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The Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Misplaced Trust In Mechanical Justice, Evangeline A. Zimmerman
The Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Misplaced Trust In Mechanical Justice, Evangeline A. Zimmerman
University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform
In 1984 the Sentencing Reform Act was passed, ending fully discretionary sentencing by judges and allowing for the creation of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines ("FSG" or "Guidelines"). This Note proposes that the Guidelines failed not only because they ran afoul of the Sixth Amendment, as determined by the Supreme Court in 2005, but also because they lacked a clear underlying purpose, had a misplaced trust in uniformity, and were born of political compromise. Moreover, the effect of the FSG was to blindly shunt discretionary decisions from judges, who are supposed to be neutral parties, to prosecutors, who are necessarily partisan. …
Trials-Right To "Public Trial"-Power Of Judge To Exclude General Public, Francis T. Goheen
Trials-Right To "Public Trial"-Power Of Judge To Exclude General Public, Francis T. Goheen
Michigan Law Review
Convinced of the desirability of such action, a judge, conducting the trial of a criminal case, wishes to clear the court room of all or a portion of the spectators. To what extent may he legitimately do so? He is necessarily limited by the provision in the constitution of almost every state and in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States that in "all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial." The extent to which the trial court may go in clearing the court room has been most often tested …