Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 21 of 21

Full-Text Articles in Law

Life Without Parole Sentencing In North Carolina, Brandon L. Garrett, Travis M. Seale-Carlisle, Karima Modjadidi, Kristen M. Renberg Jan 2021

Life Without Parole Sentencing In North Carolina, Brandon L. Garrett, Travis M. Seale-Carlisle, Karima Modjadidi, Kristen M. Renberg

Faculty Scholarship

What explains the puzzle of life without parole (LWOP) sentencing in the United States? In the past two decades, LWOP sentences have reached record highs, with over 50,000 prisoners serving LWOP. Yet during this same period, homicide rates have steadily declined. The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the use of juvenile LWOP in Eighth Amendment rulings. Further, death sentences have steeply declined, reaching record lows. Although research has examined drivers of incarceration patterns for certain sentences, there has been little research on LWOP imposition. To shed light on what might explain the sudden rise of LWOP, we examine characteristics of …


Declining Corporate Prosecutions, Brandon L. Garrett Jan 2020

Declining Corporate Prosecutions, Brandon L. Garrett

Faculty Scholarship

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, people across the United States protested that "too big to jail" banks were not held accountable after the financial crisis. Little has changed. Newly collected data concerning enforcement during the Trump Administration has made it possible to assess what impact a se­ries of new policies has had on corporate enforcement. To provide a snapshot comparison, in its last twenty months, the Obama Administration levied $I4.15 billion in total corporate penalties by prosecuting seventy-one financial institu­tions and thirty-four public companies. During the first twenty months of the Trump Administration, corporate penalties declined to …


The Development And Evolution Of The U.S. Law Of Corporate Criminal Liability And The Yates Memo, Sara Sun Beale Jan 2016

The Development And Evolution Of The U.S. Law Of Corporate Criminal Liability And The Yates Memo, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Justice As A Rounding Error?: Evidence Of Subconscious Bias In Second-Degree Murder Sentences In Canada, Craig E. Jones, Micah B. Rankin Jan 2015

Justice As A Rounding Error?: Evidence Of Subconscious Bias In Second-Degree Murder Sentences In Canada, Craig E. Jones, Micah B. Rankin

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

There are few areas of law that grant judges as much discretion as the sentencing of criminal offenders. This discretion necessarily leads to concerns about the influence of biases, including those that result from subconscious processes associated with human cognition; that is to say, heuristics. In this article, the authors explore one heuristic—number preference—through an examination of all reported second degree murder parole ineligibility decisions between 1990 and 2012. Number preference leads individuals to predictably round off measurements to certain favoured numbers. The authors identify a tendency for parole ineligibility decisions to cluster around even numbers and multiples of five, …


Prosecutorial Decriminalization, Erik Luna Nov 2013

Prosecutorial Decriminalization, Erik Luna

Erik Luna

The article discusses the legal concept of prosecutorial decriminalization in the U.S. as of July 2012, focusing on an analysis of the use of criminal laws to enforce the public standards of morality in America. Penal codes and criminal sanctions are addressed, along with several reform measures aimed at restructuring a criminal law system in the U.S. which has reportedly been overburdened by overcriminalization. The use of the American judiciary system as a check on overcriminalization is mentioned.


Virginia’S Redefinition Of The “Future Dangerousness” Aggravating Factor: Unprecedented, Unfounded, And Unconstitutional , Lara D. Gass Jun 2013

Virginia’S Redefinition Of The “Future Dangerousness” Aggravating Factor: Unprecedented, Unfounded, And Unconstitutional , Lara D. Gass

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.


Prosecutorial Decriminalization, Erik Luna Jul 2012

Prosecutorial Decriminalization, Erik Luna

Scholarly Articles

The article discusses the legal concept of prosecutorial decriminalization in the U.S. as of July 2012, focusing on an analysis of the use of criminal laws to enforce the public standards of morality in America. Penal codes and criminal sanctions are addressed, along with several reform measures aimed at restructuring a criminal law system in the U.S. which has reportedly been overburdened by overcriminalization. The use of the American judiciary system as a check on overcriminalization is mentioned.


Reverberations Of The Victim's "Voice": Victim Impact Statements And The Cultural Project Of Punishment, Erin L. Sheley Jul 2012

Reverberations Of The Victim's "Voice": Victim Impact Statements And The Cultural Project Of Punishment, Erin L. Sheley

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.


