The title of this post is the title of this new paper authored by Mark Harris and now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract: It is widely assumed among federal courts, commentators, and practiti…

In this post four months ago, when President Donald Trump fired Pam Bondi after 14 months as US Attorney General lasted roughly 14 months, I asked in the post title “Will a new US Attorney Ge…

In this post last week, I flagged the Supreme Court’s recent cert grant in Jouppi v. Alaska to consider a challenge to the criminal forfeiture of a pilot’s $95,000 airplane for the misd…

During a busy summer I have failed promote some of the latest episodes from the latest season of the podcast, “Drugs on the Docket” that I help to develop (along with Hannah Miller and …

The title of this post is the title of this great new paper authored by my DEPC colleagues Hannah Miller and Jana Hrdinova now available via SSRN. Here is its abstract: Criminal records can affect …

In his must-read concurring opinion in Hunter v. United States (opinion here), Justices Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown-Jackson, wrote at length about “plea barga…

As revealed in this prior post, as well as a Sentencing Matters Substack essays past and forthcoming, I have a lot of questions about the foundation and future for the Supreme Court’s work in Hunte…

The Supreme Court’s OT25 technically does not conclude for a few more months, but it already seems plenty big and plenty long. With the Court this week finishing its hand down of written opin…

The question in the title of this post is prompted by the Supreme Court’s latest disquisition on the application of the Second Amendment this morning in Wolford v. Lopez (full opinion here). …

The Supreme Court’s Second Amendment ruling yesterday in United States v. Hemani (opinion here) is sure to garner lots of attention in lots of quarters, and rightly so in part because it leav…

As previously noted, the Supreme Court this morning held that the Second Amendment precluded applying a federal law banning gun possession by “unlawful users” of controlled substances (…

As reported in this AP piece, “Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday that Ohio should abolish the death penalty, saying it is no longer a deterrent to violent crime, confirming his change of heart on…

The US Sentencing Commission published on its website a couple of interesting documents today. First, the Commission has published this request for comment on policy priorities for its 2026-27 amen…

The Supreme Court’s order list this morning was full of items of interest for sentencing fans. The item sure to get the most media attention is a per curiam 7-2 ruling in favor of a Florida c…

In this first post reacting to the Supreme Court’s rulings last week Fernandez and Rutherford  restricting sentence reduction authority, I explain my view that these rulings should trouble an…

As noted in this prior post, this morning the Supreme Court in two opinions created new restrictions on the permissible grounds for federal sentence reduction under 18 USC § 3582(c)(1)(A). Upon sec…

The US Supreme Court this morning handed down two very long-in-gestation rulings regarding what may be considered “extraordinary and compelling reasons” for a potential federal sentence reduction u…

I was expecting, yet again, for today to finally be the day that the Supreme Court issued opinions on its long-pending cases involving federal sentence reduction authority, Fernandez v. United Stat…

The Supreme Court released this relatively short order list this morning; it concludes with a short statement from Justice Sotomayor concerning a cert denial in Lairy v. US that ought to interest s…

As reported in this local article, Virginia’s Governor “signed Senate Bill 62 into law late Thursday night, creating a pathway for courts to revisit certain marijuana-related conviction…

Florida and Texas closed out the month of April by completing executions. Here are the basics from press reports: “Florida executes man who raped, killed teen 50 years ago”: “Flor…

I have been eagerly anticipating rulings from the US Supreme Court in Fernandez v. United States and Rutherford v. United States ever since those cases were argued back in November 2025. After thos…

In this post a few months ago, I flagged that President Trump on January 23, 2026 had signed into law the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act (TSRA). The TSRA, as its text explains, is designed to “pr…

Yesterday brought a major change to federal drug laws, as detailed in this press release from the US Department of Justice. Here is how that release starts (with links to key documents): In accorda…

This morning’s Supreme Court order list (available here) includes two grants of certiorari, one of which will raise the pulse of the very nerdiest of sentencing nerds (and also, perhaps, some…

