International Idealism Meets Domestic-Criminal-Procedure Realism

Though international criminal justice has flourished over the last two decades, scholars have neglected institutional design and procedure questions. International-criminal-procedure scholarship has developed in isolation from its domestic counterpart but could learn much realism from it. Given its current focus on atrocities like genocide, international criminal law\u27s main purpose should be not only to inflict retribution but also to restore wounded communities by bringing the truth to light. The international justice system needs more ideological balance, stable career paths, and civil-service expertise. It should also draw on the American experience of federalism to cultivate cooperation with national authorities and select fewer cases for international prosecution. Revised plea bargaining and sentencing rules could learn from American experience and pitfalls, husbanding scarce resources and minimizing haggling, yet still buying needed cooperation. Finally, in blending adversarial and inquisitorial systems, international criminal justice has jettisoned too many safeguards of either one. It should reform discovery, speedy-trial rules, witness preparation, cross-examination, and victims\u27 rights in light of domestic experience. Just as international criminal law can benefit from domestic realism, domestic law could incorporate more international idealism and accountability, creating healthy political pressures to discipline and publicize enforcement decisions

International Idealism Meets Domestic-Criminal-Procedure Realism

Though international criminal justice has flourished over the last two decades, scholars have neglected institutional design and procedure questions. International-criminal-procedure scholarship has developed in isolation from its domestic counterpart but could learn much realism from it. Given its current focus on atrocities like genocide, international criminal law\u27s main purpose should be not only to inflict retribution but also to restore wounded communities by bringing the truth to light. The international justice system needs more ideological balance, stable career paths, and civil-service expertise. It should also draw on the American experience of federalism to cultivate cooperation with national authorities and select fewer cases for international prosecution. Revised plea bargaining and sentencing rules could learn from American experience and pitfalls, husbanding scarce resources and minimizing haggling, yet still buying needed cooperation. Finally, in blending adversarial and inquisitorial systems, international criminal justice has jettisoned too many safeguards of either one. It should reform discovery, speedy-trial rules, witness preparation, cross-examination, and victims\u27 rights in light of domestic experience. Just as international criminal law can benefit from domestic realism, domestic law could incorporate more international idealism and accountability, creating healthy political pressures to discipline and publicize enforcement decisions

The struggle for sentencing reform : will the English guidelines model spread?

Are closely comparable countries following the path forged by England and Wales by moving towards the development of systematic sentencing guidelines by a Sentencing Council? And if they are not, how are these different paths explicable

Conceptions and representations of the sentencing decision process

This article attempts to reflect on the success of attempts by academic research to understand and explain the sentencing decision process. It identifies conventional themes in the conception and representation of that decision process and argues that there are some important difficulties associated with them and consequently implications for both the findings of sentencing research and for approaches to sentencing reform. The article suggests a possible alternative approach to conceptualizing and representing the sentencing decision process and also raises questions about the nature of the discretionary (legal) decision process more generally

Judging Measures

The question of how to optimally design judicial institutions is one of central importance to the scholarship focused on courts. Basic questions such as whether there should be mandatory retirement for judges, whether judges should be expected to write their own opinions and whether greater racial or gender diversity on the courts improves decision making are optimal design questions. Given the vast variation in the types of judicial system designs used around the world (and even within the United States), it should be possible to conduct a comparative analysis of the relative efficacy of the different designs. These comparisons cannot be evaluated, however, without first tackling the matter of how to measure justice or judicial performance. Although within the legal academy and the judiciary there is considerable skepticism and hostility to the measurement project, we argue that the project is worth attempting for both judges and academics. That said, the simple measures often used today, while necessary, cannot be relied on exclusively. To achieve a more reliable and useful measurement, judges must be involved in the process of arriving at the right characteristics to measure and the right ways to measure them. If judges get involved in improving the quality of data collection and measurement, the inherent dangers in empirical analysis of the judiciary will both be recognized and more effectively navigated. At the same time, empirical analysis with judicial participation is more likely to assist judges and judicial policymakers

Fifteen Years after the Federal Sentencing Revolution: How Mandatory Minimums Have Undermined Effective and Just Narcotics Sentencing Perspectives on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Mandatory Sentencing

Federal criminal sentencing has changed dramatically since 1988. Fifteen years ago, judges determined if and for how long a defendant would go to jail. Since that time, changes in substantive federal criminal statutes, particularly the passage of an array of mandatory minimum penalties and the adoption of the federal sentencing guidelines, have limited significantly judicial sentencing power and have remade federal sentencing and federal criminal practice. The results of these changes are significantly longer federal prison sentences, as was the intent of these reforms, and the emergence of federal prosecutors as the key players in sentencing. Yet, at the same time, average sentence length appears to be falling slowly as judicial tendency to use the authority granted in the United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines ) to mitigate sentences through downward departures appears to be increasing

