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Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 10:28 pm
Time: 10:28 pm
Results for sentencing guidelines (u.s.)
2 results foundAuthor: Fischman, Joshua B. Title: Racial Disparities, Judicial Discretion, and the United States Sentencing Guidelines Summary: The United States Sentencing Guidelines were instituted to restrict judicial discretion in sentencing, in part to reduce unwarranted racial disparities. However, judicial discretion may also mitigate disparities that result from prosecutorial discretion or Guidelines factors that have disparate impact. To measure the impact of judicial discretion on racial disparities, we examine doctrinal changes that affected judges’ discretion to depart from the Guidelines. We find that racial disparities are either reduced or little changed when the Guidelines are made less binding. Racial disparities increased after recent Supreme Court decisions declared the Guidelines to be advisory; however, we find that this increase is due primarily to the increased relevance of mandatory minimums. Our findings suggest that judicial discretion does not contribute to, and may in fact mitigate, racial disparities in Guidelines sentencing. Details: Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia School of Law, 2012. 39p. Source: Internet Resource: University of Virginia School of Law Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series No. 2012-02: Accessed April 4, 2012 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1636419 Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1636419 Shelf Number: 124815 Keywords: Judicial DiscretionRacial DisparitiesSentencing Guidelines (U.S.) |
Author: Bushway, Shawn D. Title: Sentencing Guidelines and Judicial Discretion: Quasi-experimental Evidence from Human Calculation Errors Summary: There is a debate about whether advisory non-binding sentencing guidelines affect the sentences outcomes of individuals convicted in jurisdictions with this sentencing framework. Identifying the impact of sentencing guidelines is a difficult empirical problem because court actors may have preferences for sentencing severity that are correlated with the preferences that are outlined in the guidelines. But, in Maryland, ten percent of the recommended sentences computed in the guideline worksheets contain calculation errors. We use this unique source of quasi-experimental variation to quantify the extent to which sentencing guidelines influence policy outcomes. Among drug offenses, we find that the direct impact of the guidelines is roughly ½ the size of the overall correlation between recommendations and outcomes. For violent offenses, we find the same ½ discount for sentence recommendations that are higher than they should have been, but more responsiveness to recommendations that are too low. We find no evidence that the guidelines themselves directly affect discretion for property offenders, perhaps because judges generally have substantial experience with property cases and therefore do not rely on the errant information. Sentences are more sensitive to both accurate and inaccurate recommendations for crimes that occur less frequently and have more complicated sentencing. This suggests that when the court has more experience, the recommendations have less influence. More tentative findings suggest that, further down the decision chain, parole boards counteract the remaining influence of the guidelines. Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2011. 36p. Source: Internet Resource: NBER Working Paper Series; Working Paper 16961: Accessed July 2, 2012 at: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16961 Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w16961 Shelf Number: 125444 Keywords: Judicial DiscretionPunishmentSentencingSentencing Guidelines (U.S.) |