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Full-Text Articles in Law
Seeking Inconsistency: Advancing Pluralism In International Criminal Sentencing, Nancy Amoury Combs
Seeking Inconsistency: Advancing Pluralism In International Criminal Sentencing, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Is Texas Tough On Crime But Soft On Criminal Procedure?, Adam M. Gershowitz
Is Texas Tough On Crime But Soft On Criminal Procedure?, Adam M. Gershowitz
Faculty Publications
Although Texas is well known for imposing tough punishments on convicted defendants, it is surprisingly generous in affording criminal procedure protections. In a variety of areas, including search and seizure rules, confession requirements, the availability of bail, prosecutorial discovery obligations, and jury trial guarantees, Texas affords protections vastly in excess of what is required by the United States Constitution. Even more shocking, these criminal procedure guarantees come almost entirely from Texas statutes approved by the legislature, not activist rules imposed by judges. This Article explores Texas's reputation as a tough-on-crime state and the seeming inconsistency between Texas being tough on …
Deciding When To Decide: How Appellate Procedure Distributes The Costs Of Legal Change, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Deciding When To Decide: How Appellate Procedure Distributes The Costs Of Legal Change, Aaron-Andrew P. Bruhl
Faculty Publications
Legal change is a fact of life, and the need to deal with it has spawned a number of complicated bodies of doctrine. Some aspects of the problem of legal change have been studied extensively, such as doctrines concerning the retroactivity of new law and the question whether inferior courts can anticipatorily overrule a moribund superior court precedent. How such questions are answered affects the size and the distribution of the costs of legal change. Less appreciated is the way that heretofore almost invisible matters of appellate procedure and case handling also allocate the costs of legal transitions. In particular, …
An Informational Approach To The Mass Imprisonment Problem, Adam M. Gershowitz
An Informational Approach To The Mass Imprisonment Problem, Adam M. Gershowitz
Faculty Publications
The United States is plagued by the problem of mass imprisonment, with its prison population having risen by 500% in the last three decades. Because the overwhelming majority of criminal cases are resolved through plea bargaining, there is room for prosecutors to reduce mass imprisonment by exercising their wide discretion. At present, prosecutors likely do not give much consideration to the overcrowding of America 's jails and prisons when making their plea bargain offers. However, if prosecutors were regularly advised of such overcrowding they might offer marginally lower sentences across the board. For instance, a prosecutor who typically offers a …
Procuring Guilty Pleas For International Crimes: The Limited Influence Of Sentencing Discounts, Nancy Amoury Combs
Procuring Guilty Pleas For International Crimes: The Limited Influence Of Sentencing Discounts, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
International tribunals prosecuting those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes face many of the same resource constraints that bedevil national criminal justice systems. Consequently, international tribunals have begun to utilize various procedural devices long used by national prosecutors to speed case dispositions. One such procedural device is the guilty plea. National prosecutors induce criminal defendants to plead guilty and waive their rights to trial through a process of plea bargaining; that is, by offering defendants sentencing concessions in exchange for their guilty pleas. International prosecutors who seek to engage in plea bargaining, however, face a host of …
A Challenge To The Rationale For General Economic Crime Sentence Increases Following Sarbanes-Oxley, Frank O. Bowman Iii
A Challenge To The Rationale For General Economic Crime Sentence Increases Following Sarbanes-Oxley, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
I am writing in response to the Commission's request for comment published in the Federal Register on January 17, 2003. I will address the question of whether the base offense level and/or the loss table of U.S.S.G. § 2B1.1 should be further modified to provide across-the-board sentence increases for economic crime offenders at virtually all loss levels. In my view, no case for doing so has yet been made.
International Decisions: Prosecutor V. Plavsic, Nancy Amoury Combs
International Decisions: Prosecutor V. Plavsic, Nancy Amoury Combs
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly A Decade Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences With Michael Heise, Frank O. Bowman Iii, Michael Heise
Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly A Decade Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences With Michael Heise, Frank O. Bowman Iii, Michael Heise
Faculty Publications
The Article begins with an examination of three primarily empirical questions. First, is the trend real? In other words, is the apparent decrease in federal drug sentences merely a species of statistical hiccup, a random fluctuation that could move easily and rapidly in the other direction? Or is the decline in average drug sentences large enough, and the trend prolonged enough, that we can safely conclude that something meaningful is occurring?
Allocution For Victims Of Economic Crimes, Jayne W. Barnard
Allocution For Victims Of Economic Crimes, Jayne W. Barnard
Faculty Publications
No abstract provided.
Editor's Observations: The 2001 Economic Crime Package: A Legislative History, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Editor's Observations: The 2001 Economic Crime Package: A Legislative History, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
On April 6, 2001, the U.S. Sentencing Commission approved a group of amendments to guidelines governing the sentencing of economic crimes. These measures, collectively known to as the “economic crime package,” are the culmination of some six years of deliberations by both the Conaboy and Murphy Sentencing Commissions working together with interested outside groups such as the defense bar, the Justice Department, probation officers, and the Criminal Law Committee of the U.S. Judicial Conference, The package contains three basic components. First, the now-separate theft and fraud guidelines, Sections 2B1.1 and 2F1.1, will be consolidated into a single guideline. Second, the …