Law Commons^™

Why March To A Uniform Beat? Adding Honesty And Proportionality To The Tune Of Federal Sentencing, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

This Article fills a gap in current scholarship concerning the Federal Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") by bringing together many sentencing concerns and refocusing them on the Guidelines themselves. Since United States v. Booker, in which the Supreme Court demoted the Guidelines from mandatory to advisory status and imposed reasonableness as the appellate standard of review, several scholars have written about the new, advisory Guidelines scheme. Some have focused on the constitutional problems that Booker failed to settle. Others have argued against a presumption of reasonableness for within-Guidelines sentences. For some scholars, the biggest issues with the advisory Guidelines regime …

Prosecutorial Discretion In The Shadow Of Advisory Guidelines And Mandatory Minimums, Michael A. Simons

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Imagine the following rather run-of-the-mill crime spree:

Three young men, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty and without significant criminal histories, get together to rob a convenience store in New York City. They take an unloaded an inoperable gun, go into the store, point the gun at the clerk behind the counter, and take a few hundred dollars from the cash register. Flush with success, they decide to do it again, this time at a jewelry store down the block. One of the young men points the unloaded gun at the store employees, another stands guard by the …