Why Vague Sentencing Guidelines Violate the Due Process Clause
| dc.contributor.author | Heilman, Kelsey McCowan | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2017-03-30T21:09:05Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2017-03-30T21:09:05Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2017-03-30 | |
| dc.description | 44 pages | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | The United States Sentencing Guidelines (the Guidelines) are used to calculate sentencing ranges for roughly 75,000 defendants each year. Despite that ubiquity, the law is unsettled on a very basic question: whether the Guidelines trigger defendants’ rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, the federal courts of appeals are split regarding whether use of a vague Guideline at sentencing deprives the defendant of liberty without due process of law. Do defendants have a due process right to Guidelines provisions that can be interpreted with reasonable precision? This Article takes a historical, jurisprudential, and pragmatic approach to that question, examining the roots of the Guidelines, the changes wrought by the shift from mandatory to advisory Guidelines, and the continuing effect of the Guidelines on federal sentencing practice. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.citation | 95 OR. L. REV. 53 | en_US |
| dc.identifier.issn | 0196-2043 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/22248 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon School of Law | en_US |
| dc.rights | All Rights Reserved. | en_US |
| dc.subject | United States Constitution | en_US |
| dc.subject | Fifth Amendment | en_US |
| dc.subject | Defendants’ rights | en_US |
| dc.title | Why Vague Sentencing Guidelines Violate the Due Process Clause | en_US |
| dc.type | Article | en_US |