Here at In Progress<\/em>, we hope to contribute to\u00a0collective efforts by hacking Supreme Court doctrine. The idea is to open up the law around prisons and make\u00a0connections to help generate anti-mass incarceration constitutional\u00a0arguments. What’s more, the goal is to crowdsource the\u00a0connection-making process. To do this, I am experimenting with\u00a0doctrinal map\u00a0designs to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0non-specialist learning of complex doctrinal systems.<\/p>\n Last time, I charted out a series of Eighth Amendment doctrinal networks<\/a> and found them large and unwieldy. It’s not realistic to expect anybody to read over 100 Supreme Court cases while mining for anti-mass-incarceration arguments. So this time, I\u00a0want to narrow the focus. Below find the 2-dgree citation network linking the Court’s 2011 prisoner overcrowding decision\u00a0Brown v. Plata\u00a0<\/em>to 1958’s\u00a0Trop v. Dulles<\/em>, a seminal\u00a0pronouncement about the Eighth Amendment’s meaning as a guarantee of human dignity in light of evolving standards of decency.<\/p>\n Note the new design feature of the map above: its interactivity. Click on the map and then click on any of the opinions. You’ll find yourself looking an HTML deck<\/a>\u00a0that (a) has a very quick summary of the case holding; and (b) contains links to open resources about the case provided by CourtListener<\/a>, Cornell Legal Information Institute<\/a>, Oyez<\/a>, and the Supreme Court Database<\/a>. Some of the decks\u00a0also contain other potentially useful information — check out the Brown v. Plata<\/em> deck<\/a>\u00a0as an example (make sure you tap your right arrow key!).<\/p>\n As the above map demonstrates, legal hacking is a collective activity. If the map helps\u00a0at all, it is only because it leverages free resources provided by great organizations doing great\u00a0work. The HTML Deck platform is an especially cool free resource created by Dave Zvenyach<\/a>, the 2014 DC Legal Hacker of the Year<\/a>. His example should inspire us all to tinker and build and seek creative solutions.<\/p>\n Before signing off this post, let me return to the mass incarceration problem. While the map above does not provide any answers or pre-packaged strategies for ending this national problem, it does suggest\u00a0an initial research agenda\u00a0for putative doctrinal hackers. Technology won’t do the reading for you, but it can making your reading about the Supreme Court and prisons more directed and efficient. Does Eighth Amendment doctrine contain\u00a0good arguments against mass incarceration? Maybe this map can help you look.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hacking complex systems can improve them. White-hat hackers can open up needlessly closed systems, knock down senseless limitations, and then make connections and create solutions that improve that system for everyone. So here’s a thought: our system of mass incarceration … Continue reading ![\"Trop_Plata_2degree_genealogy\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/cstarger\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/273\/2015\/02\/Trop_Plata_2degree_genealogy.jpg\")
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