The Process is the Punishment: Hannah Dugan Sentencing Post-Mortem

Ideally, every sentence serves to promote respect for the law.  But in an age of the most lawless DOJ in American history – respect for the law is a dead letter.  The sentencing of Judge Hannah Dugan is the most recent example of a how a weaponized DOJ is built for retribution, not justice. Doug…

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Manifest Injustice: Hunter, Hemani, & Buh-Bye Blanche

🎙️ NEW EPISODE: The Supreme Court just moved the goalposts on federal sentencing — and the next AG fight starts now. If federal defendants could trust that pleading guilty meant a predictable outcome, then the system would actually function the way it’s sold to them. ⚖️ But SCOTUS just complicated that bargain.  In Hunter, it…

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New Compassionate Release Cases: Is the Door to Freedom Shrinking?

With the First Step Act of 2018 came the great hope of expanded grounds and use of “Compassionate Release.”   Judges were offered the promise of wider discretion to give deserving clients a second look at sentencing. But, the Supreme Court just made compassionate release a whole lot harder to get, because in two back-to-back decisions…

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