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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Label Of Life Imprisonment In Australia: A Principled Or Populist Approach To An Ultimate Sentence, John L. Anderson
The Label Of Life Imprisonment In Australia: A Principled Or Populist Approach To An Ultimate Sentence, John L. Anderson
John L Anderson
No abstract provided.
The Mandatory Meaning Of Miller, William W. Berry Iii
The Mandatory Meaning Of Miller, William W. Berry Iii
William W Berry III
In June 2012, the United States Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the imposition of mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment. This case continued the Supreme Court’s slow but steady expansion of the scope of the Eighth Amendment over the past decade. In light of the Court’s decision in Miller to preclude mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles, this article explores the possibility of further expansion of the Eighth Amendment to proscribe other kinds of mandatory sentences. Applying the approach of the Court in Miller to other …
Breakthrough Science And The New Rehabilitation, Meghan J. Ryan
Breakthrough Science And The New Rehabilitation, Meghan J. Ryan
Meghan J. Ryan
Breakthroughs in pharmacology, genetics, and neuroscience are transforming how society views criminals and thus how society should respond to criminal behavior. Although the criminal law has long been based on notions of culpability, science is undercutting the assumption that offenders are actually responsible for their criminal actions. Further, scientific advances have suggested that criminals can be changed at the biochemical level. The public has become well aware of these advances largely due to pervasive media reporting on these issues and also as a result of the pharmaceutical industry’s incessant advertising of products designed to transform individuals by treating everything from …
The Skeptic's Guide To Information Sharing At Sentencing, Ryan W. Scott
The Skeptic's Guide To Information Sharing At Sentencing, Ryan W. Scott
Ryan W. Scott
The “information sharing” model, a leading method of structuring judicial discretion at the sentencing stage of criminal cases, has attracted broad support from scholars and judges. Under this approach, sentencing judges should have access to a robust body of information, including written opinions and statistics, about previous sentences in similar cases. Armed with that information, judges can conform their sentences to those of their colleagues or identify principled reasons for distinguishing them, reducing inter-judge disparity and promoting rationality in sentencing law. This Article takes a skeptical view, arguing that information sharing suffers from three fundamental weaknesses as an alternative to …
Cruel And Unusual Federal Punishments, Michael J.Z. Mannheimer
Cruel And Unusual Federal Punishments, Michael J.Z. 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 …
Cruel And Unusual Punishment: Adult Prison For Florida's Children, Mary E. Day
Cruel And Unusual Punishment: Adult Prison For Florida's Children, Mary E. Day
Mary E. Day
The manuscript addresses whether Florida law comports with the recent Supreme Court of the United States holding in Graham v. Florida that sentencing a nonhomicide juvenile offender to life without parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment since such a punishment lacks opportunities for the youth to rehabilitate and reform. The manuscript asserts that consequently, Florida laws allowing for the direct filing of juvenile offenders such that they are subject to incarceration in adult prisons will not likely withstand a constitutional challenge as long as Florida's juveniles are denied opportunities for reform.