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The Homicide Survivors’ Fairness-For-Victims Manifesto, Lester Jackson
The Homicide Survivors’ Fairness-For-Victims Manifesto, Lester Jackson
LESTER JACKSON
Murderer advocates place a far greater value on the lives of the most savage murderers than on the lives of their victims. Let them deny it; their words and deeds conclusively give the lie to that denial. The critical question is this: Whose concept of justice is going to prevail? The concept of a small but vocal well-financed minority with influence and power out of all proportion to its numbers, or that of the large but poorly financed and disorganized majority. In recent decades, the former have dominated. Tragically, compared to media-dominant murderer advocates, victims have been virtually voiceless. Yes, …
Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Oren Gazal-Ayal
The articles published in this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems examine the effects of different sentencing reforms across the world. While the effects of sentencing reforms in the United States have been studied extensively, this is the first symposium that examines the effects of sentencing guidelines and alternative policies in a number of western legal systems from a comparative perspective. This issue focuses on how different sentencing policies affect prison population rates, sentence disparity, and the balance of power between the judiciary and prosecutors, while also assessing how sentencing policies respond to temporary punitive surges and moral panics. The …
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Oren Gazal-Ayal
Traditionally, judges have had tremendous flexibility in sentencing. Offering judges maximum discretion in the sentencing process allows them to consider not only an offender’s criminal history and the severity of the crime committed, but also the complex web of mitigating and aggravating factors present in each case and additional qualitative factors, such as a defendant’s testimony or selfpresentation in a courtroom. When judges are empowered with more discretion, however, there is heightened potential for inter-judge variability in sentencing. In order to reduce sentencing disparities caused by individual sentencers, several countries and jurisdictions, most notably in the United States, have enacted …
The Eleventh Circuit's Selective Assault On Sentencing Discretion, Adam Shajnfeld
The Eleventh Circuit's Selective Assault On Sentencing Discretion, Adam Shajnfeld
Adam Shajnfeld
Ever since the Supreme Court declared that the sentences which district courts impose on criminal defendants are to be reviewed on appeal for “unreasonableness,” the standard’s contours have remained elusive and mired in controversy, despite the Court’s repeated attempts at elucidation. In few instances is this confounding state of affairs more apparent and acute than in the Eleventh Circuit’s recent lengthy and factious en banc decision in United States v. Irey. This article explores Irey’s merits, mistakes, and lessons, trying to locate each within the broader context of the Eleventh Circuit’s sentencing jurisprudence. In doing so, the article advances three …
Graham V. Florida: Justice Kennedy's Vision Of Childhood And The Role Of Judges, Tamar R. Birckhead
Graham V. Florida: Justice Kennedy's Vision Of Childhood And The Role Of Judges, Tamar R. Birckhead
Tamar R Birckhead
This short essay examines Graham v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court decision holding that the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime. This essay argues that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion is grounded not only in Roper v. Simmons, which invalidated the death penalty for juvenile offenders on Eighth Amendment grounds, and Kennedy v. Louisiana, which held that the Eighth Amendment prohibited the death penalty for the offense of rape of a child, but also in Establishment Clause cases set …