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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.
Intriguing Second Circuit ruling on sentencing rationales
Posted on April 25, 2008Issuing an opinion that is not easily summarized, the Second Circuit send us into the weekend with some thoughtful musings in its sentence reversal in US v. Williams, No. 05-4416 (2d Cir. Apr. 25, 2008) (available here). Here is the...
Bloggy debate over the Snipes sentence
Posted on April 25, 2008For two notably different perspectives on the 3-year prison sentence given to Wesley Snipes in federal court yesterday, check out these two blog posts: From TigerHawk: Wesley Snipes got off easy From Riehl World View: You Don't Screw With "The...
Panty raid involving a sex offender
Posted on April 25, 2008This local story provides a little (perverted?) levity at the end of a long work week: Petaluma police officers seeking an explanation for why women's panties were discovered during a routine search of a male sex offender's home learned the...
Deep weekend thoughts from SSRN
Posted on April 25, 2008What looks like a deep and interesting paper for weekend reading can be found here via SSRN. The paper is titled "Facing the Consequences: The Abolitionist Challenge," and here is the abstract: I argue that standard consequentialist considerations offered in...
Wesley Snipes gets 3-year max prison sentence urged by prosecutors
Posted on April 24, 2008This ABCNews report indicates that a federal sentencing judge today decided to max out Wesley Snipes for his tax evasion convictions: A Florida judge sentenced the "Blade" movie star to 3 years in jail today. Snipes was convicted of tax...
Sentencing thoughts and predictions for US v. Snipes
Posted on April 24, 2008This morning in Florida federal court brings the scheduled sentencing hearing for actor Wesley Snipes following his conviction on three misdemeanor tax evasion charges. Here are some morning media links covering this interesting high-profile case: From the Associated Press, Prosecutors...
Why aren't the terrorist pardons during the Clinton Administration garnering more attention from the MSM?
Posted on April 24, 2008Because I look at much of the news from a criminal justice perspective, I find the complaints that the MSM is biased against Senator Clinton to be somewhat comical given the "free pass" she has gotten on a lot of...
Assessing the constitutional war over the death penalty
Posted on April 24, 2008Edward Lazarus has this new piece at FindLaw, titled "Five Decades of Fighting Over the Constitutionality of the Death Penalty: What Can We Learn from This Lengthy War?". Here is how it starts: These days, when one speaks of a...
Examining America's affinity for incarceration
Posted on April 23, 2008Adam Liptak has this new piece in the New York Times, headlined "Inmate Count in U.S. Dwarfs Other Nations?." Here are excerpts: The United States has less than 5 percent of the world?s population. But it has almost a quarter...
Why the government is eager to imprison Wesley Snipes
Posted on April 23, 2008Forbes.com has this new piece, headlined Wesley Snipes And The TaxDef War," which spotlights why the government sees the Snipes case as one of the most important tax evasion cases in recent memory: When Wesley Trent Snipes is sentenced Thursday...
Still more perspectives on the death penalty
Posted on April 23, 2008These two items noted at How Appealing this morning provide perspective on how many different perspectives there can be on the American death penalty: "Cruel and Unusual History: The Supreme Court has repeatedly ignored the barbaric history of the death...
Pair of notable circuit reasonableness rulings
Posted on April 23, 2008This afternoon brought two notable circuit reasonable rulings. Notably, the Eleventh Circuit ruling reversing a below-guidelines sentence in a high-profile white-collar case, US v. Livesay, No. 06-11303 (11th Cir. Apr. 23, 2008) (available here) is published; the Fourth Circuit ruling...
USSC has first cut of data on crack retroactivity
Posted on April 23, 2008I am very pleased to report that the US Sentencing Commission has available here the first release of data on the retroactive application of the crack amendment on its website. Here is how the data is described: A set of...
New paper on blended juve sentencing
Posted on April 22, 2008Now appearing on SSRN is this interesting new piece providing an empircal perspective on a "new juvenile sentencing innovation, blended sentencing." The piece is titled "Who Gets a Second Chance? An Investigation of Ohio's Blended Juvenile Sentence," and here is...
Big efforts to reverse Second Circuit white-collar sentence reversal
Posted on April 22, 2008Last month, as detailed in this post, the Second Circuit issued a long opinion in US v. Cutler, No. 05-2516 (2d Cir. Mar. 17, 2008) (available here), which reversed a pair of below-guideline sentences for white-collar offenders as procedurally and...
