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Will Pepper prompt many more federal sentencing judges to focus on post-offense rehabilitation?

By Douglas A. Berman

The significant federal sentencing ruling by the Supreme Court today in Pepper (basics here) is only technically concerned with whether district judges are permitted to consider evidence of a defendant's post-sentencing rehabilitation at a re-sentencing following an appellate reversal of a defendant's original sentence.  But in the course of saying that district judges do have authority to consider this kind of evidence, Justice Sotomayor' opinion for the Court highlights reasons why any evidence of a defendant's rehabilitation is a critically important concern for an initial sentencing decision in which a district judge is seeking to comply with the statutory instructions of  18 U.S.C. §3553(a).  Consider in this context these passages (with some cites omitted) from the Pepper opinion: [E]vidence of postsentencing rehabilitation may be highly relevant to several of the §3553(a) factors that Congress has expressly instructed district courts to consider at sentencing...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on March 02, 2011 (boomark / email).