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Sentencing Law and Policy 

News, issues, commentary and provides resources related to sentencing law and policy.
Post Frequency: 77.7/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 10:54:24 Recent Entries: 4815
By Douglas A. Berman
Go to Sentencing Law and Policy, find other Criminal Law blogs, or browse all law blogs.
California Supreme Court to address Cunningham retroactivity
Posted on February 01, 2009Thanks to this post at C&C, I see that the Califorina Supreme Court is due to hand down on opinion on Monday concerning the retroactive application of the Cunningham decsion to state cases that become final on direct appeal between...
Louisiana Governor proposes taking sex offender mania to new heights
Posted on January 31, 2009It is both noteworthy and worrisome that Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who is viewed by everyone as a rising star in the Republican party, has decided to propose legislation that would take the manic panic about sex offenders to new...
What could be the impact of another Democratic president having a brother problem?
Posted on January 31, 2009President Jimmy Carter had problems with Billy Carter. President Bill Clinton had problems with Roger Clinton. And now, as detailed in this CNN article, it appears that President Barack Obama may have problems with George Obama: George Obama, the half...
A call for more sentencing rationality in Florida
Posted on January 30, 2009A helpful reader pointed me to this interesting artice from the latest Florida Bar Journal, titled "Unhandcuffing Justice: Proposals to Return Rationality to Criminal Sentencing." Though the piece brings the most sunshine to sentencing laws and practices in the Sunshine...
Off-line while participating in Stanford Law Review symposium about media
Posted on January 30, 2009Ironically, I may be off-line and unable to comment on media, justice and the law for a little while because I am participating the Stanford Law Review's symposium on "Media, Justice, and the Law." The details of the event are...
Another potent sentencing dissent from the Sixth Circuit's Judge Merritt
Posted on January 30, 2009Sixth Circuit Judge Gil Merritt should be known as the great sentencing dissenter because he continues to speak forcefully in dissent about the long sentences being affirmed by his colleagues. Today's potent sentencing dissent comes in US v. Young, No...
Six-month federal sentence for Elliot Spitzer's "hooker booker"
Posted on January 30, 2009Local news stories here and here report on the sentencing of a young woman involved in booking hook ups for the prostitution ring that former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer frequented. Here are basic details from the NY Daily News:...
"Our Existential Death Penalty: Judges, Jurors, and Terror Management"
Posted on January 30, 2009The title of this post is the title of this new article appealing in the journal titled Law & Psychology Review and available via SSRN. Here is the abstract: Cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker explored the impacts of the subconscious fear...
Should we consider military service as an alternative to incarceration?
Posted on January 30, 2009The Fall 2008 issue of the Justice Policy Journal includes this interesting article titled simply "Alternatives to Incarceration." However, as this abstract reveals, the piece is focused on one particularly interesting alternative: While previous research has sought to evaluate prisoners?...
Lots of strong SORNA analysis...
Posted on January 30, 2009in a series of strong posts at Sex Crimes: Shocking Concession Comes out of the Government in Eighth Circuit SORNA Case 11th Circuit Issues SORNA Opinion What Does Comstock Mean for SORNA? SORNA Compliance Update
Historical evidence that it is NOT too early to start demanding clemencies from President Obama
Posted on January 29, 2009Over at the Pardon Power, P.S. Ruckman has two amazing posts here and here detailing for all the Presidents "the number of days between inauguration or the assumption of office (via death or resignation) and their very first pardon as...
Better off dead?
Posted on January 29, 2009The potential consequences of severe residency restrictions for sex offenders is highlighted by this news story out of Michigan, headlined "Man found dead in cold was turned away from shelters in past because he was sex offender." Here are the...
Execution news and notes from Japan and Texas
Posted on January 29, 2009This morning brings executions news from both the national and international new desks. From the AP, "Texas executes former security guard for killing four": Texas executed a former Houston security guard Wednesday for gunning down four people, including his ex-girlfriend...
Dutch white-collar sentencing in accounting fraud show continental contrast
Posted on January 29, 2009In China, corrupt executives can get the death penalty, and decades of prison time were handed out to CEOs convicted of fruad like Bernie Ebbers and Jeff Skilling. But, as this Reuters story indicates, sentencing outcomes are much different on...
The state of cost problems in the states of prison nation
Posted on January 28, 2009Now available here via Stateline.org is an effective article about state struggles with prison costs appearing in the "State of the States 2009" publication put together by the folks at The Pew Center on the States. The piece is titled...
Seventh Circuit finds top-of-range guideline sentence procedurally(?) unreasonable
Posted on January 28, 2009Tucked into the back of a long opinion from the Seventh Circuit yesterday is a little sentencing talk that shows that at least one circuit is not always going to rubber-stamp district court rulings when conducting reasonableness review. The opinion...
Eric Holder on track to be next U.S. Attorney General
Posted on January 28, 2009This AP story provides the latest news on the path toward a new U.S. Attorney General: Senate Republicans, who acted like lions in challenging Eric Holder, turned into lambs Wednesday as they joined Democrats in recommending President Barack Obama's choice...
Two intriguing sentencing stories show the impact of cable TV on federal justice
Posted on January 28, 2009Two new local stories about two very different federal prosecutions have one notable link: cable TV shows seemed to have had an the operation of the federal criminal justice system in both cases. First, consider this Tennessee story, headlined "Moonshine...
