Joseph Margulies
Joseph Margulies is Professor of the Practice of Law and Government at Cornell University. He was counsel of record in Rasul v. Bush (2004) involving detentions at Guantánamo Bay. His books include Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power and What Changed When Everything Changed: 9/11 and the Making of National Identity.
The Moral Stupefaction of the American Public
Trump’s boat strikes will seek cover in the same specious legality debate the Bush administration sowed with the torture memos.
Life Sentences for Ahmaud Arbery’s Killers Are Nothing to Celebrate
Draconian individual punishment distracts from systemic change and reinforces the cruelest and most racist system of incarceration on the planet.
A Path to Neighborhood Power
Well-meaning nonprofits don’t go far enough in the fight against gentrification. Residents themselves must be in charge, and neighborhood trusts point the way.
Who Deserves to Be Forgiven?
Forgiveness is a public good, but it is doled out unevenly. Justice demands we widen its reach beyond the select few.
How the Law Killed Ahmaud Arbery
In many states, legal regimes sanction the predictable murder of innocent black men. Justice will not be served until the law changes.
Let the People Go
States should release from prison far more than the very small percentage of low-level, nonviolent offenders they hold.
U.S. Judges Admit Enhanced Interrogation Is Torture
They also acknowledged, for the first time, that the grounds for torturing Abu Zubaydah—who was detained in the wake of September 11 and is still languishing in Guantánamo—were mistaken.
Managing Innocence
The Innocence Movement faces a perverse rhetorical puzzle: righting the isolated wrongful conviction only reinforces public faith in the system as a whole.
