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Criminal Law

Crime and Consequences

Criminal law issues from the perspective of victims of crime and the law-abiding public.
By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Post Frequency: 1.8/day

Last Entry: November 25, 2008 at 18:31:33

Sentencing Guidelines, Discrimination, and Variance Explained

Posted on July 17, 2008
From my stack of post-SCOTUS-term catch-up reading comes this executive summary of a study titled "Assessing Consistency and Fairness in Sentencing: A Comparative Study in Three States." It was released May 22 by the National Center for State Courts. I...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 17, 2008
Hamdan's Trial Will Go Forward Next Week: At the BLT, Joe Palazzolo has this post on the denial of Hamdan's request to halt his war crimes trial, noted in today's News Scan. The trial is scheduled for next Monday. After...

News Scan

Posted on July 17, 2008
World Court Demands Stay of Execution for Avena Inmates: In 2004, the World Court ruled that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention by not allowing 51 arrested Mexican nationals to contact consular officials after their arrest and by...

Missouri Injection Protocol Upheld

Posted on July 16, 2008
In Baze v. Rees, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, "Justice Stevens suggests that our opinion leaves the disposition of other cases uncertain, see post, at 1, but the standard we set forth here resolves more challenges than he acknowledges. A stay...

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Safe Neighborhoods Act Website

Posted on July 16, 2008
The website for Proposition 6 on California's November ballot, the Safe Neighborhoods Act, is now up. Due to the chronic dysfunction of the California Legislature, it is necessary once again to turn to the initiative process to give public safety...

News Scan

Posted on July 16, 2008
Debate Intensifies over New Death Row: Randy Dotinga for the CSM reports death penalty opponents are now opposing a proposal to move some of California's death row inmates to facilities outside San Quentin. Proponents argue San Quentin's intended expansion will...

Circle Sentencing Study

Posted on July 16, 2008
From New South Wales, Australia, comes this study on "circle sentencing," an aspect of the "restorative justice" movement (hat tip: SL&P). Here is the abstract: Circle sentencing is an alternative method of sentencing Aboriginal offenders which involves the offender?s community...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 15, 2008
Fourth Circuit Upholds Presidential Authority To Detain Foreign Student Living In U.S.: SCOTUSblog posted on today's Fourth Circuit ruling in Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli (06-6427). The decision allows President Bush to detain a foreign student living in the United States, based...

News Scan

Posted on July 15, 2008
Friends in Low Places: With the proliferation of the Internet has come a new phenomenon: prisoner blogs and requests for pen pals. The ACLU has championed this as a development for free speech, while victims' rights groups argue that it...

Notes from the Sentencing Commission Symposium

Posted on July 15, 2008
The United States Sentencing Commission symposium on alternative sentencing began yesterday and continues today. I participated in a panel yesterday and was able to attend part of that day's sessions. The commission is having the proceedings transcribed by actual court...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 14, 2008
D.C's New Handgun Act: Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports on D.C's "planned response" to the Supreme Court's ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller. According to Denniston, the proposed "Firearms Control Emergency Act of 2008" will allow handguns to be...

News Scan

Posted on July 14, 2008
Parole Process for Killers to Receive Court's Scrutiny: How many years behind bars for a person to atone for murder? Is a spotless prison record proof of rehabilitation? Does age or disability lessen the threat to society? These are some...

Questioning Field Sobriety Tests

Posted on July 14, 2008
The latest issue of Law & Human Behavior has an article by psychologist Steven J. Rubenzer titled The Standardized Field Sobriety Tests: A Review of Scientific and Legal Issues (subscription required): This article details the history and development of the...

The Spam King

Posted on July 11, 2008
Doug Berman at SL&P solicited comments regarding what sentence is appropriate for the "Spam King." He has gotten a lot of comments, 60 as of this writing. What is fascinating to me is that the commenters on this blog, who...

A Neat, Plausible, & Wrong Answer to the "Too Many Prisoners" Problem

Posted on July 11, 2008
The Washington Post has this editorial, titled "Too Many Prisoners." The editorial bemoans the high number of prisoners and the financial burden of the prisons. No dispute there. The editorial also says, "Tough sentences for murder, rape and the like...

