Symposium on Judicial and Prosecutorial Discretion in Criminal Adjudication: Have Federal and State Reform Efforts Produced Greater Equality in Sentence Outcomes?

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This symposium brings together legal scholars and social scientists who study the influence of legal and extra-legal variables on sentence severity. The one-day workshop includes six sessions, producing papers that will be published in a special issue of Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. One of those papers examines the conditioning effects of the legacy of lynching on the relationship between the race of defendant and length of sentence. Other papers examine the extent to which recent reforms have affected judicial discretion in sentencing outcomes. In terms of broader impacts, the workshop will bring together social scientists and scholars who study law from more traditional, doctrinal approaches. Graduate and undergraduate students will have a unique opportunity to interact with a wide range of scholars. Finally, the workshop includes a session at a local library, offering an opportunity for the general public to become informed on issues in sentencing policy.