Law Commons^™

Blame Congress, Not Prosecutors, For The Absurdity Of Mandatory Minimums, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Contrary to public perception, prosecutors do not "coerce" or "threaten" otherwise innocent people to plead guilty using mandatory minimum sentences. "Mandatory minimums," as they are called, are minimum terms of imprisonment for specific offenses imposed by statute instead of a judge. Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York joined the chorus of critics in an October 2013 court statement, when he said that "[p]rosecutors routinely threaten ultra-harsh, enhanced mandatory sentences that no one - not even the prosecutors themselves - thinks are appropriate." Of course, some federal prosecutors do act badly - …

From Mountains To Molehills: A Comparative Analysis Of Drug Policy, Brian A. Ford

Annual Survey of International & Comparative Law

This paper examines the debate surrounding the trend of global movements away from prohibition and towards a harms reduction approach to drug policy. This paper reviews the prohibitionist model that is, by and large, the global status quo of how countries deal with drugs. Under the prohibitionist approach, governments criminally ban the production, trafficking, sale, possession, and use of drugs in an effort to directly combat the harms associated with drugs. Section I of this paper presents the prohibitionist approach as the international status quo and examines the effects and failures of that approach. Section II examines a variety of …

Talk Is Cheap, But Texting While Driving Shouldn’T Be, Kristina Maalouf

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Sex Trafficking In Massage Parlors: Working Out The Knots In The San Francisco Health Code, Joanne Badua

GGU Law Review Blog

No abstract provided.

Putting Teeth Into A.B. 109: Why California’S Historic Public Safety Realignment Act Should Require Reentry Programming, Kathleen Nye Flynn

Golden Gate University Law Review

Part I of this Comment provides a history of probation reform policies in California and an overview of realignment and its preceding litigation, with a focus on components that relate to rehabilitation in post-release. Part II explores how Plata laid the groundwork for California’s current focus on reform and demonstrates how realignment hinges on changing the role of probation, slowing recidivism, and improving rehabilitation opportunities. Part III argues that the State should provide mandatory guidelines for county rehabilitation efforts as part of realignment. Finally, Part IV recommends statutory language that would make rehabilitative programming for probationers a mandatory component of …

An Argument For Child Pornography Victim Restitution In The Ninth Circuit: United States V. Kennedy, Amber Pruitt

Golden Gate University Law Review

This Note argues that the Ninth Circuit erred in United States v. Kennedy by vacating restitution damages for the victims to be paid by the possessor of their images, because denying victims such restitution offends traditional understandings of the limits of proximate cause and the legislative intent behind § 2259.44 There are alternative legal tests currently used by other circuits that establish proximate cause in child-pornography-possessor cases that the Ninth Circuit should have applied in Kennedy to ensure that those responsible for harming children would not escape due liability.

Part I of this Note explains why the possession of child …

Federal Judges Need Competing Information To Rival The Misleading Guidelines At Sentencing, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Federal district judges are stuck in a bad marriage with the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines after Booker v. Unittd States. While most of the sentencing debate centers around the struggle over judicial discretion and power to control sentencing outcomes, little attention is given to how poorly we inform the sentencing court's discretion. The information provided to the court at sentencing is lacking and outdated. The Booker Court freed district judges from the "mandatory guideline era" (1988-2005), but also required that district judges continue to calculate, "consult," and explain variances from the applicable guideline range. A sentencing court needs better, competing …