Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Law
Dissent From The United States Sentencing Commission's Proposed Guidelines, Paul H. Robinson
Dissent From The United States Sentencing Commission's Proposed Guidelines, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
I believe the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, which created the United States Sentencing Commission, contains two main directives. First, the Commission's guidelines must provide a rational and principled sentencing system that will further the purposes of just punishment and crime control. Second, the guidelines must reduce unwarranted disparity among sentences for similar offenders who commit similar offenses. The Act provides that this is to be achieved through the Commission's promulgation of a comprehensive sentencing system that will bind all federal judges. I opposed the Commission's Preliminary Draft of September, 1986, because I saw it as lacking both guiding principles …
A Sentencing System For The 21st Century?, Paul H. Robinson
A Sentencing System For The 21st Century?, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 created the United States Sentencing Commission and directed it to devise sentencing guidelines for the federal criminal justice system. The Commission recently fulfilled this mandate, promulgating a final set of rules, which took effect November 1. Commissioner Robinson, in filing the lone dissent to these guidelines, argued that they neither meet the expectations of the Act nor provide a comprehensive and workable system. In this Article, Commissioner Robinson discusses the necessary components of a modern, principled, and workable system. He first identifies an ideal system by describing its primary goals and by offering the …