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?
about
Category: Guideline sentencing systems
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With my usual apologies for only scratching the data/metrics surface in class yesterday, I wanted to link here to some of the materials I mentioned and then set up our final discussion giving particular emphasis to the (federal) war on drugs. To start, on the crime front, I flagged graphics in class drawn from this…
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As we continue digging into the challenging and dynamic topics of offender characteristics at sentencing, I urge you to think about what offender characteristics should or must always be considered at federal sentencing with two particular "whos" in mind: the US Sentencing Commission and US District Judges. The challenge for the USSC You should closely review…
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As we wrapped up a too-quick discussion of the "offense" for sentencing purposes with a focus on drug cases, I briefly mentioned the somewhat (in)famous litigation in Chicago surrounding so-called "stash-house sting" case. I have done a series of blog posts about these cases at my main blog, some of which are linked below. Here…
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To start the final week of October, we will turn to discuss the (insufficiently discussed) Supreme Court ruling in US v. Watts upholding the constitutionality of the use of so-called "acquitted conduct" in the calculation of the sentencing guidelines. I would like us in class (and here in the comments) to explore just what "acquitted…
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The FIRST STEP Act, which is fully titled the Formerly Incarcerated Reenter Society Transformed Safely Transitioning Every Person Act, was signed by Prez Trump into law on Dec. 21, 2018. Many have rightly called this law the biggest federal criminal justice reform legislation in a generation, and yet others have rightly called this law a…
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In this post from last month, back when we were focused on "whos," I highlighted some data on mandatory minimums in the federal sentencing system. Back then, we were talking somewhat generally about how prosecutors garner sentencing power from mandatory minimum sentencing statutes. Now that we are working through the sentencing of Rob Anon, we…
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As I have emphasized in our recent classes, much of the rest of our time together will have us discussing non-capital (and mostly federal) sentencing policies and practice after modern guideline reforms. As we turn to sentencing Rob Anon under the modern federal sentencing guidelines, I would encourage class members to try to figure out…
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As stressed in class, much of the rest of the semester is going to explore non-capital (and mostly federal) sentencing policies and practice before and after modern guideline reforms. Our work will start and advance through a deep discussion of sentencing realities faced in sentencing Rob Anon — whose crime and history appear in short form at…
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As we continue digging into the challenging and dynamic sentencing topics of offender characteristics at sentencing, two fundamental questions arise: (1) what specific offender characteristics should or must never be considered at sentencing, and (2) what specific offender characteristics should or must always be considered at sentencing. As is our norm, we will unpack these issues aided generally by current federal sentencing realities…
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Thanks to everyone for being a great audience for our special guest today, and now we get back to our regular programming. As promised, we are starting a turn toward a discussion of whether, when and how "offender circumstances" should to be considered at sentencing. Though I mentioned age in class, we will start with…
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I hope everyone has now had the chance to work through the sentencing of Rob Anon under the modern federal sentencing guidelines, perhaps with the help of some of the materials linked in this post). If you made an effort to do independent research in order to try to figure out how on your own…
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We will wrap up our two-week sentencing of Rob Anon on Wednesday by noting the persistent discretion that still subsists within a federal sentencing system now filled with all sort of sentencing law. The most obvious locus of modern federal sentencing discretion, and the form that still garners the most attention, resulted from the Supreme Court's…
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This final week before Spring Break, we will be diving even deeper into the sentencing of Rob Anon under the modern federal sentencing guidelines. I continue to welcome comments to this prior post if/when you want to discuss your experiences with guideline sentencing, though I also welcome new comments here as I reprint the US Sentencing Commission's latest…
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Starting with Wednesday's class, we will start unpacking the sentencing of Rob Anon under the modern federal sentencing guidelines. I welcome comments to this prior post if/when you want to discuss your experiences with guideline sentencing. This post, however, is meant to wrap up our pre-guideline sentencing experiences with the help of this interesting 1986 US Government Accounting…
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As mentioned in class, mini-paper #3 provides you an opportunity to explore federal sentencing realities surrounding a federal defendant of your choice. Continuing a series of posts providing suggestions about possible federal defendants you might consider examining for mini-paper #3, below are some links to some Sixth Circuit opinions all from the first two months…
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As stressed in class last week, the next two weeks are going to involve detailed discussions of federal sentencing policies and practice before and after modern guideline reforms. We will begin on Monday with a deep discussion of the sentencing realities faced in sentencing Rob Anon in a pre-guideline world (the world Judge Marvin Frankel…
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As mentioned in class, mini-paper #3 provides you an opportunity to explore federal sentencing realities surrounding a federal defendant of your choice. Continuing a series of posts providing a suggestions about possible federal defendants you might consider examining for mini-paper #3, here are some links to posts from my main blog from the last few…
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As mentioned in class, mini-paper #3 provides you an opportunity to explore federal sentencing realities surrounding a federal defendant of your choice. In a series of posts, I will be providing a series of suggestions about possible federal defendants you might consider examining for mini-paper #3. In this post, for example, I thought it worth…
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As I mentioned in class today, our coming exploration of the federal sentencing system will be based in part on using the real-world "Bridgegate" case into a real-world sentencing exercise. To get started in preparation to that end, I recommend some review of at least the following two links: This Wikipedia page, titled "Fort Lee lane…
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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 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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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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To aid our discussion of drug sentencing under the existing federal sentencing guidelines (which were, as reported here, amended just yesterday) based on various offender and offense factors, let me briefly describe two notable federal drug offender: Offender #1 was, at the time of his offense, a 21-year-old man in his second year at college and got…
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As a follow-up to our class discussion about military service and to provide a specific proposal to debate in our next class, I thought it would be useful to review the history of how the federal sentencing guidelines have treated military service. For starters, the original federal sentencing guidelines promulgated in 1987 said not one word…
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As we start digging into the challenging and dynamic sentencing topics of offender characteristics at sentencing, two fundamental questions arise: (1) what specific offender characteristics should or must never be considered at sentencing, and (2) what specific offender characteristics should or must always be considered at sentencing. As is our norm, we will unpack these issues aided…
Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law 