Crack 2.0

2021 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43
Author(s):  
Lex A. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Drug Trafficking ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Controlled Substances ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Sentencing Policy ◽  
Related Line ◽  
Criminal Conduct

The 1984 Sentencing Reform Act charged the U.S. Sentencing Commission with developing sentencing guidelines that advanced the purposes of sentencing under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). After the Supreme Court cases Booker, Kimbrough, Gall, and Spears, it is now well established—at least with federal drug trafficking offenses—that the Commission did not fulfill that directive. The magnitude of that failure (coupled with some of Congress’s own misguided decisions) has previously been highlighted by the evolution of federal crack sentencing policies, the Fair Sentencing Act, the related line of Supreme Court cases, and more recently the First Step Act. Congress’s compromise correction of over twenty years (essentially a generation) of a failed war on crack did nothing to further correct similar defects with federal drug sentencing policies for other controlled substances—particularly with respect to methamphetamine. Given the resurgence of methamphetamine trafficking, use, and prosecutions, this paper will analyze post-1988 federal methamphetamine sentencing policy to illustrate how the drug-type, quantity, and purity model for punishing drug trafficking offenses still produces unwarranted sentencing disparities between similar controlled substances or different forms of the same controlled substances—and in the end plainly fails to effectively deter the targeted criminal conduct or advance the purposes of federal sentencing under 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a).

The Quest for Coherence in Kenya’s Judicial Sentencing Policy: A Review of the Jurisprudence Following the Muruatetu Case

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-149
Author(s):  
Phyllis Ngugi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Supreme Court Decision ◽  
Court Decision ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Trial Court ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Sentencing Policy

The Supreme Court decision in the now-infamous case Francis Karioko Muruatetu v Republic1 seemed to settle the enduring debate whether sentencing is a judicial or a legislative function. The court’s ruling was that sentencing is a judicial function and that the mandatory nature of the death penalty for murder2 was unconstitutional because it took away the courts’ discretion to determine a just and proportionate punishment to impose on a convicted person. In its judgment, the court ordered that the judiciary sentencing policy3 be revised to reflect the court’s guidelines on the obligation of courts to listen to the accused’s mitigation before sentencing. The court also directed that a framework for sentence rehearing be prepared immediately to allow applicants who had been sentenced in circumstances similar to those of the petitioners to apply for sentence a rehearing from the trial court. This article examines the aftermath of this judgment in terms of whether the Supreme Court’s decision helped to cure the challenge that lies in the current sentencing process; achieving coherence and proportionality in the sentencing process. By using jurisprudential arguments, we intend to demonstrate that, despite the court’s direction to all courts to ensure that no person should be subjected to a disproportionate sentence, the problem of disproportional sentencing is one that goes beyond merely reviewing of the sentencing guidelines but also demands a reform of the entire criminal justice system.

EXPRESSIVE MEANING, RACE, AND THE LAW:

Legal Theory ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-99
Author(s):  
Andrew Altman
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Legal Reasoning ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Expressive Meaning ◽  
The Law

Recently, legal and social thinkers have turned to the idea that actions possess a nonlinguistic meaning, called “expressive meaning.” In this article I examine the idea of expressive meaning and its role in legal reasoning. My focus is on a series of U.S. Supreme Court cases involving constitutional challenges to election districts drawn on the basis of race. The Supreme Court used the idea of expressive meaning in striking down the districts. After explicating the idea of expressive meaning, I explain and criticize the Court’s reasoning. I distinguish the approach of Justices Thomas and Scalia, who hold that all uses of race in districting do constitutional harm, from that of Justice O’Connor, who distinguishes uses of race that do constitutional harm from those that do not. I contend that Justice O’Connor is right to make the distinction but she draws the line using a questionable standard. A more defensible standard would be more accommodating to the districts that the Court invalidated.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas A. Powe
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Local State ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Law And Politics ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Entire Nation ◽  
Constitutional Adjudication ◽  
The Impact

This book examines the impact of Supreme Court cases from Texas on the entire nation. It argues that the most important Supreme Court cases have originated in Texas, which help explain why it is Texas and not California that provides breadth and depth to constitutional adjudication. Texas litigants, lawyers, politicians, and judges all play important roles in the underlying interplay of law and politics at the local, state, and national levels. In all its facets, Texas offers a window to all constitutional law and the Supreme Court. The book shows that Texas's impact literally started at the beginning by precipitating a debate over national powers and then a war with Mexico, and that the fraught relationship between Texas, the nation, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court in the century and a half since Texas v. White has produced more constitutional law than any other state.

