The Model Penal Code took 300 years of American criminal law and distilled a coherent and philosophically justifiable statement of the bounds and details of the criminal sanction. Work on the Code itself was largely completed by 1962; the six volumes of updated and greatly expanded Commentaries that were published between 1980 and 1985 were limited to Parts I and II and therefore did not address the sentencing and corrections provisions. The current project is revisiting those provisions in light of the many changes in sentencing philosophy and practice that have taken place in the more than 40 years since these matters were first addressed in the Model Code. The project will take into account the contemporary controversy about the appropriate length of American criminal sentences and the present widespread dissatisfaction with the rules and procedures used to determine them.
The Discussion Draft includes important recommendations concerning the purposes of sentencing, a subject on which the conclusions of the original Model Penal Code no longer seem correct. The draft then recommends and supplies basic structure for state sentencing commissions. This work draws upon the experiences of the many states that now have commissions and bases its recommendations on those that have been most successful. Third, the draft recommends and explains principles for state sentencing guideline systems, again based on the best examples among the states that now have such systems. Finally, the draft recommends a system of judicial sentencing procedures, including a limited role for jury factfinding that the Reporter and Advisers believe is consistent with the constitutional requirements set forth by the Supreme Court.
Reports and Annual Meeting Drafts
*Report (April 11, 2003) xiv, 145 pp., 2003, Order Code 1MPCSR, $20 -- Order this item
*Discussion Draft: Part I. General Provisions; Article 1. Preliminary; Article 6A. Authority of the Sentencing Commission; Article 6B. Sentencing Guidelines; Article 7. Authority of the Court in Sentencing; Appendix A. Black-Letter Provisions Amended to Establish a System of Advisory Sentencing Guidelines
xxv, 308 pp., 2006, Order Code 1MPCSDD, $35.00 -- Order this item
*Official text not yet published.