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Sentencing Decisions: Matching The Decisionmaker To The Decision Nature, Paul H. Robinson, Barbara A. Spellman Jan 2005

Sentencing Decisions: Matching The Decisionmaker To The Decision Nature, Paul H. Robinson, Barbara A. Spellman

All Faculty Scholarship

The present sentencing debate focuses on which decisionmaker is best suited to make the sentencing decision. Competing positions in this debate typically view the sentencing decision as monolithic, preferring one decisionmaker over all the others. A monolithic view of the decision unnecessarily invites poor decisionmaking. The sentencing decision is properly viewed as a series of distinct decisions, each of which can best be performed by a decisionmaker with certain qualities. This Essay demonstrates how a system of optimal decisionmaking might be constructed -by sorting out the different attributes called for by the distinct aspects of the sentencing decision and matching …


Managing Gerrymandering, Mitchell N. Berman Jan 2005

Managing Gerrymandering, Mitchell N. Berman

All Faculty Scholarship

Last spring, in Vieth v. Jubelirer, the Supreme Court addressed a claim of unconstitutional partisan gerrymandering for the first time since having held such claims justiciable, 18 years earlier, in Davis v. Bandemer. Vieth was a fractured decision. All nine Justices agreed that partisan gerrymandering is of constitutional moment, a substantial majority declaring that excessive partisanship is unconstitutional. The Justices also united in rejecting the particular gerrymandering test advanced in Bandemer. There agreement ended. Four Justices proposed three tests to replace the unmeetable Bandemer standard. A four-member plurality would have overruled Bandemer more completely by holding that partisan gerrymandering claims …


Beyond Gratz And Grutter: Prospects For Affirmative Action In The Aftermath Of The Supreme Court's Michigan Decisions, Euel Elliott, Andrew Ewoh Dec 2004

Beyond Gratz And Grutter: Prospects For Affirmative Action In The Aftermath Of The Supreme Court's Michigan Decisions, Euel Elliott, Andrew Ewoh

Andrew I.E. Ewoh

This article explores the meaning of the Supreme Court's Michigan decisions and their implications for higher education in the judicial, political, and social–cultural context. It concludes that the complex and dynamic interplay of judicial policymaking, politics and public opinion, and demographic changes could have important consequences, including unanticipated ones, in the years ahead.