Legislatures, Judges, and Parole Boards: The Allocations of Discretion under Determinate Sentencing (original) (raw)
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Legislatures, Judges, and Parole Boards: The Allocation of Discretion
The most significant development in criminal sentencing in recent decades has been the shift from indeterminate to determinate sentencing. Yet no study has systematically explored the factors leading to this shift. In this Article, we provide the first analysis to explain why state legislatures enact reforms that significantly reduce both judges' and parole boards' discretion over criminal sentencing. First, we develop a political economy model that explains why legislatures acting in their own self-interest may be motivated to enact these laws. Our model predicts that legislatures are more likely to enact determinate sentencing reforms when there is tension among the political ideologies of legislatures, judges, and parole boards. Then, we empirically test the predictions of our political economy model using data from all fifty states over the period from 1960 to 2000. Our analyses confirm that political variables, such as divided government, are the primary influences on legislatures' decisions to enact determinate sentencing reforms. These results are consistent with our model's hypothesis: long histories of divided government produce clashes among the sentencing goals of legislatures, parole boards, and judges, and legislatures respond by enacting reforms that take power away from the judges and parole boards. Our conclusions are especially important given recent court cases and criticisms that challenge the future of determinate sentencing reforms.
The Swinging Pendulum of Sentencing Reform: Political Actors Regulating District Court Discretion
Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law, 2009
In this article, application of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and changes to the law, limiting and expanding judicial discretion under the Guidelines are analyzed from 1999 to 2006 for a sample of drug trafficking cases. Despite a large number of studies on the impact of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and their reform, this is the only recent study that specifically controls for case fact variation so that the effect of the law and reforms can be properly tested. Most previous studies of the Guidelines to date do not adequately consider how the facts of the cases may drive the decisions that judges are making. This study substantially advances our understanding of the Guidelines by analyzing cases with similar case facts. The method employed allows for a specific analysis of how the Guideline system both allows for and prevents political actors from controlling disparity in sentencing. The results show that when district court judges use sentencing tables required by the Sentencing Guidelines they overwhelmingly focus their decisions at the very minimum of those ranges, suggesting judicial preferences that are at odds with those of Congress. Further, disparity in sentencing persists among the circuits despite laws that constrain judicial discretion, such as the PROTECT Act of 2003, and laws or cases that broaden discretion, such as the decision of the United States Supreme Court in United States v. Booker. Although disparity is often viewed by politicians and judicial scholars negatively, I argue, based on my quantitative analysis as well as judges' opinions collected from an original nationwide survey and live interviews, that such disparity correctly reflects local realities faced by district court judges in various regions across the country.
Judicial Discretion and Sentencing Behavior
This research studies the impact of changes to federal judicial discretion on criminal sentencing outcomes. The Feeney Amendment to the 2003 PROTECT Act restricted federal judges' ability to impose sentences outside of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and required appellate courts to review downward departures. Using data on all federal sentences between 1999 and 2004, we examine the effect of the Feeney Amendment on the downward departures rate and prison sentence. We control for type of offense, district of sentencing, criminal history, and demographic characteristics of the offender, in order to isolate the changes in judicial sentencing due to the implementation of the Feeney Amendment. Our results suggest that the Feeney Amendment reduced the probability of a downward departure by 5% and increased prison sentences by two months. There is no evidence that judges adjust sentences in an effort to circumvent the intentions of the Feeney Amendment.
DETERMINATE SENTENCING AND ABOLISHING PAROLE: THE LONG-TERM IMPACTS ON PRISONS AND CRIME*
Criminology, 1996
W e estimate the impact of determinate sentencing laws (DSLs) on prison commitments, prison populations, and Uniform Crime Report crime rates. Ten states enacted these laws between 1976 and 1984; all abolished parole and most established presumptive sentences. The research uses a multiple time-series design that, among other benefits, controls f o r national trends and facilitates the use of control variables. We found that DSLs are clearly associated with prison population growth in only one state, Indiana, and with major reductions in two, Minnesota and Washington. The remaining laws show no evidence of increasing populations and may have reduced them somewhat. The estimated impacts on commitments are similarly varied. There is little or no evidence that DSLs affect crime. Earlier studies evaluating individual DSLs are ofren criticized for poor research designs, and our findings support the criticisms.
Is Guided Discretion Sufficient? Overview of State Sentencing Guidelines
Saint Louis University law journal, 2000
The purpose of these remarks is to provide a brief overview of state sentencing guideline systems-where they are, how they have evolved, and how they differ from each other and from the Federal Guidelines. 1 The idea of sentencing guidelines overseen by a permanent sentencing commission was originally proposed by federal judge Marvin Frankel in the early 1970s. Several bills to accomplish this were introduced in Congress, but Minnesota was the first jurisdiction in the United States to place such a system in operation. There is some irony that a federal judge first proposed this ideanot only were sentencing guidelines first adopted in the states, but many people
American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2006
Contemporary research on criminal sentencing has analyzed sentencing under numerous sentencing policies, yet the effect of sentencing policy on outcomes and disparity is not known. A variety of sentencing guidelines systems, one of the more common sentencing policies, exists throughout the country. In addition, recent Supreme Court decisions regarding sentencing guidelines are likely to produce alterations to several state sentencing policies over the next few years. Using data from the state of Florida, the current study examines the effects of policy transformation on sentencing disparity within the focal concerns of sentencing perspective. The authors view sentencing guidelines as a practical constraint on sentencing decisions that influence other key variables. The results indicate that sentencing policy transformation has an important effect on both sentencing decisions and on the factors that shape those decisions. The findings suggest that future sentencing research and theoretical development would benefit from incorporating measures of policy differences in its analyses. t Direct all correspondence to: Matthew S. Crow, University of West Florida, Division of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies,