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Full-Text Articles in Law
Revisiting Our Administrative System Of Criminal Justice, Benjamin E. Rosenberg
Revisiting Our Administrative System Of Criminal Justice, Benjamin E. Rosenberg
Res Gestae
Nineteen years after Judge Lynch’s piece, "Our Administrative System of Criminal Justice," this Article considers recent developments in the criminal justice system and whether Judge Lynch’s observations have withstood the test of time. It suggests that Judge Lynch’s observation—that our criminal justice system has strayed far from the model of the adversarial system—remains as true today as it was when he made it in 1998. It further explains that developments in the nineteen years since the publication of “Our Administrative System of Criminal Justice” have caused the criminal justice system to stray even further from the adversarial model and in …
Restorative Justice: How Law Schools Can Help Heal Their Communities, Rachel King
Restorative Justice: How Law Schools Can Help Heal Their Communities, Rachel King
Fordham Urban Law Journal
This Essay argues that the justice system should establish a parallel system, using restorative justice, designed to "heal" those individuals affected by crime, but who are not the victim, i.e. the victim's family. Additionally, the author proposes that law schools should help develop this parallel system.
Fifteen Years After The Federal Sentencing Revolution: How Mandatory Minimums Have Undermined Effective And Just Narcotics Sentencing Perspectives On The Federal Sentencing Guidelines And Mandatory Sentencing, Ian Weinstein
Faculty Scholarship
Federal criminal sentencing has changed dramatically since 1988. Fifteen years ago, judges determined if and for how long a defendant would go to jail. Since that time, changes in substantive federal criminal statutes, particularly the passage of an array of mandatory minimum penalties and the adoption of the federal sentencing guidelines, have limited significantly judicial sentencing power and have remade federal sentencing and federal criminal practice. The results of these changes are significantly longer federal prison sentences, as was the intent of these reforms, and the emergence of federal prosecutors as the key players in sentencing. Yet, at the same …
Regulating The Market For Snitches , Ian Weinstein
Regulating The Market For Snitches , Ian Weinstein
Faculty Scholarship
These are boom times for the sellers and buyers of cooperation in the federal criminal justice system. While prosecutors have always welcomed the assistance of snitches, tougher federal sentencing laws have led to a significant increase in cooperation as more defendants try to provide "substantial assistance in the investigation or prosecution of another person," to have some chance of receiving a significant sentence reduction. In 1996 one of every five defendants sentenced in the federal courts won mitigation by providing substantial assistance. Many more defendants tried but failed to close the deal. The overheated cooperation market is creating serious problems …
Substantial Assistance And Sentence Severity: Is There A Correlation Substantial Assistance, Ian Weinstein
Substantial Assistance And Sentence Severity: Is There A Correlation Substantial Assistance, Ian Weinstein
Faculty Scholarship
How much more severe are sentences imposed in districts with low substantial assistance rates than those in which the rate is very high? In the aggregate, not at all. At first blush this may puzzle readers because substantial assistance (SA) departures are very unevenly distributed across districts and SA accounts for nearly two-thirds of all downward departures, almost 7,900 of the 12,000 in fiscal 1996. Although this pattern could result in gross disparities among districts, my analysis of inter-district sentencing patterns reveals no statistically significant correlation between the rate of SA departures and the average length of sentences imposed in …