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"Do Standards of Review Matter? The Case of Federal Criminal Sentencing"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this interesting empirical article by Max Schanzenbach and Joshua Fischman available here via SSRN.  Here is the abstract: We exploit changes in sentencing doctrine over the last eighteen years to examine the interplay of judicial ideology, standards of review, and the United States Sentencing Guidelines.  We find substantial differences in sentencing practices among district judges along two lines: whether judges were appointed by Republican or Democratic presidents, and whether judges joined the federal bench before the Guidelines.  Democrats and judges appointed prior to the Guidelines? adoption depart more from the Sentencing Guidelines and give lower sentences.  However, the differences between Republicans and Democrats increase substantially as the standard of review becomes more deferential...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 05, 2010 (boomark / email).