Can we effectively test capital deterrence in Maryland and Virginia now?
Posted on January 28, 2009Whether the death penalty deters murders is an important and always controversial topic. I tend to assume we will never know for sure and/or that the answer varies based on array of non-legal factors that cannot be effectively measured or...
Strong sentencing opinion noting disparities in federal child porn downloading cases
Posted on January 27, 2009Regular readers know I have blogged a lot about the disparity I keep seeing in the ways in which child porn downloading cases are being prosecuted and sentenced in federal courts. And, thanks to a helpful readers, I just learned...
Another former AIG executive gets serious prison time, but also a serious variance
Posted on January 27, 2009This Rueters piece provides the basics on a notable white-collar sentence handed down today: A former executive at American International Group Inc was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday for his role in a reinsurance deal that prosecutors...
New (award-winnning) ABA Journal essay on the problems of mass incarceration
Posted on January 27, 2009I am pleased to learn and to report that this new essay about the problems of mass incarceration appears in the February 2009 ABA Journal after having been "selected by the ABA JournalBoard of Editors as the winner of the...
Notable (and cert-worthy?) Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision on application of Atkins
Posted on January 27, 2009This post at How Appealing alerts me to a recent ruling from Pennsylvania that providing a fitting follow-up to this recently-noted law review article discussing the challenges that lower courts are having implementing Atkins, the Supreme Court's 2002 Eighth Amendment...
Some mid-Term SCOTUS reflections and predictions
Posted on January 27, 2009As noted here at SCOTUSblog, the Justices have now started another long recess. I suppose they deserve some time off after the flurry of SCOTUS action (much of it involving criminal justice topics) in recent weeks, though the Justices surely...
"Sex Offenders' GPS Devices Not a Silver Bullet, States Say"
Posted on January 27, 2009The title of this post is the title of this intriguing article from the site Government Technology. Here are excerpts from the start of a piece that is a must-read for anyone hoping (or fearing) that GPS tracking is the...
The challenges of implementing Atkins
Posted on January 26, 2009I just noticed on SSRN this new paper on how well (or should I say how poorly) lower courts are implementing the Eighth Amendment capital ruling barring the execution of mentally retarded defendants. The piece is titled "Of Atkins and...
Though Booker did not help Booker, the reduced crack guidelines did
Posted on January 26, 2009The significance of the US Sentencing Commission's decision to make its reduced crack guidelines retroactive has been usefully highlighted by a ruling today in favor of a defendant with a well-known name: Freddie Booker. As sentencing fans recall, though Booker...
Sixth Circuit issues first Spears remand
Posted on January 26, 2009The per curiam ruling by the Supreme Court last week in Spears (basics here) stressed that it acted via summary reversal because of the need to "promptly remove from the [jurisprudential] menu the Eighth Circuit?s offering, a smuggled-in dish that...
New opinion from Judge Adelman explaining why drug guidelines merit less respect under 3553(a)
Posted on January 26, 2009I just received a short but still important new sentencing decision from US District Judge Lynn Adelman. Judge Adelman imposes a below-guideline sentence in US v. Thomas, No. 08-CR-238 (E.D. Wisc. Jan. 24, 2009) (available for download below), based on...
One Texas execution stayed, two more still scheduled for this week
Posted on January 26, 2009This new AP story provides the latest execution news and notes coming from Texas this week: A federal appeals court on Monday stopped this week's scheduled execution of a man condemned for abducting, raping and strangling a 19-year-old suburban Houston...
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Japan's International Child Abduction Policy
By Kirsten Brown (AXcess News) Washington - Four fathers quietly f...
Eminent domain, demographics and immigration policy
On the face of it, you may be wondering what eminent domain,...
I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
I was fired on June 3, 2002 in Massachusetts because I reported discriminatory behavior by the employer towards a particular nationality. In July I filed a discrimination/retaliation complaint against the employer with t
It seem sin your case that the fact you filed the complaint prior to being dissa...
Does failure to provide health insurance benefits at the time promised constitute harm to the employee?
Yes. Failure to provide health insurance benefits is a violation of Labor Law ob...
My job requires me to drive bank deposits up to two times a day using my own vehicle and gas. Although not too far, can should I be receiving compensation? One deposit run is required daily by company policy, but the man
you should be getting a mileage comp. I own my own company and I pay my employee...
Can i sue my employer for breach of Contract?
i would suggest you get professional advice
from what you have put here yo...

I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
I was fired on June 3, 2002 in Massachusetts because I reported discriminatory behavior by the employer towards a particular nationality. In July I filed a discrimination/retaliation complaint against the employer with t
It seem sin your case that the fact you filed the complaint prior to being dissa...
Does failure to provide health insurance benefits at the time promised constitute harm to the employee?
Yes. Failure to provide health insurance benefits is a violation of Labor Law ob...
My job requires me to drive bank deposits up to two times a day using my own vehicle and gas. Although not too far, can should I be receiving compensation? One deposit run is required daily by company policy, but the man
you should be getting a mileage comp. I own my own company and I pay my employee...
Can i sue my employer for breach of Contract?
i would suggest you get professional advice
from what you have put here yo...








