Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Law Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Mandatory minimum sentences

Discipline
Institution
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1 - 23 of 23

Full-Text Articles in Law

Taking The Second Step: Section 924(C) Sentencing Disparities As An Extraordinary And Compelling Reason For Compassionate Release, Olivia Williams Jan 2022

Taking The Second Step: Section 924(C) Sentencing Disparities As An Extraordinary And Compelling Reason For Compassionate Release, Olivia Williams

William & Mary Law Review Online

This Note argues that courts are empowered to, and should, grant compassionate release based solely on the sentencing disparities created by the First Step Act -- specifically, the significant changes to § 924(c)'s sentencing scheme. [...] Part I of this Note provides background on the two relevant sections of the First Step Act: changes to the compassionate release process and changes to the § 924(c) sentencing scheme. Part II examines recent district court opinions addressing § 924(c) sentencing disparities as "extraordinary and compelling reasons" for reduced sentences. Part III argues that courts are empowered to grant compassionate release to inmates …

Go to article

Methods And Severity: The Two Tracks Of Section 12, Benjamin Berger, Lisa Kerr Jan 2019

Methods And Severity: The Two Tracks Of Section 12, Benjamin Berger, Lisa Kerr

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper argues that there are two main routes – two tracks – by which one can arrive at the fundamental wrong at the heart of section 12 of the Charter. On the “methods track”, the state can run afoul of section 12 by using intrinsically unacceptable methods of treatment or punishment. For historical reasons, jurisprudence on this track is not well developed in Canada, though it would clearly prohibit the death penalty and most methods of corporal punishment. On the “severity track”, the concern is with excessive punishment. Here, even where the state has chosen a legitimate method of …

Go to article

Report Of The Delaware Criminal Law Recodification Project, Paul H. Robinson, Matthew Kussmaul, Ilya Rudyak, Criminal Law Research Group Jul 2017

Report Of The Delaware Criminal Law Recodification Project, Paul H. Robinson, Matthew Kussmaul, Ilya Rudyak, Criminal Law Research Group

All Faculty Scholarship

In 1973, during the “first wave” of American criminal law recodification efforts following the publication of the Model Penal Code, Delaware adopted a new criminal code. While it represented a dramatic improvement over the law it replaced, its initial clarity and utility were greatly diminished by subsequent piecemeal legislation. Delaware’s current criminal code is lengthy, inconsistent, and replete with duplicative and outdated offenses that impose disproportional punishments. This process of criminal code deterioration is not unique to Delaware and plagues other U.S. jurisdictions. In 2015, however, stakeholders in Delaware’s criminal justice system initiated a code revision process, commissioning the authors …

Go to article

Criminal Justice And (A) Catholic Conscience, Leo E. Strine Jr. Jan 2016

Criminal Justice And (A) Catholic Conscience, Leo E. Strine Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

This article is one person's reflections on how an important influence on his own sense of moral values -- Jesus Christ -- affects his thinking about his own approach to his role as a public official in a secular society, using the vital topic of criminal justice as a focal point. This article draws several important lessons from Christ's teachings about the concept of the other that are relevant to issues of criminal justice. Using Catholicism as a framework, this article addresses, among other things, capital punishment and denying the opportunity for redemption; the problem of racial disparities in the …

Go to article

Justice Reform: Who's Got The Power, Yevgeniy Mayba May 2015

Justice Reform: Who's Got The Power, Yevgeniy Mayba

Themis: Research Journal of Justice Studies and Forensic Science

As the US prison population continues to rise despite the significant decrease in crime rates, scholars and social activists are demanding comprehensive reforms to the penal system that disproportionately affects minorities and the poor and has become a significant burden on the taxpayers. This paper examines some of the processes that contributed to the rise of the modern day carceral state, such as the determinate sentencing reform and the proliferation of mandatory minimum sentencing. It also explores the unintended consequences of these penal developments and traces the reaction and subsequent resistance to these sentencing schemes from the judiciary, as well …

Go to article

Road To Booker And Beyond: Constitutional Limits On Sentence Enhancements, John Gleeson Dec 2014

Road To Booker And Beyond: Constitutional Limits On Sentence Enhancements, John Gleeson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr Dec 2014

