7-1 Discussion: Judicial Discretion Should Be Allowed Judges Should Always Followor
Sentencing Guidelines
What are strengths and weaknesses associated with this issue?
What do you believe to be most important in the matter of justice: complete judicial discretion or
required oversight by the sentencing guidelines?
Required oversight by sentencing guidelines. Complete judicial discretion does not
automatically ensure justice will be served. Judicial discretion has the power to be abused, which
can result in a gross injustice when it comes to sentencing.
Sentencing Guidelines
“As of 2011, 21 states and the U.S. Federal Government used some form of sentencing
guidelines.”
“Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, a growing body of social scientific research evidence
indicated that offenders with similar backgrounds and convicted of similar crimes often received
different punishments.”
“Research on punishment practices in the 1960s and 1970s illustrated that there were disparities
in both the length of time sentenced to prison and the length of time kept in prison that varied by
social and demographic characteristics of offenders, even after accounting for the types of crimes
committed and the nature of the prior record.”
“The U.S. sentencing guidelines were developed in the 1980s and were primarily an
attempt to make criminal sentences in the federal courts more systematic.”
“Many states also require judges to denote a minimum and maximum sentence length.
Again, the selected length of sentence, regardless of whether it is the minimum or the
maximum sentence, needs to come from the recommended range in the guidelines grid. It is
common for many judges to set the minimum and the maximum sentence to the same
value.”
Determinate Sentencing- A jail or prison sentence that has a definite length and can’t be
reviewed or changed by a parole board or anything agency.
Indeterminate Sentencing- A type of custodial sentence that consists of a range of years and
