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Comity Of Errors: When Federal Sentencing Guidelines Ignore State Law Decriminalizing Sentences, James A. Shapiro Aug 2007

Comity Of Errors: When Federal Sentencing Guidelines Ignore State Law Decriminalizing Sentences, James A. Shapiro

James A. Shapiro

Many states have sentences called “diversionary dispositions” that are not supposed to count as convictions under state law. The purpose of these so-called diversionary dispositions is to give first-time offenders for relatively minor crimes such as shoplifting a chance to keep their criminal records, or “rap sheets,” clean. If they do not commit another crime during the period of the diversionary disposition, then they usually have the opportunity to erase, or “expunge,” the diversionary disposition from their record. But whether they expunge their record or not, the diversionary disposition is never supposed to count as a conviction under state law. …


Role Of Theories Of Punishment In The Policy Of Sentencing, Krishna Kumari Areti Jul 2007

Role Of Theories Of Punishment In The Policy Of Sentencing, Krishna Kumari Areti

Krishna Kumari Areti prof

In this article it is proposed to analyze various theories of punishment. Austin considered sanction as an essential ingredient of law. It is only through sanction that obedience to law can be secured. Sanction is nothing but inflicting pain or injury upon the wrong doer. This in a way can be called punishment. The immediate consequence of a criminal act is punishment. The term punishment is defined as, "pain, suffering, loss, confinement or other penalty inflicted on a person for an offence by the authority to which the offender is subjected to." Punishment is a social custom and institutions are …


A Database Of Persons Convicted Of Felonies In Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1990-2007, Hon. Donald E. Shelton Jan 2007

A Database Of Persons Convicted Of Felonies In Washtenaw County, Michigan, 1990-2007, Hon. Donald E. Shelton

Hon. Donald E. Shelton

This study is a database of information from Washtenaw County, Michigan, court records of approximately one-fourth of its convicted felons from 1990 to 2007. It includes 3,123 sentencing appearances for 3,992 crimes committed by 2,495 defendants. It includes 1126 probation violation resentencings for a total of 5,118 sentences. It contains demographics of defendants and the dynamics of their crimes and the sentencing process. Several official court reports in each case were examined. Preliminary descriptive and frequency analyses are reported to describe the database in detail and lay the groundwork for future sophisticated regression and other analyses. Special attention is given …