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Full-Text Articles in Law
Regulating Local Variations In Federal Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas
Regulating Local Variations In Federal Sentencing, Stephanos Bibas
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Though in theory federal criminal law applies uniformly in all places, in practice federal charging, plea bargaining, and sentencing practices vary widely from place to place. Sentencing disparities are good when they reflect local knowledge about local crime problems and concerns. They are bad when they spring from bias, local lawyers' and judges' hostility to national policy choices or perhaps when they reflect disagreement with federal strategies. This Article critiques fast-track programs, which award huge discounts in immigration and drug cases along the southwest border, as bad variation that undermines the ideal of national uniformity. It then considers the wide …
The Accelerating Degradation Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson, Michael T. Cahill
The Accelerating Degradation Of American Criminal Codes, Paul H. Robinson, Michael T. Cahill
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This Article addresses the ongoing-and, indeed, accelerating process of sporadic, piecemeal, and unnecessary legislation leading to increasing inconsistencies and irrationalities in American criminal law. After a wave of modernization in the I960s and 1970s, the past generation has not witnessed further advances, but rather a serious and growing degradation of most criminal codes. This Article offers several insights regarding criminal code degradation. First, it provides specific and concrete examples of degradation and its harmful effects. Second, drawing on their experiences as participants in the recent reform efforts of Illinois and Kentucky, the authors offer an insider's view of how the …
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.
Running In Place: The Paradox Of Expanding Rights And Restricted Remedies, David Rudovsky
Running In Place: The Paradox Of Expanding Rights And Restricted Remedies, David Rudovsky
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No abstract provided.
Sentencing Decisions: Matching The Decisionmaker To The Decision Nature, Paul H. Robinson, Barbara A. Spellman
Sentencing Decisions: Matching The Decisionmaker To The Decision Nature, Paul H. Robinson, Barbara A. Spellman
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The present sentencing debate focuses on which decisionmaker is best suited to make the sentencing decision. Competing positions in this debate typically view the sentencing decision as monolithic, preferring one decisionmaker over all the others. A monolithic view of the decision unnecessarily invites poor decisionmaking. The sentencing decision is properly viewed as a series of distinct decisions, each of which can best be performed by a decisionmaker with certain qualities. This Essay demonstrates how a system of optimal decisionmaking might be constructed -by sorting out the different attributes called for by the distinct aspects of the sentencing decision and matching …