Ken Strutin

November 21, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Peering behind the concrete curtain of the prison experience, informed sentencing courts can muster the moral authority to preserve humanity before it is lost to incarceration.

By Ken Strutin

11 minute read

September 26, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: The heightened scrutiny of capital punishment has drawn much needed attention to ghostwritten opinions that can mean the difference between life and death.

By Ken Strutin

11 minute read

July 19, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Criminal justice inflicts pain as punishment even as excessive suffering is constitutionally proscribed. But how far can the conventional metrics of pain go in setting the boundaries of due process and due punishment?

By Ken Strutin

26 minute read

May 17, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Technology is moving due process away from the viability of self-representation for prisoners. For just as free people are information overloaded, the imprisoned are information starved.

By Ken Strutin

16 minute read

March 15, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: The cognitive human need to be heard is suppressed by the static conditions of confinement. For this reason, a post-conviction right to counsel must be based on a "human need" born of cognitive rights.

By Ken Strutin

16 minute read

January 26, 2016 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Information sharing is the hallmark of modern society and, in particular, the administration of justice. We know more about more than ever before. The glaring exception is the prison experience omitted from sentencing charts. Civil courts, however, are shedding light on the daily grist of punishment. Indeed, pleadings written by the punished can be an adjunct of experience for sentencing practices and review.

By Ken Strutin

14 minute read

November 17, 2015 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Solitary confinement is where the fabric of justice has worn through. It is the place where everybody hurts and nobody heals. And when the toll of punishment's punishment is seen in human and scientific terms, reform becomes a constitutional imperative.

By Ken Strutin

15 minute read

November 16, 2015 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin writes: Solitary confinement is where the fabric of justice has worn through. It is the place where everybody hurts and nobody heals. And when the toll of punishment's punishment is seen in human and scientific terms, reform becomes a constitutional imperative.

By Ken Strutin

15 minute read

September 15, 2015 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin of the New York State Defenders Association writes: If we reverse engineered the realities of incarcerative punishment, they would bear no resemblance to the sentence imposed by the court. So it is that laws preoccupied with the prison sentence ignore the prison experience.

By Ken Strutin

12 minute read

September 14, 2015 | New York Law Journal

In his Criminal Law column, Ken Strutin of the New York State Defenders Association writes: If we reverse engineered the realities of incarcerative punishment, they would bear no resemblance to the sentence imposed by the court. So it is that laws preoccupied with the prison sentence ignore the prison experience.

By Ken Strutin

12 minute read