Sentencing Law and Policy

this new location.

As reported in this AP piece, a “Florida man convicted of raping and killing his neighbor decades ago was put to death Tuesday evening in a record 15th execution in Florida this year.”

The title of this post is the title of this book chapter now available via SSRN and authored by Donald Dripps.

A few months ago over at the Sentencing Matters Substack, I penned this short essay about Eighth Amendment issues surround state efforts to subject certain child rapists to the death penalty.

A host of other commitments prevented me from regular blogging this past week, even though there were plenty of stories and commentary that were blog-worthy.

Regular readers know I have been closely following an array of disparate lower rulings regarding the application of the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 Second Amendment ruling in Bruen.

As noted in this prior post, Prez Donald Trump was quite active with his clemency pen at the start of his second term in the Oval Office.

The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral argument on Tuesday in Ellingburg v United States.

As reported in this SCOTUSblog post, the US Supreme Court “on Friday afternoon added another case to its oral argument docket for the 2025-26 term.

I previewed the two notable federal sentencings in this post, and here are links to press accounts of the outcomes: From NPR: “Sean Combs sentenced to over four years in prison for prostitution-related charges.”