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Revisiting Compassionate Release: The Sentencing Commission’S Compassionate Changes To The 2023 Compassionate Release Policy Statement, Rachel Wilson
Revisiting Compassionate Release: The Sentencing Commission’S Compassionate Changes To The 2023 Compassionate Release Policy Statement, Rachel Wilson
Cleveland State Law Review
Compassionate release is a well-established exception to the Sentencing Reform Act’s requirement that a defendant’s sentence not be reduced after its final imposition. The Act requires the Sentencing Commission, through policy statement, to describe “extraordinary and compelling reasons” warranting compassionate release. However, the Sentencing Commission’s failure to convene as a quorum for nearly four years precluded any policy statement updates. In that time, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Bureau of Prisons’ internal issues further complicated the compassionate release process. This Note analyzes the 2023 amendment to the compassionate release policy statement, its potential implications, and suggests additional steps to be …
Punishment Without Purpose: The Retributive And Utilitarian Failures Of The Child Pornography Non-Production Sentencing Guidelines, Brittany Lowe
Punishment Without Purpose: The Retributive And Utilitarian Failures Of The Child Pornography Non-Production Sentencing Guidelines, Brittany Lowe
Cleveland State Law Review
Pursuant to the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress established the U.S. Sentencing Commission to formulate an empirical set of federal sentencing Guidelines. With the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, Congress intended to further the basic purposes of criminal punishment—deterrence, incapacitation, just punishment, and rehabilitation. Nevertheless, the Guidelines were instantaneously met with disapproval. Asserting that the mandatory Guidelines violated the Constitution, scholars and judges argued that the Commission usurped Congress’s role by prescribing punishments that were essentially binding law. In 2005, the Supreme Court held that the Guidelines were discretionary in United States v. Booker.
While this decision resolved many of …