Racial Disparity In Federal Criminal Sentences, M. Marit Rehavi, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

Using rich data linking federal cases from arrest through to sentencing, we find that initial case and defendant characteristics, including arrest offense and criminal history, can explain most of the large raw racial disparity in federal sentences, but significant gaps remain. Across the distribution, blacks receive sentences that are almost 10 percent longer than those of comparable whites arrested for the same crimes. Most of this disparity can be explained by prosecutors’ initial charging decisions, particularly the filing of charges carrying mandatory minimum sentences. Ceteris paribus, the odds of black arrestees facing such a charge are 1.75 times higher than …

Go to article

A Comprehensive Administrative Solution To The Armed Career Criminal Act Debacle , Avi M. Kupfer Oct 2014

A Comprehensive Administrative Solution To The Armed Career Criminal Act Debacle , Avi M. Kupfer

Michigan Law Review

For thirty years, the Armed Career Criminal Act (“ACCA”) has imposed a fifteen-year mandatory minimum sentence on those people convicted as felons in possession of a firearm or ammunition who have three prior convictions for a violent felony or serious drug offense. Debate about the law has existed mainly within a larger discussion on the normative value of mandatory minimums. Assuming that the ACCA endures, however, administering it will continue to be a challenge. The approach that courts use to determine whether past convictions qualify as ACCA predicate offenses creates ex ante uncertainty and the potential for intercourt disparities. Furthermore, …

Go to article

Blame Congress, Not Prosecutors, For The Absurdity Of Mandatory Minimums, Wes R. Porter Dec 2013

Blame Congress, Not Prosecutors, For The Absurdity Of Mandatory Minimums, Wes R. Porter

Publications

Contrary to public perception, prosecutors do not "coerce" or "threaten" otherwise innocent people to plead guilty using mandatory minimum sentences. "Mandatory minimums," as they are called, are minimum terms of imprisonment for specific offenses imposed by statute instead of a judge. Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York joined the chorus of critics in an October 2013 court statement, when he said that "[p]rosecutors routinely threaten ultra-harsh, enhanced mandatory sentences that no one - not even the prosecutors themselves - thinks are appropriate." Of course, some federal prosecutors do act badly - …

Go to article

What The Sentencing Commission Ought To Be Doing Reducing Mass Incarceration, Lynn Adelman Apr 2013

What The Sentencing Commission Ought To Be Doing Reducing Mass Incarceration, Lynn Adelman

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Beginning in the 1970s, the United States embarked on a shift in its penal policies, tripling the percentage of convicted felons sentenced to confinement and doubling the length of their sentences. This shift included a dramatic increase in the prosecution and incarceration of drug offenders. As a result of its move toward long prison sentences, the United States now incarcerates so many people that it has become an outlier; this is not just among developed democracies, but among all nations, including highly punitive states such as Russia and South Africa, and also in comparison to the United States' own long-standing …

Go to article

Mandatory Minimalism, Erik Luna, Paul Cassell Jan 2013

Mandatory Minimalism, Erik Luna, Paul Cassell

Erik Luna

One of us (Cassell) is a former federal judge nominated by President George W. Bush, now a “conservative” scholar whose work is often supportive of law enforcement, the death penalty, and the rights of crime victims. The other (Luna) is a “libertarian” who tends to be suspicious of government and adamant about abuses of power, including those by police and prosecutors, and his scholarship has expressed the need for wholesale criminal justice reform (especially in the federal system). If we could find common ground on ways to modify federal mandatory minimums, we hoped that policymakers might share this agreement, perhaps …

Go to article

Did Booker Increase Sentencing Disparity? Why The Evidence Is Unpersuasive, Sonja B. Starr Jan 2013

Did Booker Increase Sentencing Disparity? Why The Evidence Is Unpersuasive, Sonja B. Starr

Articles

The Sentencing Commission’s recent report on the effects of United States v.Booker makes a number of very worri- some claims.The most alarming is that the gap in sen- tences between otherwise similar Black and White men has nearly quadrupled: from 4.5 percent before Booker, to 15 percent after it, to 19.5 percent after United States v. Kimbrough and United States v.Gall. 1 The Commission further claims that interjudge disparity has increased in two-thirds of the federal districts, and that interdistrict variation has also increased.2 If its findings were accurate, and if these changes could be causally attributed to Booker and …

