Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law
A new home for an old class blog
recent posts
- Anyone have any distinct views on who Joe Biden should pick as US Attorney General?
- What data in the federal system would indicate the Biden Administration is drawing down the federal drug war?
- A final (too brief) foray into what metrics and data matter for assessing a sentencing system
- Reactions to our look behind the robes with federal sentencing judges?
- Are there any “offender characteristics” that you think must be considered at sentencing? If so, how?
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Category: Class activities
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This new BuzzFeed News article, headlined "Prosecutors Want To Limit Dylann Roof’s Use Of A “Mercy” Defense," provides an effective summary of this interesting motion filed by prosecutors in a high profile federal capital case. Especially because we will be jumping into the history, law and practice of capital punishment next week, I recommend everyone…
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As the Course Description noted, part of your formal work in this class is to author (at least) two “mini-papers” which will comprise up to 20% of your final grade. (You can look through this blog's archives to see examples of the kinds of in-semester writings I have urged students to produce in previous years, though please…
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Since I keep managing to end class with lingering questions about castration as a punishment for sex offenses, I figured I would use this blog space to highlight some existing literature on this topic. Perhaps my main goal here is to be sure I do not leave the impression that I am the only one who thinks (too much?) about…
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I have posted on the Moritz official website our first assignments, but I figured it would be useful to repost the details here, while also providing electronic copies of the basic course documents. So…. In preparation for our first week of classes starting Monday, August 22, 2016 you should: 1. Get a copy of the THIRD edition…
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This is now the FIFTH re-launch of this blogging adventure!! This blog started nearly 10 years ago (with the uninspired title of Death Penalty Course @ Moritz College of Law) to facilitate student engagement in the Spring 2007 course on the death penalty that I taught at OSU's Moritz College of Law. This first post in…
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Well timed for the middle of the first week of final is the last set of student mini-papers for student review: Download Sentencing Reform Download Sex Crimes_Offenders Download War on Drugs Remember that if you are looking for a great way to earn some final extra credit, say smart things about one or more of…
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As promised, I will be posting throughout this week and next the collections of mini-papers produced by students throughout the semester. Here are two more of the collections to go along with the death penalty collection posted previously: Download The Prison Experience Download Child Pornography Sentencing
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Thanks to the extraordinary help of my wonderful office assistant Allyson, I now have now finally assembled more than 60 of the mini-papers submitted over the last two months into nine subject-specific collections (in pdf form) for posting here and collective review. Huzzah! Though all the mini-papers are a whole lot to read in one sitting…
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here is a link to the 400+ page report that the US Sentencing Commission published on the topic in December 2012. The report's executive summary is only about a couple dozen pages, can be accessed at this link, and here are some interesting excerpts: [S]entencing data indicate that a growing number of courts believe that…
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As I mentioned in class, the final paper for this class (and the final take-home exam which is available as an alternative to completing a final paper) is due at close of business on the last day of the exam period. According to the Registrar's website, the final exam day is May 14, 2015. (Note that, because…
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A number of stories I have recently covered on my blog leads me to conclude we would usefully bring our semester to an informative and challenging close by giving special attention to the uniquely dynamic purposes, offense/offender, sentencing/post-sentencing issues raised by an array of sex offenses and offenders. Though I will assign some formal readings…
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Much to my chagrin, I fear this week our class will only be able to meet on Wednesday (4/8), and I fear that much of that class will involve going over current events and making sure the last few weeks of class are productive. To that end, I have two potential projects for students to…
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As you should recall, we ended class on Thursday with a working draft proposal for new drunk-driving legislation. Here is what has made it through our drafting committee so far: First Offense DUI: imprisonment from minimum term of zero to five years max Second Offense DUI: imprisonment from minimum term of six month to seven years max…
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As mentioned in class, this week we will continue to unpack the challenging question of exactly what are the essential aspects of the "offense" to be assessed and punished at sentencing, and next week we will focus on whether there are any essential aspects of the "offender" that must (or must not) be assessed and punished at…
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There are lots of sites worth checking out concerning the scourge of drunk driving, and this webpage from The Foundation for Advancing Alcohol Responsibility has lots of helpful links to lots of helpful data. For example,this page has a really nice simple chart highlight that drunk driving death nationally in recent years have been around 10,000 per…
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I hope everyone enjoyed Spring Break as much as I did and also that everyone is looking forward to an exciting final month of our sentencing class. This post provides a couple of reminders about on-going activities as well as some updates that might be of interest as we close out March sentencing madness: 1. Everyone…
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With apologies for the delay, I will now finally through this post provide some hints and help for sentencing Rob Anon under the modern federal sentencing guidelines. Here are links to the key provisions of the "official" on-line version of the now-applicable US Sentencing Guidelines as provided on the US Sentencing Commission's website: §1B1.1. Application Instructions §2B3.1…
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Just a quick note to remind everyone that… 1. If you are submitting a mini-paper this week (requirements outlined here), it is due by 12noon on Monday, March 9. The suggested prompt was "could/should the law consider the subjective experience of imprisonment in some way," though you are always welcome of write on any topic…
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We will talk on Thursday about the experience of sentencing Rob Anon under the pre-reform discretionary federal sentencing system, but I wanted to start the process of reflection on the pre-reform system with this post and a place for comments. Did your experience strengthen your understanding for Judge Frankel's concerns and call for reform? What…
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Following up on today's class discussion (and tomorrow's video) concerning imprisonment and the subjective experiences offenders may face, here are various posts of note from the archives of Sentencing Law & Policy: "The Subjective Experience of Punishment" Sidebar discussion of "The Subjective Experience of Punishment" Judge unmoved by undefeated boxing champ's [Floyd Mayweather] claim prison is…
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As mentioned in class, this week and next our class discussions will migrate from the basics of modern capital sentencing to the basics of modern non-capital sentencing. And, as the Coker and Kennedy cases highlight, all modern capital cases now involve only the crime of murder even though any number of sex offenses often lead legislatures…
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As mentioned in class, one class activity for the coming week(s) will be to work through how modern post-Furman capital punishment laws might get applied to the (in)famous Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski. (Ted is currently an LWOP resident at superman ADX Florence in Colorado and in the past was comically portrayed by Will Farrell). I will not…
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Just a quick note to remind everyone that… 1. If you are submitting your first mini-paper this week (requirements outlined here), it is due by 12noon today (Monday, Jan 26). 2. You should prepare for this week's classes by (re)reading Williams v. New York and by reading McGautha v. California. (It is sufficient to read…
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As mention in class, I am working on an amicus brief in support of a petition for certiorari in Young v. United States. I just received a copy of the petition, which was filed today, and the petition's appendix includes a copy of the Sixth Circuit opinion which rejected the defendant's assertion that a 15-year…
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As the text reveals, federal sentencing doctrines and state sentencing laws express in various ways an interest in achieving consistency in sentencing outcomes across a range of cases: e.g., 18 US Code § 3553(a)(6) orders federal judges at sentencing to consider "the need to avoid unwarranted sentence disparities" among similar defendants; Ohio Revise Code § 2929.11(B)…
Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law 