Law Commons^™

New Data And New Questions: Trac's Contribution To Federal Sentencing, Steven Chanenson, Douglas Berman

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Criminal Forfeiture Procedure In 2012: An Annual Survey Of Developments In The Case Law, Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D Cassella

This is an annual review of the case law regarding asset forfeiture in federal criminal cases. It discusses the permissible scope of a forfeiture order, and then takes the reader through each step in the forfeiture process from seizure and restraint to indictment, trial or plea, sentencing, and the ancillary proceeding which the rights and interests of third parties are resolved.

Death Ineligibility And Habeas Corpus, Lee B. Kovarsky

Lee Kovarsky

I examine the interaction between what I call 'death ineligibility' challenges and the habeas writ. A death ineligibility claim alleges that a criminally-confined capital prisoner belongs to a category of offenders for which the Eighth Amendment forbids execution. By contrast, a 'crime innocence' claim alleges that, colloquially speaking, a capital prisoner 'wasn’t there, and didn’t do it.' In the last eight years, the Supreme Court has identified several new ineligibility categories, including mentally retarded offenders. Configured primarily to address crime innocence and procedural challenges, however, modern habeas law is poorly equipped to accommodate ineligibility claims. Death Ineligibility traces the genesis …

Harmelin's Faulty Originalism, Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

In Harmelin v. Michigan, in 1991, Justice Scalia, writing only for himself and Chief Justice Rehnquist, set forth the claim that the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, as understood in 1791, did not require proportionality in sentencing. Instead, he argued, it was understood at that time as addressing only certain methods of punishment. Twenty-one years later, the plurality opinion in Harmelin remains the foundation for conservative originalist arguments against the notion that the Clause forbids disproportionate punishment. It has continued to be cited by its adherents, Justices Scalia and Thomas, as recently as the last week of the October 2011 …

Cruel And Unusual Federal Punishments, Michael Mannheimer

Michael J.Z. Mannheimer

Virtually all federal defendants who have challenged their sentences as “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment have failed. This is because the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on cruel and unusual carceral punishments is extraordinarily deferential to legislative judgments about how harsh prison sentences ought to be for particular crimes. This deferential approach stems largely from concerns of federalism, for all of the Court’s modern cases on the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause have addressed state, not federal, sentencing practices. Thus, they have addressed the Eighth Amendment only as incorporated by the Fourteenth. Federal courts accordingly find themselves …

Bargained Justice: Plea Bargaining's Innocence Problem And The Brady Safety-Valve, Lucian Dervan

Lucian E Dervan

If any number of attorneys were asked in 2004 whether Lea Fastow’s plea bargain in the Enron case was constitutional, the majority would respond with a simple word – Brady. Yet while the 1970 Supreme Court decision Brady v. United States authorized plea bargaining as a form of American justice, the case also contained a vital caveat that has been largely overlooked by scholars, practitioners, and courts for almost forty years. Brady contains a safety-valve that caps the amount of pressure that may be asserted against defendants by prohibiting prosecutors from offering incentives in return for guilty pleas that are …

30 = 20: ‘Understanding’ Maximum Sentence Enhancements, Frank R. Herrmann S.J.

Frank R. Herrmann, S.J.

In this article, Professor Herrmann argues that the due process protections of a criminal trial should apply to aggravating factors that under current “maximum-enhancing statutes” allow judges to impose lengthier punishments in the sentencing phase. Part I considers the Supreme Court's rationale for refusing to apply full due process safeguards to all types of sentencing schemes. This background will reveal the unique quality of maximum-enhancing statutes and establish why the due process protections of a criminal trial should apply to sentencing under maximum-enhancing statutes. Part I, therefore, undertakes to explain courts' rationales to deny criminal defendants full criminal due process …

Tough On Crime (On The State's Dime): How Violent Crime Does Not Drive California Counties’ Incarceration Rates—And Why It Should

W. David Ball

California’s prisons are dangerously and unconstitutionally overcrowded; as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Plata v. Schwarzenegger, the state must act to reduce its prison population or face court-ordered prisoner releases. The state’s plans to reduce overcrowding are centered around what it calls criminal justice “realignment”, whereby California will send a portion of the state prison population to county facilities. The plan faces opposition from county officials, who see it as pushing the state’s problem on to the counties.

