Document Type

Working Paper

Publication Date

3-26-2019

SSRN Discipline

PSN Subject Matter eJournals; Legal Anthropology eJournals; LSN Subject Matter eJournals; Cultural Anthropology eJournals; CJRN Subject Matter eJournals; Political Behavior eJournals; Legal Scholarship Network; Criminal Law & Procedure eJournals; Law & Society eJournals; AARN Subject Matter eJournals; Criminal Justice Research Network; Political Science Network; Anthropology & Archaeology Research Network

Abstract

The term witchhunt has been tossed around by media commentators policy experts and even presidents for years "” Nixon Clinton and Trump each in turn Accusations of a witchhunt are used to signal perceived bias procedural unfairness and paranoia This Article argues that drawing simplistic connections between witchcraft trials and unfairness in the criminal justice system severely hampers our understanding of both historical and contemporary events It obscures the fact that the term witchhunt is popularly used to describe two very different types of prosecutions that reflect distinct social and legal problems and demand distinct solutionsbrbrOn the one hand witchhunts target individuals based on their beliefs and are exemplified by the two Red Scares of the early and midtwentieth century and the persecution of the Quakers in seventeenth century Massachusetts Bay These are fundamentally distinct from crime panics which target activity that was already classified as criminal but do so in a way that reveals deep procedural deficiencies in the criminal justice system Crime panics are exemplified by the Salem witchcraft trials and the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s and 1990s In contrast the ongoing special investigation by Robert Mueller is neither a witchhunt nor a crime panic By bringing ongoing criminal law issues into conversation with legal history scholarship on early American witchhunts this article clarifies our understanding of the relationship between politics and largescale criminal investigations and highlights areas for future reformbr

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