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Notable student note on loss calculations under the federal guidelines

By Douglas A. Berman

Anyone working on white-collar sentencing issues in the federal system will want to check out this new student note in the Duke Law Review, which is titled "Losing the Loss Calculation: Toward a More Just Sentencing Regime in White-Collar Criminal Cases."  Here is the Note's abstract: The sentencing regime that governs white-collar criminal cases requires reform. The U.S. Sentencing Guidelines recommend sentences that are generally too high and place a grossly disproportionate emphasis on the concept of ?loss? ? the dollar value of the harm that a court finds a white-collar criminal to have caused.  This concept of loss is ill defined, and often artificial to the point of being arbitrary.  Moreover, the loss calculation fails to adequately approximate a defendant?s culpability, dwarfing traditionally relevant considerations such as the manner in which the defendant committed the crime and the defendant?s motive for doing so...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on February 03, 2010 (boomark / email).