Go to article

Destinations: A Comparison Of Sex Trafficking In India And The United States, Sarah Montana Hart Jan 2012

Destinations: A Comparison Of Sex Trafficking In India And The United States, Sarah Montana Hart

University of Colorado Law Review

This Note examines the similarities and differences between sex trafficking in India and the United States. It highlights three similarities between the countries. First, the basic sexual demands of the johns are not being met by the local population of women despite that population's vulnerabilities. Second, sex trafficking is usually more profitable than legal alternatives for the pimps. Third, the victims are lured by the dreams of a better life that the traffickers supposedly can provide and will therefore often consent to travel with them until it is too late. This Note argues that if these three truths apply in …

Go to article

Report On Offense Grading In New Jersey, Paul H. Robinson, Rebecca Levenson, Nicholas Feltham, Andrew Sperl, Kristen-Elise Brooks, Agatha Koprowski, Jessica Peake, Benjamin Probber, Brian Trainor Feb 2011

Report On Offense Grading In New Jersey, Paul H. Robinson, Rebecca Levenson, Nicholas Feltham, Andrew Sperl, Kristen-Elise Brooks, Agatha Koprowski, Jessica Peake, Benjamin Probber, Brian Trainor

All Faculty Scholarship

The University of Pennsylvania Criminal Law Research Group was commissioned to do a study of offense grading in New Jersey. After an examination of New Jersey criminal law and a survey of New Jersey residents, the CLRG issued this Final Report. (For the report of a similar project for Pennsylvania, see Report on Offense Grading in Pennsylvania, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1527149, and for an article about the grading project, see The Modern Irrationalities of American Criminal Codes: An Empirical Study of Offense Grading, http://ssrn.com/abstract=1539083, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (forthcoming 2011).) The New Jersey study found serious conflicts between the relative grading …

Go to article

The Modern Irrationalities Of American Criminal Codes: An Empirical Study Of Offense Grading, Paul H. Robinson, Thomas Gaeta, Matthew Majarian, Megan Schultz, Douglas M. Weck Jul 2010

The Modern Irrationalities Of American Criminal Codes: An Empirical Study Of Offense Grading, Paul H. Robinson, Thomas Gaeta, Matthew Majarian, Megan Schultz, Douglas M. Weck

All Faculty Scholarship

The Model Penal Code made great advances in clarity and legality, moving most of the states from a mix of common law and ad hoc statutes to the modern American form of a comprehensive, succinct code that has served as a model around the world. Yet the decades since the wave of Model Code-based codifications have seen a steady degradation of American codes brought on by a relentless and accelerating rate of criminal law amendments that ignore the style, format, and content of the existing codes. The most damaging aspect of this trend is the exponentially increasing number of offense …

Go to article

Mandatory Minimalism, Erik Luna, Paul G. Cassell Jan 2010

Mandatory Minimalism, Erik Luna, Paul G. Cassell

Scholarly Articles

One of us (Cassell) is a former federal judge nominated by President George W. Bush, now a “conservative” scholar whose work is often supportive of law enforcement, the death penalty, and the rights of crime victims. The other (Luna) is a “libertarian” who tends to be suspicious of government and adamant about abuses of power, including those by police and prosecutors, and his scholarship has expressed the need for wholesale criminal justice reform (especially in the federal system). If we could find common ground on ways to modify federal mandatory minimums, we hoped that policymakers might share this agreement, perhaps …

Go to article

Amendment 706 To The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Not All It Was Cracked Up To Be, Brian Crowell Jan 2010

Amendment 706 To The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines: Not All It Was Cracked Up To Be, Brian Crowell

Villanova Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Report On Offense Grading In Pennsylvania, Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Research Group, University Of Pennsylvania Law School Dec 2009

Report On Offense Grading In Pennsylvania, Paul H. Robinson, Criminal Law Research Group, University Of Pennsylvania Law School

All Faculty Scholarship

The Pennsylvania Legislature's Senate Judiciary Committee and House Judiciary Committee jointly commissioned this study of the criminal offense grading scheme contained in Pennsylvania criminal statutes. This Final Report, which was presented to a joint session of the two Committees on December 15, 2009, examines the extent to which current Pennsylvania law defines offenses with offense grades that are inconsistent with the relative seriousness of the offense as compared to other offenses, based upon an empirical survey of Pennsylvania residents. It also examines whether some offenses include within a single grade forms of conduct of very different degrees of seriousness, for …

