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Will Ortman

@willsortman.bsky.social

Law professor, University of Georgia

Will Ortman @willsortman.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I’ve posted a draft of my article Authoritarian Criminal Justice, forthcoming next year in the Washington & Lee Law Review, on SSRN. Abstract below. Comments welcome! papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Authoritarian Criminal Justice

William Ortman

84 WASH. & LEE L. REV. __ (2027)

Abstract: This paper is about authoritarian criminal justice practices, where government punishes political opposition or rewards allyship. In liberal democracies, such practices undermine democratic functioning by suppressing political competition. Isolated episodes don’t jeopardize a regime’s status as a liberal democracy, but sustained patterns can. The paper begins by developing a conceptual framework to diagnose, describe, and evaluate authoritarian criminal justice within liberal democracy. It then deploys that framework to identify sustained patterns of authoritarian criminal justice in three places: the American South during “Redemption,” eroded democracies abroad, and the United States since January 2025. A final section turns from detecting authoritarian practices in contemporary Ameri-can criminal justice to analyzing the mechanisms that make them possible.

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Will Ortman @willsortman.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I am so sorry, Sanjukta. My thoughts are with you and your family.

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Reposted by Will Ortman

Dan Epps @epps.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

A great development, but I disagree w/ the article's claim that this is totally different from my & @willsortman.bsky.social's "Defender General." This helps w/ problems we identified & resembles our proposal even if it doesn't go far enough. Article here: repository.law.upenn.edu/Documents/De...

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Reposted by Will Ortman

California Law Review @califlrev.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

SCOTUS has neglected the Confrontation Clause, which curates prosecutorial evidence. @willsortman.bsky.social argues that inattention to the reliability of confessions is a jurisprudential oversight, not a feature of constitutional design. californialawreview.org/print/confession-confrontation

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Will Ortman @willsortman.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

This is so good!

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