The Role of Appellate Courts in Sentencing Decisions

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Appellate processes in state courts have on the whole been woefully neglected as an area of social scientific research. They have been particularly ignored with respect to criminal appeals, a vital area to be examined in view of the wave of reform that has swept over criminal sentencing in many states during the past few years. Only a handful of empirical studies of these processes exist. Dr. Moore's research will not only increase our understanding of the criminal appeal process, but will reveal the kinds of problems that sentencing reform has created in a state that has been in the vanguard of the sentencing guidelines movement. The immediate objectives of Dr. Moore's study are to examine 1) increases in appellate caseload due to the sentencing guidelines, 2) the area of sentencing policy generating a given appeal, 3) the extent to which factors other than sentencing policy explain the tendency to appeal, and 4) appellate court outcomes. Minnesota is an excellent choice as the research site for the study since this state has been a pioneer in developing sentencing guidelines and in involving appellate courts in criminal sentencing. Minnesota's reforms have been a model for other states and knowledge of their consequences for the state's appellate courts and the reactions of those courts to reforms will add a valuable dimension to our understanding of changes in criminal sentencing. The data set to be compiled and archived includes a comprehensive corpus of appellate court opinions since the initiation of sentencing guidelines, data on all criminal appeals, and on sentenced offenders. Thus, this research should add an important component to our scientific understanding of both appellate process and a major change in American law--the involvement of appellate courts in sentencing decisions.