Digital Commons Network^™

Alleyne On The Ground: Factfinding That Limits Eligibility For Probation Or Parole Release, Nancy J. King, Brynn E. Applebaum

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This article addresses the impact of Alleyne v. United States on statutes that restrict an offender’s eligibility for release on parole or probation. Alleyne is the latest of several Supreme Court decisions applying the rule announced in the Court’s 2000 ruling, Apprendi v. New Jersey. To apply Alleyne, courts must for the first time determine what constitutes a minimum sentence and when that minimum is mandatory. These questions have proven particularly challenging in states that authorize indeterminate sentences, when statutes that delay the timing of eligibility for release are keyed to judicial findings at sentencing. The same questions also arise, …

Inmates For Rent, Sovereignty For Sale: The Global Prison Market, Benjamin Levin

Publications

In 2009, Belgium and the Netherlands announced a deal to send approximately 500 Belgian inmates to Dutch prisons, in exchange for an annual payment of £26 million. The arrangement was unprecedented, but justified as beneficial to both nations: Belgium had too many prisoners and not enough prisons, whereas the Netherlands had too many prisons and not enough prisoners. The deal has yet to be replicated, nor has it triggered sustained criticism or received significant scholarly treatment. This Article aims to fill this void by examining the exchange and its possible implications for a global market in prisoners and prison space. …

Marked!, Aya Gruber

Publications

No abstract provided.

Murder, Minority Victims, And Mercy, Aya Gruber

Publications

Should the jury have acquitted George Zimmerman of Trayvon Martin's murder? Should enraged husbands receive a pass for killing their cheating wives? Should the law treat a homosexual advance as adequate provocation for killing? Criminal law scholars generally answer these questions with a resounding "no." Theorists argue that criminal laws should not reflect bigoted perceptions of African Americans, women, and gays by permitting judges and jurors to treat those who kill racial and gender minorities with undue mercy. According to this view, murder defenses like provocation should be restricted to ensure that those who kill minority victims receive the harshest …

Rate Of False Conviction Of Criminal Defendants Who Are Sentenced To Death, Samuel R. Gross, Barbara O'Brien, Chen Hu, Edward H. Kennedy

Articles

The rate of erroneous conviction of innocent criminal defendants is often described as not merely unknown but unknowable. There is no systematic method to determine the accuracy of a criminal conviction; if there were, these errors would not occur in the first place. As a result, very few false convictions are ever discovered, and those that are discovered are not representative of the group as a whole. In the United States, however, a high proportion of false convictions that do come to light and produce exonerations are concentrated among the tiny minority of cases in which defendants are sentenced to …

Sentencing In Tax Cases After Booker: Striking The Right Balance Between Uniformity And Discretion, Scott A. Schumacher

Articles

It has been nearly ten years since the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in United States v. Booker, in which the Court invalidated the mandatory application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines. In the cases that followed, the Court addressed subsidiary issues regarding the application of the Guidelines and the scope of appellate review. However, despite — or perhaps because of — these opinions, there is little consensus regarding the status and extent of appellate review, as well as the discretion afforded sentencing courts. More troubling, what consensus there is seems to permit judges to impose any sentence they wish, as …

Misconstruing Graham & Miller, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

In the last three years the Supreme Court has decreed a sea change in its juvenile Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. In particular, in its Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama rulings, the Court struck down a majority of the states’ juvenile sentencing laws, outlawing life without parole for juveniles who commit non-homicide offenses and mandating individualized sentencing for those children who commit even the most serious crimes. An examination of state laws and sentencing practices, however, suggests that the Graham and Miller rulings have fallen on deaf ears. After briefly describing what these two decisions required of the states, in …

Foreword: The Death Penalty In Decline: From Colonial America To The Present, John Bessler

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article traces the history of capital punishment in America. It describes the death penalty's curtailment in colonial Pennsylvania by William Penn, and the substantial influence of the Italian philosopher Cesare Beccaria -- the first Enlightenment thinker to advocate the abolition of executions -- on the Founding Fathers' views. The Article also describes the transition away from "sanguinary" laws and punishments toward the "penitentiary system" and highlights the U.S. penal system's abandonment of non-lethal corporal punishments.

An Exploration Of How The Social Supply And User-Dealer Supply Of Illicit Drugs Differs To Conventional Notions Of Drug Dealing And Consideration Of The Consequences Of This For Sentencing Policy, Leah Moyle

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

The concept of ‘social supply’ has emerged as a term used both in the UK, and internationally, to describe drug distribution that is non-commercially motivated and almost exclusively found between friends and acquaintances. Social suppliers have increasingly been presented as actors who are qualitatively different to drug dealers (proper), in relation to their motivation and their activity. As a result, they have increasingly become identified as a group who should be distinguished as such legally (Police Foundation, 2000; Release, 2009). While social supply behaviours can be identified in wider research literature relating to recreational drug use, there is a relative …

The Quest For Finality: Five Stories Of White Collar Criminal Prosecution, Lucian E. Dervan

