Criminal Procedure Commons^™

Misconstruing Graham & Miller, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

In the last three years the Supreme Court has decreed a sea change in its juvenile Eighth Amendment jurisprudence. In particular, in its Graham v. Florida and Miller v. Alabama rulings, the Court struck down a majority of the states’ juvenile sentencing laws, outlawing life without parole for juveniles who commit non-homicide offenses and mandating individualized sentencing for those children who commit even the most serious crimes. An examination of state laws and sentencing practices, however, suggests that the Graham and Miller rulings have fallen on deaf ears. After briefly describing what these two decisions required of the states, in …

Last Words: A Survey And Analysis Of Federal Judges' Views On Allocution In Sentencing, Ira Robbins

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Allocution-the penultimate stage of a criminal proceeding at which the judge affords defendants an opportunity to speak their last words before sentencing-is a centuries-old right in criminal cases, and academics have theorized about the various purposes it serves. But what do sitting federal judges think about allocution? Do they actually use it to raise or lower sentences? Do they think it serves purposes above and beyond sentencing? Are there certain factors that judges like or dislike in allocutions? These questions-and many others-are answered directly in this first-ever study of judges' views and practices regarding allocution. The authors surveyed all federal …

Criminal Law And Procedure, Aaron J. Campbell, Kathleen B. Martin

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Transforming Juvenile Justice: Making Doctrine Out Of Dicta In Graham V. Florida, Jason Zolle

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In the late 1980s and 1990s, many state legislatures radically altered the way that their laws treated children accused of crimes. Responding to what was perceived of as an epidemic of juvenile violence, academics and policymakers began to think of child criminals as a "new breed" of incorrigible "superpredators." States responded by making it easier for prosecutors to try and sentence juveniles as adults, even making it mandatory in some circumstances. Yet in the past decade, the Supreme Court handed down four opinions that limit the states' ability to treat children as adults in the justice system. Roper v. Simmons …

Judicial Sentencing Error: Thomas V. Morris And The Double Jeopardy Clause , Paul G. Flynn

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Constitutionality Of The Federal Sentencing Reform Act After Mistretta V. United States, Charles R. Eskridge Iii

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Re-Thinking Minnesota's Criminal Justice Response To Sexual Violence Using A Prevention Lens, Caroline Palmer, Bradley Prowant

Symposium: 50th Anniversary of the Minnesota Criminal Code-Looking Back and Looking Forward

Sexual violence is one of the most difficult issues we face in the human condition. Even with the many strides that have occurred in recent years to support a victim-centered response, survivors who seek help from the legal, medical and mental health systems, among others still “may face disbelief, blame, and refusals of help instead of assistance.” It is a problem that demands a response from all levels of society. And yet this response is lacking.

The key question we as a society confront is what changes will satisfactorily balance justice for victims with offender accountability, attempts at rehabilitation through …

Reflections Of A First-Time Expert Witness, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

On January 2, 2013, I testified as an expert witness at a sentencing hearing in federal district court. It was my first time being qualified as an expert, and my only time testifying in court in any capacity. A couple of months earlier, I had been contacted by an Assistant Federal Public Defender (AFPD) who asked if I’d be interested in being retained as an expert. She was handling the sentencing of a man convicted of child pornography possession, receipt, and transportation, and had read my work criticizing the development of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines provisions for these offenses. …

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 …

Freeing Morgan Freeman: Expanding Back-End Release Authority In American Prisons, Frank O. Bowman Iii

Faculty Publications

This article, written for a symposium hosted by the Wake Forest Journal of Law & Policy on “Finality in Sentencing,” makes four arguments, three general and one specific. First, the United States incarcerates too many people for too long, and mechanisms for making prison sentences less “final” will allow the U.S. to make those sentences shorter, thus reducing the prison population surplus. Second, even if one is agnostic about the overall size of the American prison population, it is difficult to deny that least some appreciable fraction of current inmates are serving more time than can reasonably be justified on …

Motivation Matters: Guideline 10.13 And Other Mechanisms For Preventing Lawyers From Surrendering To Self-Interest In Responding To Allegations Of Ineffective Assistance In Death Penalty Cases, Tigran W. Eldred

