Remarks at the Annual Meeting of American Bar Association's House Of Delegates

Holder, Eric

doi:10.1525/fsr.2013.26.2.75

“…District-level prosecutors were required to obtain approval from the main Department of Justice for a whole range of case decisions (see Baron-Evans & Stith [2012] for details on this policy). Thus, the holistic conditions for sentencing at that period of time were distinct from the rest of the Guidelines era, and the conditions of the PROTECT Act are not likely to be (nor easily) replicated, especially in light of both the Supreme Court's recent sentencing jurisprudence, and the Attorney General's current policy that returns much decisionmaking power to district offices (Holder 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Rehavi and Starr (2012) have demonstrated, prosecutors' pursuit of mandatory minimums at the charging stage sends cases down a distinct path for resolution, bringing with it some troubling threats to equity and justice. It is precisely this problem that contributes to racial inequality in the federal system, and that Attorney General Holder recently condemned when he directed district-level U.S. attorneys to change their charging policies so that certain low-level drug defendants, although eligible, will no longer be charged with offenses that "impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences" (Holder 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Lynch

¹

,

Omori

²

2012

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The federal sentencing guidelines have lost some authoritative force since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a series of recent cases that the guidelines are advisory, rather than presumptive, in determining criminal sentences. While these court decisions represent a dramatic legal intervention, sociolegal scholarship suggests that organizational norms are likely to change slowly and less dramatically than the formal law itself. The research reported here looks specifically at the consequences of such legal transformations over time and across locale, using multilevel analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission sentence outcome data from 1993 to 2009. Our findings suggest that districts vary considerably from each other in sentencing practices over the time period studied, and that there is relative within-district stability of outcomes within districts over time, including in response to the Supreme Court's mandates. We also find that policy change appears to influence the mechanisms by which cases are adjudicated in order to reach normative outcomes. Finally, we find that the relative district-level reliance upon mandatory minimums, which were not directly impacted by the guidelines changes, is an important factor in how drug trafficking cases are adjudicated. We conclude that local legal practices not only diverge in important ways across place, but also become entrenched over time such that top-down legal reform is largely reappropriated and absorbed into locally established practices.We would like to thank

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“…enforcement of federal criminal statutes remains necessary, we cannot simply prosecute or incarcerate our way to becoming a safer nation." 23 His words were similar to those expressed by former Attorney General John Ashcroft a decade earlier: "The Department of Justice has to be more than the department of prosecution." 24 As a step toward that goal, Attorney General Holder encouraged the nation's U.S.…”

Section: Brennan Center For Justicementioning

confidence: 75%

Federal Prosecution for the 21st Century

Eisen

¹

,

Fortier

²

,

Chettiar

³

2014

SSRN Journal

21

0

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“…As Rehavi and Starr () have demonstrated, prosecutors’ pursuit of mandatory minimums at the charging stage sends cases down a distinct path for resolution, bringing with it some troubling threats to equity and justice. It is precisely this problem that contributes to racial inequality in the federal system, and that Attorney General Holder recently condemned when he directed district‐level U.S. attorneys to change their charging policies so that certain low‐level drug defendants, although eligible, will no longer be charged with offenses that “impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences” (Holder ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Lynch

¹

,

Omori²

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The federal sentencing guidelines have lost some authoritative force since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a series of recent cases that the guidelines are advisory, rather than presumptive, in determining criminal sentences. While these court decisions represent a dramatic legal intervention, sociolegal scholarship suggests that organizational norms are likely to change slowly and less dramatically than the formal law itself. The research reported here looks specifically at the consequences of such legal transformations over time and across locale, using multilevel analysis of U.S. Sentencing Commission sentence outcome data from 1993 to 2009. Our findings suggest that districts vary considerably from each other in sentencing practices over the time period studied, and that there is relative within-district stability of outcomes within districts over time, including in response to the Supreme Court's mandates. We also find that policy change appears to influence the mechanisms by which cases are adjudicated in order to reach normative outcomes. Finally, we find that the relative district-level reliance upon mandatory minimums, which were not directly impacted by the guidelines changes, is an important factor in how drug trafficking cases are adjudicated. We conclude that local legal practices not only diverge in important ways across place, but also become entrenched over time such that top-down legal reform is largely reappropriated and absorbed into locally established practices.We would like to thank

show abstract

Remarks at the Annual Meeting of American Bar Association's House Of Delegates

Cited by 28 publications

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Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

Federal Prosecution for the 21st Century

Legal Change and Sentencing Norms in the Wake of Booker: The Impact of Time and Place on Drug Trafficking Cases in Federal Court

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