Law Faculty Scholarship

In this symposium article, Professor Dervan examines the issue of finality and sentencing. In considering this issue, he argues that prosecutors, defendants, and society as a whole are drawn to the concept of finality in various ways during criminal adjudications. Further, far from an aspirational summit, he argues that some outgrowths of this quest for finality could be destructive and, in fact, obstructive to some of the larger goals of our criminal justice system, including the pursuit of truth and the protection of the innocent. Given the potential abstraction of these issues, Professor Dervan decided to discuss the possible consequences …

The Language Of Mens Rea, Kenneth Simons, Matthew R. Ginther, Francis X. Shen, Richard J. Bonnie

Faculty Scholarship

This article answers two key questions. First: Do jurors understand and apply the criminal mental state categories the way that the widely influential Model Penal Code (MPC) assumes? Second: If not, what can be done about it?

Constitutionally Tailoring Punishment, Richard A. Bierschbach, Stephanos Bibas

Michigan Law Review

Since the turn of the century, the Supreme Court has regulated noncapital sentencing under the Sixth Amendment in the Apprendi line of cases (requiring jury findings of fact to justify sentence enhancements) as well as under the Eighth Amendment in the Miller and Graham line of cases (forbidding mandatory life imprisonment for juvenile defendants). Although both lines of authority sound in individual rights, in fact they are fundamentally about the structures of criminal justice. These two seemingly disparate doctrines respond to structural imbalances in noncapital sentencing by promoting morally appropriate punishment judgments that are based on individualized input and that …

Eritrean Customary Laws: ‘Old-Modern’ Treasures For Introducing An Effective Sentencing Regime – The “Just Desert” System, Habteab Y. Ogubazghi, Senai W. Andemariam

African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies

Modern criminal justice has often been criticized for the lack of uniformity in sentencing caused principally by the lack of easily identifiable categorization of offences by the degree of their severity and wide range in the sentences set for offences. The ‘Just Desert’ sentencing system has recently been favored as a workable solution. It is acclaimed to guarantee the establishment of fair, proportional, uniform, predictable and efficient criminal justice system. The authors identified elements of just desert in the Eritrean customary laws that just desert can be a sentencing choice fitting to the values and norms of the Eritrean people. …

Youth Matters: Miller V. Alabama And The Future Of Juvenile Sentencing, John F. Stinneford

UF Law Faculty Publications

In the Supreme Court's latest Eighth Amendment decision, Miller v. Alabama, the Court held that statutes authorizing mandatory sentences of life in prison with no possibility of parole are unconstitutional as applied to offenders who were under eighteen when they committed their crimes. This short essay examines several themes presented in Miller, including the constitutional significance of youth and science, the legitimacy of mandatory life sentences and juvenile transfer statutes, and the conflict between “evolving standards of decency” and the Supreme Court’s “independent judgment.”

This essay also introduces important articles by Richard Frase, Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker, …

Time And Money: An Examination Of Crime, Sentencing And Corrections Budgeting Issues, Jeanie Thies

Missouri Policy Journal

America’s most recent recession has taken a toll on public agency budgets, including criminal justice agencies. More than half of U.S. states have had their corrections budgets reduced in recent years. Fortunately, crime has remained fairly stable during this same time frame, despite fears that unemployment and other social problems created by the recession would fuel crime rates. Yet the budget cuts are hardly without consequence. Correctional agencies have adapted with a variety of measures—layoffs, hiring and wage freezes, cutting treatment programs, eliminating or limiting non-essential services, releasing offenders early, and even closing institutions. All of these could potentially have …

Retroactivity And Crack Sentencing Reform, Harold J. Krent

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This Article argues that the strong presumption against retroactive application of reduced punishments articulated in the Supreme Court’s recent decision, Dorsey v. United States, is neither historically grounded nor constitutionally compelled. Although not dispositive in Dorsey, the presumption may mislead legislatures in future contexts, whether addressing marijuana decriminalization or lessened punishment for file sharing, and in no way should signal to Congress that future changes should apply prospectively only. Although the Court reached the right result in applying the reduction in punishment for crack offenses to offenders whose sentences had not been finalized, the Court relied excessively on the general …

Drivers Of The Sentenced Population: Probation Analysis, David E. Olson, Donald Stemen, Sema Taheri, Michelle D. Mioduszewski

Criminal Justice & Criminology: Faculty Publications & Other Works

The report examines trends in the number and characteristics of felony probation sentences and caseloads in Illinois, as well as short-term outcomes measures for those discharged from felony probation. The research was performed in collaboration with the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts and the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council.

