New Comments Address Fraud Sentencing and Deferred Prosecution Agreements

The latest issue of the Marquette Law Review features a student comment by Ryan Parsons on the treatment of “temporary victims” under the federal sentencing guidelines.  In crimes such as bank fraud, individual accountholders that have been defrauded are often reimbursed by the bank and, therefore, made economically whole.  Such reimbursed accountholders are often ignored for purposes of sentencing enhancement, even though reimbursement may not occur without time and effort expended by these temporary victims.  Parsons describes how various courts have dealt with this phenomenon, as well as the Federal Sentencing Commission’s recent decision to include all such temporary victims in the enhancement calculation regardless of whether the defrauded accountholders even knew about the fraud.  Parsons argues that in order for a sentence to accurately reflect the severity of the crime, temporary victims should be taken into account to the extent that they suffered actual, monetizable losses (e.g., time spent pursuing mitigation).

This issue also includes Rachel Delaney’s comment analyzing the use of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) in the corporate crime context, ultimately calling for congressional regulation of prosecutorial discretion.  

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The Dedication of Sensenbrenner Hall

Today is the 86th anniversary of the dedication of the former Marquette law building now known as Sensenbrenner Hall.  On Wednesday, August 27, 1924, a formal ceremony was held to mark the completion of the new law school building, known then only as the Law Building, shortly before the start of the 1924-25 academic year.

The new building, constructed just in front of the previous law school building, the Mackie Mansion, had been two years in the making.  Its completion helped symbolize the arrival of Marquette into the first rank of American law schools.   As the university proclaimed, “The School of Law of Marquette University has entered upon a new era.”

According to the Associated Press, the event was attended by “a great crowd of former students, current students, lawyers, judges, and state officials.” The ceremony began at 10:30 a.m. with an invocation by the Rev. Hugh McMahon, S.J., the regent of the law school.  After that, the keys to the law school were ceremonially presented to Dean Max Schoetz by the university’s president, the Rev. Albert C. Fox, S.J.  Fox lauded the accomplishments of the law school over the previous 30 years (indicating that he dated the law school’s beginnings to the Milwaukee Law School) and asked Schoetz to teach future students “that it is the law which has made us free and that there is no freedom deserving the name, save under the law.”

After remarks by Schoetz, who chaired the program, the dedicatory address was delivered by Justice Burr W. Jones of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  His address was followed by remarks by William D. Thompson, the president of the Wisconsin Bar Association.  Other speakers at the occasion included Milwaukee mayor Cornelius Corcoran, Milwaukee Circuit Judge Edward T. Fairchild (himself later a member of the state supreme court), and former students George Burns L’14 and Joseph Witmer L’24.  Speaking on behalf of the students of the Milwaukee Law Class which had preceded the Milwaukee/Marquette Law School was Milwaukee lawyer A.K. Stebbins L’08 (hon.).

The current law students used the occasion to announce the presentation of a set of Canadian Reports to the school’s library.

Medals containing an image of former Marquette president Joseph Grimmelsman on one side and an engraving of the new law building on the other were distributed to guests and students.  Several of these medals are now in the possession of the Marquette University archives.

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Walker, Neumann, and Eckstein Hall

Before we get to the candidates, how did the building do?

Wednesday night’s one-hour session between Mark Neumann and Scott Walker, who will face off in the  Republican primary for governor on Sept. 14, was the first event of its kind in Eckstein Hall, the new home o f the Law School.  The discussion – call it a debate, if you want – was hosted by Mike Gousha, the Law School’s distinguished fellow in law and public policy, and was broadcast live on television and radio stations across Wisconsin.  

And the building did fine. The Appellate Courtroom was an attractive setting, the logistics of the event went well, and, using the impressive array of equipment in the broadcast control room in the building, the technically-demanding broadcast went off without a hitch. That included segments in which people in five locations across the state joined in live to ask questions to the candidates.  To a casual viewer, it looked good. (Anyone on the inside of a live broadcast like this will roll their eyes at any use of the word “casual” in connection with such an effort.)

Oh, yes, the candidates.

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