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Sentencing Law and Policy 
News, issues, commentary and provides resources related to sentencing law and policy.
Post Frequency: 77.7/day Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 10:54:24 Recent Entries: 4815
By Douglas A. Berman
Go to Sentencing Law and Policy, find other Criminal Law blogs, or browse all law blogs.
More evidence that death penalty studies are ineffective if not attuned to political realities
Posted on October 24, 2008There are no shortage of groups, ranging from national organizations like the ABA an the ACLU to lots of local groups, that devote extraordinary amounts of time and energy producing long and thoughtful reports criticizing the administration of the death...
Saying sorry helps in mortgage fraud sentencing
Posted on October 24, 2008This local article, headlined "2 apologize, are sentenced for roles in mortgage fraud," provides an example of how sentencing even for a new-fashioned crimes can be impacted by old-fashioned apologies (and cooperation): Kenyatta Johnson's apology for her role in mortgage...
Busy death chamber in Texas
Posted on October 23, 2008As detailed in this AP article, Texas is on pace for a lot of executions in the next few week: A dozen condemned inmates in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's so-called "death watch" cells are being executed at a...
In DC for ABA sentencing fun
Posted on October 23, 2008As noted in this prior post, the ABA Criminal Justice Section has put together an amazing sentencing event, titled "Sentencing Advocacy, Practice and Reform Institute," as part of a set of criminal justice meetings this week. All the details of...
Deep thoughts on death and sovereignty
Posted on October 23, 2008I just noticed this intriguing paper on SSRN by Adam Thurschwell, titled "Ethical Exception: Capital Punishment in the Figure of Sovereignty." Here is the abstract: Philosophers and legal theorists have traditionally analyzed capital punishment as a moral or ethical problem,...
WSJ reviews the state of federal child porn sentencing
Posted on October 23, 2008The Wall Street Journal has this new article discussing trends in federal child porn prosecutions and sentencing. The piece is headlined, "Making Punishments Fit the Most Offensive Crimes: Societal Revulsion at Child-Pornography Consumers Has Led to Stiff Prison Sentences --...
Wisconsin state appellate court urges guideline repeal
Posted on October 22, 2008This Chicago Tribune article provides this report on an interesting ruling from a Wisconsin state appellate court today:Wisconsin lawmakers should scrap a law requiring judges to consider sentencing guidelines when punishing people who commit certain felonies, an appeals court said...
Rudy Giuliani doing robocalls accusing Senator Obama of being soft on crime
Posted on October 22, 2008Earlier this month there were reports that Senator McCain was going to resort to old-school "soft-on-crime" attacks as part of his strategy to get back his mojo in the final month of the 2008 campaign. Thanks to reporting by Politico,...
New BOP regulation on halfway houses
Posted on October 22, 2008The FAMM website has this interesting item about some new regs coming from the federal Bureau of Prisons. Here are excerpts:The Second Chance Act, signed into law by President Bush on April 9, 2008 increased the maximum amount of time...
Two new articles of interest thanks to law.com
Posted on October 22, 2008Thanks to How Appealing, I see that law.com has these two interesting new stories on-line: Former Blogger Makes High Court Debut En Banc 11th Circuit Case Tests Mail Fraud Law: On an issue that has split circuit courts, DOJ sends...
Is there an ivy-leaguer exception to federal child porn charges?
Posted on October 22, 2008This new AP story, headlined "Penn hacker sentenced, avoids child porn charges," has me concerned yet again about extreme sentencing disparities (and perhaps even nefarious discrimination) resulting from how federal prosecutors are exercising their discretion to prosecute child pornography offenses...
Will Senator Ted Stevens soon be thinking extra hard about sentencing laws he helped pass?
Posted on October 22, 2008As detailed in this Washington Post report, a federal jury in DC "today will begin deliberating two conflicting views of Senator Ted Stevens, the powerful Alaska Republican charged with lying on financial disclosure forms to hide more than $250,000 in...
Judge Merritt continues urging broader perspectives at sentencing
Posted on October 21, 2008Earlier this year (as noted here), Sixth Circuit Judge Gilbert Merritt began lamenting "the problem of guidelineism, or 'guidelinitis,' the inability of most federal courts to break their habit of mechanically relying just on the guidelines alone." Today, in his...
Attacking the felon exception in Heller's articulation of Second Amendment rights
Posted on October 21, 2008Adam Liptak in the New York Times has this great article on one of my favorite modern constitutional topics, the Second Amendment and the Supreme Court's work in Heller. The piece is headlined "Ruling on Guns Elicits Rebuke From the...
Tenth Circuit thoughtfully conducts reasonableness review
Posted on October 21, 2008Though not appearing to break any new ground, the Tenth Circuit today in US v. Martinez-Barragan, No. 06-2333 (10th Cir. Oct. 21, 2008) (available here), provide a good example of an appellate court taking its obligation to conduct reasonableness review...
Vermont struggling to implement AWA sex offender mandates
Posted on October 21, 2008This interesting local article from Vermont, headlined "Issues of cost, content arise over state's sex offender registry," highlights some of the struggles that states are having when trying to implement some aspect of the Adam Walsh Act for the registration...