But what if state prison overcrowding is really a county problem? I argue that state prison overcrowding is …

Follow The Evidence: Integrate Risk Assessment Into Sentencing, Steven Chanenson, Jordan Hyatt, Maerk Bergstrom

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Beyond Experience: Getting Retributive Justice Right, Dan Markel, Chad Flanders, David C. Gray

David C. Gray

How central should hedonic adaptation be to the establishment of sentencing policy? In earlier work, Professors Bronsteen, Buccafusco, and Masur (BBM) drew some normative significance from the psychological studies of adaptability for punishment policy. In particular, they argued that retributivists and utilitarians alike are obliged on pain of inconsistency to take account of the fact that most prisoners, most of the time, adapt to imprisonment in fairly short order, and therefore suffer much less than most of us would expect. They also argued that ex-prisoners don't adapt well upon re-entry to society and that social planners should consider their post-release …

Rethinking Proportionality Under The Cruel And Unusual Punishments Clause, John F. Stinneford

John F. Stinneford

Although a century has passed since the Supreme Court started reviewing criminal punishments for excessiveness under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause, this area of doctrine remains highly problematic. The Court has never answered the claim that proportionality review is illegitimate in light of the Eighth Amendment’s original meaning. The Court has also adopted an ever-shifting definition of excessiveness, making the very concept of proportionality incoherent. Finally, the Court’s method of measuring proportionality is unreliable and selfcontradictory. As a result, a controlling plurality of the Court has insisted that proportionality review be limited to a narrow class of cases. This …

Criminal Forfeiture Procedure In 2011: An Annual Survey Of Developments In The Case Law, Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D Cassella

This is another in a series of articles on developments in the federal case law relating to criminal forfeiture procedure. It covers the cases decided in 2010. Like the earlier articles in this series, this one does not attempt to discuss every topic related to criminal forfeiture, but covers those matters on which there was a significant development in the case law in the past year, or a significant change in the rules or statutes governing criminal forfeiture procedure.

Civil, Criminal, Or Mary Jane: Stigma, Legislative Labels, And The Civil Case At The Heart Of Criminal Procedure, W. Ball

W. David Ball

In criminal cases, any fact which increases the maximum punishment must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. This rule, which comes from Apprendi v. New Jersey, looks to what facts do, not what they are called; in Justice Scalia’s memorable turn of phrase, it applies whether the legislature has labeled operant facts “elements, enhancements, or Mary Jane.” Civil statutes, however, can deprive an individual of her liberty on identical facts without needing to meet the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of proof. If Apprendi is, indeed, functional, why is it limited to formally criminal cases? Why does …

The Adventure Continues, Steven Chanenson

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Beyond Our Borders, Steven Chanenson

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Empowering The Sentencing Commission: A Different Resolution To The Cocaine Sentencing Drama, Kip D. Nelson

Kip D Nelson

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Paris, Jodie O'Leary

Jodie O'Leary

Extract: For a number of years now punishing Paris Hilton may have been on the mind of many a person for different reasons. She is guilty of crimes against fashion some would say. Cries of cruelty to animals could also be heard for, among other things, dressing her Chihuahua Tinkerbell in pink Chanel. Parents scorned her as a bad role model for their children.

Death, Ineligibility And Habeas Corpus, Lee B. Kovarsky

Lee Kovarsky

I examine the interaction between what I call 'death ineligibility' challenges and the habeas writ. A death ineligibility claim alleges that a criminally-confined capital prisoner belongs to a category of offenders for which the Eighth Amendment forbids execution. By contrast, a 'crime innocence' claim alleges that, colloquially speaking, a capital prisoner 'wasn’t there, and didn’t do it.' In the last eight years, the Supreme Court has identified several new ineligibility categories, including mentally retarded offenders. Configured primarily to address crime innocence and procedural challenges, however, modern habeas law is poorly equipped to accommodate ineligibility claims. Death Ineligibility traces the genesis …

Criminal Forfeiture Procedure In 2010: An Annual Survey Of Developments In The Case Law, Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D Cassella

This article is the latest in a series of annual surveys of developments in the case law regarding federal criminal forfeiture procedure. It covers cases decided in 2009 and changes to Rule 32.2 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure that took effect in 2009.

