Sentencing Outcomes Under Competing But Coexisting Sentencing Interventions: Untying The Gordian Knot

The latest evolutionary phase of criminal sentencing is a return to determinate sentencing structures. However, the concurrent application of sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum statutes in various jurisdictions often distorts and convolutes evaluations of such interventions’ effectiveness. To remedy this problem, the effects of such distinct reforms must be separated from one another. Previous research has been unsuccessful in accomplishing this task. The authors attempt to remedy this deficiency by using 1997-1998 federal sentencing data to isolate the effects of the minima from those of the guidelines and assessing how the predictors and conditioners of sentencing outcomes vary between them. The authors find several significant and some unexpected differences in the effect of predictors across models of incarceration and sentence length for the two intervention types.

Mitigating the Effect of a Criminal Record at Sentencing

The assumption in courts and sentencing research is that recidivists—or, defendants with a criminal record who are facing new charges—are considered more blameworthy and perceived as more dangerous by courtroom decision makers, including prosecutors. Nagel and Schulhofer suggested that defendants with a prior record may be viewed as sympathetic by federal prosecutors because of “human factors,” leading to substantial assistance departures in these cases. We conceptualize human factors as local life circumstances, or temporally bound situations that make attributional statements about the defendant. We operationalize local life circumstances in terms of employment status, financial responsibility to dependents, and drug use, and determine whether these circumstances affect the likelihood of a receiving a substantial assistance departure among defendants with an established record of criminality. In addition to case characteristics, employment and drug use increased the likelihood of a prosecutor-sponsored sentence departure among recidivists in federal court.