Accuracy in Sentencing

A host of errors can occur at sentencing, but whether a particular sentencing error can be remedied may depend on whether judges characterize errors as involving a miscarriage of justice -- that is, a claim of innocence. The Supreme Court\u27s miscarriage of justice standard, created as an exception to excuse procedural barriers in the context of federal habeas corpus review, has colonized a wide range of areas of law, from plain error review on appeal, to excusing appeal waivers, the scope of cognizable claims under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, the post-conviction statute for federal prisoners, and the Savings Clause that permits resort to habeas corpus rather than § 2255. That standard requires a judge to ask whether a reasonable decision maker would more likely than not reach the same result. However, the use of the miscarriage of justice standard with respect to claims of sentencing error remains quite unsettled In this Article, I provide a taxonomy of types of innocence of sentence claims, and describe how each has developed, focusing on federal courts. I question whether finality should play the same role regarding correction of errors in sentences, and I propose that a single miscarriage of justice standard apply to all types of sentencing error claims, when not considering on appeal under reasonableness review. Finally, I briefly describe how changes to the sentencing process or sentencing guidelines could also reflect certain concerns with accuracy

Consommation et approvisionnements en denrées alimentaires

La sociologie économique permet de réinterroger le lien entre production et consommation. Ce lien s’est historiquement construit à partir des pratiques de production et de consommation, mais également des pratiques commerciales. Il est mis aujourd’hui en débat à la fois dans le contexte de la reconstruction de la confiance après les crises sanitaires et dans le cadre de la mise en oeuvre de propositions émanant de collectifs issus de la société civile. Le lien entre production et consommation peut s’appréhender à la fois sous l’angle des compétences, et notamment celles des consommateurs – comment les consommateurs se repèrent-ils dans l’offre alimentaire ? –, mais également à travers les formes de gouvernance qui s’exercent au sein des systèmes alimentaires – qui participe aux décisions quant aux choix qui sont faits pour ces systèmes ? Il convient tout d’abord de revenir sur la construction historique des modes d’approvisionnement des denrées alimentaires, pour comprendre comment les consommateurs ont progressivement appris à choisir et acheter des produits alimentaires dont ils ne connaissent pas les modes de production. On explicitera ensuite les réponses apportées par les systèmes alimentaires aux crises alimentaires et les propositions, visant à réinterroger cette relation entre producteurs et consommateurs, faites par des mouvements sociaux

Brief of Amici Curiae of Professors of History, Political Science, and Law in Support of Petitioner

Anthropogenic global warming caused by CO2 emissions is strongly and fundamentally linked to future energy production. The Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES) from 2000 contains 40 scenarios for future fossil fuel production and is used by the IPCC to assess future climate change. Previous scenarios were withdrawn after exaggerating one or several trends. This study investigates underlying assumptions on resource availability and future production expectations to determine whether exaggerations can be found in the present set of emission scenarios as well. It is found that the SRES unnecessarily takes an overoptimistic stance and that future production expectations are leaning towards spectacular increases from present output levels. In summary, we can only encourage the IPCC to involve more resource experts and natural science in future emission scenarios. The current set, SRES, is biased toward exaggerated resource availability and unrealistic expectations on future production outputs from fossil fuels

Preface: The Second Generation of Second Amendment Law & Policy

Over 70% of China’s domestic oil production is obtained from nine giant oilfields. Understanding the behaviour of these fields is essential to both domestic oil production and future Chinese oil imports. This study utilizes decline curves and depletion rate analysis to create some future production outlooks for the Chinese giants. Based on our study, we can only conclude that China’s future domestic oil production faces a significant challenge caused by maturing and declining giant fields. Evidence also indicates that the extensive use of water flooding and enhanced oil recovery methods may be masking increasing scarcity and may result in even steeper future decline rates than the ones currently being seen. Our results suggest that a considerable drop in oil production from the Chinese giants can be expected over the next decades