Law Commons^™

Mr. Madison Meets A Time Machine: The Political Science Of Federal Sentencing Reform, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This is the third in a series of articles analyzing the current turmoil in federal criminal sentencing and offering suggestions for improvements in the federal sentencing system. The first article, "The Failure of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Structural Analysis," 105 COLUMBIA L. REV. 1315 (2005), analyzed the structural failures of the complex federal sentencing guidelines system, particularly those arising from imbalances among the primary institutional sentencing actors - Congress, the judiciary, the Justice Department, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission. The second, "Beyond BandAids: A Proposal for Reconfiguring Federal Sentencing After Booker," 2005 U. OF CHICAGO LEGAL FORUM 149 (2005), …

The 'Abuse Excuse' In Capital Sentencing Trials: Is It Relevant To Responsibility, Punishment, Or Neither?, Paul J. Litton

Faculty Publications

The violent criminal who was a victim of severe childhood abuse frequently appears in the responsibility literature because he presents a difficulty for theorists who maintain the compatibility of causal determinism and our practices of holding persons responsible. The challenge is based on the fact that learning about an offender's horrific childhood mitigates the indignation that many persons feel towards him, possibly indicating that they hold him less than fully responsible. Many capital defendants present evidence of suffering childhood abuse, and many jurors find this evidence to count against imposing death. The most obvious explanation for a response like this …

Murder, Meth, Mammon & Moral Values: The Political Landscape Of American Sentencing Reform (In Symposium On White Collar Crime), Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article examines the ongoing American experiment in mass incarceration and considers the prospects for meaningful sentencing reform.

Causing Constitutional Harm: How Tort Law Can Help Determine Harmless Error In Criminal Trials, Jason M. Solomon

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Failure Of The Federal Sentencing System: A Structural Analysis, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

For most of the last decade, I numbered myself among the supporters of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and wrote extensively in their defense, while chronicling their defects. In the past year, I have reluctantly concluded that the federal sentencing guidelines system has failed. This Article explains the Guidelines' failure. The Sentencing Reform Act was intended to distribute the power to make sentencing policy and rules and to control individual sentencing outcomes among a range of national and local actors - the U.S. Sentencing Commission, Congress, the federal appellate courts, and the Department of Justice at the national level, and district …

Faith-Based Miranda: Why The New Missouri V. Seibert Police Bad Faith Test Is A Terrible Idea, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Beyond Bandaids: A Proposal For Reconfiguring Federal Sentencing After Booker, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This Article proposes a simplified sentencing table consisting of nine base sentencing ranges, each subdivided into three sub-ranges. The base sentencing range would be determined by combining offense facts found by a jury or admitted in a plea with the defendant's criminal history. A defendant's placement in the sub-ranges would be determined by post-conviction judicial findings of sentencing factors. No upward departures from the base sentencing range would be permissible, but defendants might be sentenced below the low end of the base sentencing range as a result of an acceptance of responsibility credit or due to a downward departure motion. …

Ending Impunity The Case For War Crimes Trials In Liberia, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Alhagi Marong

Faculty Publications

This paper argues that Liberia owes a duty under international law to investigate and prosecute the heinous crimes, including torture, rape and extra-judicial killings of innocent civilians, committed in that country by the various warring parties in the course of 14 years of brutal conflict. The authors evaluate the options for prosecution, starting with the possible use of Liberian courts. They argue that even if willing, the national courts are unable to render credible justice that protects the due process rights of the accused given the collapse of legal institutions and the paucity of financial, human and material resources in …

Strategies For Challenging Police Drug Jargon Testimony, Joelle A. Moreno

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Motive In The Criminal Law, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

The purchase of illegal drugs by an undercover police officer is commonly known as a “buy and bust” operation. In the twenty-first century, the stakes in the longstanding war on drugs are high as law enforcement and national security agencies join forces to confront the disturbing ties between terrorism and illegal narcotics. In addition to being a weapon in the arsenal of law enforcement, the buy and bust operation also tells an interesting story about motive in the criminal law. This article uses the simple street sale to demonstrate how the criminal law suffers from its ambivalent attitude towards the …

Being The Government Means (Almost) Never Having To Say You’Re Sorry: The Sam Sheppard Case And The Meaning Of Wrongful Imprisonment, Jonathan L. Entin

Faculty Publications

Dr. Sam Sheppard was at the center of the highest profile crime in Ohio history. As the Ohio Supreme Court put it, the case contained "[m]urder and mystery, society, sex and suspense." Sheppard's conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark 1966 ruling, but the controversy over the case continues to the present. The final legal chapter in the story may have been written with an unsuccessful wrongful-imprisonment lawsuit brought by the Sheppard estate in April 2000.

This paper uses the long debate over the Sheppard case as a vehicle for exploring the concept of wrongful imprisonment. …

Sexual Violence And International Criminal Law: An Analysis Of The Ad Hoc Tribunal's Jurisprudence & The International Criminal Court's Elements Of Crimes, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.