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: Offense Conduct
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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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CLASS LOGISTICS REMINDER: On Nov 3, we will have an election day optional on-line Zoom class; I'll be on Zoom at the usual time for an unstructured discussion of how the 2020 election could impact sentencing matters (some noted here); on Nov 5, we will have an in-person regular class (perhaps about election results and) finishing…
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As we turn to discuss the (little 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, in bears remembering that US Sentencing Commission or Congress could seek to preclude the use of this conduct as a matter or guideline…
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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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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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As mentioned in class on Wednesday, and as detailed in this official notice, the US Sentencing Commission has a public meeting scheduled for April 9, 2015, at 1:00 pm (which is to be live-streamed here). The big agenda item of note for the meeting is the "Vote to Promulgate Proposed Amendments," and the most consequential amendments being…
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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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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)…
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In this post from my main blog, titled "As a matter of law, policy and practice, what should be the 'offense' a sentencer considers?," I set out some ideas that I referenced in last Wednesday's class and that I am eager to review during our two classes this coming last full week of March. (Remember,…
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everyone should be doing the first part (i.e., the first page) of the sentencing exercises ASAP: after reading (or even while reading) the Frankel excerpt and the notes that follow at the start of Chapter 3, everyone should imagine herself as a federal judge at the time of Judge Frankel and come up individually with…
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The question in the title of this post, which I am now posting to all the blogs in which I now participate, is my sincere reaction to this new Washington Post article headlined "DEA operations chief decries legalization of marijuana at state level." Here is the context: The chief of operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration on Wednesday called…
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I made brief mention in class of Justice Stephen Breyer's concurrence in Watts, and I thought it might be useful to quote all of it here as the prelude to an (extra credit) challenge: I join the Court’s per curiam opinion while noting that it poses no obstacle to the Sentencing Commission itself deciding whether…
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Though I am prepared and eager to discuss whichever offense conduct and offender characteristics that students find most interesting as sentencing factors, there are a few factors that I want to give special attention in our class on March 10. Specifically, in class I will be especially eager to hear your thoughts on these potential sentencing factors:…
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There are too many stories that surround the concept of acquitted conduct to cover them all, but I wanted to provide some links to some of these stories as recently covered in my main blog for anyone interested in continuing to think about these issues of what offense conduct can/should be considered at sentencing. Here are just a…
Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law 