David Sklansky, Stanley Morrison Professor of Law and faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, received the Roy C. Palmer Prize on Democracy, Civil Liberties, and the Rule of Law for his latest book, Criminal Justice in Divided America: Police, Punishment, and the Future of Our Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2025). The prize is awarded annually by Chicago-Kent College of Law. He argues in his book that the fail­ures of America’s criminal justice system—from overly harsh sentences and prosecutorial abuses to the underutilization of the jury system—don’t just harm individuals; they erode the very foundations of democratic governance. SL