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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.
Looking at the interaction of religious appeals and capital sentencing
Posted on February 17, 2009Just yesterday I noted here the frequent intersection of religion and the death penalty, and last month I noted in this posta new cert petition concerning issues raised by juror consideration of biblical passages during the penalty phase of a...
Seventh Circuit approves teaching felons a lesson about where they keep illegal firearms
Posted on February 17, 2009The Seventh Circuit returns from a long weekend with three published sentencing opinions, and the most intriguing of the bunch is US v. Wise, No. 08-2794 (7th Cir. Feb. 17, 2009) (available here). Here is how the opinion starts: It...
Is career diversity a bad thing in the highest court in the land?
Posted on February 17, 2009Adam Liptak has this great piece in today's New York Times, headlined " "Roberts Sets Off Debate on Judicial Experience." Here are snippets: For the first time in its history, every member of the United States Supreme Court is a...
Death penalty abolition becoming more realistic in a few western states
Posted on February 17, 2009Though 2009 has already brought a large number of executions, it also has brought a lot more serious talk of the elimination of the death penalty in various states. Today's abolition headlines come from states out west: From Montana, this...
Even VP Cheney couldn't convince President Bush to grant one more pardon
Posted on February 17, 2009The New York Daily News has this notable new piece reporting that Dick Cheney made a major (but still failed) final push to get President Bush to pardon Scooter Libby. Here are some of the details: In the waning days...
Notable briefing on fast-track disparity issue after Kimbrough
Posted on February 16, 2009As I noted in this recent post, one (of many) persistent post-Booker jurisprudence hot-spots concerns whether defendants who are not within so-called "fast-track" districts should be eligible for comparable early-plea sentencing reductions when their cases are factually similar to those...
Making a plea to the faithful in an attempt to end the death penalty
Posted on February 16, 2009Perhaps some First Amendment scholars can help me figure out whether I should have constitutional concerns about this new AP story from Maryland, headlined "O'Malley asks churches to help end death penalty." Here is how the article starts: Gov. Martin...
Michael Phelps to avoid state prosecution according to local authorities
Posted on February 16, 2009This just in from the news wire: Michael Phelps will not be charged with marijuana possession, though the Olympic champion swimmer admitted to being pictured holding a marijuana pipe at a Columbia house party in November, Richland County Sheriff Leon...
An Ohio example of how the prison economy budget can mix up the usual political rhetoric
Posted on February 16, 2009In my own home state of Ohio, a very tight budget and a growing prison population have created a fascinating and dynamic set of political and practical conversations about state sentencing reform. This local article today, headlined "Seitz offers plan...
Lots of AWA and SORNA news and notes
Posted on February 16, 2009Over at Sex Crimes, Corey Yung has lots of new posts reporting on lots of new developments involving the Adam Walsh Act and the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (which was a part of the AWA). This local newspaper...
In Alabama, the Kennedy case did not end talk of the death penalty for child rape
Posted on February 16, 2009Apparently, it takes a while for a SCOTUS decision about constitutional limits on the death penalty to make its way down to Alabama. That conclusion is the only way I can fully make sense of this local Alabama story, headlined...
Lots of interesting crime and punishment reading in the Sunday papers
Posted on February 15, 2009A diverse array of interesting crime and punishment articles caught my eye in my review of the Sunday headlines. Here are links to some of what I am reading from various papers this morning: "White-collar defendants are given some slack...
Latest official data on implementation of retroactive crack guidelines
Posted on February 15, 2009The US Sentencing Commission has available here the latest updated data on the retroactive application of its revised crack sentencing guidelines. Here is how the data is described: A set of tables presenting preliminary data on cases in which a...
Does the stimulus bill allow further prison growth in incarceration nation?
Posted on February 14, 2009Over at TalkLeft in this effective post, Jeralyn identifies roughly $4 billion in the passed version of federal the stimulus bill which she calls "grants to law enforcement for lock em up programs." Though within the context of the the...
A deadly month leading up to Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day
Posted on February 14, 2009With executions in Texas and Alabama on Thursday (details here), which followed two other executions earlier in the week, the United States brought to a close one of the deadly months in the administration of capital punishment in recent history....
