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May 15, 2024
Sentencing Project releases new report on "The Second Look Movement"
The Sentencing Project today released this new report fully titled "The Second Look Movement: A Review of the Nation’s Sentence Review Laws." Here is the start of its executive summary:
Today, there are nearly two million people in American prisons and jails -- a 500% increase over the last 50 years. In 2020, over 200,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving life sentences -- more people than were in prison with any sentence in 1970. Nearly one-third of people serving life sentences are 55 or older, amounting to over 60,000 people. People of color, particularly Black Americans, are represented at a higher rate among those serving lengthy and extreme sentences than among the total prison population.
Harsh sentencing policies, such as lengthy mandatory minimum sentences, have produced an aging prison population in the United States. But research has established that lengthy sentences do not have a significant deterrent effect on crime and divert resources from effective public safety programs. Most criminal careers are under 10 years, and as people age, they usually desist from crime. Existing parole systems are ineffective at curtailing excessive sentences in most states, due to their highly discretionary nature, lack of due process and oversight, and lack of objective consideration standards. Consequently, legislators and the courts are looking to judicial review as a more effective means to reconsider an incarcerated person’s sentence in order to assess their fitness to reenter society. A judicial review mechanism also provides the opportunity to evaluate whether sentences imposed decades ago remain just under current sentencing policies and public sentiment.
Legislation authorizing judges to review sentences after a person has served a lengthy period of time has been referred to as a second-look law and more colloquially as “sentence review.”
This report presents the evolution of the second look movement, which started with ensuring compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012) on the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (“JLWOP”) sentences. This reform has more recently expanded to other types of sentences and populations, such as other excessive sentences imposed on youth, and emerging adults sentenced to life without parole (“LWOP”). Currently, legislatures in 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have enacted a second look judicial review beyond opportunities provided to those with JLWOP sentences, and courts in at least 15 states determined that other lengthy sentences such as LWOP or term-of-years sentences were unconstitutional under Graham or Miller.
May 15, 2024 at 03:42 PM | Permalink
Comments
More 'rat justice here:
https://redstate.com/jeffc/2024/05/15/manhattan-da-alvin-bragg-offers-sweet-plea-deals-to-illegals-charged-in-vicious-attack-on-nypd-cops-n2174249
Any illegal alien who assaults a cop should get 20 years in prison.
Posted by: federalist | May 15, 2024 5:19:50 PM
federalist --
Hey, take it easy on Alvin. He's got to worry about Orange Bad Man!
Manhattan is really neat -- I was just up there last weekend -- but I thank God in heaven that I don't live there.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 15, 2024 6:54:29 PM
Whether second look sentencing is a good idea is a fairly debatable subject. I can see credible arguments for each side. But if we were to adopt it, shouldn't it go in both directions? That is, if the inmate has improved his character and behavior, he gets a reduced sentence, but if he got worse, the sentence gets enhanced.
I'm not talking about potential Double Jeopardy problems. I'm talking simply about whether the concept of second look sentencing, if applied at all, should be applied wherever the facts lead.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 15, 2024 8:26:10 PM
Bill, effectively, we already have a version of what you're describing - post-prison supervision. If the defendant's behavior gets worse after release (by violating a condition of his supervision), then his sentence is enhanced by the judge revoking his supervision and imposing an additional prison sentence.
Posted by: Jacob Schuman | May 15, 2024 10:21:55 PM
Bill, would support a blanket "second look" at, say, the 50% point of any imposed prison sentence with the (re-)sentencing judge given broad authority to reduce or increase the sentence at that point? (Parole essentially functioned in this way in many places, but it is unlikely to return to the federal system soon.)
Posted by: Doug B | May 15, 2024 10:35:23 PM
Doug --
I would support an experiment with what you propose for a limited number of prisoners for a limited (and defined) time, in order to see how it works. If it turns out in the decided majority of cases to be just a backdoor way of lowering the sentence (but with much less public scrutiny), I would be against it. If it turns out to be evenly applied and based a full and honest assessment of the prisoner's behavior, good and bad, then the USSC should commend it for consideration by Congress.
(You might recognize this as a first cousin to my proposed experiment to ban plea bargaining in a very few districts for a period of one year, and then see how the important actors in the system -- judges, prosecutors and defense counsel -- feel about it.)
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 16, 2024 1:18:26 AM
Glad you think this is a good idea worth trying, Bill. Can we work together to turn this idea into a provision that could be regularly inserted into plea deals in one (or more) federal districts? We could call it something like a "Second Look Pilot" and even include some guidelines on how much sentences could be reduced or increased. Once drafted, we can advocate that AG Garland and/or his successor implement and then assess this pilot.
Posted by: Doug B | May 16, 2024 9:04:05 AM
Doug --
I think the first step would be to see if anyone on the Judiciary Committee in either chamber is interested in holding a non-political hearing on the whole concept of second look sentencing vs. fixed sentencing, the latter having been Congress's choice in passing the SRA of 1984. And the person to do the considerable work that would be involved in this enterprise would be a Congressional staffer. I am, like Hyman Roth, a retired investor living on a pension.
Posted by: Bill Otis | May 16, 2024 10:53:01 AM