The US Sentencing Commission conducted a short public meeting this afternoon in order to vote on proposed amendments to the US Sentencing Guidelines. In this amendment cycle, the USSC had promulgat…

Perhaps because so many other legal and social stories have been occupying the news, there has been relatively little coverage or commentary about a notable new federal law signed by President Trum…

As reported in this CNBC piece, “Judge Margaret Garnett, in an order Friday, dismissed two of the four criminal counts [Luigi] Mangione faced in the case.” This ruling has the effect of…

Via email, I learned that the US Sentencing Commission has now formally announced here its plans for a public meeting on January 30, 2026, at 11am with an agenda that includes “possible vote …

The Supreme Court this morning handed down another notable unanimous criminal sentencing decision with Ellingburg v. US, No. 24-482 (S. Ct. Jan. 20, 2026). Here is part of the start of Justice Kava…

In this post a few weeks ago, I noted, citing this official Justice Department list, that Prez Trump issued historic clemency grants at the vey start of his return to the Oval Office on January 20,…

In this post 11+ months ago, on the day that Prez Trump took over from Prez Biden, I flagged that the Biden years saw a modest growth in the federal prison population from 151,646 inmates to 155,39…

Even with more than a week left in 2025, the year has already made its mark in the federal clemency record books. The first few weeks of this year saw a historic array of mass pardons and commutati…

I am scheduled to start teaching my sentencing course to upper level OSU law students next month. The question in the title of this post is one I plan to ask them the first week of classes, in part…

Leaders from the Council on Criminal Justice Centering Justice project and other experts discussed what the criminal justice field faced in 2025 and what we might expect in 2026.

The US Sentencing Commission just completed this public meeting, at which the Commissioners voted unanimously to publish a significant slate of “proposed guideline amendments.” This act…

The question in the title of this post is prompted by a notable statement authored by Justice Sotomayor respecting the denial of certiorari in this morning’s Supreme Court orders list. That s…

In this post a few weeks ago right after the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Fernandez v. United States and the consolidated cases of Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. United States, I …

I just saw this AP report detailing that Prez Trump has issued two new pardons related to Jan 6 defendants, and these serve to obviate litigation for a couple of individuals over the reach of the o…

I typically do not quote newspaper headlines when covering a sentencing story in the news, but the headline of this USA Today piece about the latest execution in the US is too evocative to resist. …

I am very pleased and very excited to report on the online publication of the latest (double) issue of the Federal Sentencing Reporter titled “Artificial Intelligence and Risk Assessments in …

This morning, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in Fernandez v. United States and the consolidated cases of Rutherford v. United States and Carter v. United States to explore certain limits on f…

Via email I received notice that The Sentencing Project today released this notable new policy brief authored by Nazgol Ghandnoosh and Sabrina Pearce titled “America’s Incarceration Crossroad…

On December 21, 2018, Prez Trump signed the First Step Act (FSA) into law. In this post marking the occasion, I commented that “so many of the large and small elements of the FSA involve impo…

The question in the title of this post is one I tend to ask of every President on this day for honoring those who have served (examples here and here). But this year, the question seems particularl…

On the eve of Veterans Day 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center has produced a big new report focused on the experiences of veterans as defendants in the administration of capital punishment …

Prez Donald Trump closed out last week by taking out this clemency pen yet again. This time, a notable retired baseball star, a retired police officer, and a pair of politicians were the beneficiar…

I sense a number of Justices, perhaps particularly Justices Thomas and Gorsuch, are wary about the development of judge-made law, especially in the context of statutory interpretation when it would…

The US government is still officially “shut down” as of this writing, and the US Supreme Court’s website now states that the Supreme Court Building is “closed to the public …

Since the demise of Typepad — where I blogged under the banner “Sentencing Law and Policy” (SL&P) from May 2004 until September 2025 — I have been exploring a variety of…