I want to take this opportunity to invite you to consider submissions to the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law (OSJCL), in particular here to our Commentary section. As many of you know, we publish high-quality symposia, book reviews, “Term Papers” that focus on a recent United States Supreme Court criminal justice opinions, as well as other articles. But our Commentary section is unique. For those of you who are not familiar with our Commentary essays, let me explain. First, Commentary essays are shorter than traditional articles: we accept only essays that are 10,000 words or less. Often Commentaries are as short as 5,000 words.
But what makes Commentaries special, beyond their comparative brevity, is that we invite essays that discuss topics that would not be considered by other law journals or that discuss topics in a unique manner. For example, Professors Carol and Jordan Steiker published a 2003 essay, “Abolition in Our Time,” which consisted of a hypothetical 2022 United States Supreme Court death penalty opinion that they predicted or hoped might represent the future of capital punishment 20 years thereafter. Another one of our Commentaries involved an author who reflected on his experiences serving on a jury in a criminal trial; still another author wrote about her experiences as a grand juror. In one of our early Commentaries, Professor Robert Batey wrote, “Minority Report and the Law of Attempt,” which reviewed the then-circulating science fiction movie and in which the author reflected on how the law might handle persons apprehended under the movie’s version of “precrime.”
This is not to say that a Commentary submission must be unique as in the examples above. The point is that we welcome all types of “shorter” essays.
The OSJCL is a high-quality, often-cited, criminal law journal. I hope you will consider submissions of any sort to us. Authors should submit their manuscripts to osjcl@osu.edu.