The legal system is complex, and without appropriate access, many injustices can occur. Deaf people in the criminal justice system are routinely denied sign language interpreters, videophone access, and other accommodations at each stage of the legal process. The marginalization of deaf people in the criminal justice system is further exacerbated by the lack of advocates who are qualified to work with this population. Deaf People in the Criminal Justice System: Selected Topics on Advocacy, Incarceration, and Social Justice is the first book to illuminate the challenges faced by deaf people when they are arrested, incarcerated, or navigating the court system. This volume brings interdisciplinary contributors together to shed light on both the problems and solutions for deaf people in these circumstances.
 
       The contributors address issues such as accessibility needs; gaps regarding data collection and the need for more research; additional training for attorneys, court personnel, and prison staff; the need for more qualified sign language interpreters, including Certified Deaf Interpreters who provide services in court, prison, and juvenile facilities; substance use disorders; the school to prison nexus; and the need for advocacy. Students in training programs, researchers, attorneys, mental health professionals, sign language interpreters, family members, and advocates will be empowered by this much-needed resource to improve the experiences and outcomes for deaf people in the criminal justice system.

       This book has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this book do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Justice isn't blind. It's winking. This is the message Americans get when, against the weight of overwhelming evidence, high-profile suspects go free; when there are special sentencing rules for battered wives or adult survivors of childhood abuse; when murderers are released from prison to rape and murder again, and politicians make political hay out of these cases; when lawyers look less like servants of higher values and more like profit seekers reaping fortunes by helping clients get away with murder. This book is a penetrating look into what's wrong with the American legal system, a devastating critique of how politics has corrupted criminal law in America.

Written with clarity and simplicity, Getting Away with Murder is a lesson in how the law works and a blueprint for how it should work. Susan Estrich takes on the enflamed issues, from the O. J. Simpson trial to three strikes legislation, but pushes well beyond the soundbite answers. Drawing on her background as a lawyer, political commentator, professor, and national campaign manager for Michael Dukakis, she brings academic expertise and political experience together in a way that very few people can.

In particular, Estrich argues that group-based jury nullification, like group-based abuse excuses, is precisely the wrong answer to the biases of the criminal justice system. Getting Away with Murder also views this system in the wider political arena, where fiascoes like the Willie Horton case stifle political debate and promote policies that tie the hands of judges in dealing with dangerous offenders. Lawyers do not escape Estrich's notice; she directs some of her most pointed remarks at the failure of the legal profession to tend to the ethical duties and legal values that it professes.

At a time when three quarters of black Americans believe that the criminal justice system is racist and unfair; when nearly half of all whites think it's ineffective and in decline; when crime, though falling, still tops the list of public concerns, and politicians exploit public distrust of the system to get elected, Getting Away with Murder makes a statement that is powerful, controversial, and urgently needed.