Michael M. O’Hear – Page 95 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Seventh Circuit Backs Away From Apparent Circuit Split on Three Strikes Provision of PLRA

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 6, 2010
Post category:Prisoner Rights Seventh Circuit

Enacted in 1996, the Prison Litigation Reform Act raised numerous obstacles to prisoner rights lawsuits. The “three strikes” provision of the statute, codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g), is intended to bar prisoners who have a history of frivolous litigation from proceeding in forma pauperis. IFP status results in the waiver of court filing fees that would otherwise be beyond that means of indigent litigants. For most prisoners, in light of their limited financial resources, a denial of IFP status is the functional equivalent of a denial of access to the courts.

Last week, in Turley v. Gaetz (No. 09-3847), the Seventh Circuit backed away from dicta in earlier decisions that seemed to embrace an exceptionally and unnecessarily broad reading of the three strikes bar. Had the court adhered to the earlier dicta, it would have opened a circuit split on a very important prisoner rights issue.

Here’s what happened.

Welcome, November Bloggers

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 1, 2010
Post category:Uncategorized

Our guest bloggers this month will be Michael Cicchini ’99 and 3L Sarah Knutson. Many thanks to our October guests Brent Nistler ‘99 and 3L April Ashby.

The Beginning of the End for Life Without Parole?

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:October 28, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Legal Scholarship

That question is the title of a new paper I’ve just uploaded to SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This essay introduces a new issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter that is devoted to different aspects of the sentence of life without parole. An important question raised by many of the articles is whether LWOP, after two decades of explosive growth, is entering a period of decline. For instance, the Supreme Court declared LWOP unconstitutional for most juvenile offenders in May 2010, possibly inaugurating an era of more meaningful constitutional limitations on very long sentences. Additionally, many cash-strapped states have been developing new early-release programs in order to reduce corrections budgets, some of which hold out hope even for LWOP inmates. This essay considers the likelihood that these and other recent developments will contribute to a decline in LWOP. In the end, none of the developments portend dramatic changes, at least regarding LWOP for adult offenders, although it is possible that LWOP will undergo a period of slow, long-term decline, much as has occurred with the death penalty. After laying out this perspective, the essay then considers whether the United States ought to welcome such a period of decline.