Federal Sentencing Guidelines Still Need Fundamental Reform

As a frequent critic of the federal sentencing guidelines (see, e.g., my post from Monday), my readers–yeah, both of them–often assume that I dislike sentencing guidelines in general. To the contrary, I think that sentencing guidelines remain a good idea and have worked quite well in many states (not in Wisconsin, unfortunately, but I will leave that post for another day). The problem with the federal sentencing system is not that it has guidelines, but that it has bad guidelines.

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Ledbetter: Court, Congress, and President

My colleague Paul Secunda recently wrote this pointed essay on the Supreme Court’s Ledbetter decision for the Workplace Fairness Blog.  Ledbetter made it harder for plaintiffs with Title VII pay discrimination claims to prevail by holding that the statute of limitations runs separately on each of a series of discriminatory pay decisions, even though the cumulative effects of the decisions may continue to be felt for many years thereafter.  Paul argues in his essay that Ledbetter is “absurd” inasmuch as it requires some victims of discrimination to file their claims before they have a fair opportunity to discern the discrimination.  He urges Congress to pass a pending legislative fix, the Lilly Ledbetter Pay Equity Act, and notes that the issue is one that divides the current Republican and Democratic presidential nominees.

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Retributive Damages in a World Without Trials

Kicking off a terrific speaker series at Marquette this semester, Dan Markel of Florida State and PrawfsBlawg fame is with us today to present his paper How Should Punitive Damages Work?. This is the second part of a multi-article series in which Dan is developing a comprehensive reform proposal for punitive damages law. Dan’s basic premise is that punitive damages should be reconceptualized around principles of retributive justice. To the extent that we want punitive damages to do other things (e.g., compensate victims for dignitary harms), Dan urges that we give those forms of damages different labels and treat them in a procedurally distinct manner from retributive damages. Notably, he would give retributive damages awards to the state, not private plaintiffs; plaintiffs would get merely a small finder’s fee ($10,000) and attorneys’ fees.

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