Faculty Scholarship

Defense lawyers whose clients are sentenced to death are virtually guaranteed to be accused of ineffective assistance of counsel. The question is how they will respond. On one hand, lawyers alleged to be ineffective are obligated under Guideline 10.13 of the American Bar Association’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases to continue to safeguard the interests of their former clients, a duty that includes full cooperation in appropriate legal strategies chosen to pursue the ineffectiveness claim. On the other hand, lawyers who are accused of ineffectiveness often react defensively to the allegation, reflexively …

The Skeptic’S Guide To Information Sharing At Sentencing, Ryan W. Scott

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The “information sharing model,” a leading method of structuring judicial discretion at the sentencing stage of criminal cases, has attracted broad support from scholars and judges. Under this approach, sentencing judges should have access to a robust body of information, including written opinions and statistics, about previous sentences in similar cases. According to proponents, judges armed with that information can conform their sentences to those of their colleagues or identify principled reasons for distinguishing them, reducing inter-judge disparity and promoting rationality in sentencing law. This Article takes a skeptical view of the information sharing model, arguing that it suffers from …

The Skeptic's Guide To Information Sharing At Sentencing, Ryan W. Scott

Articles by Maurer Faculty

The “information sharing model,” a leading method of structuring judicial discretion at the sentencing stage of criminal cases, has attracted broad support from scholars and judges. Under this approach, sentencing judges should have access to a robust body of information, including written opinions and statistics, about previous sentences in similar cases. According to proponents, judges armed with that information can conform their sentences to those of their colleagues or identify principled reasons for distinguishing them, reducing inter-judge disparity and promoting rationality in sentencing law.

This Article takes a skeptical view of the information sharing model, arguing that it suffers from …

The Punishment Need Not Fit The Crime: Harmelin V. Michigan And The Eigth Amendment, Scott K. Petersen

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Law And Procedure, Aaron J. Campbell, Kathleen B. Martin

University of Richmond Law Review

This article aims to give the criminal law practitioner a succinct review of significant cases regarding criminal law and procedure decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia and the Court ofAppeals of Virginia during the past year. The authors have focused their discussion of the cases on cogent points found in the holdings. The article also briefly summarizes recent legislative enactments pertaining to criminal law.

What Goes Around Comes Around-Nichols V. United States: Validating The Collateral Use Of Uncounseled Misdemeanor Convictions For The Purpose Of Sentence Enhancement, Andrea E. Joseph

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Law Enforcement And Criminal Law Decisions, Erwin Chemerinsky

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

What One Hand Giveth, The Other Taketh Away: How Future Dangerousness Corrupts Guilt Verdicts And Produces Premature Punishment Decisions In Capital Cases, Elizabeth S. Vartkessian

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Apprendi V. New Jersey, The Scaling Back Of The Sentencing Factor Revolution And The Resurrection Of Criminal Defendant Rights, How Far Is Too Far?, Analisa Swan

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Criminal Sanctions In The Defense Of The Innocent, Ehud Guttel, Doron Teichman

Michigan Law Review

Under the formal rules of criminal procedure, fact finders are required to apply a uniform standard of proof in all criminal cases. Experimental studies as well as real world examples indicate, however, that fact finders often adjust the evidentiary threshold for conviction in accordance with the severity of the applicable sanction. All things being equal, the higher the sanction, the higher the standard of proof that fact finders will apply in order to convict. Building on this insight, this Article introduces a new paradigm for criminal punishments-a paradigm that focuses on designing penalties that will reduce the risk of unsubstantiated …

Pain, Love, And Voice: The Role Of Domestic Violence Victims In Sentencing, Hadar Dancig-Rosenberg, Dana Pugach

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Criminal law systems throughout the world have evolved to a stage where they no longer ask, "What is the appropriate role of the victim in a criminal trial?" The questions now relate to the scope of the victim's rights, in which procedures she has independent standing, and at what stage she should be heard. The process of the "prosecution stepping into the victim's shoes," whereby the state controls the entire criminal process, seemingly on behalf of the victim, has been replaced by the recognition that the interests of the prosecution (the State) are not always consistent with those of the …

Understanding The United States' Incarceration Rate, William T. Pizzi

Publications

What has caused prison sentences to climb so sharply and consistently in the last four decades?

