An Affiliate of the Law Professor Blogs Network
TypePad
Updated: 2 hours 11 min ago
2 hours 50 min ago
As detailed on this page on the its website, the US Sentencing Commission has a public hearing scheduled "for Wednesday, March 12 and Thursday, March 13, 2025 tentatively beginning at 9:00 a.m. (EDT) on both days ... to receive testimony...
Douglas A. Berman
Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Who Sentences
3 hours 36 min ago
As reported in this NBC News piece, a "federal judge on Tuesday temporarily blocked Louisiana's first execution in 15 years after lawyers for the condemned man argued a new method known as nitrogen hypoxia would violate his constitutional rights." Here...
Douglas A. Berman
Baze and Glossip lethal injection cases
Death Penalty Reforms
7 hours 51 min ago
I believe the folks at the Prison Policy Initiative typically wait until "pi day" (3/14) to release their annual amazing "pie" graphic and associated report on US incarceration realities. But this year, we all get to consume this data pie...
Douglas A. Berman
Prisons and prisoners
Scope of Imprisonment
Mon, 03/10/2025 - 21:33
Law360 has this interesting new and lengthy article about how Prez Biden's mass clemency of drug offenses in his final few days of office have been playing out. The piece is headlined "For Many Biden Clemency Grantees, Freedom Is On...
Douglas A. Berman
Clemency and Pardons
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Sentences Reconsidered
Who Sentences
Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:22
As reported in this ABC News piece, "Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said Monday he's asking the court to withdraw the previous district attorney's motion for resentencing for Lyle and Erik Menendez, calling the brothers' claims of self-defense...
Douglas A. Berman
Celebrity sentencings
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Sentences Reconsidered
Who Sentences
Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:04
The title of this post is the title of this paper authored by Brian Murray recently posted to SSRN. Here is its abstract: Most jurisdictions that permit expungement draw the line at certain crimes — usually those implicating one or...
Douglas A. Berman
Collateral consequences
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Purposes of Punishment and Sentencing
Who Sentences
Mon, 03/10/2025 - 10:45
The title of this post is the headline of this notable new Washington Monthly piece. The piece's subtitle reveals more clearly what the author, Cliff Sloan, is discussing and his driving perspective: "Lewis Powell, Harry Blackmun, and John Paul Stevens...
Douglas A. Berman
Death Penalty Reforms
Who Sentences
Sun, 03/09/2025 - 16:36
Regular readers know I am a big fan of second-look sentencing mechanisms, which I have been writing about in various ways in various fora for many years. Here are a couple of posts I authored last year at the Sentencing...
Douglas A. Berman
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Sentences Reconsidered
Who Sentences
Sun, 03/09/2025 - 11:43
In a couple of recent posts (here and here) since Prez Trump's announcement that Alice Marie Johnson will serve as his "pardon czar"(see prior posts here and here), I have wondered aloud about how the work of the Justice Department's...
Douglas A. Berman
Clemency and Pardons
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Sentences Reconsidered
Who Sentences
Sat, 03/08/2025 - 12:14
As reported in this AP piece, a "South Carolina man who killed his ex-girlfriend’s parents with a baseball bat was executed by firing squad Friday, the first U.S. prisoner in 15 years to die by that method, which he saw...
Douglas A. Berman
Baze and Glossip lethal injection cases
Death Penalty Reforms
Who Sentences
Fri, 03/07/2025 - 16:07
This new lengthy Stateline article, imperfectly headlined "Trump’s death penalty push faces resistance in some red states," highlights a lot of recent state capital punishment developments. I recommend the whole piece, and here are excerpts: In an executive order he...
Douglas A. Berman
Death Penalty Reforms
Who Sentences
Thu, 03/06/2025 - 22:57
I find second-look sentencing provisions so interesting and important because so much can happen after a lengthy sentence is imposed that can justify taking a second look at that sentence. This reality was on full display in a second-look sentencing...
Douglas A. Berman
Celebrity sentencings
Sentences Reconsidered
Thu, 03/06/2025 - 22:28
This new Reuters article discusses (too) briefly Justice Jackson's comments today about the federal sentencing guidelines at the ABA's White Collar Crime Institute: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said on Thursday she would support revisiting sentencing guidelines for...
Douglas A. Berman
Federal Sentencing Guidelines
White-collar sentencing
Thu, 03/06/2025 - 14:23
In this post more than seven years ago, I flagged a decision by the Supreme Court of Delaware, Smack v. Delaware, No. 601 (Del. Oct. 11, 2017) (available here), in which the court rules that a sentencing judge complied with...
Douglas A. Berman
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Sentences Reconsidered
Who Sentences
Thu, 03/06/2025 - 10:45
As detailed on this webpage, the US Sentencing Commission has today released a notable new study analyzing federal drug trafficking offenses that involved an overdose. Here is how the report is summarized on that page: "The Commission’s research report Overdoses...
Douglas A. Berman
Drug Offense Sentencing
Federal Sentencing Guidelines
Offense Characteristics
Thu, 03/06/2025 - 10:06
Brad Sigmon, who a quarter century ago murdered his ex-girlfriend’s parents, chose to be executed by firing squad rather than via the two other methods available in South Carolina, the electric chair and lethal injection. This execution is scheduled for...
Douglas A. Berman
Death Penalty Reforms
Who Sentences
Wed, 03/05/2025 - 14:50
In this post late last week, I noted a new article by Daniel Loehr available via SSRN titled "The Eugenic History of Habitual Offender Laws." Today I received an email from The Sentencing Project about its new report, authored by...
Douglas A. Berman
Mandatory minimum sentencing statutes
Offender Characteristics
Scope of Imprisonment
Wed, 03/05/2025 - 13:39
As I have mentioned in the past and will surely mention again in the future, there are too many notable daily and weekly developments in our nation's prisons and jails to cover them all (or even to cover some well)...
Douglas A. Berman
Prisons and prisoners
Wed, 03/05/2025 - 09:29
NBC News has this lengthy new piece, headlined "Biden and Trump pardons come under scrutiny, renewing calls for reform," that is long on recent clemency criticisms (especially Prez Biden's last-minute clemency flurry) and short on serious clemency reform discussions. The...
Douglas A. Berman
Clemency and Pardons
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Who Sentences
Tue, 03/04/2025 - 16:38
Via email, I learned of an exciting event taking place on April 4, 2025, in Phildelphia. Here is the event description drawn from the email text of LawProf Lucian Dervan, who is the Founding Director of the Plea Bargaining Institute:...
Douglas A. Berman
Procedure and Proof at Sentencing
Pages