Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Sentencing Law and Policy

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Interesting amicus brief on post-Booker sentences of probation

By Douglas A. Berman

As noted here, the Third Circuit a few months ago  granted rehearing en banc in US v. Tomko (panel decision blogged here), a case in which a panel members had written at length about reasonableness when reviewing a probation sentence given to a white-collar defendant.  I just receive a copy of an amicus brief filed this week by defender groups in Tomko, which I provide for downloading below.  Here is how an e-mail described this brief:This Amicus Brief filed today on behalf of NACDL and the Federal and Community Defenders of the Third Circuit ... address[es] in detail the failure of the Sentencing Commission to comply with statutory mandates relative to probation, as applied in particular to tax and other white collar cases, concluding that under the Supreme Court's recent decisions in Gall and Kimbrough judges should be especially free to reject the guidelines' excessive reliance on imprisonment and instead to grant a great deal more probationary sentences than has been the case in the last 20 years...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 01, 2008 (boomark / email).