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

Criminal Law

: Sentencing Law and Policy

Show me the role reversal when sentencing guidelines are more lenient

By Douglas A. Berman

Anyone familiar with advocacy and debate surrounding federal sentencing knows that federal prosecutors are frequently extolling the virtue of sentencing guidelines and that defense attorenys are frequently excoriating the guidelines.  Though the prosecutors claim they are fans of crime-based consistency and defenders claim they are eager for consideration of individual circumstances, what really seem to be driving the advocacy and debate is how relatively severe the sentences are set under the federal guidelines for most crimes. Some new proof that debates over the virtues and vices of guidelines are really driven by views about sentence severity and leniency is emerging from the Show Me state these days.  This local article, headlined "Missouri overhauling controversial sentencing guidelines," spotlights the role reversal in who is articulating which talking points about sentencing guidelines when the guidelines seem to be too lenient rather than too tough in most cases: The Missouri Legislature requires the Missouri Sentencing Advisory Commission to figure averages of actual sentences every year for every possible crime, and from those to calculate ranges of "recommended sentences...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on June 21, 2010 (boomark / email).