Law Commons^™

Problematic Ai — When Should We Use It?, Fredric Lederer

Popular Media

No abstract provided.

Old Age As The Hidden Sentencing Factor, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Imagine two doctors who illegally sold opioids in exchange for cash. Both doctors sold roughly the same quantity of pills, had no prior criminal convictions, and accordingly faced the same sentencing guidelines range. The major difference was that one doctor was in his sixties and considerably older than the other doctor. The Federal Sentencing Guidelines provide that judges should consider a defendant's age only in atypical cases. Yet, this Article demonstrates that older defendants received sentencing discounts far more often than younger defendants convicted of the same crime.

This Article gathers sentencing data for almost 130 doctors convicted in federal …

Punishing Pill Mill Doctors: Sentencing Disparities In The Opioid Epidemic, Adam M. Gershowitz

Faculty Publications

Consider two pill mill doctors who flooded the streets with oxycodone and other dangerous opioids. The evidence against both doctors was overwhelming. They each sold millions of opioid pills. Both doctors charged addicted patients hundreds of dollars in cash for office visits that involved no physical examinations and no diagnostic tests. Instead, the doctors simply handed the patients opioids in exchange for cash. To maximize their income, both doctors conspired with street dealers to import fake patients — many of them homeless — so that the doctors could write even more prescriptions. Both doctors made millions of dollars profiting off …

Responding To Mccleskey And Batson: The North Carolina Racial Justice Act Confronts Racial Peremptory Challenges In Death Cases, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Notice-And-Comment Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Richard A. Bierschbach

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Apprendi And The Dynamics Of Guilty Pleas, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Punishment As Contract, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper provides a sketch of a contractarian approach to punishment, according to a version of contractarianism one might call “rational contractarianism,” by contrast with the normative contractarianism of John Rawls. Rational contractarianism suggests a model according to which rational agents, with maximal, rather than minimal, knowledge of their life circumstances, would agree to the outlines of a particular social institution or set of social institutions because they view themselves as faring best in such a society governed by such institutions, as compared with a society governed by different institutional schemes available for adoption. Applied to the institution of punishment, …

Policing Politics At Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas, Max M. Schanzenbach, Emerson H. Tiller

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Contrived Defenses And Deterrent Threats: Two Facets Of One Problem, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Leo Katz

All Faculty Scholarship

What relation do the various parts of a plan bear to the overall aim of the plan? In this essay we consider this question in the context of two very different problems in the criminal law. The first, known in the German criminal law literature as the Actio Libera in Causa, involves defendants who contrive to commit crimes under conditions that would normally afford them a justification or excuse. The question is whether such defendants should be allowed to claim the defense when the defense is itself either contrived or anticipated in advance. The second is what we call the …

A Contractarian Argument Against The Death Penalty, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

Opponents of the death penalty typically base their opposition on contingent features of its administration, arguing that the death penalty is applied discriminatory, that the innocent are sometimes executed, or that there is insufficient evidence of the death penalty’s deterrent efficacy. Implicit in these arguments is the suggestion that if these contingencies did not obtain, serious moral objections to the death penalty would be misplaced. In this Article, Professor Finkelstein argues that there are grounds for opposing the death penalty even in the absence of such contingent factors. She proceeds by arguing that neither of the two prevailing theories of …

Responsibility For Unintended Consequences, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

The appropriateness of imposing criminal liability for negligent conduct has been the subject of debate among criminal law scholars for many years. Ever since H.L.A. Hart’s defense of criminal negligence, the prevailing view has favored its use. In this essay, I nevertheless argue against criminal negligence, on the ground that criminal liability should only be imposed where the defendant was aware he was engaging in the prohibited conduct, or where he was aware of risking such conduct or result. My argument relies on the claim that criminal liability should resemble judgments of responsibility in ordinary morality as closely as possible. …

Truth Machines And Consequences: The Light And Dark Sides Of 'Accuracy' In Criminal Justice, Seth F. Kreimer

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Plea Bargaining Outside The Shadow Of Trial, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

Plea-bargaining literature predicts that parties strike plea bargains in the shadow of expected trial outcomes. In other words, parties forecast the expected sentence after trial, discount it by the probability of acquittal, and offer some proportional discount. This oversimplified model ignores how structural distortions skew bargaining outcomes. Agency costs; attorney competence, compensation, and workloads; resources; sentencing and bail rules; and information deficits all skew bargaining. In addition, psychological biases and heuristics warp judgments: overconfidence, denial, discounting, risk preferences, loss aversion, framing, and anchoring all affect bargaining decisions. Skilled lawyers can partly counteract some of these problems but sometimes overcompensate. The …

Pleas' Progress, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Psychology Of Hindsight And After-The-Fact Review Of Ineffective Assistance Of Counsel, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Integrating Remorse And Apology Into Criminal Procedure, Stephanos Bibas, Richard A. Bierschbach

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Feeney Amendment And The Continuing Rise Of Prosecutorial Power To Plea Bargain, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Drug Wars In Black And White, Joseph E. Kennedy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Apprendi In The States: The Virtues Of Federalism As A Structural Limit On Errors, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

New Dimensions In Sentencing Reform In The Twenty-First Century, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Victim Impact Evidence: Hard To Find The Real Rules, Robert P. Mosteller

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Right To Remain Silent Helps Only The Guilty, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Harmonizing Substantive-Criminal Law-Values And Criminal Procedure: The Case Of Alford And Nolo Contendere Pleas, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Excuses And Dispositions In Criminal Law, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Double Helix, Double Bind: Factual Innocence And Postconviction Dna Testing, Seth F. Kreimer, David Rudovsky

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Fact-Finding And Sentence Enhancements In A World Of Guilty Pleas, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Crazy Reasons, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Private Financing Of Criminal Prosecutions And The Differing Protections Of Liberty And Equality In The Criminal Justice System, Joseph E. Kennedy

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Duress: A Philosophical Account Of The Defense In Law, Claire Oakes Finkelstein

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Justice, Mercy, And Craziness, Stephen J. Morse

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.