Moderate and Non-Arbitrary Sentencing Without Guidelines: The German Experience

Sverige står inför omfattande renoveringsbehov med anledning av det stora antalet hushåll som byggts från 1960-talet och framåt. Läckage blir ett större problem med fler slitna och ålderstigna rör. För att åtgärda rör används främst två metoder: stambyte och relining. Med utgångspunkt i att Sverige står inför relativt stora klimatpolitiska utmaningar, syftar detta projekt till att analysera och kvantifiera hur energianvändning, koldioxidekvivalenta utsläpp och materialåtgång skiljer sig åt mellan metoderna. Rapporten bryter ned metoderna i tre delsystem: materialframställning, transporter och utförandeprocess. Data- och informationsinsamling har skett genom semistrukturerade intervjuer, databaser, publicerade rapporter och webbaserade källor. I rapporten baseras analysen på ett fiktivt badrum som bedöms vara representativt för svenska hushåll. Två modeller presenteras i studien. Den första betraktar relining och stambyte som två isolerade händelser. Ett stambyte medför dock ofta en badrumsrenovering vars behov sällan sammanfaller med behovet av rörbyte. Det medför att svårigheter i renoveringsplaneringen kan uppstå. Modell 2 tar hänsyn till detta förhållande och analyserar hur ett stambyte kan belastas, beroende på hur stor andel av badrummets tekniska livslängd som går förlorad. I studien behandlas de två vanligaste rörmaterialen, gjutjärn och PVC. Resultaten visar att ett stambyte exklusive badrumsrenovering innebär 85 procent högre energianvändning och 192 procent mer koldioxidekvivalenta utsläpp jämfört med relining om gjutjärnsrör byts ut. Motsvarande resultat för PVC-rör är 61 respektive 142 procent. När hänsyn tas till badrumsrenovering blir motsvarande resultat upp till 468 procent mer energianvändning och 683 procent högre koldioxidekvivalenta utsläpp. De två huvudsakliga slutsatserna är att relining innebär mindre miljöpåverkan jämfört med ett stambyte och det är framförallt materialframställningen som orsakar miljöbelastningen för båda metoderna. Det beror på miljöbelastande produktion av reliningmaterial och stor materialåtgång vid ett stambyte.Sweden is facing an extensive need for renovation of drainage systems following the large expansion in real estate during the 1960s. Old and damaged pipes are causing increasing problems with leakages to which there are two main solutions: replacement or relining. In the light of anthropogenic climate change and the emission goals set by the Swedish government, the aim of this study is to analyze and quantify how the two methods compare in terms of energy usage, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions and material usage. The report divides each method into three subsystems: material production, transports and execution. Information and data were gathered through semi-structured interviews as well as obtained from databases, published reports and web-based sources. The analysis was based on a fictive bathroom, which was assumed to be representative for Swedish households. Two models are presented in this study: the first model isolates the replacement of pipes from the rest of the renovation process and compares it with relining. The replacement method is however usually followed by a bathroom renovation, the need of which rarely coincides with the need for pipe replacement. This might cause complications in renovation planning. The second model includes this aspect in the analysis and burdens the replacement method with a certain amount of environmental impact depending on the lost amount of technical life span. The two most common pipe materials, cast iron and PVC, were analyzed in the study. The results show that replacement of pipes excluding bathroom renovation causes 85 percent more energy usage and 192 percent more carbon dioxide equivalent emissions compared to relining when cast iron pipes are installed. Corresponding results with installed PVC pipes are 61 percent and 142 percent. When the bathroom renovation is included in the analysis the numbers increase to up to 468 percent more energy usage and 683 percent higher carbon dioxide equivalent emissions. Two primary conclusions can be drawn from the study: relining has less environmental impact compared to replacement of pipes and it is mainly the production of materials that creates this impact for both methods. It is due to high environmental load in material production for relining and the sheer weight of material with the replacement method

Judicial Specialization and the Adjudication of Immigration Cases

When scholars and policymakers consider proposals for specialized courts, they are usually and appropriately mindful of the potential effects of specialization on the adjudication of cases. Focusing on the immigration field, this Article considers these potential effects in relation to other attributes of adjudication: the difficulty of cases, the severe caseload pressures, and the strong hierarchical controls that are each important attributes at some or all levels of the adjudication system. Specifically, this Article discusses the effects of those attributes, the effects of judicial specialization, and the intertwining of the two. It applies that analysis to proposals to substitute some type of specialized court for the federal courts of appeals in the adjudication of immigration cases. The Article concludes that the impact of adopting such a proposal could be substantial but that it is also quite uncertain. To a considerable degree, the impact depends on the form of specialization adopted and on other provisions of the legislation that creates a specialized court