Bringing the Rule of Law to Criminal Sentencing - Judicial Review, Sentencing Guidelines and a Policy of Just Deserts

• NCJ Number: 88230
• Journal: Loyola University Law Journal Volume: 13 Issue: 4 Dated: (Summer 1982) Pages: 721-789
• Author(s): P A Ozanne
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 69 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

An analysis of judicial sentence review and sentencing guidelines concludes that State legislatures should adopt sentencing policies which aim to realize the regulatory potential of judicial sentence review and sentencing guidelines.

Abstract

Judicial sentence review has been ineffective for several reasons, including the potential added workload it brings to appellate courts. However, this review is still a necessary condition for the regulation of sentencing practices and the elimination of sentence disparity. Legislatures must take the first steps to achieve these goals, however. They must make sentencing rules to structure the discretion of sentencers or, alternatively, establish administrative agencies to make these rules. They must also adopt a sentencing policy which provides standards to guide the overall operation of the sentencing system. After taking these steps, legislatures can enact judicial sentence review statutes with a reasonable expectation that appellate courts will perform essential functions to complement the regulatory effect of sentencing rules and to ensure that the rules are applied correctly and consistently. Thus, judicial sentence review and sentencing guidelines can be complementary processes in a system designed to increase determinacy in sentencing. Sentencing guidelines can help determine the appropriate sentence in most cases and, under a carefully drafted sentence review statute, appellate courts can be relieved of much of the burden of sentence review. Among the recognized theories of criminal punishment, only the retributivistic theory of just deserts provided the basis for a policy to ensure that judicial review will reduce disparities in sentencing and that administrators of sentencing guidelines systems will be accountable to the public through the governmental system of checks and balances. Footnotes are provided. (Author summary modified)