NCJ Number
87448
Date Published
1982
Length
19 pages
Annotation
This paper focuses on a unique feature of California's Uniform Determinate Sentencing Act (DSA) of 1976, a systematic administrative review of all sentences to State prison, with attention to conceptual and practical issues involved in its implementation.
Abstract
Following a history of California's experience with indeterminate sentences and problems leading to the 1976 reform, the article explains the new law's administrative review provisions. In summary, it requires the Board of Prison Terms (formerly the Adult Authority) to compile information regarding sentences superior court judges impose on defendants whose offenses are governed by the DSA, to compare the cases of DSA defendants convicted of and sentenced to State prison for similar crimes under similar circumstances, and to report all sentences found to be disparate to the sentencing judge. In designing and implementing this process, the board has encountered many complex and subtle issues. For example, it is interested in uncovering sentencing differences, not errors, and must address multiple factors in defining a subgroup of similar cases for comparison purposes, since no two cases are the same. The board has found that cases with extremely long sentences contain unusual circumstances that are accounted for in the sentence, and thus it has discovered more disparities involving fine rather than great distinctions. The board does not judge the sentencing decision, but merely reports what most judges have done in sentencing comparable cases and tells a particular judge where his or her decision stands in this range. Judges are not compelled to follow the board's recommendation for recall and resentencing because of disparity, but the DSA and case law strongly suggest that the board's determination deserves serious consideration and probably should be followed. The paper also discusses practical problems that have arisen during hearings in disparate cases, such as a time lag of a year between sentencing and the review, the law's inability to correct disparately short terms since the court can only reduce terms, concerns about the automated process that screens cases initially, and jurisdictional variations in plea bargaining. Diagrams, 24 footnotes, 25 case citations, and 5 references are provided. See also NCJ-87442.