My (now published) take on the MPC sentencing revisions
This past January, I was part of a panel at the 2009 AALS conference talking about the American Law Institute’s on-going revision of the sentencing chapters of the Model Penal Code. As detailed here, the Florida Law Review has now published the terrific articles that emerged from that panel. My little article is titled “The Enduring (and Again Timely) Wisdom of the Original MPC Sentencing Provisions.” This article can be downloaded below, and here is how it gets started:
My favorite bit of folk wisdom is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” However, when considering the ongoing revisions to the Model Penal Code: Sentencing (MPCS) provisions, a corollary comes to mind: “fix what’s really broke, and don’t risk breaking what ain’t really broke.” Unfortunately, the MPCS revisions fail to address what is really broken in modern American sentencing systems, and they overlook enduring (and still timely) wisdom found in the original MPCS. Thus, I view the MPCS revision as at best, a missed opportunity; at worst, the codification of problematic modern sentencing dynamics.