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Full-Text Articles in Law
The Eleventh Circuit's Selective Assault On Sentencing Discretion, Adam Shajnfeld
The Eleventh Circuit's Selective Assault On Sentencing Discretion, Adam Shajnfeld
Adam Shajnfeld
Ever since the Supreme Court declared that the sentences which district courts impose on criminal defendants are to be reviewed on appeal for “unreasonableness,” the standard’s contours have remained elusive and mired in controversy, despite the Court’s repeated attempts at elucidation. In few instances is this confounding state of affairs more apparent and acute than in the Eleventh Circuit’s recent lengthy and factious en banc decision in United States v. Irey. This article explores Irey’s merits, mistakes, and lessons, trying to locate each within the broader context of the Eleventh Circuit’s sentencing jurisprudence. In doing so, the article advances three …
Judicial Fact-Finding At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas
Judicial Fact-Finding At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas
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This encyclopedia entry summarizes the pendulum-swings that led the Supreme Court in Apprendi v. New Jersey, Blakely v. Washington, and United States v. Booker to limit judges' ability to find facts at sentencing. Paradoxically, the much-criticized Federal Sentencing Guidelines have survived; a line of cases that began as an effort to restore juries' role has turned into a guarantor of judicial discretion; and the doctrine has quickly moved far from its Sixth Amendment roots to a policy balancing test. The Court could instead have pursued a different, more fruitful path. The Court did not have to force sentencing factors into …
Rita V. United States Leaves More Open Than It Answers, Stephanos Bibas
Rita V. United States Leaves More Open Than It Answers, Stephanos Bibas
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This essay surveys the sentencing issues left open by Rita v. United States and considers how the presumption of reasonableness is likely to operate in practice and how rebutable it is, the roles of safe harbors and individual judges' policy disagreements, and the importance of Justices Stevens and Ginsburg as the swing Justices in this area. This line of cases has drifted far from its roots in a Sixth Amendment concern for juries. Though the resulting sentencing policies may be substantively desirable, the Court cannot articulate how they are rooted in the Sixth Amendment's concern for juries.
White-Collar Plea Bargaining And Sentencing After Booker, Stephanos Bibas
White-Collar Plea Bargaining And Sentencing After Booker, Stephanos Bibas
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This symposium essay speculates about how Booker's loosening of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is likely to affect white-collar plea bargaining and sentencing. Prosecutors' punishment intuitions and the strong white-collar defense bar will keep white-collar sentencing from growing as harsh as drug sentencing, but the parallels are nonetheless ominous. The essay suggests that the Sentencing Commission revise its loss-computation rules, calibrate white-collar sentences to their core purpose of expressing condemnation, and adding shaming punishments and apologies to give moderate prison sentences more bite.