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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Constitutionalization Of Parole: Fulfilling The Promise Of Meaningful Review, Alexandra Harrington
The Constitutionalization Of Parole: Fulfilling The Promise Of Meaningful Review, Alexandra Harrington
Journal Articles
Almost 12,000 people in the United States are serving life sentences for crimes that occurred when they were children. For most of these people, a parole board will determine how long they will actually spend in prison. Recent Supreme Court decisions have endorsed parole as a mechanism to ensure that people who committed crimes as children are serving constitutionally proportionate sentences with a meaningful opportunity for release. Yet, in many states across the country, parole is an opaque process with few guarantees. Parole decisions are considered “acts of grace” often left to the unreviewable discretion of the parole board.
This …
Jury Consideration Of Parole, Fernand N. Dutile
Jury Consideration Of Parole, Fernand N. Dutile
Journal Articles
Under our system of criminal justice, a jury faces two basic decisions: the determination of guilt and, in many cases, the selection of an appropriate penalty for the convicted. In both instances the jurors' impressions of the parole system could be crucial. For example, the jury's notion—correct or incorrect—that the defendant will be eligible for parole very quickly if sentenced to prison may cause it to compromise on the issue of guilt. In cases where the jury has discretion in setting the penalty, this notion may seduce it into selecting the death penalty over life imprisonment.
There are additional problems …