“Rethinking Punishment: Sentencing in the Modern Age”

The title of this post is the title of this terrific Temple Law Review symposium taking place today at Temple Law School which I have the pleasure of attending and participating in. Here is the formal description of the event:

This Symposium will gather scholars, practitioners, and judges to offer a contemporary perspective on criminal punishment and highlight alternative punishment programs and reformation efforts. The Hon. L. Felipe Restrepo, Circuit Judge, Third Circuit Court of Appeals and the Hon. Timothy R. Rice, Magistrate Judge, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, will give a keynote address focusing on the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s Reentry Court Program. In addition to the keynote address, the Symposium will consist of three panels – “Prosecuting in the New Age,” “Defending the Convicted: Effective Sentencing Advocacy,” and “The Sentenced: Stopping the Punishment Cycle.”

The full symposium schedule is here, and readers may not be too surprised to learn that I am slated to speak on Panel 2. I was not planning to blog while participating in this event, but the first two speakers on the Panel 1, “Prosecuting in the New Age,” inspired me to get on-line. Specifically, the first two speakers were Judge Risa Ferman, a long-serving Montgomery County prosecutor who just recently became a trial court judge, and George Mosee, Jr., the First Assistant Philadelphia District Attorney. And here are two notable quote (of many) from these two notable speakers:

• “Prosecutors now are problem solvers working in a holistic way”
• “Prosecutors today start with prevention [and] incarceration serves as a last resort”

I found both these quotes coming from state/local prosecutors (and many other similar things they had to say) quite interesting and telling, and it highlights for me some of the many ways in which “the Modern Age” for criminal justice is so much different than it was just a decade ago and especially from two decades ago. It also reinforces my strong view that it is only a matter of time before we will be getting significant sentencing reform at the federal level in some form no matter who is formally in charge in the years ahead. Indeed, for my last post before I get ready to speak, I will close with the fitting words of my favorite Literature Nobel Prize winner:

Come writers and critics who prophesy with your pen

And keep your eyes wide the chance won’t come again

And don’t speak too soon for the wheel’s still in spin

And there’s no tellin’ who that it’s namin’

For the loser now will be later to win

For the times they are a’ changin’!