Presentence Custody Time Credit Under California Penal Code Section 2900.5, James D. Robinson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

People V. Olivas: Equalizing The Sentencing Of Youthful Offenders With Adult Maximums, William E. Harris

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stay No Longer: California Juvenile Court Sentencing Practices, Sharon O. Lightholder

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Humane Punishment For Seriously Disordered Offenders: Sentencing Departures And Judicial Control Over Conditions Of Confinement, E. Lea Johnston

UF Law Faculty Publications

At sentencing, a judge may foresee that an individual with a major mental disorder will experience serious psychological or physical harm in prison. In light of this reality and offenders’ other potential vulnerabilities, a number of jurisdictions currently allow judges to treat undue offender hardship as a mitigating factor at sentencing. In these jurisdictions, vulnerability to harm may militate toward an order of probation or a reduced term of confinement. Since these measures do not affect offenders’ day-to-day experience in confinement, these expressions of mitigation fail to protect adequately those vulnerable offenders who must serve time in prison. This Article …

Sentence Appeals In England: Promoting Consistent Sentencing Through Robust Appellate Review, Briana Lynn Rosenbaum

Scholarly Works

Unlike in most areas of the law, federal courts of appeals in the United States defer to trial courts on many issues of sentencing law and policy. As a result, the power to decide sentencing law and policy is often at the discretion of individual district court judges. Law reform scholars have long decried the disparity, lack of transparency, and legitimization concerns that this practice raises. These concerns are heightened in the post-Booker sentencing regime, where the advisory nature of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines undermines those Guidelines’ ability to further sentencing consistency. The deferential approach to federal sentence appeals is …

Federal Incarceration By Contract In A Post-Minneci World: Legislation To Equalize The Constitutional Rights Of Prisoners, Allison L. Waks

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type …

Reducing Incarceration For Youthful Offenders With A Developmental Approach To Sentencing, Samantha Buckingham

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

Current sentencing practices have proven to be an ineffective method of rehabilitating criminal defendants. Such practices are unresponsive to developmental science breakthroughs, fail to promote rehabilitation, and drain society’s limited resources. These deficiencies are most acute when dealing with youthful offenders. Incarcerating youthful offenders, who are amenable to rehabilitative efforts, under current sentencing practices only serves to ensure such individuals will never become productive members of society. Drawing on the author’s experiences as a federal public defender, studies in developmental psychology and neuroscience, and the Supreme Court’s recent line of cases that acknowledge youthful offenders’ biological differences from adult offenders, …

What The Sentencing Commission Ought To Be Doing Reducing Mass Incarceration, Lynn Adelman

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States embarked on a shift in its penal policies, tripling the percentage of convicted felons sentenced to confinement and doubling the length of their sentences. This shift included a dramatic increase in the prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders. As a result of its move toward long prison sentences, the United States now incarcerates so many people that it has become an outlier; this is not just among developed democracies, but among all nations, including highly punitive states such as Russia and South Africa, and also in comparison to the United States' own long-standing …

Vulnerability And Just Desert: A Theory Of Sentencing And Mental Illness, E. Lea Johnston

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article analyzes risks of serious harms posed to prisoners with major mental disorders and investigates their import for sentencing under a just deserts analysis. Drawing upon social science research, the Article first establishes that offenders with serious mental illnesses are more likely than non-ill offenders to suffer physical and sexual assaults, endure housing in solitary confinement, and experience psychological deterioration during their carceral terms. The Article then explores the significance of this differential impact for sentencing within a retributive framework. It first suggests a particular expressive understanding of punishment, capacious enough to encompass foreseeable, substantial risks of serious harm …

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Sentencing Reform Act After Mistretta V. United States, Charles R. Eskridge Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Re-Thinking Minnesota's Criminal Justice Response To Sexual Violence Using A Prevention Lens, Caroline Palmer, Bradley Prowant

Symposium: 50th Anniversary of the Minnesota Criminal Code-Looking Back and Looking Forward

Sexual violence is one of the most difficult issues we face in the human condition. Even with the many strides that have occurred in recent years to support a victim-centered response, survivors who seek help from the legal, medical and mental health systems, among others still “may face disbelief, blame, and refusals of help instead of assistance.” It is a problem that demands a response from all levels of society. And yet this response is lacking.

The key question we as a society confront is what changes will satisfactorily balance justice for victims with offender accountability, attempts at rehabilitation through …

Same Crime, Same Time? Gender, Race And Jail Sentencing, Mar Echevarria

Theses & ETDs

Currently in the United States, African-American women are incarcerated at a rate 3 times as high as White women. After the establishment of the War on Drugs in the 1980s, incarceration rates tripled, with a particular increase in Black inmates. For my study I investigated whether or not there were racial discrepancies in sentencing amongst women. I gathered data about females that were incarcerated in 2011 from a jail in Florida. I conducted one-way and two-way analysis of variances to determine whether or not race was a significant factor in determining sentencing length across crime type and drug type. I …

"Off With His __": Analyzing The Sex Disparity In Chemical Castration Sentences, Zachary Edmonds Oswald

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Societies around the world have performed castration, in its various forms, on their male and female members for thousands of years, for numerous reasons. Even within the United States, prisoners have been sentenced to castration (as a form of punishment or crime prevention) since the early twentieth century. In recent years, legislatures have perpetuated this practice but with a modern twist. Now, states use chemical injections to castrate their inmates. It turns out, however, that systemic problems plague the chemical castration sentencing regime. These problems arise from the nature of the crimes eligible for chemical castration sentences, the manner of …