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Full-Text Articles in Law
Back-End Sentencing A Practice In Search Of A Rationale, Jeremy Travis
Back-End Sentencing A Practice In Search Of A Rationale, Jeremy Travis
Publications and Research
No abstract provided.
American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii
American Buffalo: Vanishing Acquittals And The Gradual Extinction Of The Federal Criminal Trial Lawyer, Frank O. Bowman Iii
Faculty Publications
This essay is an invited response to Professor Ronald Wright's impressive study of the fact that the acquittal rate in federal criminal trials is declining even faster than the rate of trials themselves, Trial Distortion and the End of Innocence in Federal Criminal Justice, 154 U. PA. L. REV. 79 (2005). The essay concurs with Professor Wright's conclusion that one significant factor driving down both federal trial and acquittal rates is the government's use of the markedly increased bargaining leverage afforded to prosecutors by the post-1987 federal sentencing system consisting of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines interacting with various statutory mandatory …
Plea Bargaining's Survival: Financial Crimes Plea Bargaining, A Continued Triumph In A Post-Enron World, Lucian E. Dervan
Plea Bargaining's Survival: Financial Crimes Plea Bargaining, A Continued Triumph In A Post-Enron World, Lucian E. Dervan
Law Faculty Scholarship
This article examines the war on financial crimes that began after the collapse of Enron in 2001. Although many believed that the reforms implemented following this scandal led to greater prosecutorial focus on financial crimes and longer prison sentences, an analysis of data from 1995 through 2006 reveals that little has actually changed. The statistics demonstrate that the government's focus on financial crimes has not increased and prison sentences for fraud have remained stagnant. How could this be the case? It is this author's hypothesis that although prosecutors could have chosen to use new statutes and amendments to the United …
Doing Katrina Time, Pamela R. Metzger
Doing Katrina Time, Pamela R. Metzger
Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters
This Article explores one Katrina-law problem: the plight of the poor, unrepresented and uncharged prisoners. It attempts to explain why these detainees were unrepresented and abandoned and how we might better guarantee the quality of justice for future detainees. Katrina has proved that bright-line rules are the best lines of defense for the poor; criminal justice systems honor concrete rules more readily than abstract imperatives. Katrina also proved that good lawyering on behalf of poor people can bring joy in the midst of despair.
The Canine Metaphor And The Future Of Sentencing Reform: Dogs, Tails, And The Constitutional Law Of Wagging, Benjamin Priester
The Canine Metaphor And The Future Of Sentencing Reform: Dogs, Tails, And The Constitutional Law Of Wagging, Benjamin Priester
Journal Publications
Over the last seven years, in what is commonly referred to as the Apprendi line of cases, the United States Supreme Court has promulgated an audacious and controversial constitutional law of sentencing characterized by thinly veiled disdain for legislative sentencing reform measures and high regard for judicial discretion in punishing offenders. The Court's opinions have asserted that its newfound constitutional principle is necessary to safeguard defendants' Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury against legislative encroachment. In truth, the only interest being preserved is judges' assessment of their own importance. The doctrinal and practical effects of the new sentencing doctrine …
Federal Rules Update: How Rules Are Made: A Brief Review, David A. Schlueter
Federal Rules Update: How Rules Are Made: A Brief Review, David A. Schlueter
Faculty Articles
In June 2007, the Standing Committee on the Federal Rules of Procedure and Evidence authorized publication for comment on a number amendments to the rules of criminal procedure. The amendment to Criminal Rule 7 would delete subdivision (c)(2) because it is covered in Rule 32.2(a). The change to Criminal Rule 32 would provide that the presentence report should state whether the government is seeking forfeiture of property. Amendments to Criminal Rule 32.2. would change a number of procedures related to criminal forfeiture. Criminal Rule 41 would create a two-step process for seizing and reviewing electronic storage media. Amendments to the …
Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas
Beyond Mitigation: Towards A Theory Of Allocution, Kimberly A. Thomas
Articles
THE COURT: I don't think I have time to listen .... I am not going to reexamine your guilt or innocence here. That is not the purpose of a sentence.. THE DEFENDANT: I did not have the chance to tell you .... THE DEFENDANT: But, your Honor, listen to me-1 Should the court hear this defendant? Is the story of innocence relevant at allocution-the defendant's opportunity to speak on his or her own behalf at the sentencing hearing prior to the imposition of sentence? Or, is the purpose of allocution something different, as the judge suggests? The answers depend on …
The Expressive Capacity Of International Punishment: The Limits Of The National Law Analogy And The Potential Of International Criminal Law, Robert D. Sloane
The Expressive Capacity Of International Punishment: The Limits Of The National Law Analogy And The Potential Of International Criminal Law, Robert D. Sloane
Faculty Scholarship
Modern international criminal law (ICL) developed in the aftermath of World War II as an alternative to the proposal, espoused by Winston Churchill among others, that major Axis war criminals be summarily executed on sight. Because of this pedigree and the unconscionable nature of the crimes, ICL jurisprudence and scholarship have largely neglected the paramount question fundamental to any criminal justice system: the justifications for and legitimate goals of punishment. Insofar as a coherent jurisprudence of ICL sentencing can be said to exist at all, it remains correspondingly impoverished and unprincipled - comparable in some respects to that of the …
A Reader's Companion To Against Prediction: A Reply To Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, And Yoav Sapir On Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, And Race, Bernard E. Harcourt
A Reader's Companion To Against Prediction: A Reply To Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, And Yoav Sapir On Economic Modeling, Selective Incapacitation, Governmentality, And Race, Bernard E. Harcourt
Faculty Scholarship
From parole prediction instruments and violent sexual predator scores to racial profiling on the highways, instruments to predict future dangerousness, drug-courier profiles, and IRS computer algorithms to detect tax evaders, the rise of actuarial methods in the field of crime and punishment presents a number of challenging issues at the intersection of economic theory, sociology, history, race studies, criminology, social theory, and law. The three review essays of "Against Prediction" by Ariela Gross, Yoram Margalioth, and Yoav Sapir, raise these challenges in their very best light. Ranging from the heights of poststructuralist and critical race theory to the intricate details …