Virginia's Lethal Injection Protocol Upheld

Posted on July 10, 2008
Hattip to Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy for pointing us to, and providing a link to the Fourth Circuit's decision in Emmett v. Johnson, No. 07-18 (4th Cir. July 10, 2008). As Berman reports, a split panel affirmed...

Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment

Posted on July 10, 2008
This press release from the Governor of Maryland announces the names of the Maryland Commission on Capital Punishment. Benjamin Civiletti, Attorney General in the Carter Administration, is the chairman. Every study commission in every state to date has been stacked...

News Scan

Posted on July 10, 2008
VA Execution Tonight?: Kent Jackson, 26, is set to be executed tonight in Virginia for the brutal beating, rape, and stabbing death of his 79-year-old neighbor. The case is particularly unique because Jackson was sentenced to death just five years...

Jesse Jackson and Personal Responsibility

Posted on July 10, 2008
On the ChiTrib's "Exploring Race" blog, Dawn Turner Trice has this post on the Jesse Jackson - Barack Obama flap. (The video is here, if you haven't seen it.) What caught my eye was this excerpt from Jackson's apology/explanation: "My...

News Scan

Posted on July 09, 2008
Gunfire Sensors and Video Cameras Facilitate Policing: The ShotSpotter network, technology that identifies the location of gunshots to within 10 feet, has been in place in several major cities across the country to help police in high crime areas where...

New Mitigation "Guidelines"

Posted on July 09, 2008
Hofstra Law Review has an entire issue on the "Supplementary Guidelines for the Mitigation Function of Defense Teams In Death Penalty Cases." (Hat tip: SL&P.) Unlike the American Bar Association, which at least pretends to represent the entire bar, these...

News Scan

Posted on July 08, 2008
Cold-blooded Killers Will Kill Again: Wil Haygood's two-part article for the WA Post describes in detail the hunt for Randall Smith who killed two hikers on the Appalachian Trail in 1981. He spent just 15 years in prison before he...

A Generational Change in Academia?

Posted on July 07, 2008
This NYT article by Patricia Cohen claims that there is a generational change in academia. (Hat tip: Orin Kerr at VC.) "Baby boomers, hired in large numbers during a huge expansion in higher education that continued into the ?70s, are...

FedSoc Commentary

Posted on July 07, 2008
Issue 9.2 of Engage, the journal of the Federalist Society's practice groups, is now available online. This issue has four criminal law articles, because the Federalism group's articles are both on criminal law topics. The articles are: From Apprendi to...

News Scan

Posted on July 07, 2008
Former Critic Says "Three Strikes" Success Difficult to Dispute: Debra Saunders voted "no" on the "Three Strikes" initiative in 1994. But in an article for the San Francisco Chronicle, she says she was wrong for believing that the majority of...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 07, 2008
Filling A Supreme Court Vacancy: Over at Convictions, Doug Kmiec posted his thoughts on who the next President should appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kmiec's post begins with comments on why each of the candidates, McCain in particular, have...

News Scan

Posted on July 03, 2008
In Rare Admission, Justice Dept. Accepts Responsibility for Kennedy Error: According to Linda Greenhouse's follow-up for the NY Times, the Justice Department has admitted that government attorneys should have known about the change to military law which permitted the death...

News Scan

Posted on July 02, 2008
Factual Error in Kennedy Decision: Reporting for the NY Times, Linda Greenhouse examines the potential impact of the Kennedy ruling that the death penalty is not a suitable punishment for child rape in light of the fact that the justices...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 02, 2008
Today's New York Times Kennedy Article: Matthew Franck at Bench Memos has a post discussing why Linda Greenhouse's article on Kennedy made the front page of the New York Times today. The article, summarized in our News Scan, can be...

Blog Scan

Posted on July 01, 2008
Post-Heller Second Amendment Lawsuits: Lyle Denniston reports over at SCOTUSblog on the five Second Amendment lawsuits filed by the NRA last Friday, June 27, 2008. The lawsuits attack the constitutionality of gun control laws adopted in California and Illinois...

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