Judges & Judicial Process – Page 23 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Stare Decisis for Interpretive Methods?

Post author:Bruce E. Boyden
Post published:March 4, 2014
Post category:Judges & Judicial Process Legal Scholarship Public U.S. Supreme Court

Although the Supreme Court decides dozens of cases every year, it has never decided how to decide those cases. That is, the Court has never adopted a governing approach to constitutional interpretation. Instead, the justices seem to bounce from one method to the next, even when considering the same subject matter. What explains this methodological pluralism? Why doesn’t the Court consider itself bound under the doctrine of stare decisis not only to follow the substantive results of earlier constitutional cases, but also the methodological tools it used in getting there?

Chad Oldfather has a new paper on SSRN that explores the answers to these questions, Methodological Pluralism and Constitutional Interpretation. Here is the abstract:

Truth in Sentencing, Early Release Options Both Have Appeal, O’Hear Says

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:November 17, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Judges & Judicial Process Public Speakers at Marquette

While truth in sentencing is highly popular with Wisconsin voters, some options that could allow prisoners to be released before serving their full sentences also have majority support, Marquette Law School Professor Michael O’Hear told an “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” audience last week. Wisconsin may want to give renewed attention to such ideas in the pursuit of prison policies that are both morally appealing and fiscally wise.

O’Hear, who is associate dean for research at the Law School, summarized Wisconsin’s trends in incarceration in the last four decades, including increased prison populations, abolition of the parole board, and adoption of “truth in sentencing,” which makes a judge’s sentence close to the final word on how long a prisoner will serve. Changes that eased the truth in sentencing practices, including creation in 2009 of an Earned Release Commission, were largely reversed under Gov. Scott Walker in recent years.

The number of people in the Wisconsin prisons went from about 2,000 in 1973 to about 23,000 in 2004, O’Hear said. The total has leveled off since then. Strong political momentum to get tough on crime, including not letting prisoners out before they served their full sentences, underlay the trends, and Wisconsin’s boom in prison population was in line with what occurred in much of the nation, O’Hear said.

Earned Release From Prison: Judges Not Necessarily the Best Deciders

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:August 12, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Judges & Judicial Process Marquette Law School Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

In 2009, Wisconsin expanded release opportunities for prisoners and established a new Earned Release Review Commission to handle the petitions. Just two years later, however, the legislature reversed course, largely repealing the 2009 reforms and abolishing the ERRC. The 2011 revisions effectively returned authority over “early” release to judges. Critics of the ERRC, an appointed body, maintained that it was more appropriate to give release authority to elected judges.

However, last month’s Marquette Law School Poll indicates that Wisconsin voters would actually prefer to put early release into the hands of a statewide commission of experts rather than the original sentencing judge.

Among the 713 randomly selected Wisconsin voters who participated, a 52% majority stated that release decisions should be made by a commission of experts, as opposed to only about 31% who favored judges. An additional 13% stated that both options were equally good. The Poll’s margin of error was 3.7%.

We asked several questions to try to identify more specifically the perceived strengths and weaknesses of both options.