Faith, Justice, and Teaching Criminal Procedure

Michael O'Hear has a new paper, "Faith, Justice, and the Teaching of Criminal Procedure," that should be of interest to MOJ readers.  Here is the abstract:

The American criminal justice system is marked by a culture of speedy, bureaucratized case processing, which is in tension with the dignitary interests of defendants. The Christian Gospels, however, mandate respect for the essential dignity of all people, even of criminals. Faith-based values may thereby provide a framework for critical perspectives on the criminal justice system. In a basic criminal procedure class, these perspectives may be conveniently developed through a discussion of leading right-to-counsel cases.

O'Hear explores these matters through a discussion of, inter alia, the (limited) right to self-representation, acknowledged in the Faretta case.  (I tend to agree, for what it's worth, with the dissent in Faretta, and to be skeptical of the view that a respect for the accused's dignity requires the political community to compromise the reliability of its fact-finding and punishment-imposing processes.)  Anyway, check it out.