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The 'Abuse Excuse' In Capital Sentencing Trials: Is It Relevant To Responsibility, Punishment, Or Neither?, Paul J. Litton Jul 2005

The 'Abuse Excuse' In Capital Sentencing Trials: Is It Relevant To Responsibility, Punishment, Or Neither?, Paul J. Litton

Faculty Publications

The violent criminal who was a victim of severe childhood abuse frequently appears in the responsibility literature because he presents a difficulty for theorists who maintain the compatibility of causal determinism and our practices of holding persons responsible. The challenge is based on the fact that learning about an offender's horrific childhood mitigates the indignation that many persons feel towards him, possibly indicating that they hold him less than fully responsible. Many capital defendants present evidence of suffering childhood abuse, and many jurors find this evidence to count against imposing death. The most obvious explanation for a response like this …


Justifying Restorative Justice: A Theoretical Justification For The Use Of Restorative Justice Practices, Zvi D. Gabbay Jul 2005

Justifying Restorative Justice: A Theoretical Justification For The Use Of Restorative Justice Practices, Zvi D. Gabbay

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This paper analyzes the premises of the two main theories of punishment that influence sentencing policies in most Western countries-retributivism and utilitarianism-and compares them to the basic values that structure the restorative justice theory. It then makes clear distinctions between restorative justice and the rehabilitative ideal and addresses the criticism that, like rehabilitation, restorative justice results in different punishments to equally culpable offenders. The paper concludes that restorative justice does not contradict retribution and utility as theoretical justifications for penal sanctioning. Moreover, it suggests that restorative practices rehabilitate the basic notions of retribution and deterrence that have been neglected in …


Murder, Meth, Mammon & Moral Values: The Political Landscape Of American Sentencing Reform (In Symposium On White Collar Crime), Frank O. Bowman Iii Apr 2005

Murder, Meth, Mammon & Moral Values: The Political Landscape Of American Sentencing Reform (In Symposium On White Collar Crime), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the ongoing American experiment in mass incarceration and considers the prospects for meaningful sentencing reform.


Beyond Bandaids: A Proposal For Reconfiguring Federal Sentencing After Booker, Frank O. Bowman Iii Jan 2005

Beyond Bandaids: A Proposal For Reconfiguring Federal Sentencing After Booker, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article proposes a simplified sentencing table consisting of nine base sentencing ranges, each subdivided into three sub-ranges. The base sentencing range would be determined by combining offense facts found by a jury or admitted in a plea with the defendant's criminal history. A defendant's placement in the sub-ranges would be determined by post-conviction judicial findings of sentencing factors. No upward departures from the base sentencing range would be permissible, but defendants might be sentenced below the low end of the base sentencing range as a result of an acceptance of responsibility credit or due to a downward departure motion. …