Law Commons^™

Into The Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion In Federal Sentencing, Mary K. Ramirez

mary k ramirez

Into the Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion in Federal Sentencing

Recent changes in federal sentencing have shifted discretionary decision-making back to federal district court judges, while appellate courts review challenged sentences for reasonableness. Each judge brings considerable legal experience and qualifications to the bench, however, cultural experiences cannot necessarily prepare judges for the range of persons or situations they will address on the bench. Social psychologists who have studied social cognition have determined that the human brain creates categories and associations resulting in implicit biases and associations that are often unconscious or subconscious. Moreover, research suggests that such biases may …

Into The Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion In Federal Sentencing, Mary K. Ramirez

mary k ramirez

Into the Twilight Zone: Informing Judicial Discretion in Federal Sentencing

Recent changes in federal sentencing have shifted discretionary decision-making back to federal district court judges, while appellate courts review challenged sentences for reasonableness. Each judge brings considerable legal experience and qualifications to the bench, however, cultural experiences cannot necessarily prepare judges for the range of persons or situations they will address on the bench. Social psychologists who have studied social cognition have determined that the human brain creates categories and associations resulting in implicit biases and associations that are often unconscious or subconscious. Moreover, research suggests that such biases may …

Prosecutors As Punishment Theorists: Seeking Sentencing Justice, Michael A. Simons

Michael A Simons

Federal criminal law in the last 100 years has seen three distinct sentencing eras. Most surveys of these three sentencing eras have focused on the changing power of the judge: from unfettered discretion before the Sentencing Guidelines, to severely restricted discretion under the mandatory guidelines, to our current system of guided discretion under United States v. Booker. This article, however, focuses on the role of the prosecutor, which has changed dramatically over time. In the era of individualized sentencing, prosecutors typically either abdicated sentencing responsibility or made non-binding recommendations based on individualization principles. There was little reason for prosecutors to …

The Lost Meaning Of The Jury Trial Right, Laura I. Appleman

Laura I Appleman

This article contends that the right to a criminal jury trial right was originally a community right, not an individual one as currently understood. Using original historical research, I show that even the Sixth Amendment jury trial right, which sounds grammatically like a right of the accused, is actually a restatement of the collective right in Article III. The central claim of this Article is that nothing in the Sixth Amendment was meant to change this historical understanding and confer an individual right on defendants. My reading of the historical jury right has many important implications in both sentencing law …