Federal Law & Legal System – Page 120 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Filip Expresses Concern About the Return of Sentencing Disparities

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:March 10, 2010
Post category:Federal Criminal Law & Process Federal Sentencing Speakers at Marquette

Former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Mark R. Filip warned at Tuesday’s Hallows Lecture that disparities in sentencing by federal judges are returning since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled five years ago that sentencing guidelines are only advisory.

Filip, who also is a former federal judge and now practices with a Chicago law firm, said that United States v. Booker in 2005 reduced the import of sentencing guidelines that dated to the late 1980s, “returning us to an era of indeterminate sentencing.” While he said that commentary on Booker from both judges and defense lawyers has been generally favorable, data on sentencing patterns since the decision show that in different parts of the country, significantly different sentences are being given for comparable convictions.

Troubling Trends in the Federal Criminal Justice System

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:March 10, 2010
Post category:Federal Criminal Law & Process Speakers at Marquette

In his terrific Hallows Lecture yesterday evening, former U.S. District Judge Mark Filip criticized a number of recent trends in the federal criminal justice system, including the use of return-on-investment measures of law enforcement success and the requirement that corporations suspected of wrongdoing retain costly compliance monitors. Audio of the Lecture is now available here. We expect to post the text of Judge Filip’s remarks and additional commentary in the next few days.

Supreme Court Takes Public Employee Informational Privacy Case

Post author:Paul M. Secunda
Post published:March 8, 2010
Post category:Civil Rights Labor & Employment Law Privacy Rights U.S. Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court granted cert today in the public employee privacy case of NASA v. Nelson, No. 09-530 (petition for cert here). The case will consider whether NASA, a federal agency, violated the informational privacy rights of employees, who worked in non-sensitive contract jobs, by asking certain invasive questions during background investigations.

General Kagan, for the government, filed the petition for cert and is asking the Court to overturn the 9th Circuit decision which directed a district court to issue a preliminary injunction on behalf of contract workers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) operated by the California Institute of Technology under a contract with the federal government. The General maintains that the privacy expectations of the employees are minimal because they have are in the government employment context, these are standard background forms that the government is using, and the Privacy Act of 1974 protects this information from disclosure to the public.

The case was originally brought in 2007 by twenty-eight scientists and engineers employed as contractors at JPL on behalf of a potential class of 9,000 employees that NASA classifies as low-risk employees. Questions included in the background check ask about “any treatment or counseling” for illegal drug use, and forms issued to references seek “adverse information” about the workers’ employment, residence, and activities regarding violations of the law, financial integrity, abuse of alcohol or drugs, mental or emotional stability, general behavior, and “other matters.”

This will be an interesting case for a number of reasons.