Retroactivity and Crack Sentencing Reform

Beyond Retroactivity to Realizing Justice: A Theory on the Principle of Legality in International Criminal Law Sentencing

Consistency in Sentencing

INTRODUCTION Ireland has an individualised system of sentencing in which judges exercise a relatively broad sentencing discretion. Since the foundation of the State in 1922 few attempts have been made to change or challenge the nature of the Irish sentencing system. This lack of reform, however, does not necessarily reflect widespread satisfaction with the system as a whole. Indeed, a recurrent...

Statement of Diana E. Murphy before the Senate Subcommittee

Chairman Biden, members of the Subcommittee, I am Diana Murphy, Chair of the United States Sentencing Commission (the " Commission ") and a judge on the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today about federal cocaine sentencing policy, and the Subcommittee should be commended for holding this important hearing. Although Congress and the Commission have been ...

Chapter Two: Impact of the Sentencing Guidelines on the Certainty and Severity of Punishment

The text and legislative history of the Sentencing Reform Act [SRA], reviewed in Chapter One, make clear that the SRA aimed to increase the certainty and severity of punishment by eliminating parole and increasing sentencing severity for some crimes. Congress instructed the Commission to ensure that “the guidelines reflect the fact that, in many cases, current sentences do not accurately reflec...

After the Implosion: Trailing-Edge Guidelines for a New Era

In the Fall of 1989, I sat at a worn wooden desk with gum stuck to the bottom, listening to Professor Daniel Freed talk about the federal sentencing guidelines. I was captivated. Here, it seemed, there was a system of sentencing which demanded fairness, regularized punishment, and created a normative value for various wrongs. Professor Freed and virtually every other person in the room were str...