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Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Law
Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim
Beyond Finality: How Making Criminal Judgments Less Final Can Further The Interests Of Finality, Andrew Chongseh Kim
Andrew Chongseh Kim
Courts and scholars commonly assume that granting convicted defendants more liberal rights to challenge their judgments would harm society’s interests in “finality.” According to conventional wisdom, finality in criminal judgments is necessary to conserve resources, encourage efficient behavior by defense counsel, and deter crime. Thus, under the common analysis, the extent to which convicted defendants should be allowed to challenge their judgments depends on how much society is willing to sacrifice to validate defendants’ rights. This Article argues that expanding defendants’ rights on post-conviction review does not always harm these interests. Rather, more liberal review can often conserve state resources, …
An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen
An Anachronism Too Discordant To Be Suffered: A Comparative Study Of Parliamentary And Presidential Approaches To Regulation Of The Death Penalty, Derek R. Verhagen
Derek R VerHagen
It is well-documented that the United States remains the only western democracy to retain the death penalty and finds itself ranked among the world's leading human rights violators in executions per year. However, prior to the Gregg v. Georgia decision in 1976, ending America's first and only moratorium on capital punishment, the U.S. was well in line with the rest of the civilized world in its approach to the death penalty. This Note argues that America's return to the death penalty is based primarily on the differences between classic parliamentary approaches to regulation and that of the American presidential system. …
Victim Impact Evidence: An Analysis On The Effect Of Victim Impact Evidence On The Sentencing Stage In Death-Penalty Cases And Potential Reforms, Kyle W. Kahan
Kyle W Kahan
No abstract provided.
Battering The Poor: How Georgia’S Mandatory Family Violence Classes Deny Indigent Defendants Equal Protection Of The Law, Whitney Scherck
Battering The Poor: How Georgia’S Mandatory Family Violence Classes Deny Indigent Defendants Equal Protection Of The Law, Whitney Scherck
Whitney Scherck
Thirty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court in Bearden v. Georgia held that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents a court from incarcerating an individual for failure to pay a fine unless it first inquires into their reasons for failing to do so and determines that the defendant willfully failed to make bona fide efforts to pay. However, recently, a new kind of legal debt has emerged. As states’ budgets tighten, so-called user fees are becoming an increasingly common way for legislatures to toughen the criminal justice system without having to come up with funding for it. …
Partially Concurrent Sentences, Statutory Interpretation, And Legislative Intent: Amicus Brief Filed In State V. Bryant Wilson (Indiana Supreme Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean
Partially Concurrent Sentences, Statutory Interpretation, And Legislative Intent: Amicus Brief Filed In State V. Bryant Wilson (Indiana Supreme Court), Adam Lamparello, Charles Maclean
Adam Lamparello
Indiana Code § 35-50-1-2 states that terms of imprisonment “shall be served concurrently or consecutively.” The Code’s plain language does not authorize courts to impose partially consecutive, blended, or “split sentences. Partially consecutive sentences would impermissibly read into the Code a third sentencing option, thus contradicting Indiana’s well-settled jurisprudence and undermining the goal of reasonable uniformity in sentencing. The decision of the Indiana Court of Appeals should therefore be reversed.
Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Foreword: A Global Perspective On Sentencing Reforms, Oren Gazal-Ayal
Oren Gazal-Ayal
The articles published in this issue of Law and Contemporary Problems examine the effects of different sentencing reforms across the world. While the effects of sentencing reforms in the United States have been studied extensively, this is the first symposium that examines the effects of sentencing guidelines and alternative policies in a number of western legal systems from a comparative perspective. This issue focuses on how different sentencing policies affect prison population rates, sentence disparity, and the balance of power between the judiciary and prosecutors, while also assessing how sentencing policies respond to temporary punitive surges and moral panics. The …
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Do Sentencing Guidelines Increase Prosecutorial Power? An Empirical Study, Oren Gazal-Ayal, Hagit Turjeman, Gideon Fishman
Oren Gazal-Ayal
Traditionally, judges have had tremendous flexibility in sentencing. Offering judges maximum discretion in the sentencing process allows them to consider not only an offender’s criminal history and the severity of the crime committed, but also the complex web of mitigating and aggravating factors present in each case and additional qualitative factors, such as a defendant’s testimony or selfpresentation in a courtroom. When judges are empowered with more discretion, however, there is heightened potential for inter-judge variability in sentencing. In order to reduce sentencing disparities caused by individual sentencers, several countries and jurisdictions, most notably in the United States, have enacted …