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Articles 1 - 3 of 3
Full-Text Articles in American Politics
Obama's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Decree, Paul H. Robinson
Obama's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Decree, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
While agreeing that sentences for nonviolent drug offenses are too long, this Wall Street Journal op-ed piece argues that the large-scale clemency program planned by President Obama is misguided. It sets a dangerous precedent for using the clemency power beyond its traditional and intended purpose of providing a last-resort check on fairness and justice errors in individual cases, and instead uses the power to set sentencing policy. While many people will like the results of the current program, they will be less than happy when some future president uses it as precedent to promote a sentencing policy of which they …
Federal Court Rulemaking And Litigation Reform: An Institutional Approach, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
Federal Court Rulemaking And Litigation Reform: An Institutional Approach, Stephen B. Burbank, Sean Farhang
All Faculty Scholarship
The purpose of this article is to advance understanding of the role that federal court rulemaking has played in litigation reform. For that purpose, we created original data sets that include (1) information about every member of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules who served from 1960 to 2013, and (2) every proposal for amending the Federal Rules that the Advisory Committee approved for consideration by the Standing Committee during the same period and that had implications for private enforcement. We show that, beginning in 1971, when a succession of Chief Justices appointed by Republican Presidents have chosen committee members, …
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
The Rise And Fall And Resurrection Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson
All Faculty Scholarship
This brief essay summarizes the virtues of the modern American codification movement of the 1960s and 70s, putting it in a larger global context, then describes how these once-enviable codes have been systematically degraded with thoughtless amendments, a process of degradation that is accelerating each year. After exploring the political dynamics that promote such degradation, the essay suggests the principles and procedures for fixing the current codes and, more importantly, structural changes to the process that could avoid the restart of degradation in the future.