Margaret Love Posts

Setting Limits on Mass Conviction

For the past several years, the Collateral Consequences Resource Center has been documenting the emergence of an extraordinary legislative trend in the states that is aimed at helping individuals overcome the adverse consequences of a criminal record. It appears that lawmakers are at last recognizing the economic disadvantages of having burdened almost a third of the adult population with some sort of criminal record, the product of a vast expansion of criminal prosecutions over the past thirty years.

The Model Penal Code Goes to Congress: Sentence Reduction for Compelling Reasons

The Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPC) is not specifically designed or intended to influence sentencing in the federal system, although the MPC itself often reflects the influence of federal law. In one recent case, the influence of one upon the other appears mutual: an MPC provision modeled on a federal statute authorizing reduction of prison sentences may have been at least indirectly responsible for changing its federal model. The change at issue, discussed below, reinforces the fundamental tenet of the MPC that courts should have primary responsibility for determining sentences, as opposed to legislatures or corrections officials.