Is Retribution Worth the Cost?

SHERRY F. COLB

Cornell law professor Sherry F. Colb discusses the four purported goals of the criminal justice system—deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation—and argues that retribution may preclude rehabilitation. Colb considers whether restorative justice—wherein a victim has a conversation with the offender and talks about what he did to her and why it was wrong—might better serve the rehabilitative purpose than long prison sentences do.

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The Other Epidemic

KATHRYN ROBB

Kathryn Robb, executive director of CHILD USAdvocacy, comments on a public-health crisis that is getting relatively less attention right now: the scourge of child sex abuse. To address this crisis, Robb calls for greater public awareness, stronger laws protecting children, and legislative action

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United States v. Gary

Docket: 18-4578

Opinion Date: March 25, 2020

Judge: Roger L. Gregory

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendant appealed his sentence after pleading guilty to two counts of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person previously convicted of a felony. The Fourth Circuit held that defendant's guilty plea was not knowingly and intelligently made because he did not understand the essential elements of the offense to which he pled guilty. In this case, the district court accepted defendant's plea without giving him notice of an element of the offense and the error was structural. Therefore, the court vacated the guilty plea and convictions, remanding for further proceedings.

United States v. Johnson

Dockets: 18-4312, 18-4333

Opinion Date: March 25, 2020

Judge: Barbara Milano Keenan

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

Defendants were convicted by a jury of several charges related to their participation in the Black Guerilla Family's (BGF) Greenmount Regime, a violent street and prison gang in Baltimore. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court abused its discretion in failing to hold a Remmer hearing to determine whether the reported incident by a juror -- that family members or friends of defendants had used cell phones to take photographs of the jurors in a public area of the courthouse -- prejudiced the jurors and affected their ability to impartially consider the evidence. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for the district court to conduct a Remmer hearing.

United States v. Wass

Docket: 18-4547

Opinion Date: March 25, 2020

Judge: James Andrew Wynn, Jr.

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of an indictment alleging that defendant violated the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA). The court held that binding precedent establishes that application of SORNA to defendant does not violate the nondelegation doctrine or the ex post facto clause. In this case, the district court correctly found that the application of SORNA to sex offenders, like defendant, whose offenses predate Congress's enactment of SORNA, does not violate the nondelegation doctrine. Furthermore, the court rejected defendant's ex post facto theories, challenging the application of the criminal sanctions of 18 U.S.C. 2250(a) to pre-SORNA offenders, and alleging that SORNA's registration requirement is itself so punitive that it constitutes punishment that cannot constitutionally be applied to pre-SORNA offenders. Finally, the court held that the doctrine of constitutional avoidance was inapplicable here.