Law Commons^™

Conference On The Federal Sentencing Guidelines, Panel 3: The Allocation Of Discretion Under The Guidelines, Daniel J. Freed, Gerard E. Lynch, Steven M. Salky, Maria Rodriguez Mcbride, Vincent L. Broderick

Faculty Scholarship

The guidelines have shifted the locus of discretion from the judge to the prosecutor. This transfer has drastically changed sentencing because the prosecutor's role is very different from the judge's role.

Before the guidelines, the prosecutor's role in sentencing was minimal. The prosecutor could put a cap on the sentence by accepting a plea to a charge with a low maximum, but there was virtually no instance in which the charge would put a floor under the judge's sentence. The judge, on the other hand, could sentence however he liked. Not only was the judge's decision correct because it was …

The Reasonable Woman And The Ordinary Man, Carol Sanger

Faculty Scholarship

Nineteen ninety-one was a seismic year for sexual harassment. The first localized shift occurred in January, when the Ninth Circuit established that the standard by which sexual harassment in the workplace would be judged was no longer the reasonable man or even the reasonable person but rather the reasonable woman. In October a larger audience felt a much stronger jolt when Anita Hill spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hill testified that Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her while she worked for him at the Department of Education and at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Her testimony …

Paradigms Lost: The Blurring Of The Criminal And Civil Law Models – And What Can Be Done About It, John C. Coffee Jr.

Faculty Scholarship

Ken Mann's professed goal is to "shrink" the criminal law. To realize this worthy end, he advocates punitive civil sanctions that would largely parallel criminal sanctions, thereby reducing the need to use criminal law in order to achieve punitive purposes. I agree (heartily) with the end he seeks and even more with his general precept that "the criminal law should be reserved for the most damaging wrongs and the most culpable defendants." But I believe that the means he proposes would be counterproductive – and would probably expand, rather than contract, the operative scope of the criminal law as an …

A Reply: Imperfect Bargains, Imperfect Trials, And Innocent Defendants, Robert E. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

To understand what is and is not wrong with plea bargaining, one must understand the relationship of bargains to trials. Unsurprisingly, we disagree with much of what Judge Frank Easterbrook and Professor Stephen Schulhofer say about that relationship. Most of those disagreements need not be rehearsed here; readers attentive enough to wade through their essays and ours will pick up the key points readily enough. But there is one point where the dispute is at once sharp and hidden. It has to do with the fact that both trials and bargains are flawed.

That fact might seem obvious, but the …

Plea-Bargaining As A Social Contract, Robert E. Scott, William J. Stuntz

Faculty Scholarship

Most criminal prosecutions are settled without a trial. The parties to these settlements trade various risks and entitlements: the defendant relinquishes the right to go to trial (along with any chance of acquittal), while the prosecutor gives up the entitlement to seek the highest sentence or pursue the most serious charges possible. The resulting bargains differ predictably from what would have happened had the same cases been taken to trial. Defendants who bargain for a plea serve lower sentences than those who do not. On the other hand, everyone who pleads guilty is, by definition, convicted, while a substantial minority …

Judgment And Reasoning In Adolescent Decisionmaking, Elizabeth S. Scott

Faculty Scholarship

Few people believe that five year olds and fifteen year olds think, act or make decisions in the same way. The question is whether and how the law should respond to developmental differences. Traditionally, childhood and adulthood have been two dichotomous legal categories, demarcated by the age of majority. This conception has been contested in recent years, as has the premise that all minors are incompetent to make decisions and function as legal actors. Fueled by the controversy over adolescent access to abortion, an advocacy movement has emerged that challenges the authority of parents and the state over the lives …

The Individualized-Consideration Principle And The Death Penalty As Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Ronald J. Mann

Faculty Scholarship

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments." The Supreme Court established the basic principles applying this amendment to the death penalty during a six-year period in the 1970's. First, in 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the Court invalidated all then-existing death penalty statutes. Second, in 1976, in Gregg v. Georgia and its companions, the Court upheld some of the statutes promulgated in response to Furman but invalidated others. Finally, in 1978, in Lockett v. Ohio, the Court invalidated an Ohio statute because it failed to give the sentencer a sufficient …