And Now, A Word From Judge Reeves – Update for June 11, 2024 | Legal Information Services Associates LLC

We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

OPEN MIKE NIGHT AT SENTENCING COMMISSION

United States District Judge Carlton Reeves (Southern District of Mississippi), who happens to also be chairman of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, issued a plea for assistance last week:

I’m writing to ask you for a small favor. Most summers, the Sentencing Commission announces the work we plan to prioritize over the coming year. This summer, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Commission’s creation (and twenty years post-Booker), we’re doing something different. We’re asking people – including you – to tell us what to do this year and in the years to come.

My request is this: please take five minutes of your time to tell the Commission how we can create a fairer, more just sentencing system. Tell us how to revise the Guidelines. Tell us what issues to study or what data to collect. Tell us what workshops to conduct, what hearings to hold, what advisory groups to convene, or what ways the Commission can better serve you. Or even just tell us what big picture issues you’d like us to tackle –or what technical problems you’d like us to look into. Trust me, I know how busy daily lives are, so we’ve made it easy to give us your thoughts.

You can type a paragraph (or even a sentence or two!) into our Public Comment Submission Portal at: https://comment.ussc.gov. If you want to write a letter, you can submit it through the Portal, too, or via snail mail to United States Sentencing Commission, One Columbus Circle, N.E., Suite 2-500, Washington, D.C. 20002-8002, Attention: Public Affairs – Priorities Comment.

The deadline for comments is July 15, 2024.

Writing in his Sentencing Policy and Law blog, Ohio State University law professor Doug Berman said last week that “the message from the Commission seems pretty clear: it is prepared to, and is perhaps even eager to, start (re)considering any and all aspects of the federal sentencing system.”