601: 663. Sentencing
        Coombs (3)

        Prerequisite: Criminal Law.

In some ways, sentencing is the most important part of criminal prosecutions.

Sentencing occurs in about 90% of such cases while trials occur in fewer than 10%, and most

defendants express to their lawyers more realistic concern about their likely sentences than about

other possible outcomes. Since sentencing is so important, this course provides an in-depth

examination of the history and current content of the law of criminal sentencing in federal and

state courts, as well as the theoretical and policy foundations of that law and its application.

Topics covered include: purposes of criminal punishment and sentencing; allocation among

governmental agencies of power to determine sentences; discretion to select sentences and

control of such discretion; characteristics of crimes and criminals that influence sentences;

sentencing procedures; contents and degrees of sentences of imprisonment and of other

sanctions; influences of race, class and sex on sentences; and civil alternatives to criminal

punishment. The course explores bodies of law to which students are exposed in the Criminal

Law and Criminal Procedure --Adjudication courses, but addresses that law more thoroughly and

in greater depth, as well as additional aspects of that law. Grades will be based entirely or

almost entirely on the final examination; no writing credits are offered.