Law Commons^™

The Power Of Bureaucracy In The Response To Blakely And Booker, Ronald F. Wright

Ronald F. Wright

How will different jurisdictions respond to the recent Supreme Court decisions in Blakely v. Washington and United States v. Booker, which require jury fact-finding to support certain types of sentences? The best clues in predicting the answer to this question come from the people who know this world best, the sentencing bureaucracy. Sentencing commissions, mostly for benign reasons, hope to preserve their own place in the sentencing structure, or to expand their role if possible. The particulars shift from place to place, but this powerful tendency of bureaucracies for self-preservation offers a reliable way to predict the reactions of sentencing …

The Political Economy Of Up-Front Fees For Indigent Criminal Defense, Ronald F. Wright, Wayne A. Logan

Ronald F. Wright

In this article, we trace the origin and spread of state laws designed to make indigent criminal defendants pay, up-front, a portion of the costs of their state-appointed counsel. These co-pays, which can range from $10 to over $200, are part of the increasingly popular pay-as-you-go movement, requiring criminal defendants to defray the system costs of their prosecution and punishment.

On their face, such laws would appear to be a natural target of vigorous resistance by the defense bar. This turns out to be only half true, however, for it is often the leaders of public defense organizations, faced with …