Latest Case: United States v. Coto-Mendoza (Criminal Law)

Transitional Justice and Inauguration Poems

LESLEY WEXLER

Illinois law professor Lesley M. Wexler describes how Amanda Gorman’s The Hill We Climb and Jericho Brown’s Inaugural,’ an Original Poem—as two inaugural poems—fit within the call of transitional justice. Professor Wexler explains how, read together, the two poems provide a roadmap of the transitional justice terrain the government may choose to tread.

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United States v. Coto-Mendoza

Docket: 20-10451

Opinion Date: January 25, 2021

Judge: Catharina Haynes

Areas of Law: Criminal Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed defendant's 37-month sentence imposed after he pleaded guilty to illegal reentry after deportation. The court held that defendant failed to show the district court committed significant procedural error in declining to explicitly address his arguments for a shorter sentence. In this case, the district court gave defendant a sentence at the bottom of the Guidelines range after adopting the presentence report's factual findings and the probation officer's conclusions; read the sentencing memorandum submitted by defendant's counsel and heard both counsel's argument and personal request for a more lenient sentence; and explained how it considered the advisory guidelines and the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) factors.