Determination Of Starting Sentences In Israel—System And Application, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Ruth Kannai

Oren Gazal-Ayal

The Israeli Penal Law Bill (Amendment No. 92, Structuring Judicial Discretion in Sentencing) 5766-2006 proposes that a committee be set up to establish sentences that will serve as starting points for judges in their sentencing deliberation (starting sentences). The Israeli Minister of Justice asked the authors to propose starting sentences for three prevalent serious offences in order to show the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) the methodology of determining such starting sentences and to help facilitate the debate about the consequences of these new guidelines. The ministers intended the Knesset to legislate these proposed starting sentences in the appendix to the …

In Search Of The Booker Revolution, Ryan W. Scott

Ryan W. Scott

In 2005, the Supreme Court in United States v. Booker rendered the United States Sentencing Guidelines advisory. Arriving after eighteen years of complex and mandatory sentencing rules, the decision initially was heralded as revolutionary, both by critics and defenders of the federal Guidelines. But subsequent reports by the Sentencing Commission have shown few signs of a Booker revolution, revealing surprisingly minor changes. The existing research on post-Booker sentencing is incomplete, however, because it has not examined the response of individual judges to the decision. That omission is critical, given that the reduction of inter-judge disparity was the central purpose of …

Criminal Forfeiture Procedure In 2009: A Survey Of Developments In The Case Law, Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D Cassella

This article collects all of the cases decided in the past year dealing with the procedure for incorporating asset forfeiture in a federal criminal case, including the order of forfeiture in the defendant's sentence, and resolving the claims of third parties.

Shaping Modern Sentencing: Three Giants, Steven Chanenson, Mark Miller

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

The Next Era Of Sentencing Reform ... Revisited, Steven Chanenson, Mark Bergstrom, Frank Dermody, Jordan Hyatt

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Prosecutors And Evidence-Based Sentencing: Rewards, Risks, And Responsibilities, Steven Chanenson

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Revolution Or Evolution: Recent Developments In American Federal Criminal Sentencing, Steven L. Chanenson

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.

Slavery As Punishment: Original Public Meaning, Cruel And Unusual Punishment, And The Neglected Clause In The Thirteenth Amendment, Scott W. Howe

Scott W. Howe

Steadfast originalists agree that the original meaning of our constitution's language, once found, should be followed, even when it leads to unhappy outcomes. Yet, in a famous lecture in 1989, Justice Scalia, a leader in the modern originalist movement, cast doubt on the duty of fidelity to originalism. He asserted that the originalist judge can appropriately avoid outcomes that are "too bitter" either by deferring to precedent or by temporarily abandoning originalism. Ironically, libertarian and liberal originalists have been among the most dismissive of Justice Scalia's faint-heartedness. They contend that the problem is the narrow approach to originalism that Justice …

Fitting Punishment, Juliet P. Stumpf

Juliet P Stumpf

Proportionality is conspicuously absent from the legal framework for immigration sanctions. Immigration law relies on one sanction – deportation – as the ubiquitous penalty for any immigration violation. Neither the gravity of the violation nor the harm that results bears on whether deportation is the consequence for an immigration violation. Immigration law stands alone in the legal landscape in this respect. Criminal punishment incorporates proportionality when imposing sentences that are graduated based on the gravity of the offense; contract and tort law provide for damages that are graduated based on the harm to others or to society. This Article represents …

Criminal Forfeiture Procedure In 2008: A Survey Of Developments In The Case Law, Stefan D. Cassella

Stefan D Cassella

This is an annual survey of the federal case law relating to criminal forfeiture procedure. Forfeiture is part of the sentence in a criminal case. The article discusses the cases from 2007 discussing the scope of criminal forfeiture, the rights of third parties, and the procedures under Rule 32.2 and Section 853, including indictment, seizure and restraint, guilty pleas, the bifurcated trial, sentencing, and the post-trial ancillary proceeding. Copyright © 2008 Thomson Reuters/West.

Statement Of Steven L. Chanenson Before The United States Sentencing Commission Regarding Retroactivity Of Crack Guidelines Amendments, Steven Chanenson

Steven L. Chanenson

No abstract provided.