More on the consequences and costs of undue leniency for repeat drunk driving
Posted on October 21, 2008This article from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that reinforces my concerns (recently discussed here) about the harmful consequences and costs of undue sentencing leniency being shown to repeat drunk drivers. The new piece is headlined "One drunken driver?s tab: $365,000,"...
Dueling Oregon initiatives on drug sentencing reform
Posted on October 20, 2008This local AP article notes that voters in Oregon are considering a pair of competing ballot initiatives that call for reform of the state's drug sentencing laws. Here are details from the story: A pair of crime measures on the...
A little sentencing action from SCOTUS
Posted on October 20, 2008As detailed in this post at SCOTUSblog, the Supreme Court made a few sentencing waves today. Here is how Lyle Denniston summarizes the significant sentencing action:The Supreme Court, in the only new grant on Monday, agreed to spell out the...
A notable (and notably late) Second Circuit conviction reversal
Posted on October 20, 2008The Second Circuit today in US v. Ogando, No. 05-0236 (2d Cir. Oct. 20, 2008) (available here), reverses for insufficient evidence a set of jury trial convictions for a livery cab driver hired to pick up a drug courier at...
More examples of undue leniency shown to repeat drunk drivers
Posted on October 20, 2008Drunk drivers pose a much bigger day-to-day threat to average Americans than terrorists or sex offenders. As this official data spotlights, though alcohol-impaired driving fatalities declined in 2007, roughly 250 persons were killed each and every week in the US...
Proceedings from USSC imprisonment alternatives symposium
Posted on October 20, 2008I am very pleased to see that the US Sentencing Commission has now posted here on its website the proceedings of its big event this past summer examining incarceration alternatives. Here is how the USSC describes the event in its...
One criminal justice echo in the midst of the economic crisis
Posted on October 19, 2008Various bloggers focused on crime and justice have been pondering how the recent economic crisis could impact criminal justice issues. Today's New York Times looks into some of these realities in this article, headlined "F.B.I. Struggles to Handle Financial Fraud...
If I had a billion dollars ... I'd buy some guideline reform
Posted on October 18, 2008With apologies to BNL for tweaking their lyrics (an for linking to this version of their fun $$$ song), I find quite interesting this WSJ $$$ blog entry noting billionaires fundings various ballot initiatives this election season. Of course, what...
Making a case for juvenile imprisonment
Posted on October 18, 2008The punitive turn in juvenile justice is often criticized, but not often rigorously evaluated. But this new piece available through SSRN, titled "Juvenile Jails: A Path to the Straight and Narrow or Hardened Criminality?," finds some notable good news when...
Sixth Circuit vacates below-guideline sentence for lack of adequate explanation
Posted on October 18, 2008The Sixth Circuit on Friday in US v. Henry, No. 05-0000 (6th Cir. Oct. 17, 2008) (available here), vacated a below-guideline sentence due to the district court's failure to explain adequately the basis for its sentencing decision. Here are the...
Legal wranglings over sentence in Hamdan case
Posted on October 18, 2008Friday's Wall Street Journal had this interesting article headlined "New Sentence Is Sought for Bin Laden's Driver." Here is how it starts: The Bush administration wants the military jury that sentenced Osama bin Laden's former driver to reconvene for new...
Modern teenagers, society's sexuality and the internet
Posted on October 17, 2008ABC News has this interesting new piece highlighting how today's teenagers may be pushed by societal influences into becoming unwitting sex offenders. The piece is headlined, "Inside the Minds of Teens Who Post Sexual Images of Themselves: Internet Facilitates Self-Nude...
"Bold new idea: Make punishment fit the crime"
Posted on October 17, 2008The title of this post is the title of this op-ed appearing in the the Seattle Post Intelligencer. Here is the start of a potent piece: The U.S. Sentencing Commission sets the parameters federal judges are obliged to follow in...
Final version of my article on the SCOTUS death docket
Posted on October 16, 2008I am pleased to report that Ohio Northern University Law Review now has in print my recent article (from a lecture I gave at ONU) lamenting the Supreme Court's tendency to consider on the merits too many death penalty cases...
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I have worked for this employer for only three weeks. The employer makes up his own rules as to what he chooses to report for the purpose of property taxes. He tells me to "let them come after us". He defines Entertain
He arrogantly insists, "let them come after us." Well, if you are invo...
I was fired on June 3, 2002 in Massachusetts because I reported discriminatory behavior by the employer towards a particular nationality. In July I filed a discrimination/retaliation complaint against the employer with t
It seem sin your case that the fact you filed the complaint prior to being dissa...
Does failure to provide health insurance benefits at the time promised constitute harm to the employee?
Yes. Failure to provide health insurance benefits is a violation of Labor Law ob...
My job requires me to drive bank deposits up to two times a day using my own vehicle and gas. Although not too far, can should I be receiving compensation? One deposit run is required daily by company policy, but the man
you should be getting a mileage comp. I own my own company and I pay my employee...
Can i sue my employer for breach of Contract?
i would suggest you get professional advice
from what you have put here yo...
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