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Quiet Rebellion Ii: An Empirical Analysis Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences Including Data From The District Level, Frank O. Bowman, Michael Heise
Quiet Rebellion Ii: An Empirical Analysis Of Declining Federal Drug Sentences Including Data From The District Level, Frank O. Bowman, Michael Heise
Cornell Law Faculty Publications
This is the second of two articles in which we seek an explanation for the hitherto unexamined fact that the average length of prison sentences imposed in federal court for narcotics violations declined by more than 15% between 1991-92 and 2000.
Our first article, Quiet Rebellion? Explaining Nearly a Decade of Declining Federal Drug Sentences, 86 Iowa Law Review 1043 (May 2001) ( "Rebellion I" ), examined national sentencing data in an effort to determine whether the decline in federal drug sentences is real (rather than a statistical anomaly), and to identify and analyze possible causes of the decline. We …
Judicial Activism: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Arthur D. Hellman
Judicial Activism: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, Arthur D. Hellman
Articles
No matter how judges are selected, sooner or later some unfortunate candidate will be labeled a "judicial activist." One has to wonder: Does the term have any identifiable core meaning? Or is it just an all-purpose term of opprobrium, reflecting whatever brand of judicial behavior the speaker regards as particularly pernicious? Implicit in this question are several important issues about the role of courts in our democratic society.
I take my definition from Judge Richard Posner, who describes activist decisions as those that expand judicial power over other branches of the national government or over state governments. Unlike other uses …