Alison Siegler
Assistant Clinical Professor of Law
1111 East 60th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
phone: (773) 834-1680
email: alisonsiegler@uchicago.edu

Current Year Courses

• 47602 1 Federal Sentencing: Balancing Judicial/Prosecutorial Discretion
  The Supreme Court has dramatically changed the federal sentencing landscape in recent years, making federal sentencing the least settled and most dynamic area of federal criminal jurisprudence. This seminar examines the recent federal sentencing revolution in the context of the history of federal sentencing. We will study the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and recent Supreme Court cases that struggle to define the Guidelines' proper role in sentencing, including two cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court this term. A central focus of the seminar will be the ongoing struggle to balance judicial discretion and prosecutorial discretion, and the fundamental tension this creates between the executive branch and the judiciary. The seminar will also focus on the quest to reduce disparities in sentencing, and on whether this quest conflicts with the goal of individualized sentencing. Seminar materials are varied and include Supreme Court and lower court cases, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, law review articles, Sentencing Commission studies and reports, and Department of Justice internal directives. Various guest speakers will visit class, including a number of federal district court judges. Students will be expected to complete several practice-oriented research and writing assignments based on actual federal cases, including sentencing submissions written from both the defense and prosecution perspective. Students will also be asked to write a proposed opinion in one of the upcoming sentencing cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court this term. This course will require a total of 20-30 pages of writing. Students will be graded based on their written submissions and class participation.
  Autumn (3)