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Full-Text Articles in Law

Places In The Heartland: Departure Jurisprudence After Koon, Frank O. Bowman Iii Jul 1997

Places In The Heartland: Departure Jurisprudence After Koon, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

There are two things upon which I suspect most observers will agree following the decision in Koon v. United States. First, the United States Supreme Court wants district courts to have more discretion to depart from the otherwise applicable guideline range, and wants appellate courts to have less authority to overturn those discretionary judgments. Second, in light of the conflicting signals the Court gave by, on the one hand, declaring that the standard of appellate review for departure decisions is to be abuse of discretion,” and on the other hand, finding that two of the five factors relied upon by …


Retroactivity And Legal Change: An Equilibrium Approach, Jill E. Fisch Jan 1997

Retroactivity And Legal Change: An Equilibrium Approach, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

In this Article, Professor Fisch assesses currrent retroactivity doctrine and proposes a new framework for retroactivity analysis. Current law has failed to reflect the complexity of defining retroactivity and to harmonize the conflicting concerns of efficiency and fairness that animate retroactivity doctrine. By drawing a sharp distinction between adjudication and legislation, the law has also overlooked the similarity of the issues that retroactivity raises in both contexts. Professor Fisch's analysis, influenced by the legal process school, uses an equilibrium approach to connect retroactivity analysis to theories of legal change. Instead of focusing on the nature of the new legal rule, …