Let Them Plow

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
School Desegregation ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Regional Variations ◽  
The Supreme Court

Chapter Two examines a handful of pivotal Supreme Court cases brought against school desegregation at the turn of the century and the first few decades of the 20th century. The Cumming v. Georgia case in 1899 indicated a demand for equality on the basis of taxpayer status that was understood by the plaintiffs to be intertwined with race, a demand that was interpreted by the Supreme Court only in the language of taxation and federalism. This chapter also highlights regional variations and a number of cases brought at the height of Jim Crow segregation by people of color who fell outside the black-white paradigm, even if courts then imposed it on them.

Child Pornography Sentencing and Demographic Data: Reforming Through Research

2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 102-107
Author(s):  
SpearIt
Keyword(s):  
Child Pornography ◽  
Demographic Data ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Demographic Research ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Federal Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
History Of ◽  
Sentencing Policy

This article examines demographic research on child pornography offenders and considers its utility for sentencing reform. It begins by tracing the history of the Internet and federal possession law, detailing particularly how public and political panic about child pornography evolved within a growing fear of the Internet itself. The article continues by surveying current demographic research on possession offenders. Drawing on this data and related research, the article considers what the literature can contribute to sentencing policy, simultaneously showcasing vast differences between the type of offender Congress intended to punish and those actually receiving the harsh punishment. Taken wholly, this article explains why child pornography guidelines represent a departure from the normal process of creating Federal Sentencing Guidelines; it tells how law succumbed to the forces of fear and stacked the scale against child pornography offenders.

A Basic Right to Marry: Israeli Style

2014 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayelet Blecher-Prigat
Keyword(s):  
Supreme Court ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Israeli Supreme Court ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intimate Partnerships ◽  
Legal Marriage

This article questions the value of the basic right to marry that was recognised by the Israeli Supreme Court in the early 2000s as part of the basic right to human dignity. Since its early days, Israeli law has developed a tradition that has diminished the significance of formal marriage as a way to bypass the religious-based restrictions on marriage in Israel, with the emphasis instead on the idea of functional joint intimate lives.Against this legal background, the article explores the basic right to marry. It discusses and analyses the Supreme Court cases that have recognised a basic right to marry. It then considers several options to help in understanding the meaning of this right, and supports an understanding of the right to marry within a framework of equality, according to which human dignity requires equality in affording official recognition to intimate partnerships. Nonetheless, given the potentially limited effect of a basic right to marry in Israel, the article considers the idea of abolishing legal marriage in Israel altogether. Responding to potential critique by reference to the unique Israeli context, it suggests that such abolition could resolve the continuous conflict between Israel's self-definition as a Jewish state and its self-definition as a democratic state in the context of recognising adult intimate relationships. As presented in this article, constitutional limitations do not stand in the way for the State of Israel to abolish legal marriage.

Sentencing Policies and Practices in Minnesota

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard S. Frase
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Sentencing Reform ◽  
Prison Overcrowding ◽  
Sentencing Policy ◽  
Truth In Sentencing ◽  
Policies And Practices

This essay evaluates the origins, purposes, operation, and evolution of Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines system, implemented in 1980. Topics examined include key guidelines provisions, related statutes, charging and sentencing practices, departure rates, interpretive case law, and correctional populations. The essay concludes that the goals of this pioneering sentencing reform have largely been achieved: punishments have become more uniform and proportionate; policy formulation is more comprehensive and informed by data; sentencing has been coordinated with available correctional resources to avoid prison overcrowding and set priorities in the use of prison beds; there is a greater degree of “truth in sentencing;” prison sentences are used relatively sparingly; and the guidelines remain fairly simple to understand and apply. Minnesota has also achieved a sustainable balance between conflicting sentencing purposes, between uniformity versus flexibility, and in the powers of the sentencing commission, the legislature, courts, and practitioners to control sentencing policy and case outcomes.

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