In Defence of Substantial Sentencing Discretion

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...

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

Discontinuous Tradition of Sentencing Discretion: Koon's Failure to Recognize the Reshaping of Judicial Discretion under the Guidelines, The

Looked at from a general science of law, the effective individualizing agency in the administration of justice is discretion .... Discretion is an authority conferred by law to act in certain conditions or situations in accordance with an official's or an official agency's own considered judgment and conscience .'

Federal Sentencing in the Wake of Guidelines: Unacceptable Limits on the Discretion of Sentencers

Making the Crime fit the Penalty: The Role of Prosecutorial Discretion Under Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

This paper empirically documents one way in which prosecutorial discretion can be used to dampen the effects of mandatory minimum sentencing laws. Specifically, I show prosecutors use their discretion over prosecution charges to circumvent a mandatory minimum sentencing law for some defendants, by prosecuting these defendants who were initially arrested for the crime targeted by the sentencing ...