Go to article

How Mandatory Are Mandatory Minimums? How Judges Can Avoid Imposing Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Nathan A. Greenblatt Dec 2008

How Mandatory Are Mandatory Minimums? How Judges Can Avoid Imposing Mandatory Minimum Sentences, Nathan A. Greenblatt

Nathan A Greenblatt

Mandatory minimum sentences are anathema to judges due to, it is commonly said, judges’ “utter lack of power to do anything for the exceptional defendants that move them.” In the case of Weldon Angelos, for example, U.S. District Judge Paul Cassell lamented that sentencing Mr. Angelos to 55 years in prison “is unjust, cruel, and even irrational. [The court] reluctantly concludes that it has no choice.” The Judicial Conference has consistently opposed mandatory minimum sentences for more than 50 years, because it, too, has concluded that mandatory sentences give judges no choice in sentencing. Indeed, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently …

Go to article

From The Frying Pan Into The Fire: How Poor Women Of Color And Children Are Affected By Sentencing Guidelines And Mandatory Minimums, Nekima Levy-Pounds Jan 2007

From The Frying Pan Into The Fire: How Poor Women Of Color And Children Are Affected By Sentencing Guidelines And Mandatory Minimums, Nekima Levy-Pounds

Santa Clara Law Review

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Shifts In Policy And Power: Calculating The Consequences Of Increased Prosecutorial Power And Reduced Judicial Authority In Post 9/11 America, Chris Mcneil Aug 2005

Shifts In Policy And Power: Calculating The Consequences Of Increased Prosecutorial Power And Reduced Judicial Authority In Post 9/11 America, Chris Mcneil

ExpressO

Among many responses to the attacks of September 11, 2001, Congress and the states have shifted to the executive branch certain powers once held by the judicial branch. This article considers the impact of transferring judicial powers to prosecutorial officers, and compares the consequent increased powers of the prosecutor with those powers traditionally held by prosecutors in Japanese criminal courts. It considers the impact of removing from public view and judicial oversight many prosecutorial functions, drawing comparisons between the largely opaque Japanese prosecutorial roles and those roles now assumed in immigration and anti-terrorism laws, noting the need for safeguards not …

Go to article

Amendment To The Constitution Of The State Of Georgia Article Iv. Constitutional Boards And Commissions, Section Ii. State Board Of Pardons And Paroles, Paragraph 11. Powers And Authority: Give The Legislature Power To Create Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Certain Violent Felonies, Amy K. Waggoner Sep 1994

Amendment To The Constitution Of The State Of Georgia Article Iv. Constitutional Boards And Commissions, Section Ii. State Board Of Pardons And Paroles, Paragraph 11. Powers And Authority: Give The Legislature Power To Create Mandatory Minimum Sentences For Certain Violent Felonies, Amy K. Waggoner

Georgia State University Law Review

This Resolution proposes an amendment to the Constitution to give the General Assembly authority to set mandatory minimum sentences and a sentence to life without parole for certain crimes. The proposed amendment would remove authority from the State Board of Pardons and Paroles to consider persons serving these sentences for pardon, parole, or commutation.

Go to article

Two Views On The Federal Narcotics Law Problem: I - Suggestion To Facilitate Apprehension And Conviction Of Narcotic Law Violators, Sumner Canary Jan 1955

Two Views On The Federal Narcotics Law Problem: I - Suggestion To Facilitate Apprehension And Conviction Of Narcotic Law Violators, Sumner Canary

Cleveland State Law Review

There are three principal aspects to the enforcement of narcotic laws. They are: (1) the apprehension of the criminal; (2) the prosecution of the offender; and (3) the sentencing of a convicted offender. The United States Attorney is concerned primarily with the prosecution of cases which are prepared by other agencies and presented to him. For the most part, the prosecution of narcotic cases is relatively simple because there is little sympathy on the part of any juror for criminals of this type. Most narcotics come from foreign countries and come into the United States at seaports. Today most narcotics …

Go to article