Innocence And Federal Habeas After Aedpa: Time For The Supreme Court To Act, Joseph L. Hoffmann

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Collateral Review Of Career Offender Sentences: The Case For Coram Nobis, Douglas J. Bench Jr.

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Occasionally, criminals correctly interpret the law while courts err. Litigation pursuant to the federal Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) includes numerous examples. The ACCA imposes harsher sentences upon felons in possession of firearms with prior "violent felony" convictions. Over time, courts defined "violent" so contrary to its common meaning that it eventually came to encompass driving under the influence, unwanted touching, and the failure to report to correctional facilities. However, in a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has attempted to clarify the meaning of violent in the context of the ACCA and, in the process, excluded such offenses. …

Juvenile Life Without Parole: Unconstitutional In Michigan?, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

Last term, in Graham v Florida,1 the United States Supreme Court found unconstitutional the sentence of life without parole for a juvenile who committed a non-homicide offense. This attention to the sentencing of juvenile offenders is a continuation of the Court's decision in Roper v Simmons,2 in which the Court held that juvenile offenders could not constitutionally receive the death penalty. This scrutiny should be a signal to Michigan to examine its own jurisprudence on juveniles receiving sentences of life without parole. Michigan has the second-highest number of persons serving sentences of life without parole for offenses committed when they …

The Need To Overrule Mapp V. Ohio, William T. Pizzi

Publications

This Article argues that it is time to overrule Mapp v. Ohio. It contends that the exclusionary rule is outdated because a tough deterrent sanction is difficult to reconcile with a criminal justice system where victims are increasingly seen to have a stake in criminal cases. The rule is also increasingly outdated in its epistemological assumption which insists officers act on "reasons" that they can articulate and which disparages actions based on "hunches" or "feelings." This assumption runs counter to a large body of neuroscience research suggesting that humans often "feel" or "sense" danger, sometimes even at a subconscious …

Sentencing, Drugs, And Prisons: A Lesson From Ohio, Jelani Jefferson Exum

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

Prison overcrowding has become a familiar story. Current data shows that more than 1 in 100 adults in America—over 2 million people—are incarcerated, earning the United States the distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. It should not be a surprise, therefore, that state and federal prisons are reaching and exceeding capacity. Nor should it be a shock that drug offenders take up many of the beds in those overcapacity prisons. Relative to other crimes, drug sentencing in the United States has been increasingly harsh since the 1970s, and the prison population is feeling the effects …

Cost Conscious Justice: The Case For Wholly-Informed Discretionary Sentencing In Kentucky, Emily M. Grant

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

'The Mess We’Re In': Five Steps Towards The Transformation Of Prison Cultures, Lynn S. Branham

All Faculty Scholarship

Few dispute that conditions in prisons need to be improved – that, for example, prisoners with mental-health problems need to have those problems addressed, and addressed effectively, while they are confined. But the more fundamental question is whether prisons can be, not just improved, but transformed. Transformation in this context means deep and sustained changes in the ethos of those who work and live in prisons. That ethos would reflect at least four precepts: (1) hope as an imperative; (2) the viability of renewal; (3) the catharsis that attends personal responsibility and accountability; and (4) the duty and call, extending …

Beyond Experience: Getting Retributive Justice Right, Dan Markel, Chad Flanders, David C. Gray

All Faculty Scholarship

How central should hedonic adaptation be to the establishment of sentencing policy?

In earlier work, Professors Bronsteen, Buccafusco, and Masur (BBM) drew some normative significance from the psychological studies of adaptability for punishment policy. In particular, they argued that retributivists and utilitarians alike are obliged on pain of inconsistency to take account of the fact that most prisoners, most of the time, adapt to imprisonment in fairly short order, and therefore suffer much less than most of us would expect. They also argued that ex-prisoners don't adapt well upon re-entry to society and that social planners should consider their post-release …