A counsel(-less) perspective on crack retroactivity
Posted on April 22, 2008This news article, headlined "Failure emerges in call for shorter crack sentences: Many inmates are not given lawyers," reports on an interesting (and troublesomely disparate) aspect of the implementation of the USSC new crack guidelines: As federal courts begin deciding...
Federal prosecutors going hard after Wesley Snipes' tax "advisors"
Posted on April 22, 2008This local article provides the latest news coming from the upcoming sentencing of Wesley Snipes and his co-defendants for tax evasion. Here are some details: Federal prosecutors are seeking a prison term of 10 years for Eddie Ray Kahn, one...
Missouri pols all calling for child rape to be a capital offense
Posted on April 21, 2008As detailed in this two pieces from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, top political rivals share the belief that child rape should be a death penalty eligible offense: Blunt: Child rapists deserve death Nixon, too, backs death penalty for child rapists...
Interesting historical look at the length of prison sentencing
Posted on April 21, 2008Recently appearing on SSRN is this interesting new piece providing a distinct window into a notable period in the history of prisons and prison sentences. The piece is titled "The Origin of Long Prison Sentences in America: A Case Study...
Can we thank Judge Posner for the latest ACCA cert grant?
Posted on April 21, 2008I see now from this post at SCOTUSblog that the Supreme Court's new ACCA case on its docket comes from the Seventh Circuit in a case in which, as detailed here, Judge Posner was in fine form. The case is...
Eleventh Circuit reverses sentence "impermissible factor"
Posted on April 21, 2008The Eleventh Circuit has reversed a short probation revocation sentence US v. Velasquez, No. 06-16637 (11th Cir. Apr. 21, 2008) (available here) because the judge relied on an "impermissible factor." Here are the highlights: Wilber Guillermo Velasquez Velasquez appeals his...
Another ACCA case and the Baze aftermath from SCOTUS
Posted on April 21, 2008Lyle Denniston in this post at SCOTUSblog provides a report on the SCOTUS order list this morning, which includes yet another ACCA cert grant and some of the post-Baze fall-out: The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to rule on the...
Looking at the Justices' methods in Baze
Posted on April 21, 2008At FindLaw, Michael Dorf has this new essay, titled "How the Supreme Court's Lethal Injection Ruling Elevates Appearances Over Reality." Here is how it starts: Last week, in Baze v. Rees, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to....
"Retributive Justice in the Real World"
Posted on April 20, 2008The title of this post is the title of an interesting-looking article by Professor Michael Cahill, available at this link. Here is the abstract: In 2003, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced a set of Department of Justice (DOJ) policies designed....
Hoping (foolishly?) that the Chief uses Kennedy to transform Eighth Amendment jurisprudence
Posted on April 20, 2008"The Eighth Amendment is a jurisprudential train wreck" is how Benjamin Wittes justifiably started this terrific article, entitled, "What is cruel and unusual?", appearing in the December 2005-January 2006 issue of Policy Review. I basically agreed then, and still agree...
District Judge finds AWA registration provision unconstitutional
Posted on April 20, 2008Thanks to this piece from the Orlando Sentinel, I see that US District Judge Gregory Presnell late last week reach a notable constitutional conclusion about the Adam Walsh Act's sex offender registration provisions. From the news report: An Orlando federal...
Thoughtful criticism of Second Circuit white-collar sentence reversal
Posted on April 19, 2008Last month, as detailed in this post, the Second Circuit issued a long opinion in US v. Cutler, No. 05-2516 (2d Cir. Mar. 17, 2008) (available here), which reversed a pair of below-guideline sentences for white-collar offenders as procedurally and...
Self-serving paternalism: reflections on Baze and law school learning bans
Posted on April 19, 2008Another full read of Baze led me to a couple unexpected insights: (1) the Justices are very comfortable using 21st-century materials, even as some law schools and professors try to preserve 20th-century teaching norms, and (2) the raging debate over....
A strong review of sex offender litigation in the states
Posted on April 18, 2008Stateline.org has this effective new piece headlined "Lawsuits test crackdown on sex criminals." The piece essentially previews the broad array of sex offender laws and issues that could be clogging up the dockets of lower courts (and perhaps also the...
What do folks think about Justice Stevens' new view on the death penalty?
Posted on April 18, 2008Though I am still working my way through all the opinions in the the nearly 100-page Baze lethal injection ruling from SCOTUS, I am not surprised to see that Justice Stevens' concurrence is garnering special attention. For example, Linda Greenhouse...
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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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