Capturing the essence of the USSC's report on prison alternatives
Posted on February 14, 2009As noted here, last week the US Sentencing Commission issued a new report providing an in-depth analysis of alternative sentences for federal offenders. The essence of that report is effectively discussed in this recent article by Marcia Coyle in The...
Interesting reading on focused corrections and sentencing issues
Posted on February 14, 2009Now available on SSRN are these two pieces that, though focused on relatively narrow issues, provide lots of food for sentencing thought: Do No Harm: An Analysis of the Legal and Social Consequences of Child Visitation Determinations for Incarcerated Perpetrators...
Seventh Circuit reverses sentence based on insufficient evidence of "precrime" of attempted murder
Posted on February 13, 2009The Seventh Circuit today in US v. England, No. 08-2440 (7th Cir. Feb. 13, 2009) (available here), suggests that we do not (yet) live in a Minority Report world in which special government agents can punish persons for crime they...
Written testimony from US Sentencing Commission hearing in Atlanta now on-line
Posted on February 13, 2009I am pleased to see that the US Sentencing Commission has now posted a lot of the written testimony that was submitted in conjunction with the USSC's first (of many?) regional hearings about the federal sentencing system (background here and...
State judges plead guilty to sending juves to jail for moolah
Posted on February 13, 2009A number of readers have sent me various links to an incredible story from Pennsylvania. The New York Times coverage in this article is headlined "Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit"; a local paper has this...
Notable sentencing news from Ohio
Posted on February 12, 2009My home state is lately full of sentencing news, and here are two afternoon headlines providing signs of the sentencing times: From the Cleveland Plain Dealer here, "Death Row inmate Jeffrey Hill's sentence commuted by Gov. Strickland" From the AP...
What does Prez Obama's pick for drug czar suggest for possible drug policy reform?
Posted on February 12, 2009As detailed in this Seattle Times article, "Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske has accepted a job as the nation's drug czar in the Obama administration, according to a source in Washington, D.C., who is familiar with the administration's plans." This...
Another notable story of paralysis and prosecution for child porn
Posted on February 12, 2009Regular readers may recall this post from December discussing a remarkable case from Buffalo in which federal prosecutors decided not to press charges against a quadriplegic who downloaded a lot of child porn. Now this local story from Alabama, headlined...
Fascinating pitch for serious SCOTUS reforms
Posted on February 12, 2009Marcia Coyle has this fascinating new piece in The National Law Journal, headlined "Law Profs, Former Judges, Attorneys Urge Major Reforms for Supreme Court." Here is how it starts: A group of 33 law professors, former state supreme court justices...
Notable new scholarship on therapeutic jurisprudence
Posted on February 12, 2009I just noticed via SSRN this interesting new paper from David Wexler, titled "Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Legal Landscapes, and Form Reform: The Case of Diversion." Here is the abstract: This essay, prepared for a therapeutic jurisprudence workshop at the Florida Coastal...
On-the-scene report on the US Sentencing Commission regional hearings in Atlanta
Posted on February 11, 2009Professor Ronald Wright, who testified Wednesday during the second day of the US Sentencing Commission's regional hearings in Atlanta (background here and here), was kind enough to send along this terrific on-the-scene report of his experiences: I could not attend...
Lots of mixed messages from the latest death penalty headlines
Posted on February 11, 2009A scan of newspaper headlines this week provides lots of different messages about the status of the death penalty in the United States these days. When in comes to executions, as these stories show, the death penalty seems quite "in"...
One notable economist's reaction to the California prison litigation
Posted on February 11, 2009In this column, famed economist Steven Levitt has these fascinating responses about the recent federal court "tentative opinion" calling for a massive reduction of California's prison population: [A] prisoner?s rights group won a preliminary decision against the state of California?s...
Sixth Circuit panel reinstates federal death sentence
Posted on February 11, 2009This afternoon, I begin the death penalty unit in my sentencing class, and the Sixth Circuit this morning has provided me with a new case to discuss. In US v. Lawrence, No. 06-4105 (6th Cir. Feb. 11, 2009) (available here),...
Notable due process ruling from Massachusetts high court about detaining dangerous juves
Posted on February 11, 2009Thanks to this post at How Appealing, I discovered yesterday's notable due process ruling coming from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. This article from the Boston Globe provides a useful summary of the ruling: The highest court in Massachusetts...
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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?
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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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