Statutory Interpretation, Judicial Discretion, and Equitable Defenses

Sentencing guidelines, judicial discretion and plea bargaining

The United States Sentencing Commission was created to develop federal sentencing guidelines, which restrict judicial discretion and were found to increase the average sentence length while leaving unchanged the likelihood of resolution through plea bargaining. A game theoretic model is developed in which a sentencing commission may impose guidelines or defer to judicial discretion; then a defe...

Realism in Statutory Interpretation and Elsewhere

Elected Judges and Statutory Interpretation Aaron - Andrew

This Article considers whether differences in methods of judicial selection should influence how judges approach statutory interpretation. Courts and scholars have not given this question much sustained attention, but most would probably embrace the “unified model,” according to which appointed judges (such as federal judges) and elected judges (such as many state judges) are supposed to approa...

Comments on [Israeli] Proposal for Structuring Judicial Discretion in Sentencing

Why Abstention Is Not Illegitimate: an Essay on the Distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” Statutory Interpretation and Judicial Lawmaking

When Professor Martin Redish condemned abstention doctrines as violating norms of “institutional legitimacy,” he provoked an informative debate, but one that has largely subsided. This Essay revisits the once-heated debate about abstention’s legitimacy, clarifies its terms, and identifies its stakes. The legitimacy question is not whether abstention decisions are legally correct, but whether ap...