal Cases
The Supreme Court early took note of extralegal, “social science” materials in Muller v. Oregon (1908), and a half‐century later made specific reference to social science authorities in the famous footnote 11 of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since Brown, much has been written about the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence, but there has been little systematic study of that use. Those writing on the subject commonly focus …
The criminal costs of wrongful convictions: Can we reduce crime by protecting the innocent
Research Summary In this article, we examine criminal offending by true perpetrators after innocent people are arrested and convicted for their crimes. After investigating a set of cases in which DNA was used to exonerate the innocent and to identify the guilty party, we identified 109 true perpetrators, 102 of whom committed additional crimes. We found a total of 337 additional offenses committed by the true perpetrators, including 43 homicide‐r…
Building a Better Youth Court
Youth courts are an innovative quasi‐legal forum in which adolescents pass judgment on their peers in cases involving relatively minor offenses. These courts hold much promise to benefit offending youth, the youthful volunteers who participate in the adjudicative process, the traditional juvenile court system, victims, and surrounding communities. Based on a survey completed of the forty‐two youth courts operating in New York State, this article …
Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened
Capital Punishment and the American Agenda
Finding the law: A criminal justice guide to basic legal research techniques
Either by choice or by necessity, criminal justice students, educators, researchers, administrators, and practitioners frequently seek information or engage in conduct that somehow concerns the law. There are numerous reasons why persons interested in criminal justice theory and practice may want or need legal knowledge, but a lack of familiarity with the basic techniques for conducting legal research may inhibit access to this knowledge. This ar…
Thirty Years of Social Science in Supreme Court Criminal Cases
The Supreme Court early took note of extralegal, “social science” materials in Muller v. Oregon (1908), and a half‐century later made specific reference to social science authorities in the famous footnote 11 of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Since Brown, much has been written about the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence, but there has been little systematic study of that use. Those writing on the subject commonly focus …
A Different Agenda: The Supreme Court, Empirical Research Evidence, and Capital Punishment Decisions, 1986-1989
This article examines the Supreme Court's use of social science research evidence in 28 capital punishment cases decided between 1986 and 1989. The study describes the frequency and major correlates of the justices' citation of social science authorities in the 1986-89 sequence of cases. Social science evidence figured significantly in several death penalty cases, although a majority of the justices were more eager to discredit and discount resea…
America's Experiment with Capital Punishment: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of the Ultimate Penal Sanction
Building a Better Youth Court
Youth courts are an innovative quasi‐legal forum in which adolescents pass judgment on their peers in cases involving relatively minor offenses. These courts hold much promise to benefit offending youth, the youthful volunteers who participate in the adjudicative process, the traditional juvenile court system, victims, and surrounding communities. Based on a survey completed of the forty‐two youth courts operating in New York State, this article …
Capital punishment, the moratorium movement, and empirical questions: Looking beyond innocence, race, and bad lawyering in death penalty cases
This article briefly explores the underpinnings of the contemporary capital punish-ment moratorium movement and examines executive and legislative responses to calls for a halt to executions, including suggestions for studying the death penalty process. Although most investigations focus on select issues like innocence, inef-fective counsel, and race bias, this article suggests that a wide-ranging constellation of issues should be investigated in…
Impose an Immediate Moratorium on Executions
Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial
Book Review| July 01 2012 Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial Remembering Scottsboro: The Legacy of an Infamous Trial. By James A. Miller. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009. xii + 280 pp. Photos, notes, index, and bibliography. $55 (cloth); $27.95 (paper). James R. Acker James R. Acker Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of American Ethnic History (2012) 31 (4): 83–85. https://doi.o…
Questioning Capital Punishment: Law, Policy, and Practice
The death penalty has inspired controversy for centuries. Raising questions regarding capital punishment rather than answering them, Questioning Capital Punishment offers the footing needed to allow for more informed consideration and analysis of these controversies. Acker edits judicial decisions that have addressed constitutional challenges to capital punishment and its administration in the United States and uses complementary materials to off…
Living on death row: The psychology of waiting to die.
Prisoners on death row now spend 22 or more hours a day alone in cramped, barren cells. They have little to do except wait to die--without knowing if it will happen in days or decades. This extreme isolation combined with the omnipresent fear of death takes a severe psychological toll that is unnecessary, inhumane, and--in the eyes of many--unconstitutional. In this book, Hans Toch, James R. Acker, and Vincent Martin Bonaventre present wide-rangi…
The criminal costs of wrongful convictions: Can we reduce crime by protecting the innocent
Research Summary In this article, we examine criminal offending by true perpetrators after innocent people are arrested and convicted for their crimes. After investigating a set of cases in which DNA was used to exonerate the innocent and to identify the guilty party, we identified 109 true perpetrators, 102 of whom committed additional crimes. We found a total of 337 additional offenses committed by the true perpetrators, including 43 homicide‐r…
Why Children Follow Rules: Legal Socialization and the Development of Legitimacy
Parents, teachers, and police officers and justice systems officials browsing the aisles of their local bookstore will be forgiven if they come upon the optimistically entitled Why Children Follow Rules and respond with a measure of skepticism. As we all know, children frequently do not follow the announced rules which are designed to govern in households, schools, and the world beyond. Yet, to be fair, breaches of these codes of conduct needed f…
Smoke but No Fire: Convicting the Innocent of Crimes that Never Happened
Political science (11 works) · Criminology (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · History (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Capital punishment (5 works) · History (5 works)