Abstract
The current federal sentencing scheme is a patchwork quilt of provisions that grant judges virtually unfettered and unreviewable discretion imposing sentences on the front-end and in granting compassionate release on the back end. It was not designed in the beginning to be this way. The advisory-only sentencing guidelines scheme we have now resulted from the Supreme Court’s finding that mandatory guidelines violated the Constitution. The recent sentencing reform movement—of which compassionate release is a significant part—has sought to find ways of ameliorating what is seen as the draconian result of the war on drugs. The question is whether granting Article III judges, appointed for life, unlimited discretion on both the front and back ends of sentencing is wise. This Article suggests not. Rather, it argues we should consider reinstituting a reconstituted form of parole to place back-end changes in sentences in the discretion of parole boards. By placing the discretion in parole boards, acting under the executive branch of government, it rebalances power between the branches of government. Parole boards would be better equipped than judges to investigate and evaluate the merits of motions for compassionate release and would be democratically more responsive to the people indirectly through the ballot box. The danger of allowing the authority to grant compassionate release to remain with judges, of vesting unchecked power with judges to determine both the front-end sentence, and back-end motions for release from prison, is arbitrary justice that leads to unwarranted sentencing disparities.
Recommended Citation
Honorable Chief Judge C.J. Williams, A Call for Canceling Compassionate Release and Restoring Federal Parole, 82 Wash. & Lee L. Rev. 1171 (2025).Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/wlulr/vol82/iss4/3
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