Legal Representation In The Chinese Criminal Court, Yudu Li, Hong Lu Apr 2012

Legal Representation In The Chinese Criminal Court, Yudu Li, Hong Lu

Graduate Research Symposium (GCUA) (2010 - 2017)

Abstract: Legal representation plays an important role in criminal sentencing decisions. China has recently stipulated a mandatory legal representation clause for all offenders facing capital charges in its Criminal Procedural Law (1996). This study uses data generated from criminal court case documents involving three serious violent crimes: murder, intentional assault, and robbery. All these crimes carry a maximum of sentence of death. The study examines whether and under what conditions legal representation has an effect on criminal sentencing decisions in China. While the overall multi-regression model did not find that having a legal representation significantly reduces the criminal sentence, a …


The North Carolina Racial Justice Act: An Essay On Substantive And Procedural Fairness In Death Penalty Litigation, Neil Vidmar Jan 2012

The North Carolina Racial Justice Act: An Essay On Substantive And Procedural Fairness In Death Penalty Litigation, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Is Now The Time For Major Federal Sentencing Reform?, Sara Sun Beale Jan 2012

Is Now The Time For Major Federal Sentencing Reform?, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Amendment 706 To The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Not All It Was Cracked Up To Be, Brian Crowell Jan 2010

Amendment 706 To The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Not All It Was Cracked Up To Be, Brian Crowell

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.


At The Intersection Of Race And History: The Unique Relationship Between The Davis Intent Requirement And The Crack Laws, Christopher J. Tyson Jan 2007

At The Intersection Of Race And History: The Unique Relationship Between The Davis Intent Requirement And The Crack Laws, Christopher J. Tyson

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.


Better A Drug Dealer Than A Drug Buyer - The Third Circuit Grapples With The United States Sentencing Guidelines In United States V. Smack, Michael T. Henry Jan 2004

Better A Drug Dealer Than A Drug Buyer - The Third Circuit Grapples With The United States Sentencing Guidelines In United States V. Smack, Michael T. Henry

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.


Departing Ways: Uniformity, Disparity And Cooperation In Federal Drug Sentences, Michael A. Simons Jan 2002

Departing Ways: Uniformity, Disparity And Cooperation In Federal Drug Sentences, Michael A. Simons

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.


What Makes Sentencing Facts Controversial - Four Problems Obscured By One Solution, Jacqueline E. Ross Jan 2002

What Makes Sentencing Facts Controversial - Four Problems Obscured By One Solution, Jacqueline E. Ross

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.


Reasonable Doubt In Doubt: Sentencing And The Supreme Court In United States V. Watts, Sandra K. Wolkov Jan 1998

Reasonable Doubt In Doubt: Sentencing And The Supreme Court In United States V. Watts, Sandra K. Wolkov

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.


Felony-Murder Doctrine Through The Federal Looking Glass, Henry S. Noyes Apr 1994

Felony-Murder Doctrine Through The Federal Looking Glass, Henry S. Noyes

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.


The New Reno Bluesheet: A Little More Candor Regarding Prosecutorial Discretion, Sara Sun Beale Jan 1994

The New Reno Bluesheet: A Little More Candor Regarding Prosecutorial Discretion, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


The Great Repression: Criminal Punishment In The Nineteen-Eighties, Michael Mandel Jan 1991

The Great Repression: Criminal Punishment In The Nineteen-Eighties, Michael Mandel

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.


Wisconsin Sentence Modification: A View From The Trial Court, Kate Kruse, Kim E. Patterson Jan 1989

Wisconsin Sentence Modification: A View From The Trial Court, Kate Kruse, Kim E. Patterson

Faculty Scholarship

In Wisconsin, trial courts have discretion to modify a defendant's criminal sentence if the defendant introduces a "new factor." Published Wisconsin case law gives little guidance on what constitutes a new factor. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has declined to find a new factor present in every case it has published since defining "new factor" in 1978. Because of ambiguous and conflicting rulings, the standards for both prongs of the new factor definition remain unclear. This Comment attempts to shed light on the new factor requirement for sentence modification by examining Wisconsin trial court decisions on a limited sample of sentence …