Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Brent Newton

J.D. Course 1085 | 2 credit hours

This three-hour credit course will address issues of sentencing law and policy in the state and federal court systems, in both capital and non-capital cases. Students will study relevant Supreme Court case law, statutory and sentencing guideline schemes, and relevant reports of the United States Sentencing Commission. The larger focus on the course will be on the proper purposes of criminal punishment and whether state and federal sentencing schemes adequately address those purposes. Students' grades will be based on a short paper assessing whether a particular state's capital or non-capital sentencing scheme achieves the appropriate purposes of sentencing (10 pages or less, double-spaced), an in-class final examination, and class participation.

Prerequisite: Criminal Justice (or the equivalent Democracy and Coercion) or Criminal Procedure.