Judicial Discretion Case Study

Discretion on every level of the criminal process is important. Depending upon how an officer handles a traffic stop could end an arrest or how a prosecutor will prosecute any defend it can depend on whether or not the individuals will spend a significant amount of time in jail. The amount of bail set, evidence, and even probation can all be at the discretion of the Judge and also the prosecutors. These are all discussed in Judicial Discretion In The Common Law Courts an article in the Washington and Lee Law Review. Each of these plays a vital role in determining the outcome of a case put before a judge. The ones listed are all based on a judges decision but there are more instances in which discretion is important. There are other factors

Booker Decision (2015) It explains that throughout the 1970s the judges had a very impact amount of discretion when deciding the punishment of a crime which brought about the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is “a system of federal staging guidelines. These guidelines constrain judicial discretion to the point that judges had a narrow grounds for departing from a prescribe sentencing range in they were essentially forbid me from considering anything other than severity of a fence in the offender's criminal history.”(Nowacki,2015) These guidelines were put in place because there was no uniformity in the sentencing of individuals. An example, is a Judge may hand down one punishment for a crime and another judge may hand down a heavier or lighter sentence for the same crime committed. These guidelines were put to the test in 2005 with the case of United States v. Booker “Which declared that the federal sentencing guidelines were unconstitutional and in violation of the sixth amendment.” (Nowacki,2015) In the 1980s the Sentencing Act Reform was put in place as guidelines the judge having to wide a level of discretion and now you have defendant saying that the federal guidelines are too hard and go against the Sixth

Not only do they recommend a punishment during pre-trial but also a bail amount. The reason why it is compared to hydraulic is explained as “Discretion in the criminal system can never be extinguished it is simply dislodged and shifted to other parts.(Vance 2014 and Oleson 2014 ) So now discretion has been shifted from the judge to the prosecutor in a sense. This is not to say that a prosecutor has full discretion but a prosecutor recommends a punishment for a defendant and a judge may take into consideration the punishment at the end of the